After arranging internal security and defense, Yūshin immediately moved out, ready to fully leverage his advantages and attack the enemy's weaknesses.
Honestly, he was now immensely grateful that he hadn't followed the Kikyō Castle lord's orders to attack Reitō Castle back then. At that time, he didn't know Reitō Castle's ninja were the Akimichi Clan—if he'd accidentally assassinated their clan members, how could they ever become friends?
Now he planned to reciprocate Reitō Castle's courtesy.
Sending a declaration of war was somewhat foolish. Yūshin didn't know if this was Reitō Castle's lord's idea or the Akimichi Clan's, but either way, their thinking was quite peculiar.
But since the other side valued honor, Yūshin had to be even more honorable... Honestly, Yūshin had been beaten to the punch—he'd originally planned to be the first to show such virtue.
Under cover of night, he raced toward Reitō Castle once again.
Meanwhile, at Reitō Castle—
Three Akimichi Clan ninja were having an audience with the Reitō lord.
As it turned out, the ones with peculiar thinking weren't the Akimichi Clan. Although they weren't skilled at schemes and conspiracies, this didn't mean they didn't understand that ninja could only achieve better lethal strike effects when operating from the shadows.
"Lord, since we're planning military action against Kikyō Castle, how could you so directly expose our combat intentions? A declaration of war will only make the enemy more vigilant," the leading Akimichi ninja said rather helplessly.
He was exceptionally burly—if the Akimichi Clan were described as... well, compared to others, this ninja was at least at the level of a mother capable of birthing a dozen or more at once.
His tone carried some exasperation because he couldn't understand the lord's operations at all.
Was this micromanagement? Did the lord have battlefield micro-control abilities without being bald?
"Haha, I just felt we hadn't taken external military action in a long time, so I wanted to add some ceremonial feeling," the young lord said with a laugh.
This lord had a carefree, even erratic personality. How to describe him? He looked like someone who acted purely on whim.
But contrary to this surface personality, this lord wasn't a fool, nor was he truly whimsical. In fact, he was very shrewd and purposeful in his actions.
His direct declaration of war had serious underlying reasons.
Additionally, he understood his own ninja well, so he didn't trust the Akimichi Clan's infiltration and scouting abilities at all... During the Akimichi Clan's intelligence gathering on Kikyō Castle, the possibility of exposure far exceeded the possibility of remaining undetected.
The lord had already reviewed the Akimichi Clan's report on Kikyō Castle's armed forces—the intelligence content could only be described as somewhat crude.
"For the upcoming war, please don't interfere, Lord. You don't understand warfare and will only make things worse through misguided cleverness."
"Alright, alright, I understand, I understand. No more interference—I'll leave everything to you."
The young lord slumped in his chair. Even after being directly criticized by his subordinates, he just laughed it off without getting angry.
Honestly, if this person died on the spot, you could carve the character "frivolous" on his forehead... He was either extraordinarily clever or extraordinarily absurd.
The three ninja spoke a few more words, completely securing control over the war and obtaining the lord's strict guarantee of non-interference, before leaving the keep.
These three were brothers of the Akimichi Clan: Akimichi Ninsei, Akimichi Kizuki, and Akimichi Shinu. Ninsei was the eldest brother and the current Akimichi Clan leader.
After their combat intentions were unfortunately leaked by the damned lord, Akimichi Ninsei could only arrange defensive measures first, lest they be caught off guard by a preemptive strike from Kikyō Castle.
Ninsei's thinking was good, but it was utterly useless.
Even if the Akimichi Clan made the keep's defenses impregnable, in Yūshin's eyes it would still look riddled with holes... Aside from certain special barriers, pure physical means and human surveillance couldn't possibly stop Yūshin.
After all, the walls here couldn't possibly be stuffed full of yarn balls again...
Time came to deep night, and Yūshin had already infiltrated Reitō Castle's keep.
He roughly counted and found ten ninja remaining in the keep, all from the Akimichi Clan. Probably because war was imminent, the security here was very strict.
In fact, the keep's defensive force far exceeded usual levels. The Akimichi Clan's total combat-capable ninja barely exceeded twenty, with half stuffed into the keep.
The Akimichi Clan truly counted as an elite few—their numbers were even less than the former Hagūgen Clan. No matter how small Hagūgen was, they could still form a village.
However, numbers couldn't represent everything. Hagūgen and Akimichi combat power were completely incomparable.
Following diplomatic reciprocity principles, Yūshin first stuffed a reply letter into the lord's residential room. This was his second time here, so he was quite familiar with the route.
Then Yūshin approached each Akimichi ninja on night watch one by one, making inconspicuous contact with them.
After completing these tasks, he didn't take any further action and chose to withdraw directly from Reitō Castle.
Next, he would return to Kikyō Castle to rest and prepare for the next phase of his plan.
...
After a peaceful night, the Reitō Castle lord woke up on schedule. With war about to break out, he felt no tension and maintained his usual routine.
Until he saw the letter placed beside his pillow.
