Chapter 4: A Ghost in the Alleys
Tobirama did not remain idle. His body was healing, his chakra reserves slowly, painstakingly refilling. To simply sit and accept charity while he was able was contrary to his very nature. But he could not reveal his true abilities. Not yet. So, he became a ghost.
During the day, he would perform simple, physical tasks. He repaired O-Tsuru's leaky roof, his movements economical and precise. He would chop firewood for her and the other elderly villagers, his axe-strikes falling with a speed and accuracy that was quietly unsettling. He never spoke unless spoken to, and his answers were always brief and to the point. The people of Okobore began to regard him with a mixture of fear and wonder. He was the "Man from the Sea," a silent, powerful enigma.
At night, however, the shinobi emerged. He would slip out of the tea house, a shadow amongst shadows. He moved through the ramshackle town with utter silence, his senses extended. He was mapping the area, learning the patrols of Kaido's goons, identifying their strengths and weaknesses. He found their discipline to be laughably poor, their senses dull. They relied on brute strength and fear, not tactics.
He also used his skills in subtle ways. He knew the town's water was tainted. One night, using a minor water-style jutsu that required only a whisper of chakra, he created a small, localized vortex at the bottom of the well. It acted as a centrifuge, spinning the worst of the silt and pollutants to the sides. The next day, the water drawn was marginally, almost imperceptibly, cleaner. No one knew why, attributing it to a temporary blessing from forgotten gods.
He overheard snippets of conversation, piecing together the political landscape. He learned of the tyrant Shogun Orochi, the monstrous Kaido who was the true power, and the story of the heroic Kozuki Oden. He heard the whispers of Oden's wife, Lady Toki, and her prophecy of the nine samurai returning after twenty years to bring the dawn.
Tobirama put little stock in prophecy. But he understood its strategic value. It was a rallying cry. A symbol. It gave the oppressed a reason to endure. He filed the information away.
One evening, while perched silently on a rooftop overlooking the town, he felt it. A flare of energy, miles distant. It was not chakra. It was something else. A sharp, focused surge of sheer willpower, so intense it seemed to cut through the very air. It was the same raw energy he'd sensed from the thugs, but this was different. It was controlled, refined, honed to a razor's edge. It was the presence of a master swordsman.
He turned his head in the direction of the disturbance, his silver eyes narrowing. This world had no shinobi, no chakra as he knew it. But it was not without power. It had its own warriors, its own rules of combat. He was an expert in analyzing threats, and that brief, distant flare of energy was a significant one.
He was still an outsider, a ghost. But for the first time, he felt a flicker of professional curiosity. The curiosity of a warrior who has just sensed another, true warrior on a foreign battlefield.i