Reunion

The battle at another warground was hearing up. Unlike where Mugen was at ; where the battle took place in a large enclosed space, There, the battle was being fought in a forest with a few open areas. They had time to rest as such the battle would extend over a long period. Of course, they had to be on the lookout for nightraids. After reinforcements from the village arrived , Mugen was informed to head there after three days a long with the survivors from his battle.

"Damn it, we can't get a break" one man complained.

"It can't be helped. This is war." Another replied.

Three days had come and gone. It was time for them to journey to their next battlefield . I'm war there was always shortage of personnel from deaths or otherwise. They all carried a backpack with provisions and the necessary items to survive in a forest.

They had to travel on foot. Sometime after they had departed. Mugen gave them the signal to stop. They would camp at their current position for the night. They set up some tents in the darkest parts of the shadows and refrained from a fire or anything of the sort that would give their position away.

"Captain, why don't you wear anything that symbolizes that you are from the leaf. You don't wear a headband or any leaf uniform at all.' One of them mustered his courage to ask Mugen.

Mugen was currently on a tree. He laid down with his hands supporting h is head.

" To keep a low profile of course. "

The ninja under his command looked at each other.

"Sir what was the ice you used before." A representative asked.

Mugen put a finger on his lips like he was going to tell them something amazing and they should listen carefully. "Well you see its..." The men gulped in anticipation . As they repeated "Its.. "

"Its ..... A secret." Time froze. Bam. Bam. Boom. "Nani!!!" They all fell to the ground in shock.

"Well now, get plenty of rest we leave early tomorrow morning.' Mugen smiled.

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Early morning. Mugen was taking a stroll and taking in the scenes, when h e suddenly stopped. Sssk. He jumped soundlessly into the tree above him and looked down. A head popped up from beneath the rubble. He wrote some words in a scroll after making sure he wasn't being watched. As far as Mugen could tell he was an intelligence gathering ninja. He should have information about his own village as well. He wore no thing to symbolize his village.

Three others appeared next to him soon after. Mugen decided he'd take care of them and leave one alive. He jumped down from the tree and blatantly exposed himself.

"An enemy!!!!" They exclaimed . Without wasting any time all four rushed at him. Mugen put his hands in his pockets and at the very last moment, he somersaulted into the air and landed behind them. He grasped the necks of the two behind him and threw them in front of him. Leveraging on the force caused from his actions he fell towards the ground and stabbed kunai in the two at front's knee joints. He supported himself off the ground and jumped back up. He immediately rushed in and ripped out two hearts. He was getting better at it, ripping out hearts. There was less and less blood now.

Mugen appeared behind the two still trying to recover from his throw and knocked them both out. He decided to bring two back, on a whim.

His men were surprised to see the two new guests being dragged across the forest floor. He summarized what happened as they exclaimed in admiration. They arrived at their position at dusk the following day.

With the two captives Mugen brought the intelligence operatives gained some useful information involving the enemies plan for the war. Mugen was 'supposedly' going to be rewarded but he doubted anything they could give him would be qualified for a reward. He wasn't like others. There really wasn't much that interested him.

Mugen and his troops were deployed the day after their arrival. This battle was different from his first. He had to watch out for traps, ambushes, enemies disguised in the environment and others. He had cut it too close many times due to those masterfully camouflaged enemies and he had the scars to prove it.

He had told his men to minimize their use of jutsu since they had to always be on guard. It was a stressful month. Everyone was dead tired and out of the entire month they had barely gotten the accumulated worth of two days of sleep. They were utterly exhausted. Another difference was the look on his troops eyes when looking at him. Thanks to him, there were zero casualties among his 20 odd men despite having such a large group. They also witnessed him ripping out several hearts at lightning speed and effortlessly. Honestly, he was scary but they thanked the heavens every day that he was in their side.

"We're clear you may all rest now." They all instantaneou sly collapsed to the ground taking rapid breaths.

"The battle here is about halfway through, the way you all are now. You're all nothing but easy kills." Mugen sighed.

" As the leader, I guess I have no choice. " Mugen said in a complaining tone. "You may all sleep."

Hearing his heavenly words only tears could express their feeling s. Seeing their tears, "Sto p acting like a bunch of babies."

Clang. Clang. Sssk. Fwoosh. The sounds of fighting echoed through the night. Mugen fought off all the ambushing ninja by himself to with his baste hands. His control over his hands had gotten superb. When he froze it even though it was ice it looked like a silver flawless crystalline object. Now go even when ripping out the hearts of shinobi, not a single drop of blood could be seen. He had always been wearing his mask and his evil, playful, demonic yet charming deep blue eyes were all that his foes saw before their deaths.

