A/N: this is why you shouldnt like my fics - i'm unbelievably lazy and i get sidetracked really easily. and my fight scenes suck pants. actually ... i'll let you decide thatthe fights suck for yourselves. things that have distracted me since last time i posted - uni (4assessment items due this week and next, value varies from 5 percent to 25 percent of the total course), anime convention in sydney (these the only serious things on this list that i dont feel guilty about), disgaea 2 (87 hours), reading maddox (dot) xmission (dot) com and bash (dot) org, reading the entire blade of the immortal, magic knight rayearth, negima and love hina mangas (up to thier current release for the ones that arent finished yet), reading otherland (all four thousand pages), playing the new legend of zelda, writing three chapters in a week for someone else's fic (this one makes me feel really guilty)

but you see? i'm too easily distracted. dont get me wrong - i intend to keep writing this to the end, but i will probably wander away for a long time if noone reminds me

that said you all owe this chapter to VFSNAKE because without him it would sit unfinished on my hdd for another month

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The fox of Mibu – BAD STANDARD

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Hajime Saito stood at the ready, his presence so thoroughly erased that he nearly failed to detect it himself. The problem with concealing his presence to that degree was that his own ability to detect others was compromised, he could no longer feel any chakra that was below it's natural resting state, an incredible inconvenience when one considered that Naruto concealing his chakra to the best of his abilities was still obviously more than a civilian to normal senses yet with his chakra only lowered to that of a second year gennin it was completely invisible to Saito's current senses while the civilians themselves were unable to suppress their tiny chakras in the slightest so they were each clearly detectable presences to the leaf jounin. Every ninja present was suppressing their chakra to some extent so he couldn't sense any of them hidden as he was Of course he could still track them by sight and killing intent so he knew where most were but the hidden one in the woods was completely lost to him. He would have to trust Shino to follow that one.

The advantage that made this near chakra blindness worthwhile was simple, he was standing close enough to this 'Kamakiri' to spit in his eye, and could possibly even avoid detection after doing so.

Suddenly the unnaturally plain faced boy drew a short, broad bladed sword and Naruto relaxed his chakra suppression, suddenly appearing on his master's inner radar. Still Saito made no move, instead trusting his apprentice to survive and protect the client from such a simple attack unaided. His decision proved to be correct.

With Naruto the only notable presence the attacking nin could detect he had rather arrogantly left the recovery form his stroke a little long and Saito was right in place to capitalise on that error. It wasn't a chakra technique, it wasn't even something he had developed since leaving Tokyo. The combination of erased presence and the first style of the Gatotsu was a quick killer for him even in the days of the revolution. The only times someone had survived the sudden blow were those who had had someone else leap in the way to save them, Shishio alone had survived the sudden initial blow completely unaided. With his own voice announcing his presence and attack ringing in his earshe struck at full speed.

There was a satisfying spray of bright blood, but Saito's eyes narrowed in irritation. Ever since these ninjas had become his regular opponents the instances of his targets being saved by the 'someone else leaping in' method had increased, as had the instance of those who leapt in somehow surviving. Before him, with blood flowing from the palm of his hand where the deflected sword had bitten deeply, stood a man in a flowing yukata, by Saito's estimation he was about the same age as Sarutobi but wore his years more heavily. It was likely that life as a missing nin (or even a shinobi from a major village whose iryo ninjutsu was less advanced than that of the leaf) had left him with more unhealed scars than Konoha's venerable elder.

Certainly his actions betrayed even more experience than the wolf of Mibu, but for all his insight, skill and technique he clearly possessed not a quarter of the strength and vigor of his accomplice, Saito reached the obvious conclusion that they were master and apprentice.

Even as the blood from the new arrival's wound flew through the air Saito was shifting to a second stance cut. The elder was clearly experienced enough to know when backing off was in his favour and evaded the strikes by leaping to the side and flinging a kusari-kama by it's chain in his uninjured hand. Saito evaded with a small hop to the near demolished carriage's driver's seat. Below it came his own screaming apprentice.

With a mighty yell Naruto unleashed a fistful of shuriken as a cloud of sharpened and spinning metal. From within the pack on the saddle of the donkey came a thick steel shield, raised in haste to intercept the attack. With his vision obscured by the shield there was no way to completely avoid Naruto's next attack and the third style strike opened his cheek. With some sort of superhuman effort the bleeding assassin transformed the tilting of his body in evasion into an improvised reverse wheel kick – a potent blow that set Naruto floating, lifted almost his own height above the ground (rather than slammed downward into it as he would be from a conventional wheel kick) – and used his blonde assailant's air time to regain his footing after such a desperate evasion.

