Fujin analyzed his plans for a while before nodding. He thought, 'Alright, these plans should be good. It'll make my attack patterns extremely unpredictable and increase the difficulty of dodging. At the very least, there is no way a group of well-trained Jounins will be able to counter me as Iwa did.
In fact, once I master them, even a rank S ninja will have to be very careful against me. It'll no longer be as easy as dodging my Vacuum jutsus and putting up a defense for the rest.'
Fujin's eyes moved towards the spot where his clone had dispelled and thought, 'There is just one other thing. Rashomon isn't good enough for me. I need the Triple and the Five-Layer Rashomon. Unfortunately, they aren't available in the library.
That said, creating them shouldn't be very difficult, but it'll require some time for me to create those variations…'
Fujin thought for a bit before deciding, 'Unfortunately, I have been feeling that I have very little time as of late. Screw it, I'll just ask Hiruzen. Once my chakra recovers, I'll tell him to send a Shadow Clone and also take the opportunity to find a better training place. If I keep practicing my Vacuum jutsus here, the scenery in front of my house will be completely destroyed!'
Increasing the number of vacuum cores also increased the amount of chakra required in the same ratio. As a result, Fujin's chakra reserves had become quite low. He decided to do physical training until his chakra recovered.
While Fujin got busy with his training, one place became quite chaotic and heated up.
"What did you say?" A loud shout was heard in the Raikage's office. Darui, C and Samui stood in front of the Fourth Raikage. There was no one else in the room and all privacy seals were activated. Otherwise, everyone in the building would have heard that shout. Even then, the ones near the office felt some tremors.
Ay looked at his three subordinates and asked, "I sent you three to find and kill Suzuki Fujin. You didn't even meet him and yet ten of the sixteen ninjas died? What the hell were you three doing?"
Ay was mad. When Kumo ninjas met Fujin for the first time, he managed to kill more than a dozen ninjas and escape despite facing Darui. His escape resulted in Konoha getting crucial information which resulted in Jiraiya wiping out more than 250 Kumo ninjas while Hiruzen's political maneuvers eliminated every possibility of Kumogakure getting revenge without having to face extremely serious consequences.
Since he couldn't attack Hiruzen or Jiraiya, he set his eyes on Fujin. However, Fujin stayed holed up inside Konoha and later in the Anbu for years, leaving no traces of himself. While it annoyed Ay and strategic planners in Kumo, their annoyance reduced with the passage of time and eventually no one thought of him anymore.
That was until Onoki informed him that Fujin was the Spectral Swordsman and he had become extremely ferocious. Since that day, Kumo once again began looking for an opportunity to eliminate Fujin. To their dismay, Fujin stopped taking missions and stayed hidden inside Konoha once again!
In the seven months since then, Fujin left the village just once and that too under a disguise. So Kumo failed to track his movement until a few days ago when Fujin left with a new squad to Yugakure. They responded quickly, dispatching a Sealmaster and several Jounins and Elite Jounins under Darui.
For the first time in 3 and a half years, they had a trail. As a result, when Darui and his team returned with more than half their members dead without even seeing Fujin, Ay couldn't control his rage! His desk was completely pulverized. Fortunately, Darui, C and Samui were used to his antics.
Darui sighed and answered, "Nothing we could do Boss. The circumstances were out of our control. The other two squads you sent ran into a formidable opponent and were eliminated. Without the SealMaster, chasing after Suzuki Fujin was pointless. We could have fallen prey to his seals."
Ay frowned and asked, "Who was it? To be able to eliminate two entire squads, did they run into a rank S ninja?"
Darui nodded and informed him about Hidan. He carefully explained Hidan's skills to him. Ay's expression became serious upon learning about Hidan's skills. It was too unbelievable to believe.
Darui added, "Since we couldn't hunt Suzuki Fujin, we decided to take down and capture this guy. If we can torture him and force him to tell us how to learn that technique, our village's strength will increase drastically."
Ay agreed with the analysis. He thought, 'While I don't need that technique as no one can pierce through my defenses, if a few Elite Jounins managed to learn it, they could easily be classified as rank S ninjas. Even Jounins with these skills would be superior to normal rank S ninjas in terms of survival.'
Ay could easily see the unimaginable advantages Kumo would gain. Darui continued, "Unfortunately, he was too good at escaping. We tried finding him in the Land of Frost, but couldn't find him. During the chase, we met up with two Akatsuki members.
Uchiha Itachi has joined Akatsuki. There was another Blue-haired kunoichi, but we couldn't identify her. She isn't in the Bingo book but is most likely a rank S ninja too. We later found traces of a huge fight that happened very close to where we met them."
Ay furrowed his eyebrows. While he knew about the existence of Akatsuki and the presence of some strong ninjas in it, learning that Itachi and an unknown rank S ninja were a part of him caused him to feel a headache.
Darui continued, "We aren't sure what their aim was but I suspect that they were after Hidan as well. We continued looking for Hidan after that, but completely lost his trail. However, I suspect that he is still hiding in the Land of Frost or the Land of Hot Water."
Samui said, "There is another piece of intel we received. Apparently, Hidan had kidnapped 300 civilians inside the Land of Hot Water. Suzuki Fujin's mission was to find them. He managed to find them, but could only recover their corpses.
Our spy reported that the cave where the corpses were was covered in seals, which is why Yugakure ninjas couldn't find them. In addition, every corpse had decayed at an extreme speed. Suzuki Fujin chased after Hidan in the Land of Frost as well, but we aren't sure what happened to him after that.
However, the cave where the corpses were found was destroyed yesterday. Someone eliminated the six Yugakure ninjas stationed there and destroyed the cave. There is no information on who did that."
The additional information troubled Ay even more. He thought, 'So many events… I have a feeling that there is something important happening here. But what is it?'
Unfortunately, Ay had very little information. He said, "We have a lot of ninjas who don't have any missions. I'll deploy them in the Land of Frost and the Land of Hot Water. Lead them and try to find Hidan. Give proper instructions to ensure that they don't fall prey to his technique. I don't want to lose more ninjas meaninglessly.
As for Suzuki Fujin, ignore him for now. I'll send a Grandmaster with you to inspect that cave. I have a feeling that it will have the clues we need."
Darui and the other two nodded. They had the same thoughts as well.
Within a few hours, several hundred Kumo ninjas were dispatched. Every single one was instructed to not engage Hidan in a fight. Their only job was to inform the Elite Jounins they were under about Hidan's location once they found him. Every ninja was given hundreds of Explosion Tags to help escape if Hidan chased after them.
Once an Elite Jounin found Hidan, he would trail him without engaging in a battle while waiting for Darui's team to reinforce him.
Needless to say, the entire mission was pointless. Hidan had already joined Akatsuki and was moving towards the Land of Rain. As for the cave, the Grandmasters Hiruzen deployed had eliminated most seals inside them before the cave was destroyed. The only seals that still remained were the ones that were very well-known throughout the ninja world. So, there was nothing that they could gain.
While Kumogakure was carrying out a meaningless operation, Hiruzen was staring in disbelief at the person in front of him. For the second time, Fujin had sent a Shadow Clone and asked Hiruzen to send a Shadow Clone to help him out. In fact, this time Fujin didn't even bother requesting or asking it!
