_________ POV Narration _________

The three Shinobi/Assassins made their way to Ken's office without much issue.

Ken sat down in his chair, resting his feet on his desk while stretching his upper body and sighing deeply.

Tosho, the First Blade, stepped by his side and stood straight with his arms crossed.

And Kazue dragged a random chair in front of Ken's desk and sat down. He only did so after Ken nodded, however, not wanting to appear disrespectful to the Organization Leader.

The three of them didn't speak much, they merely waited for a few seconds, before the door swung open.

Kazue turned his head to the newcomers.

Two men walked into the room without any sway in their steps. Their clothes were similar to those of the First Blade, with the only difference being the mask.

'Second and Third Blades, huh?' Kazue narrowed his eyes a bit as he tried to judge the two of them...

To his shock, he couldn't get a read on either of them... Both gave him a rather disturbing feeling though...

'I guess I shouldn't expect less from Ken's subordinates, huh?'

"Glad the two of you made it... Sorry to disrupt your training, Third Blade. And thank you for clearing up some of your schedule, Second Blade"

Ken's voice was the first one that rang out in the room, the door seemed to close behind the blades, and the two of them bowed to Ken in a respectful manner.

"No problem boss... I'm more curious about how you've been doing and who's the newcomer..." The Third Blade responded in a somewhat amused tone, as he slowly raised his head and looked towards Kazue.

"Oh, I'm sure we'll hear plenty about that... The deal with the Uzumaki Clan appears to have gone quite well..." The Second Blade spoke in a much calmer, more dignified voice. He seemed to recognize Kazue, which caused the Uzumaki Shinobi to raise an eyebrow.

'I doubt I made a big enough name for myself in the War to get recognized so easily... I guess it makes sense that they would look into our clan thoroughly before dealing with us...'

As Kazue was pondering on that, the two Blades walked to Ken's side as well. The Third leaning on the desk while crouching slightly, and the Second walking behind Ken, standing beside the First.

"Now, these are the current top members of my organization... As you can see, there aren't all that many of us." Ken turned his head towards the Uzumaki Shinobi as he spoke.

"That is quite fine... I can understand the concept of Quality over Quantity..." Kazue smiled a bit as he looked at the three Blades in front of him, although they had casually walked to Ken's side, the Uzumaki could still tell that they were wary of him.

It was a good thing, especially for Shinobi... The only person he couldn't feel any wariness from was the Second Blade... And he was the most unnerving out of all the other blades.

'It's safe to assume he is better at hiding his emotions... Which is even more impressive...'

One would argue that all shinobi could hide their emotions... But that wasn't the case unless they were part of the Black Ops/Anbu.

It was clear that the three Blades were plenty skilled. For now, Kazue decided that the Second was the most dangerous, followed by the First, who was almost as difficult to detect as Ken.

The Third Blade didn't seem like anything special to Kazue, so the Uzumaki put him at the bottom of the list for now.

"That has been our modus operandi for a while now..." Ken nodded as he remembered the number of unrequested applications they received regularly.

Many stray shinobi and bounty hunters seemed to be interested in joining, but the Dark Brotherhood's doors were closed to them for now.

Accepting too many shady outsiders could prove harmful at the end of the day. Saburo was already enough of a risk by himself.

At least Ken knew that Saburo wouldn't turn as long as he kept his end of the deal. But not everyone was that smart. And almost all bounty hunters were greedy.

"Regardless, let us get over the pointless formalities... Men, this here is Uzumaki Kazue, the son of the Uzumaki Clan's patriarch and a Fuinjutsu master tasked with teaching within our organization."

Ken made a quick introduction, only the Third Blade seemed a bit curious, as he tilted his head towards the red-haired Uzumaki.

"I see... The Uzumaki Clan really went all out this time..." The First Blade nodded, his tone slightly surprised, but there was no other visible reaction.

Meanwhile, the Second Blade didn't even flinch when hearing that information, no reaction or even an attempt to pretend that he was surprised by the reveal.

"It's a pleasure to meet all of you... Lord Ken has already brought me up to speed on your titles, I don't know your names, but I assume I will get to learn them eventually..." Kazue patted his chest as he gave the Blades an honest smile.

Suspicions and Wariness aside, he was well aware that he would be spending a few years at the very least with the Dark Brotherhood, getting along with the others was certainly going to make things easier.

"Pleasure! Name's Akira, by the way!" The only one to respond with more than a nod was the Third Blade, his tone was cheerful.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

'I guess he's the most straightforward one...'

His reaction further solidified Kazue's thoughts about the Third Blade being the weakest link among the Blades. But he didn't get to dwell on things for too long, as Ken started speaking right away.

"Akira here is friendly towards allies, no matter how long they've been with us... But you shall learn everyone's names eventually. For now, we must select your first batch of students... Besides the people in this room, there will be 10 other children."

Ken had quite the list to go through. They had to select the children best fit to become Fuinjutsu Experts, and since they were going with the Uzumaki Clan formula, they needed to select the ones with the biggest chakra reserves.

"I can certainly work with that... I'm assuming I'll be provided with accommodations as well, correct?" Kazue nodded as he still remembered Ken mentioning something like that before.

"Correct... Your accommodations will be within this building." Ken nodded before turning his head towards the Frist Blade, who also nodded and started speaking.

"We will set up some ground rules..."

The first rule was simple... Never go into the basement.

"The Second Blade's research is secretive in nature, and it is completely forbidden to outsiders. You are to not bother him in any way unless under Ken's instructions."

Kazue only nodded towards the First Blade, already expecting something of that nature.