The battlefield came to a rest as the elder shinobi adjusted their assessments of each opponent based on what they had observed and the younger pair did the desperate math of how each of their new wounds would affect them. Well, Kamakiri probably did at least, Naruto was busy being hunched on the ground gasping for air, Saito could already feel a hint of the healing influence of Naruto's 'guest' which usually indicated that the injury was a bit worse than just some bruising, Ino came vaulting over the carriage, garbed once more in her normal 'sexy kunoichi' getup by a scroll just like Naruto's, and landed in a guard stance in front of her team mate. Saito used the instant of the missing nins revaluating the situation to make his choice, despite the fact he was surprised the younger had managed to inflict more damage on his attacker than he received, while the elder, even with surprise on his side, had managed to deal no damage while receiving a deep wound himself.

"Seibo-dono, you have kept a great many things from us, what you know of these men, several other things and the fact that you are able to hide your chakra," this had not truly been a surprise for Saito, his client being as invisible as any of the known ninjas when the wolf had concealed himself was simply confirmation of his suspicions, "Do the things you've hidden include abilities sufficient to guard your servant's carriage from bandit attack and allow Shino-kun to join the battle?" for his part the client didn't seem bothered to be caught out, nor did he bother to give any confirmation to Saito's enquiry before running off to guard his servants, his chakra was no longer hidden and it peaked at around chuunin level, "Naruto, Ino, you two and Shino will be fighting the older gentleman ..."

"Kessennashi Manji," the nin in question supplied with a look of interest, this leaf wouldn't really just feed three fresh gennin to a much more experienced opponent would he?

"... indeed," Saito moved on, storing the information for later consideration, "bear in mind that he is much more skilled and experienced than you, don't try to outwit him or end it quickly because he will undoubtedly see through any trick you create, a long battle using simple tactics is in your favour since the time taken to gain such vast knowledge and experience has cost him much of his youthful vigour and stamina. He probably prefers the second circle but I doubt he has a weak range."

In response the older shinobi simply nodded acceptance, if they chose to split up the other way then he would be down very quickly and his apprentice would have to face the whole team combined, he might kill one of the gennin before his master fell but facing this jounin with the support of two of his gennin would spell his end too, the death of both master and student in one battle. Besides, if they were going to try to tire him then there were more than a few ways to deal with that, he was much more skilled than they were so taking to the trees and hiding while he rested and bided his time until his student eventually killed off this foolish jounin and came to his aid was an option, so was forcing close combat and killing one or two off before fatigue set in with some of the more delicate tricks he had developed over a lifetime and then popping a soldier pill to finish the duel off. There were plenty of ways he could face this, not to say that the risk of his own death was absent, in many ways it was even more prominent that times he had taken S-rank missions in his youth, but this split yielded the highest possibility for success for both sides – he and his student had their best scenario for surviving this mess and from the defending Konoha nin's point of view the young and powerful Kamakiri couldn't simply abandon his master in favour of the mission objective as long as the jounin was focussed solely on him.

"Master, I recommend you take your duel away somewhere, I intend to utilise my bloodline limit against this man." Manji smiled, of course his apprentice would be forced to use 'that', this leaf had a simply mammoth chakra supply, he could probably run at a dead sprint for forty eight hours without stopping simply by converting his chakra into additional stamina. But with his bloodline active even a chakra as large as Kisame of the seven swords of mist wouldn't help you. Manji turned and vanished toward the tree line, the added cover would give him more options when it came to holding off the gennin.

Ino and the by then fully recovered Naruto dashed after. At about that time Seibo joined the fight to repel the bandits from his servant's carriage and several moments later the dark blur of a dashing Aburame left the fray to pursue the other gennin of his squad.

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Giichi rather liked working for ninja, most bandits didn't since ninja tended to treat bandits like trash. But really, compared to the prowess of a fully trained shinobi, weren't they? Firstly ninja had no idea how little most bandits lived on so as long as you weren't stupid enough to give the game away by looking amazed at how much they paid you could make a whole season's worth of petty thievery working as a decoy unit for a day. Secondly since they all thought you were good for nothing once battle started bandits were always assigned to rush some other thing that wasn't part of the space where the ninja would be fighting to draw off a gennin or two, Giichi's bandits could handle a gennin or two with the right tactics, minimal losses. It all added up to a high paying few days with fewer losses to the squad than a group might see just from a single raid by local police and possibly a bonus for actually killing an enemy ninja.