This letter was obviously problematic—who would stuff an envelope into a lord's bedding?
But after being stunned for just a moment, the lord immediately opened the letter. He quickly read through its contents, and his expression immediately became strange... For some reason, he felt this person calling himself "Yūshin" seemed to be on his wavelength.
Damn, I send a declaration of war, so you send a reply?
"Where are the ninja who were on night watch? Call them all over... and immediately notify Ninsei to come," the lord ordered at once.
Under his command, ten Akimichi ninja who hadn't finished their shift soon appeared before him.
At this time, the Akimichi ninja still didn't know what had happened. After the lord circled around one ninja, he discovered a small red slip of paper stuck to the back of the man's waist.
"What's this?"
The lord peeled off the slip—it looked very ordinary, without any harmful properties.
Without waiting for others to answer, he immediately asked: "Check each other—do the rest of you have them too?"
The result was that everyone had such a slip stuck on them. This situation made them look at each other in dismay, involuntarily harboring some unpleasant thoughts.
The slips were indeed harmless, but extremely insulting.
The lord sat back in his seat, placing the letter at hand. After letting those ninja discuss in low voices for a while, he spoke again:
"Last night, someone silently infiltrated the keep. They were extremely skilled at concealing their presence. If they hadn't shown mercy, you would all be dead."
Yūshin was too honorable, so he used slips instead of knives—otherwise, these ninja theoretically couldn't have escaped his assassination.
"I should be dead too..."
The lord first made this judgment, then suddenly realized:
"No, I should have died more than once already... So that's what the Kikyō Castle rumors were about—they weren't just baseless speculation."
"Kikyō Castle's wandering ninja assassinated Reitō Castle's lord"—this wasn't false rumor; it had nearly become fact.
Precisely because it didn't become fact, Kikyō Castle's lord died instead.
Although the Reitō lord hadn't yet figured out the logical relationship between these two events, his intuition told him his judgment was correct.
The Reitō lord was named Shimizu Kiyosuke. At this moment, he unconsciously reached up to touch his neck, feeling as if the other lord had kindly held a head-relocation ceremony in his place.
Clan leader Akimichi Ninsei hurried to the lord's side. After hearing a ninja recount the events that occurred in the keep last night, he was shocked beyond measure.
"So the enemy infiltrated here but didn't kill any of our people, then withdrew? What does he want?" After recovering his senses, he asked.
Could it be that Lord's formal declaration of war had worked? Because he was honorable, the enemy was also honorable?
Well, this wasn't funny at all.
Shimizu's expression became even more peculiar. He pressed one hand on the letter and said:
"Cough... um... he wants to challenge you to single combat."
Akimichi Ninsei felt he'd heard a very high-tech term. He understood the meaning but didn't completely comprehend it.
"Single... single combat?"
How did this not sound like human speech? Was this still the shinobi world? How could there be single combat?
One-on-one battles in the shinobi world were certainly commonplace, but that was just coincidentally when both enemy and allied sides each had only one person.
One-on-one wasn't based on fairness but because neither side had a second person. In various senses, one-on-one wasn't single combat—it could only be called unsuccessful group fighting.
If either side had a few more people, they would swarm without honor. Therefore, this situation was completely different from agreed single combat...
Wasn't war supposed to be about using all your strength? How did single combat come into this?
Shimizu picked up the letter again. He didn't show it to Akimichi Ninsei but directly summarized some of its contents:
"Last night, the enemy infiltrated my room and delivered this letter.
In the letter, he identifies himself as the leader of Kikyō Castle's current ninja organization, named Yūshin.
Yūshin believes that whether his side or the Akimichi Clan, both are small ninja groups that cannot bear the high death rates that war brings. But since both sides must fight...
Therefore, he thought of a method to determine victory without harming clan ninja—having the leaders of both sides engage in single combat, with personal victory determining overall victory...
In short, this Yūshin seems very confident in his own strength... Ninsei, what do you think?"
"He... this is... I..."
Honestly, this proposal left Akimichi Ninsei completely bewildered. In all his years, he'd never encountered such an outrageous situation.
Did Yūshin's words make sense? They certainly had logic, but they described an ideal situation that completely didn't conform to reality, because personal victory couldn't possibly equate to overall victory.
If only single combat occurred, how could the victor guarantee the loser would accept their conditions?
How could the loser possibly be convinced? They would only think that even if they personally lost, their entire ninja clan hadn't lost, and ultimately personal combat would evolve back into group warfare.
Akimichi Ninsei wanted to refuse, but reality prevented him from speaking.
Last night, that enemy had already shown mercy—otherwise, he didn't know how many clan members he would have lost. If he refused this seemingly childish single combat request, it was foreseeable that next time the opponent wouldn't show mercy.
No matter what, the person calling himself Yūshin not striking with lethal force last night seemed very unreasonable.
But if he agreed...
Just as Akimichi Ninsei thought, this was too frivolous. War had always been a serious matter.
