_________ POV Narration_________

The compound of the Dark Brotherhood quickly grew in the next few months, and their budget also suddenly grew as they were able to finally count the amount of wealth Ken had actually stolen.

Several Saburo did actually burst out laughing at the same time when he realized that Ken had somehow stolen the entirety of the Grass Villages funds that had been gathered for over a decade.

To him, it was just funny, though he did also realise that the Grass Village was likely never going to forgive them in any way.

The good part about that was that neither Ken nor anyone working for him really gave a shit about the Grass Village anymore.

Ken being strong enough to take the entire village on really just spoke for itself at that point.

And not even the orphans/recruits seemed to be scared at the prospect of their leader angering a hidden village.

If anything, they were actually excited to hear about his exploits. Tosho was rather disappointed that the children were no longer admiring him as much, but he did understand that Ken was worthy of their admiration as well.

Besides gaining a large budget and expanding with a few more buildings. This time, they even managed to invite an actual good construction crew to remodel and make adjustments to the current buildings as well.

It wasn't that Tosho had done a bad job, but it wasn't as if he was an experienced builder.

Every home, and especially the Leader's Abode was remodelled to fit with their new expanded budget.

Saburo did plan to kill them after they finished their jobs, to protect the location and knowledge of their base. But Ken made it clear that Saburo would follow them to the grave if anything happened to them, which took that idea out of the Strawman's head.

In the end, they decided to simply pay the men for their silence. It was likely only a temporary fix, but the Blind Swordsman was ok with it.

Ken decided to spare no expense and give the recruits the best accommodation and food possible, the type that would make middle-class families blush.

The Blind Swordsman only really cared about training being harsh after all, he didn't believe that his recruits also needed to sleep on the hard floor or eat weeds.

Though he did incorporate sleeping on a stone floor as training, at least one week per month, he believed it would be good for the recruits to get used to sleeping in any environment.

The Dark Brotherhood was advancing more and more, with more orphans gathering than before, now at the prospect of joining a brotherhood instead of a nameless organization of assassins.

Suddenly, Tosho's orphanage scouring across the Land of Iron and nearby areas became a lot easier, with him managing to surpass his goal and increase the number of recruits to a whopping 86 in a mere few months.

Although, that number was bound to stop growing for a time, as Tosho had already exhausted the avenues he was using for recruitment.

They only handpicked orphans under the age of 10, so they were all children easy to build rapport with and easy to gain the loyalty of.

As long as they were treated well, of course, but that was never an issue, as Ken's organization presented the recruits with human rights that were very much above the usual standards that hidden villages provided.

Some certainly complained about the difficulty of the training, but at the end of the day, they all were allowed to leave whenever they wanted.

They were given the choice of becoming something more than just victims of a prolonged war. Their wills were strengthened by their losses and life experiences.

Besides a surplus of recruits, the Dark Brotherhood also gained a stable source of income in the form of Saburo's clones hunting bounties of bandits.

The Strawman was more than glad to send some of his Jonin clones to hunt down notorious bandit groups.

He was also more than capable enough to engage in several fights at the same time, so all was well as long as he didn't run into any annoying enemies.

The fact that they were situated in the Land of Iron also helped a bit, as it was a neutral land and somewhat filled with bandits because of that.

That meant that the Daimyō was always putting up bounties for new bandit groups in the area, and the Dark Brotherhood was more than happy to collect them all.

Tough Ken did provide a rule that they weren't going after groups of deserters unless they had more crimes on their record. Even then, Saburo's clones would have to stalk them for a bit to verify their guilt.

It seemed that Ken had a soft spot for deserters. Saburo could somewhat understand it, they were after all just numbers to their leaders, some would obviously reach the conclusion that dying for a worthless cause was foolish.

Alas, there were plenty that also just wanted to profit off the war and the common folk. Those were actually the Dark Brotherhood's prime targets.

Saburo was a bit annoyed by the extra steps he had to take in vetting groups, but he did need to respect orders.

The Dark Brotherhood now also had a more concrete internal structure. With Ken as the Leader, the head of the organization. Many of the orphans had also taken to calling him 'Father'.

Ken didn't complain, and the name started to stick in the minds of the recruits.

His costume remained unchanged, as he didn't see any need to change it.

Tosho, Akira and Saburo were part of the leadership, part of Ken's retainers. They were called the 'Blades'.

