Izumi wasn’t completely surprised that she had been detected.
Ninja had been sneaking into places for years even before the Great Ninja Villages were founded. Obviously people were going to develop ways to keep them out, whether it be through some sort of sensor ability, trick alarm, or simple skill.
Add that to the fact that there were only so many ways generally physically possible to approach a VIP’s room, making it obviously much simpler to add defenses along those paths, it wasn’t hard to imagine that she missed something that tipped the guard off.
It also didn’t matter because her mission wasn’t to get in and out without being discovered. All she had to do was—
“Greetings, Lord Masaki. I apologise for entering your home uninvited, but I have a letter I was instructed to personally deliver to you.”
“A let– A letter!?” The young lord sputtered. “Do you think I’m stupid enough to believe that?! Mitsuhide, capture her! We’ll make her reveal the real reason she is here!”
“As you command. Stay behind me, Lord Tenchi.” His guard didn’t hesitate. His sword flashed again and Izumi instinctively jumped to the right as another arc of force cut through where she just stood. Unlike last time though, the arc barely left some slight marks and chakra burns on the wall behind her.
She didn’t think that meant the slash was weaker though, the samurai was probably just good enough to near perfectly control the range of his attack.
Which was bad for her. Ninja were already generally at a disadvantage in tight areas since most of their techniques focused around evasion, but if the samurai was skilled enough that he also didn’t trash the environment it cut down some of her few remaining options. Especially since she kinda needed the young noble in one piece to complete her mission.
“Is this necessary?” She called out as she dodged another slash. “I swear I’m – !”
A third slash forced her to kick off a wall and move even further inside the lord’s room. When she looked up again, the samurai – Mitsuhide, her mind whispered – was still between her and his lord, but he had also repositioned her so that he was also between her and any exits to the room.
He was really good.
“Necessary or not, my lord has given me the order to capture you, ninja. I will complete my duty.” Mitsuhide replied calmly. “You of course are free to surrender if you wish.”
It was almost tempting, Izumi had to admit.
She really was here just to deliver a letter so there was technically no reason to actually keep fighting and as long as the lord got the thing her mission was complete.
But she did have her own professional pride.
With a wordless sigh, she produced a kunai with one hand and a brace of shuriken in the other.
The samurai almost seemed to smile while the two of them shifted to more ready stances and then remained motionless.
The starting signal came when the young lord shifted uncomfortably and the two combatants burst into motion. Izumi leapt out of the way from two more of Mitsuhide’s flying slashes and hurled her shuriken at the spot he would need to move to launch a third. The samurai saw it coming and for the most part was able to pull his move so he was able to parry the incoming projectiles. But the movement was awkward and left him unable to shift into another attack.
That gave Izumi enough time to reposition out of the corner she had been led into and toss a few hissing pellets at his feet. On contact with the ground, smoke immediately exploded out of them and began engulfing the entire room.
Normally, Izumi would expect her opponent to get out of the smoke as quickly as possible if they didn’t have a way of seeing through it like her sharingan, but Mitsuhide didn’t move. At first she wasn’t sure if he did have a way of seeing through her smoke bombs or if he simply didn’t want to risk losing track of his charge by moving, but then the Samurai flexed his chakra in a way that created an almost perfect sphere around him clear of any smoke.
In some ways it reminded Izumi of the Hyuuga Clan’s Heavenly Rotation jutsu, but only superficially. Mitsuhide wasn’t moving or outputting enough chakra to be doing anything remotely similar to what she was familiar with, but it was clearly there for more than just keeping the smoke away from him.
On a hunch, Izumi threw another shuriken from an obscure angle that should have been in a blind spot – only for Mitsuhide to cut it out of the air moments after it entered the sphere he had created.
Just as she thought. The sphere was some kind of detection technique that allowed the samurai to react to anything within the range of his sword.
“You will have to do better than that, ninja. A samurai and his sword are one, within that simple domain there exists nothing he cannot cut.” He said, as if to confirm Izumi’s deduction.
“We’ll see about that.” Izumi muttered as a plan formed in her head.
She flashed a handsign and then charged towards Mitsuhide. The moment before she entered his domain bubble she threw her kunai while pulling another into her off hand. The samurai smoothly deflected the knife and didn’t even seem surprised at Izumi’s appearance, just shifting directly into a counterattack that had her on the defensive despite her attempts to pressure him.
The problem was that his sword was constantly shifting shapes and length between attacks.
It made it utterly impossible to find a solid rhythm she could exploit as an opening and since Izumi had very little experience with kenjutsu in general, only her sharingan’s predictive abilities stopped her from falling for the several fake openings that would have left her seriously injured.
In fact, one particularly close miss tore at the fabric of her facemask. Izumi was forced to backflip away to avoid the strike. But when Mitsuhide went into a high stance for another ranged slash instead of following after her, she saw her opening.
Shuriken burst out of the smoke on either side of Mitsuhide, obviously surprising him for the first time of the fight. The small blades by themselves wouldn’t end the fight, but they were thrown specifically to target the samurai’s wrists. After all, if he couldn’t hold his sword, his threat level went way down.
With two attacks from completely different directions and Izumi herself ready to attack any opening he presented, Mitsuhide should have been in an impossible position. Instead he smiled slightly which put Izumi on edge.
“A clone justu? Clever. But if you think that is enough to defeat me, you are far too naive!” Mitsuhide shouted and began to twirl away from the incoming shuriken. But Izumi just smirked at the reaction.
