Ch65. Ninja vs samurai
A few months have quickly passed since Ren went on the field trip outside of the village with his students, and things have been relatively peaceful.
Ren has been on several C-rank missions since then, and fortunately, they stayed just C-rank. The new academy year started for Ino and Hinata, so they had to spend half of their days in school again, much to their shared displeasure.
As for Karin, he only had to house her for that one night. The Hokage gave her an apartment the very next day. She was now Ren's neighbor.
Coincidence? Of course not.
It was pretty obvious from the context clues the Hokage subtly threw at Ren that he wanted him to seduce the girl. If Ren had read the situation correctly, he was probably supposed to get Karin into his bed and pump her full of his swimmers until she discovered the joys of motherhood for the greater good of the village.
Sadly for Sarutobi, no direct order was ever given, so Ren happily ignored the context clues and had a nice relationship with Karin as her neighbor. And only that.
It was no insubordination if there was no command.
He helped Karin to get settled in the village, and she did come to him when she had questions or needed advice. But she also backed off from any romantic aspirations toward him after witnessing him with Ino and Hinata.
That was fair enough. Not every girl is willing to share, after all.
It even allowed Karin to somewhat befriend Ino once the blonde Yamanaka realized the redhead was not going to be another romantic rival for her.
The girls still got along like a house on fire, though.
Both were constantly snarking at each other while Hinata tried to be the peacemaker between them. At least it made the academy more fun for them, considering that Karin was inserted into their academy class.
The one thing that made Ren both surprised and happy was Karin's budding relationship with Naruto. She took his request to tutor Naruto seriously. At first, she did it a bit reluctantly, but nowadays? Naruto was in her apartment almost every day.
His ADHD had been tamed by the mighty Uzumaki girl, and despite Ren still hearing him whining through the walls about how boring studying was and how he wished to do literally anything else, the kid's schoolwork was improving a lot. Karin was pushing theory into his thick skull with some success.
A small smile appeared on Ren's face. He had a good idea why Naruto put so much effort into studying, to be honest. He did catch him a few days ago making out with Karin just outside of her apartment, his hands under her shirt while she had her back pressed on the door and her legs around his waist.
The Uzumaki kids were clearly discovering the joys of wincest with each other. Then again, they were so distantly related that Ren doubted it counted. Which was good for their future babies if they got to that stage one day.
With a content sigh, Ren unsealed a mug from his wrist storage and watched as it filled itself with hot chocolate, steam rising from it as his smile widened before he took a sip.
Looking to the right, he caught a brief sight of Hinata before she disappeared back into the forest as she used her Heavenly Wall, the modified Kaiten she created. A pulse of chakra spread outward from her body and deflected a kunai flying at her, sending it away from her body before it blew up in a booming explosion.
Ren had her play exploding tag with his shadow clone where they try to get each other with exploding weaponry.
Hinata could unseal a senbon, put an exploding seal on it, and imbue it with the lightning chakra before throwing it, all in a little under two seconds. It was still not great. But she was getting there.
She had definitely improved.
But Ren's shadow clone still had a massive advantage because he could unseal a kunai, put the exploding seal on it, and throw it at her in one second flat. His clone was kind of sandbagging, but it pushed Hinata to her limits, forcing her to train her reaction time with her Heavenly Wall technique.
Unlike in the anime, getting caught in even a glancing explosion was very dangerous in real life. And that's without considering the metal shrapnel from the exploded weapon. This kind of training was not safe. But Ren had faith in Hinata, and the girl did not disappoint.
Maybe it was the time to pit her against two shadow clones instead of just one?
Her Heavenly Wall, combined with Byakugan, was just that broken. Despite being unbelievably ahead when it came to ninjutsu, Ino still hadn't managed to win even one spar against Hinata. Her defense countered everything Ino threw at her.
It was driving the Yamanaka sparse, and Ren was just happy that mad Ino was motivated Ino. She was definitely not giving up anytime soon, and her pout whenever she lost was positively adorable.
Ren suddenly tensed as he felt one of his clones pop, and his mind was filled with the memories of seal work the clone had done. It was such a great feeling to simply relax and watch his girls train while his own skills were improving due to his clones.
It filled him with joy, knowing that other ninjas had to train their assess off while he could just relax and kick back, getting stronger anyway.
Alas, he simply made better life choices.
Speaking of Ino, Ren glanced to the other side of the training ground where the blonde was practicing her swordsmanship, carefully swinging a katana around with slow and deliberate movements.
She became really good with her sword. When he recommended swordsmanship to her, he didn't think she would take to it like a fish to water. But here they were, and Ren was almost considering giving Ino the idea to mind-whammy some low-ranked samurai for his swordsmanship technique.
Honestly, it was a supremely bad idea. But samurai were much better at swinging a sharp lump of metal than ninjas. Even the famed Kiri swordsmen were subpar compared to the best samurai. It was mostly their special swords that carried them, but skill-wise? They had nothing on samurai.
The samurai, however, did not share their sword techniques. Ever. They guarded them jealously. If Ino managed to steal an important samurai technique from the mind of a samurai and they discovered it? It could create a massive diplomatic incident.
The anime did not really do the ninja vs. samurai problem justice. It was focused on ninjas, and so, the rest was neglected. But samurai were not pushovers. Generally, they were weaker than ninjas because they did not have that much versatility. They did not spew fire, use poison, or create clones.
No. They only used their chakra to enhance their bodies and make their swords more lethal.
Because of that, the samurai found it hard to match the ninja on an individual level. There were some samurai, like Mifune, who could go toe-to-toe with even the best of the best S-rank ninjas out there. Using only their sword and bodies.
But these were very rare.
The problem was that Konoha had, at best, twenty thousand ninjas while the Daimyo had several million samurai, most of which were chunin level.
Sure, Konoha had more Jonin-level combatants, but numbers did matter. In a conflict between the Daimyo and Konoha, the Daimyo would win because he could simply drown Konoha in his forces. It wouldn't be a contest. It would be a curb stomp.
Not to mention, the Daimyos and even some of his nobles had their own ninja clans loyal to them. And then there were monks who would most likely stay neutral, but that wasn't exactly certain.
This is why Rasa attacked Konoha to prove Sunagakure's strength rather than go and try to depose the Wind Daimyo who was screwing him over.
The Kages are not stupid. They are greedy, too. If Onoki or A had the chance to seize their country, Ren thought they would take it. But it was not so simple. The rulers were not pushovers just because they did not have chakra. They had their backs covered.
Ren frowned. Make no mistake, Ino was going to steal samurai sword techniques one day. They were too valuable to ignore. But maybe he should recommend that she should practice her mind-reading more? To make it subtler?
He would hate to create the first-ever war between ninja and samurai in the Land of Fire. Especially when the chances of victory were pretty much nonexistent.
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