They all had similar costumes. Tosho's remained unchanged, while Saburo got a mask with two small red lines in the middle, and Akira got one with three.

Each of them was to lead departments of their own and grow as the strongest in the organization besides Ken himself.

Then, after the Blades. There were the Numbered.

A ranking system based on strength inside the brotherhood. Each department would have its own rankings, of course.

Currently, the only Numbered in the organization were Saburo's clones. Belonging to the Research Department, which also acted as a bounty hunting department, at least for now.

They were wearing regular thin black clothing with long black coats that covered their bodies. All of their faces were covered by completely white masks, slightly obstructed by large straw hats.

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The recruits were still not part of the system, they were only given regular training garb and clothes.

They were to become numbered upon 'graduating' from their training, later to be delegated into different departments of their choice.

There were still many things that Ken planned out for the Dark Brotherhood, but he'd first have to wait and train the current batch of recruits that the organization had.

Now, Ken wasn't dumb, neither was Saburo or Tosho. Akira was arguably the least intelligent among them, but even he caught on rather quickly.

All of their actions, all of their current exploits and rapid growth, basically gave away their exact position and announced to the world that they were there, in the Land of Iron.

Ken, however, didn't care about their base location being found out. He knew that it was impossible to keep it a secret, especially since he had no way for the Dark Brotherhood to be self-sufficient when it came to food in the short term.

Ken knew that he needed to establish clear trade routes, to arrange for and create a proper marketplace at some point.

Farming would only become feasible down the line, so the Dark Brotherhood was going to only be able to gain its food through trade, which wouldn't be possible as their organization grew.

He had planned to build a secret organization at first, but after finding out that it would be near impossible to keep it a secret, he decided that he would go all in and create an entire village.

Not a village of commoners, mind you, a village inhabited only by the Dark Brotherhood's trained assassins.

Every merchant that came and went would be from the Dark Brotherhood, every farmer would also work part-time as an assassin.

All of them would be adopted and raised inside the Brotherhood, and all of them would learn and develop as assassins first. As their talents developed, they would get the chance to go into different fields.

It was going to take a long time, but Ken was sure that it was possible.

He slowly started putting a framework in place. His end goal?

Well, that was a bit more complicated... Ken wanted at first to have eyes in the world, so it was going to act as an informational network.

But there was also something else...

Seeing the damage of the war on those orphans, Ken grew more and more disappointed in the world he found himself in. But he also knew that it wasn't possible to change it, to change humans in general.

So, he would have to at least provide a safe haven for all of the children affected by the war. To all those willing to join him and grow stronger.

Talented or not, they all had a right to a better life, and Ken was going to provide it for them.

But that would take years, many years to develop and reach everyone throughout the world. For now, Ken needed to focus on the present as well.

Akira was actually the first one to point out that the Daimyō of the Land of Iron would certainly send his men to check out the place and probably even collect taxes.

Even the construction company was only aware that they were helping build a village, so Ken expected the Daimyō to treat them like a new community at first.

Saburo seemed to also be a bit curious about how Ken would decide to interact with the Daimyō, as it was definitely going to be crucial to the future of the Dark Brotherhood.

'If he does agree to pay taxes, then the Dark Brotherhood would essentially become the Land of Iron's hidden village... But if he doesn't then even a war could become a possibility...

Ken may be strong, but facing off against 10.000 trained samurai and retainers isn't feasible... At least not yet, maybe in a few years.'

The Strawman had already judged Ken's power and did know where exactly on the scale to put him. He was simply on the level of an actual Kage. Someone from the large villages.

When it came to power and fighting strength, he seemed to be weaker than the Raikage in both speed and defence, but the two of them seemed to have similar styles.

'It's hard to tell how a fight between them would end though... A is still stronger than Ken, by a rather large margin as well.

He is more durable and has more power in general... But Ken's potential for growth is much much larger.'

At least, that was the conclusion the Strawman had reached after the incident in the Grass Village...

Ken sensed his retainers and could feel the worry seeping from Akira, as well as the curiosity emanating from Saburo.

"I don't plan to pay any taxes to the Land of Iron. This village is built in a deserted and rather inhospitable mountain range, and all of it was made using our own resources."

The Leader made his stance clear, and Saburo couldn't help but nod. Agreeing with the decision and the logic behind it, still, he hoped that Ken was prepared for the repercussions.

