Thwack...
A sharp kunai took down the last remaining guard. Ono Shimura stood firm, shielding Shinki and Noko tightly behind his own body.
Shinki's face burned red with humiliation and rage, yet he was utterly powerless to do anything...
At this moment, the vows he had once sworn to protect the Daimyo seemed like nothing more than a bad joke.
Seeing this, Akahi, the Demon of the Ghost Trident, shook his head with a cold smirk.
"Ono Shimura, if you just surrender quietly, I swear to leave your son and daughter unharmed. What do you say?"
Shimura hesitated; the offer seemed tempting...
"Father, you cannot trust him!" Shinki gritted his teeth and shouted.
As if waking from a trance, Shimura slowly shook his head. "No... I have no reason to trust you."
"Oh?" Akahi sneered, twirling his tridents menacingly. "Then what do you want? I am willing to give you a chance."
Suddenly, Shimura snatched the samurai sword from Shinki's grip and pressed the blade against his own throat.
"I know you want to use me to seize control of my country. If you promise to let Noko and Shinki go free, I will go with you willingly!"
This sudden move made Akahi narrow his eyes suspiciously. After a long pause, he nodded slightly. "Very well."
Seeing Akahi agree, Shimura shoved Shinki away violently. "Shinki! Take Noko and run! Run to the Land of Wind immediately!"
"Father!" Shinki was in tears, but he remained helpless...
"GO!"
Shimura roared. He pressed the blade harder, and fresh red blood began to trickle down his neck. In the end, Shinki grabbed Noko and stumbled away into the distance.
Watching them go, Shimura gripped the sword tighter and spoke coldly. "Half a day. I will surrender only after I am certain they are safe and sound."
"Agreed!"
Akahi promised instantly. But behind his back, his fingers moved in a subtle rhythm. The eyes of two Chūnin squad leaders glazed over, turning blank and empty.
Two streams of living sand detached from the ground and began sliding silently beneath the surface, chasing after Shinki and Noko...
Shimura was far too naive. Being an ordinary man, he simply couldn't comprehend just how terrifying the methods of a shinobi could be!
From his vantage point behind a dune, Aoi watched it all with a smile. He leaped down with a thunderous punch, stunning and capturing the two "little rats" hiding within the sand.
"Water Style: Puddle Spray Technique!"
A twisting stream of water shot from Aoi's hand, splashing directly into the faces of the two shinobi from the Land of Birds.
"Pfft! Cough, cough! What the—?"
The two men instantly snapped awake, looking around in confusion. "What happened? Where are we?"
"You awake now?" Aoi stopped the jutsu and played with a space–time kunai in his hand, smiling coldly. "Now, I ask questions. You answer."
"Kid, what are you babbling about?"
"Did you do this to us?"
Still dazed and unaware of their situation, the two shinobi roared and lunged toward Aoi.
...Five minutes later...
"Now, I ask questions. You answer."
Bruised, swollen, and battered, the two shinobi knelt before Aoi, trembling like newborn chicks. They nodded frantically. "Young Master! We will tell you everything we know!"
"Wasn't that easy? Stubborn fools," Aoi said, his expression softening. "That man you were chasing earlier — Shimura — is a Daimyo?"
The two "chicks" nodded vigorously...
Aoi frowned slightly. "But Daimyo of where? Why have I never heard of such a country?"
"Shimura is the Daimyo of the Land of Ono, of course!"
As soon as the words left their mouths, they lowered their heads in fear.
"You are of noble birth, Young Master, so perhaps you haven't heard of it. The Land of Ono is a tiny nation on the border, right next to our own Land of Birds."
A small nation beside the Land of Birds?
Aoi furrowed his brow in thought. Soon enough, the System provided the answer in his mind.
> Land of Ono: A small border state adjacent to the Land of Birds. Due to its remote location and weak military strength, it did not appear in the original anime/manga timeline.
Indeed, if you looked closely at the world map of the Naruto universe, you would see that between the great nations of Wind and Earth lay a dense buffer zone filled with countless small countries.
There were the famous ones with names marked clearly — Land of Birds, Land of Rain, Land of Grass — and then there were those like the Land of Ono... countries so small they didn't even warrant a label on the map.
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