They had begun to call him, the Blue-eyed Reaper. Where ever he went death would follow. He would reap the lives of his enemies and spare his comrades. He had given his subordinates an order. He would pretend to kill them as well and they would get up later to deceive the onlookers. This would make them question his allegiance. As on a battlefield he seemed to slaughter both sides. He didn't want to attract too much attention to himself as yet. He was still too young.

Mugen's kill count had gotten to the thousands. Normally he would appear the same as usual, relaxed and calm. Even when killing he barely showed emotion. Against superior oppenents, however , when he had to get serious. His killing intent seemed to form this mysterious darkness shrouding him in it, again leaving all but his eyes to the imagination.

He had killed a few jōnin. Though not through honourable meth ods . He waited until the were spent before taking them on. And he also used blinding tactics, explosive tags and a few chea... Slick tricks to get the job done. So while his skill level wasn't there yet he had killed a few. He

The battle was gruesome cruel and long. He had not lost any soldiers when they were under his command, however for joint assaults on some clearings in the forest; where many would gather for a clash, almost like an army of soldiers clashing with another. Mugen had to keep his head low in those. some ninja were doing joint attacks like several of them doing the "Rock gun jutsu" or "Roaring/Wild waves jutsu" in unison wiping out a lot of them. If he couldn't freeze the ground and hide in it. He would probably be long dead by now.

The sturdiness of his glacial style ice also saved his life numerous times by blocking several lethal attacks and allowing him to defend himself. He ran out of chakra many times even though it was easier to use his ice to protect him as it took less chakra, but he had to use it to attack as well which took up a lot of chakra.

The battles had also taught him much. He was now able to control his ice better and it was nigh invincible as it was hard to break, it was a kekkei tōta after all. He had developed a new technique. For now he had to use up a massive amount of his chakra to compress and condense a large chunk of ice into a sword or any weapon for that matter. It was well worth the effort though. A silver crystalline katana with a blue sheen and sharp deep blue hamon was created. You wouldn't believe it was not made of metal.

When he cut down his enemies with This; even a small cut would kill them. The ice would enter into their bodies and freeze them. It took a little chakra to maintain so it was perfect. Although he couldn't use any other jutsu while using it or it'd shatter not that he could currently as he barely had enough chakra to maintain it. It wasn't invincible, however, if it did not cut, it would not kill. So successfully blocking or dodging would allow enemies to avoid death. Though it froze anything it touches so they would have to abandon their weapons and attack long range. Which was quite troublesome to say the least. If he didn't have the sharingan he would have deep cuts all over his body, he might've even lost a limb.

His exploits were being recognized and he was being targeted. It was easy to kill his foes but trying not to kill his fellow shinobi was a hundred times harder. Only his men knew he was in their side. The rest didn't. The commander probably knew but making an announcement would defeat the purpose. What if one of their mouths slipped? So he had to knock out and not kill his comrades which was quite annoying. In fact it was very irritating, his hands almost could help wanting to skip and kill them. But he restrained himself.

Genjutsu attacks were a bother too. Just because he had the sharingan didn't mean he was immune. Even pain had a hard time with genjutsu. So another skin peeler. That battle and the aftershock, of a few desperate battles ended in 3 months. A few big shots from iwa had arrived casting large scale earth style jutsu, killing people in droves. Despite that they killed quite a few in the end as well. They had no one to match all of their reinforcements so they withdrew. They iwa were badly injured as well so they couldn't give chase. They had lost in this battle front, in the case that they did not win however there were losses in both sides, so it could be likened to a tie.

Mugen was not given a break even while injured, he was not given any combat duties but other miscellaneous work. They were not accepting missions but they had to yield to the fuedal lord and make exceptions. He went on a few of those. Mugen arrived at the outskirts of the village, where he was met by an anbu who collected a package and some documents from him.

He gazed through the gaps in the leaves and made out the walls of the village. Though he was this close, he had businesses to attend to do he couldn't enter and had to leave immediately.

A shadowy figure pounced on him from above. It was fast. He didn't have enough time to react. The anbu drew his weapon. The figure glared at him with its ferocious yellow eyes. "Roarr!!!!!!!!!!!" It bellowed at him. The trees shook and flocks of birds escaped in the sky. Seeing the monstrous sword like fangs on the side of his mouth, the anb u couldn't help but take a step back.

It was 3 meter long tiger. It's height was around one meter. It had white fur with black patterns on it. It gave off a bloodthirsty animalistic aura. The two bloodstained saber like fangs at the corners of his mouth added a scarier vibe. It appeared to have just finished a meal.

Mugen asked, "Saber?"

It looked at him growled and licked him.