Ken smiled as he walked, his long blade already sheathed and on his back.
Behind him could be seen a headless corpse, a bit further away from 8 other corpses and another pile of burnt corpses.
The cleanup crew wasn't going to be having much fun, that much was for sure.
It wasn't like Ken felt good killing the soldiers, but to him, none of them was all that innocent anyway.
Ken also knew that he needed to kill them in order to keep his identity a secret. There wasn't much else to it.
The men had come into his home and destroyed it, and he killed them all in return.
The ease with which he had done it was a bit strange. But Ken knew that it was just because he was already extremely used to killing others.
He had told himself that he would be different in his new life, that he wouldn't give in to his vices so easily.
It wasn't difficult for him to control himself when his family took care of him, but it seemed that he was bound to slip into some of his old habits without them.
Ken was well aware of that. But this time things were a bit different.
Unlike before, when he killed people without a care in the world, now his mind seemed to wander in different directions...
'These men... Each and every one of them could've had families... I may have been technically defending myself, but I still willingly tore away someone precious to someone else...'
It wasn't like Ken was going to stop killing people, not as long as the group called the 'Seven Swordsmen of the Mist' were still alive.
But now he knew by experience what effects loss could have on humans.
He used to laugh at the people that came after him for revenge at some point in his life, for he simply found it difficult to sympathize with them.
It was rather ironic that he was now also out seeking revenge for the lives of his family.
So Ken decided to make a promise, a vow. To the corpses of his family before he finally left the mountain range before he ventured into the wide world...
'If one day, I find my hands sullied with innocent blood once more... I will plunge my blade into my stomach and gut myself on the spot.'
Ken knew that not killing others was going to be difficult in the world he had been sent into, but he now vowed to only kill in order to survive, to only kill those that truly deserved to die.
Unlike in his past life, where he killed for pleasure and gratification, this time he was doing it with purpose... It didn't matter that he slightly enjoyed it still, as long as he didn't harm anyone other than his enemies.
After that vow, Ken proceeded to walk down the mountain.
Thanks to the interrogation from the warrior he had decapitated, he now knew the identity of his targets, where they came from, he knew where he would find them.
But finding them wasn't going to be the difficult part. The 7 of them seemed to always move as a squad. So in order to chase after them and slaughter them, Ken needed to grow a lot stronger.
Thankfully, at 8 years of age, he still had a lot of room for growth, as his growth had only just started.
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Ken had interrogated the man from earlier about various things, including exactly how powerful Shinobi could be and the way to tell them from one another.
The warrior didn't seem all that knowledgable himself, but he still knew a lot more than Ken, as Daisuke had yet to get to teach him much about the power levels of other Shinobi.
Ken had a benchmark for Jonin, with the Hatamoto and the 7 swordsmen, but the rest of the lower rankings had been a mystery to him.
The samurai was able to put things into perspective for Ken.
Most people specialized in one or two areas. And each person was ranked on the degree of mastery or skill in the area they specialized in.
The 9 samurai that Ken had killed were all at Genin level, capable of taking on Chunins as long as they were in groups of three thanks to their trained swordsmanship and formations.
They couldn't do much against someone both stronger and more skilled than them though.
Currently, Ken was physically at the level of a Chunin while being more skilled in battle than the majority of Jonin out there.
His energy reserves were also decent, easily entering the levels of Chunin. Being in the higher brackets when it came to density.
Ken tried to ask about the second energy within him that was somehow related to nature, but the samurai seemed to have no idea what Ken was talking about.
Still, Ken knew that his enhanced physical strength was thanks to that energy. Ken had noticed that he was able to use it to replenish his stamina as well.
The energy was recharged automatically as his body absorbed more from the air around him.
Which would eventually lead to Ken having endless stamina when his Chakra reserves were large enough to balance a larger amount of Nature Energy.
Ken had already done a few tests in his travels, he could run and remain energized for a few days on end without even feeling the need to stop.
Well, he still stopped to eat or drink a bit of water, but his muscles simply didn't seem tired at all.
Ken also found that depleting his Chakra reserves was a rather good way of expanding them. It was a slow process, but it seemed rather efficient compared to doing nothing.
Unfortunately, Ken didn't have any method of depleting his chakra efficiently.
Using Chakra Flow didn't deplete a lot of it, either, as the technique formed something akin to a closed circuit, flowing the chakra from his body into his blade and back.
This was the method that Ken had devised in order to save as much as possible while he was younger. It was the only way he knew how to perform Chakra Flow.
If anyone were to hear about it, they'd be beyond shocked that a child would be able to come up with something like that.
But to Ken, it was just normal, as he didn't know how the technique usually went.
Ken spent more and more time in between mountain ranges, training like a madman for a while.
At least until he was confident enough to venture out in the world, to be prepared for most situations that might arise.
Eventually, during the weeks he spent in the forest training, Ken managed to create a move that depleted his chakra rather efficiently.
He had been aiming to find a method to increase his chakra depletion rate, he figured creating a new technique wouldn't hurt.
Copying the Hatamoto he had assassinated, he coated his blade in a thick coat of lighting, with wind flowing all around it.
Slowly but surely, he poured more and more chakra into the blade, making it sparkle with light as the wind bent around it violently.
Ken then proceeded to add Nature Energy into the mix, which seemed to strengthen the technique even more.
Then, with both of his hands on the oversized blade, he spun around, arms firmly holding the blade as he released a powerful slash all around him.
The forest around him trembled, as trees were blown away, Ken himself was glad he didn't have eyes, as he was sure they would've been filled with dust...
The technique name? 'Dragon Twister'
It was simple, and it had everything to do with the state of the forest around him when he performed that attack for the first time.
Everything around him was torn apart as if a tornado had gone through. The attack ruined everything around him in a 10 to 20 meter radius.
The dragon part in the name came from the fact that he remembered Daisuke reading him legends about mythical animals and such, and he remembered clearly that it was his favourite mythical beast.
Ken was satisfied with its strength... But he didn't quite like how slow it was.
It had taken him an entire minute to flow chakra into his blade and mix in his Nature energy. It wasn't a short process, and it required a lot of concentration.
In an actual battle, such a move simply wasn't usable.
In terms of depleting chakra, it sure did its job though! It took around half of Ken's reserves to perform it once.
So, Ken decided that he would at the very least perfect the technique before heading out into the world.
This would in turn only make him stronger, both in body and chakra reserves. Ken was prepared to camp for a while in that place.
Good thing he even had a waterfall nearby, underneath which was a large lake, which went rather deep.
Ken instantly decided on a training method, submerging himself in the deepest point of the lake, and performing that technique twice, before climbing back up and trying to split open the waterfall with a flying slash.
And so, the training began.