Early the next morning, a thick mist blanketed the sea. The air was oppressively humid—any time spent outside was enough to leave clothes damp with moisture. Now and then, hazy silhouettes moved within the fog, hurrying along in silence, hoping to return home quickly.
Regardless of how complicated the outsiders' emotions might be, inside the house, Tazuna awoke with unusual calmness. After getting up, he made his way to the dining room, where Tsunami had already prepared breakfast.
Shikamaru, Ino, Choji, Asuma, and Tazuna, along with Tsunami and Inari, took their seats around the table. On the menu were meat buns—normally a common staple, but now nearly impossible to make in the Land of Waves due to food shortages. It was a mystery how Tsunami had managed to get the ingredients.
No one spoke. Only the sounds of chewing and sipping rice porridge broke the heavy silence. The Konoha shinobi maintained composed expressions—this kind of operation was routine for them and didn't stir much emotion. In contrast, Tazuna's family, being ordinary civilians, were clearly tense. With danger looming, even the air seemed to carry a suffocating pressure.
Inari, evidently starved for this kind of food, was scarfing it down. Midway through, he suddenly choked, hammering his chest with both fists, his face turning red. Ino quickly put down her chopsticks and began gently patting his back, scolding him quietly. Despite her tone, there was clear sympathy in her demeanor—a girl's compassion toward a child who had suffered much.
Watching the scene, Tazuna visibly relaxed. He set down his chopsticks and sighed in relief. Even if today's mission were to fail, he believed that with the Leaf shinobi around, Inari would still be safe.
"Scrraaape—"
The harsh scrape of a wooden chair startled the room. Tazuna had stood up. Tsunami looked up, her expression anxious. "Father..." she murmured.
She didn't try to stop him. Tazuna had already made up his mind. If the men of the house had decided to stand against Gato, all she could do was silently support them.
Tazuna turned back to glance at Tsunami, then looked toward Inari. A kind smile spread across his face—but then, his expression turned serious as he faced Shikamaru.
"I'm entrusting Tsunami and Inari to you, Shikamaru-kun."
Shikamaru calmly set down his chopsticks and nodded. "Don't worry."
This residential district was full of narrow alleys and tight spaces—not ideal for large-scale combat. But with only a handful of elite attackers, Shikamaru wasn't concerned. Samurai might be tough for civilians to handle, but to a shinobi, they were nothing more than obsolete relics clinging to old traditions.
Asuma also stood, placed a reassuring hand on Shikamaru's shoulder, and followed Tazuna out the door.
That day, like usual, Tazuna set out for the unfinished bridge, tools in hand, accompanied by Sarutobi Asuma.
Meanwhile, in the forest...
"Finally, I can test my blade again!"
A narrow mountain trail. A shirtless, middle-aged man with a black eyepatch and a scruffy beard—his torso covered in tattoos and scars—laughed heartily. Mid-run, he paused, reached back for the katana at his waist, and drew it in a flash. Using the sheath for added friction, his slash exploded with speed and power. A tree as thick as a bowl was cleanly sliced in half.
Beside him, another man—long-haired, wearing a cloth cap—grinned with a feral expression.
These two were Gato's rogue bodyguards, once assigned to stay close as personal protection. They rarely had the chance to fight directly. Now that Gato had reluctantly sent them out alone, they felt almost liberated.
This trail was too narrow for larger units, but these rogue samurai could easily sprint through. They were headed straight for Tazuna's house.
"Save your strength. I hear Tazuna's got some shinobi guarding him," said the long-haired one.
"Just a couple of brats," the eyepatched swordsman scoffed. "I've never fought a ninja before. Wonder how well they bleed!"
If Shikamaru had heard this, he would've sneered outright. Real samurai were trained in battlefield strategy. These rogues clearly had no grasp of tactics—leaving tracks, exposing their movements—utterly amateur. They might know a few sword forms or chakra tricks, but to trained shinobi, they were little more than glorified thugs. Even among real samurai, few could match a jonin in direct combat. These vagabonds were delusional.
Back at the docks:
"You seem really focused on those two rogue samurai," Ino said. The boat wasn't ready yet, so she and Choji were still in the village, inspecting their ninja tools. She glanced at Shikamaru, who sat nearby with his eyes closed.
Gato's guards weren't exactly a secret. If anyone was going to be sent to kidnap Tazuna's family, it had to be them—fast and skilled.
"I've never fought a samurai before. I'm just curious about their strength," Shikamaru replied, opening his eyes lazily. Seeing that Ino was still puzzled, he elaborated, "You should know—when the shinobi forces first rose, they clashed with the samurai a lot. The samurai may have faded from prominence, but they won't be content with that. Back in the day, their class held even more power than us ninja."
"If they ever try to reclaim that status, they'll inevitably clash with shinobi," he continued. Calm and thoughtful, Shikamaru was still a teen, but his insight had the weight of a seasoned strategist. "Compared to other villages, Konoha's intelligence on samurai is really outdated. Even if those two are rogues, we can still learn a lot from them. After all, samurai and shinobi are overlapping combat classes. A century ago, without ninjutsu dominating the battlefield, they could still coexist. But now? No chance. Unless the samurai disappear entirely, they'll always be our enemies."
"But it's not easy for them to rise again." He looked at Ino and Choji, who were deep in thought. "Unless they abandon their pride and walk the ninja's path, they'll never compete with us. But if they do, then the samurai identity dies out anyway."
This wasn't a game. There were no 'balanced classes' in the real world. Reality didn't care about fairness. Samurai had no ninjutsu, lacked battlefield destruction, and couldn't match ninja in mobility. Even their interrogation methods were outdated—they didn't have genjutsu.
Before the One Nation, One Village system, samurai led ordinary soldiers into battle. Espionage and assassination? That still required hiring shinobi. In contrast, modern ninja-led wars were cheaper, more efficient, and far deadlier.
As shinobi began to enter the front lines, their uniforms evolved from light gear to full armor—proof that ninja once supported samurai generals directly. Back then, chakra techniques were still under development. Ninja could still be killed by sharp blades, so armor mattered.
But as ninjutsu advanced, the tides changed. Shinobi ditched their heavy armor for mobility. Massed army combat was becoming obsolete. Techniques like Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu made shinobi exponentially deadlier to civilians. Flexibility and small-team tactics became paramount.
Some people still insisted samurai and shinobi were equally matched. But those people were rare—and usually wrong.
If samurai were truly a match for ninja, they wouldn't be hiding in some backwater country, slipping out of history's spotlight. Anyone with common sense could see that.
Even in taijutsu—once a samurai advantage—ninja had long since caught up. With years of development and many taijutsu specialists rising within the shinobi forces, how could they possibly still lag behind?
The samurai only still existed because the daimyō of each country kept them as a backup plan—just in case.
"You planning to kill them?" Choji asked, sensing the clear hostility in Shikamaru's voice.
"If we cross paths, I'll eliminate them." Shikamaru said without hesitation. Too many in his past life had failed to see which side they were on—naively sympathizing with the enemy. Maybe that made sense if you were trying to defect or integrate. But if they're still your enemy? That was just foolish.
Shikamaru wasn't one of those fools. He was born a shinobi—and that meant he couldn't side with the samurai.
"Only when the samurai are gone from this world will things be truly better for ninja."
Off to the side, Inari, who had been silently listening, blushed with admiration. His young face was flushed with awe as he looked at Shikamaru, who had calmly decided life and death with a few words.
This is what it means to be a shinobi!