Just as he was caught in a dilemma, he heard the lord clear his throat and say:
"I think we can agree to the opponent's conditions... Ninsei, you can fight boldly and confidently."
Shimizu saw very clearly—he even saw through Yūshin's scheme at a glance... The answer was right in the question, because Yūshin called himself the leader of a ninja organization, not the chief of some ninja clan.
The "infiltrator" Yūshin's strength might be very formidable, but Shimizu could be certain that even if Akimichi Ninsei was no match for the opponent, Ninsei wouldn't be in any life-threatening danger.
The Akimichi Clan was an elite ninja clan with relatively uncomplicated interpersonal relationships and extremely impressive combat power. For certain groups, such targets were simply like first love—ideal and beautiful.
"If you're going to fish, fine, but isn't your net-casting going a bit too far? You've come all the way to my pond..." Shimizu thought to himself.
That said, Shimizu had no intention of stopping Yūshin's actions. On one hand, he was happy to witness how this outrageous event would unfold; on the other hand, even if he saw through Yūshin's intentions, how could he stop them?
He was just a weak and helpless lord who couldn't possibly stop enemy ninja.
"But..."
Akimichi Ninsei still had concerns. Even if he didn't care about personal victory or death, the fact that his failure would equal the lord's and all of Reitō Castle's failure was too hard to accept.
Shimizu dispelled his concerns: "It's fine. This Yūshin only mentioned single combat to determine victory—he didn't specify what consequences the victory would produce... What the victor could gain, what the loser would lose—he made no constraints or demands about any of this."
"..."
Akimichi Ninsei was speechless. After a while, he finally said:
"Is this person a bit naive?"
Shimizu stared directly at Akimichi Ninsei, then looked at the Akimichi ninja behind him...
Who exactly was naive?
He cleared his throat: "Cough, anyway, let's fight first and talk later!"
Originally, Reitō Castle's side had been very serious, but after Yūshin's interference, no matter how much the Akimichi ninja demanded of themselves to stay alert and maintain tension, somehow they felt the war couldn't be taken seriously anymore.
So much so that Akimichi Ninsei began to suspect whether the so-called single combat was a delaying tactic or some kind of psychological warfare meant to undermine their morale and war intentions.
But he wouldn't have to wonder for long—the truth would soon be revealed.
Time passed another day, and the appointed time had arrived.
Yūshin set out from Kikyō Castle, preparing to head to the battlefield. Since it was single combat, he'd originally planned to act alone, but he considered that he was a leader after all—if he didn't even bring a bag-carrying subordinate, wouldn't that seem too lacking in style? Wouldn't that make the opponent look down on him?
So he brought Gorō Fūma to serve as his subordinate.
Yūshin temporarily couldn't be certain whether Reitō Castle would accept his conditions, but theoretically they should have no room for refusal.
If the Akimichi Clan didn't accept single combat, honestly, it would be somewhat like refusing a toast only to be forced to drink a penalty.
His behavior of silently sticking slips on enemies might seem like a joke, but you could ask those Akimichi Clan ninja whether they found it amusing.
Yūshin brought Gorō Fūma, and the two arrived at the battlefield first, quietly waiting for the enemy's arrival.
After more than half an hour, a group finally appeared in Yūshin's field of vision. Compared to their side's mere two people, Reitō Castle's group seemed somewhat large... ten people appeared in succession.
So many people? Were they preparing to abandon honor? That shouldn't be right.
Yūshin began to suspect whether his intimidation efforts two days ago had been insufficient. I've already given up my most skilled assassination methods—are you still afraid of single combat? Wasn't the Akimichi Clan famous for excelling at frontal combat?
But after the opponents came slightly closer, Yūshin's suspicions lessened, though he developed new doubts.
Judging by their gait, only six of the ten were ninja, while the remaining four were ordinary people... Were they agreeing to single combat while preserving the possibility of group fighting?
Then why would there be ordinary people?
On the other side, leading Akimichi Ninsei saw Yūshin's situation and stopped to make arrangements. He left eight people at a distance on slightly higher ground and brought only one person to Yūshin's presence.
This made it two versus two—very fair.
Yūshin didn't wait for the other side to greet him and directly asked:
"What's the situation over there?"
Akimichi Ninsei opened his mouth but ultimately could only follow orders and tell the truth:
"That's our Reitō Castle lord, Shimizu Kiyosuke. He's come to observe the battle."
"..."
Yūshin nearly choked. This lord really didn't play by conventional rules—he was too relaxed!
Shouldn't lords be cowardly and hide in their keep shells? How was there one who actively ran to battlefields? The world truly had all kinds of wonders.
Just for this attitude of watching excitement without regard for his life, Yūshin felt he was beginning to appreciate this lord.
What he didn't know was that this lord had already guessed his purpose.
The lord was certain that Akimichi Ninsei wouldn't be in any danger on this trip, and if that was the case, then he wouldn't be in danger either.
Since there was no danger, what was there to be cowardly about? So why give up the opportunity to watch the show up close?
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