Chapter 34: Development, Structure and Techniques

Chapter 34: Development, Structure and Techniques

_________ 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 natural land and somewhat filled with bandits because of that.

That meant that the Daimy 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.

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

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Hope you liked the chapter! Had a pretty busy day today :))

Also, the organization obviously won't be structured like the OG dark brotherhood, just didn't feel like it would fit.

In case ppl didn't notice, he's basically creating a sect :)) Good old Jianghu-type sect, he's just creating it without knowing what the Janghu is.

If u want to support me look up VeganMaster on Patre_on, you'd also get 4 chapters in advance (or 2 depending on tier)