Alas, Saburo was prepared to turn tail and run at any moment if the situation looked truly unwinnable, so he was ok with whatever choice Ken made, as long as he could continue getting support on his research.

Though, his research was postponed for a bit as his laboratory was still under construction.

"S-still... Doesn't that mean that they'll try to kill us all?" Akira decided to simply voice out his worries once more, being the more honest of the ones present.

Akira still felt like he owed Ken a lot. The Blind Swordsman was really the only reason he was even alive.

He had already decided that he'd stick with him till the end. To him Ken's fate was his fate, so his worry was well-justified.

"The Daimyō will certainly try something, but I will first have a talk with him. I will set up a meeting when he eventually sends his men here. Don't worry, I'll handle everything."

Ken, once again, didn't seem very concerned about the Daimyō. He simply relaxed and stretched in his chair a bit, pointing at some reports on the table as Akira helped him read them.

The situation with the Daimyō was bound to end in a bad way regardless of what Ken chose. So the Blind Swordsman was going to have to do what he knew best and make sure that his village was well protected as it grew.

After reading a few reports, Akira eventually reached the subject of techniques.

The reserve that the Dark Brotherhood had was still rather pitiful when compared with a hidden village, but they did thankfully still have plenty of jutsu to teach to their younglings.

They even had the secret techniques of the Grass Village! Though those also required a bloodline from what Ken was able to hear, so they turned out to be pretty useless for now.

Saburo himself was also able to impart a few techniques to them, which certainly helped. But it wasn't for free, of course.

Everything that Saburo did was a transaction, so in exchange, he was taught the technique that Ken used to hide his presence as well.

Saburo was genuinely shocked after learning about it and the way it worked.

It was well and truly demented, requiring an almost insane level of dedication and hard work to gain even a little bit of mastery over it.

It involved gaining absolute control of one's bodily functions, of every sense and organ in the human body.

The technique consisted of slowing down one's heartbeat to an unnatural extent, lowering the body's temperature down to dangerous levels.

The training involved rapid and constant changes in the environment.

Often-times jumping from heavy training inside saunas to training under a cold waterfall or inside a cold ice bath in the span of a few seconds.

Such changes would oftentimes cause a high risk of cardiac arrest, it was bearable for already trained Shinobi though.

Alas, the recruits would only start training after gaining a proper base as regular assassins. Such harsh training would otherwise kill them at such a fragile age.

It was a technique that Ken had come up with in his previous life, in his rather long career as the best assassin in the world.

He could use that method to easily slip by most detection methods with ease. Including infrared and night vision, as long as he was dressed appropriately, he really could sneak in just about everywhere.

The technique wasn't perfect, however. Ken was unable to pass through the highest levels of security undetected.

The latest models and security systems in his old world would detect and snap at even the smallest blade of grass moving with the wind, so a human sneaking by would easily be noticed.

Still, Ken was able to do every job thanks to his fighting skills as well, killing countless people and going through a lot of hardships to hone his skills.

In his current life, Ken was able to further perfect that technique with the discovery of Chakra and Nature energy, making his technique essentially perfect, making him almost impossible to ever spot.

Eventually, Ken even decided to give it a name. Simple and self-explanatory.

'Presence Control' - Through mastery and constant training, allowed the user to have a near-perfect mastery over their presence

Thanks to Nature Energy, the Blind Swordsman was able to do a lot more than just hide his presence perfectly.

He also managed to affect the surroundings with his aura. He used that before, mainly to spark fear into the hearts of his enemies before the battle.

Alas, he couldn't teach others how to use Nature Energy, he himself didn't have the greatest understanding of what it was.

So, at most, they would have a weaker version of 'Presence Control'. That was what Tosho learnt was still training in and what Akira was currently struggling to learn.

Saburo was excited to get to learn it as well. But he became disappointed that he likely would have difficulty using it with his clones as well.

The technique involved exact control over one's own body, the amount of concentration it would take would be too much for it to be done on multiple bodies at once.

The Strawman was on his own there, as Ken was not all that familiar with the clone technique he was using.

As Saburo stood and pondered on how to use 'Presence Control' alongside his clones, the door to Ken's office swung open, and Tosho walked inside in a rather hasty manner.

"Sorry for intruding leader! But there are people outside insisting to speak with the leader of the village..."

Tosho sounded a bit annoyed, probably having gotten into a bit of an argument with said visitors.

'The Daimyō's delegation has already arrived? News sure travels fast...'