“Ninja Art: Shadow Weaving Shuriken!”
The thin, nearly invisible wires attached to the shuriken suddenly seemed to come alive and change trajectory as the shuriken wrapped themselves around Mitsuhide’s wrists and arms. The samurai grunted in surprise and even Lord Masaki cried out in shock over seeing his retainer captured.
But captured wasn’t defeated.
Izumi dashed forward again.
Mitsuhide struggled against the wires, but failed to break free. Izumi could actually see the moment he seemingly accepted his death. Good thing for him that wasn’t what Izumi was after.
She met his eyes and felt her sharingan spin a little bit faster. “Genjutsu: Forced Relaxation."
The samurai went slack and would have fallen completely to the ground if not for the ninja wires holding his hands above his head. She checked just to make sure he wasn’t faking, but it looked like he was fully caught in the sudden, unexpected genjutsu. Either Mitsuhide was unfamiliar with dealing with those types of techniques – not too surprising considering the chakra control needed to reliably cast them in a fight – or he had never faced an Uchiha/realised their sharingan could cast genjustu without hand seals.
Either way he was out of the way for now and she could finally complete the delivery to… the Lord that had disappeared out the door at some point…
Great.
Now she had to track that one down.
-o-
[Young Lord Tenchi Masaki POV]
“Both of you, go run and raise the alarm! Do not allow the ninja to get away.” He ordered his remaining guards more to get them out of the way than out of hope they would be able to find help before the ninja caught up to him.
She had beaten Mitsuhide! And while the old man self-admittedly was past his prime, he was still the best of everyone in the manor. Tenchi just wanted to keep them safe and hopefully find a place to hide from the ninja while hoping she was just here to kidnap him at most instead of being sent for his head.
“But, my lord–” One of the guards began to protest.
“Don’t worry about me. I’ve still got my family’s treasure weapon. I can keep her busy for a bit if you split up and hurry!” Hopefully that way at least one of them would survive if the ninja decided to hunt them down. It was all he could do in this situation.
His guards still looked reluctant, but they nodded and followed his order.
Once he was alone, Tenchi swallowed nervously and allowed his true feelings to show.
He just wanted to live as normal a life as he could! Why couldn’t that crazy woman just leave him alone!?
But as Mitsuhide would have shouted at him, there was a time to complain and there was a time to do. So Tenchi pushed away those thoughts and pulled out the family weapon he was always supposed to carry on him – a bladeless hilt that supposedly had been created by the Second Hokage and could create a chakra blade capable of matching any sword.
But despite its power and origin, Tenchi had only managed to get it to work a handful of times in training, never when he was in actual danger. Would he even be–
“That was nice of you, looking out for your subordinates like that.” A cool voice said right behind him, making his thoughts screech to a halt.
Tenchi spun around and pointed his weapon at the ninja and quietly despaired that despite fighting Mitsuhide, the only damage on her was to the cloth mask around her lower face and neck.
“St–stay back!” He stammered while trying to activate the weapon.
It wasn’t working though! He couldn’t focus the way he needed to and now the ninja was walking closer!
He tried again and again even as the ninja reached into her clothes and pulled something out. Tenchi had heard of ninja’s strange sealing techniques. Was she going to do something with that? No! He might just be a young noble, but he would not just surrender! Tenchi felt a slight pull from the weapon. He just needed a bit more focus to–
“Lord Masaki, I’ve been hired to deliver–”
He did it! A pale red blade erupted from the hilt and almost speared the ninja through the neck – not because of anything Tenchi did, but just as a result of how close she had gotten. The ninja jerked to the side and mostly dodged the sudden blade, but her damaged mask got caught and began to tear away…
That was all he could do though, because the ninja blurred into motion and Tenchi found himself disarmed and tossed onto the floor. Before he could move, a foot gently but firmly stepped on his chest and pinned him in place.
He looked up expecting to see the cruel, merciless eyes of his killer/kidnapper, but found himself staring at the stern visage of the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.
Without the mask, Tenchi realised the ninja was likely only a few years younger than he was. Her rich brown hair was still pulled back in a ponytail, while her onyx black eyes stood out against her pale skin.
Tenchi felt a blush spread across his face against his will.
“As I was saying, I’ve been hired to deliver a letter to you.” The girl continued, as if she hadn’t almost been stabbed or was currently standing on Tenchi’s chest. “Please accept the delivery.” She held out the paper until Tenchi reflexively took it.
Once he did, the angel gave him a warm smile and vanished. But even then Tenchi couldn’t bring himself to rise off the floor.
Not until Mitsuhide and a squad of guards found him and shook him out of his daze.
“My Lord, my Lord! Are you okay?” His loyal samurai asked.
“I’m fine, but that ninja…” Tenchi started.
“Don’t worry, she was spotted leaving the manor. You are safe now.”
“No, that’s not it, Mitsuhide.” Tenchi said dreamily. “We need to find out who she is. I want to make her my wife.”
That brought the old samurai up short. At least until he began to urge the guards to return the young lord to his rooms while someone fetched a doctor. All the while, the letter the ninja delivered was held tightly in Tenchi’s hand despite being utterly forgotten due to his thoughts about the one who delivered it.
-o-
On the outside of the manor, Izumi felt an ominous chill shoot down her spine.
She wasn’t sure why just yet, but she felt this mission was definitely not worth the trouble she had just gone through.