The second rule was also simple. That was to not go into the 'Training Cave' without proper authorization.

Those were the only two rules that really restricted Kazue in any way. There was another where he had to inform either Ken or the Blades if he left somewhere or planned to go somewhere, but that was neither here nor there.

It was all understandable/expected. The Dark Brotherhood would obviously need to know Kazue's location while his teaching mission was still active.

After that, the rest was mostly about scheduling his classes and the children he'd be teaching. They weren't yet selected, but they would be by the end of the day.

In fact, Saburo's clones were already watching and judging which children were best equipped to learn Fuinjutsu.

They needed to have both good chakra reserves and patience, while also having to display high intelligence.

Eventually, the ten children were selected.

It wasn't that difficult either, most of the children within the Dark Brotherhood were intelligent enough to grasp the opportunity to be there in the first place.

The training of the Brotherhood had already conditioned plenty of them into learning patience. So it ended up being more of a contest of Chakra reserves.

Surprisingly, the child that was missing a leg, Tatsukio, was one of the best in that aspect.

His missing limb had somewhat affected his improvement speed when it came to physical training, but he seemed to be extremely well fit for tasks that required quick thinking and complex thoughts.

The exercises that the Dark Brotherhood had them perform weren't only physical after all... They were being tested weekly on all measurable metrics, being turned into the perfect killing machines. With their consent, of course.

Kazue was happy to receive a list of students so quickly. One of Saburo's clones delivered it to him before the meeting even ended.

It even provided him with a short profile of each student, talking about personality, past, observed talents and even possible issues that may arise during teaching and possible ways to avoid said issues.

Ken couldn't read the paper, but just from Kazue's changes in behaviour and expression, he was able to judge that Saburo had likely gone a step above the usual with his reporting...

'He always has the odd habit of being too concise... I just hope that he didn't write anything weird in there...'

Thankfully, nothing was weird on Saburo's list.

But shockingly for Kazue, the issues that were listed weren't what one would expect from regular children. None of the children was raising concerns about possible tantrums, lack of attention and motivation. Those weren't even mentioned in any way.

Instead, most of them had the same issue...

'An utter loathing for Shinobi of all kinds. Hiding Headband might be a requisite for classes to go smoothly.'

Kazue's smile trembled a bit when reading that sentence... But he also agreed with it wholeheartedly.

'It was already clear from earlier when we were outside... But teaching might just be easier if I do it without my headband on...

I'll just treat this like a regular undercover mission and be done with it.'

Kazue somewhat resigned himself. One detail that every child on the list shared was the fact that they were war orphans, and that was really all the explanation needed for the hatred.

"Other than that, there's not much else for today... The guards at the door will guide you to your room, you can settle in. Classes will start next week, so you can get proper rest and make a proper structure before they start."

Ken spoke out after the Uzumaki was done reading the list, at the same time, the two guards that were outside the door of Ken's office stepped in.

"Very well then... I'll get settled and plan things out... Have a great day, Lord Ken, Blades..." Kazue slowly got up, nodded to Ken and his subordinates, and left, following the clones out of the room.

After a few seconds, the Blades all walked out in front of Ken and stood in a line.

"So... How were things while I was away?" Ken asked as he didn't move from his position one bit, his hand only reached up, pulling his mask off and placing it on his desk.

"Training proceed normally... The child we chose as your double was also not affected in his training.

He hasn't cut his hair, so he is still prepared to take your place in case anything happens..."

Tosho was the first of the Blades to speak out, earning a nod from Ken, who was quite pleased to hear that he now had a reliable double if needed.

"My experiments have also been proceeding as usual... I've also been able to create a few more clones, though they aren't exactly anything special in chakra reserves..."

Saburo gave the next report, not going into much detail regarding experiments, but still giving Ken the more important information of him expanding his 'numbers'.

"Good, at least we now have more disposable hands to use in the laboratory..." Ken nodded as he then turned his head towards Akira.

"My training has been going well... Learning from that Wackjob is difficult, but I'm making progress in deciphering his ramblings..."

Akira's assigned task, besides holding the fort while Ken was away, was to look into more cursed techniques. And to help with that, they had the still very alive, immortal that they had captured.

Saburo didn't have any time left in his schedule to slowly pry more information out of him, so the task was delegated to Akira.

Ken was glad to hear that everything had gone well in his absence.

"Besides that..."

It seemed that Saburo had a few more things to add.

"The Land of Iron had sent a delegation. Nothing unusual, but the Daimyō called for you... Again..."

Saburo's voice sounded almost annoyed, and Ken also sighed in frustration.

This wasn't exactly the first summons they had received from the Daimyō, it was actually the third.

They were able to ignore it in the past, as Ken was busy with his own training and then with planning out his excursion to the Land of Whirlpools.

But it was rather difficult to ignore the Daimyō after making a very public appearance on his lands...

"I'll go visit him after resting a bit..."

The Blind Swordsman couldn't help but sigh once more as he realised how bothersome living as a leader actually was.

"We could just send a representative... Like Tosho..." Saburo spoke out, sensing Ken's displeasure.

The First Blade seemed to feel a bit called out, as he snapped his head at the Strawman, who innocently ignored him.

"No... They called me specifically this time around. Besides, Tosho isn't that great with diplomatic talks... All is good, I doubt it'll be more complicated than your usual assassination request."

Ken just waved his hand dismissively.

In a sense, ignoring the Daimyō's calls even once was probably a bad move. But Ken had the leverage to ignore him all he wanted.

After all, the Daimyō still owed Ken. He wouldn't normally go and make any requests of him, now would he?