The shirtless boy with all the patches covering supposed scratches on his torso was probably a ninja planted to protect the servants, he would pose as a rash child and charge first, hoping to take down the 'leader' of the bandits, Giichi's long time partner Saburou. The newbies would open a path to the 'leader' who would laugh at the boy's foolishness and taunt him, then, when it was too late to evade, the opening would close and the whole group of newcomers would thrust with their pole arms, ninja normally dodged these hits, but that's why they used pole arms and not spears, once the first thrust was dodged they would swing the cutting edges of their halberds, pikes and naginatas, trapping the nin and forcing him to reveal his ninja status by using the replacement technique. Being taught traditional tactics, ninja always replaced right behind the leader in this situation and right then the boy would find himself filled with arrows right as he appeared. Doing the shooting would be Giichi himself and three others who had survived enough of these raids to be considered experienced, as the 'unit's best archer Giichi himself would be shooting the arrows that would pass close enough to Saburou to cut his clothing, the perfection of his aim was the reason he was out here instead of acting as the bait.

As predicted the boy screamed and began to charge, no faster than a normal boy so as not to reveal his ninja-ness until the moment when surprise would do the most damage, tilting his head to one side Giichi considered, the boy was probably a gennin from his movements, that would make him the fifteenth gennin victim to this strategy, three chuunin had also fallen to it. When they thought they were under cover ninja tended to try and stay that way, that made killing them easier. If they were found out too soon they usually started spraying the area with ninjutsu or illusions which meant more overall casualties for the bandit squad. The boy hit the spear line and revealed his true speed, Giichi had guessed correctly, a gennin.

Some of the newer troops were put off by the ninja boy's unusual replacement, some sort of black dust or mud that splashed all over them but Giichi had seen that sort of thing before and he simply released an arrow into the area behind his long time partner in the sure knowledge that the ninja would appear there, they seemed to be fascinated with getting behind their enemies.

It came as something of a surprise when the ninja didn't reappear there, none of them had ever seen through the trap before ... but where did he replace to then? From Giichi's right came a sickeningly wet snap and turning, he saw the shinobi in question – now inexplicably clothed in a long grey, high collared coat where he was previously bare-chested – planting a foot into the throat of one of the other archers. Quick of with and with his hands Giichi had another shaft knocked in his bow in a blink, he never found out what it hit because some force closed his throat and he blacked out near instantly, never to wake again.

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Naruto was coming closer and closer to death with each exchange of blows, even this early on it was clear that his opponent was tiring much faster than him, despite his movements being far smoother and less wasteful. It was also clear that if he couldn't disengage and regain his guard for a few moments he would be dead before it became telling. It seemed that every time he fielded one of the old warrior's blows he had less time to bring his blade back to deal with the next, of course he knew this wasn't true, his guard was being manipulated by this man and soon he would have no choice but to guard in a way that left him completely open to the next blow. If it weren't for the presence of Ino's chakra all around them he'd probably already be done for, she was covering his openings with balls of glowing light chakra, so far the enemy pulled back and didn't risk hitting them so he hadn't realised that they were merely balls of light chakra, capable of only as much damage as sitting in direct sunlight, as long as Ino kept them moving slow enough to dodge but fast enough to distract him and keep Naruto alive he probably wouldn't touch one and find out that they were harmless, they were only useful as long as he didn't know he could just walk through them.

"Low Naruto."

In response to the familiar tones of his ally Naruto retreated by dropping into a backward roll. Over his rolling form came the grey cloaked shape of Aburame Shino, a kunai in each hand and spinning violently to give the coming blow the force to kill. His first blow brought a kunai into contact with the kama itself, with the weapon suitably engaged he brought his other hand around with it's kunai speeding toward the throat. When that blow too was stopped by lodging the point of the kunai into a link of the chain Shino still didn't slow down, bringing his foot about in a spinning kick now that both of the man's hands were occupied, even when an elbow came up to guard against this final blow Shino didn't seem bothered. He probably didn't have time to be bothered when the old man wrenched his sickle free and slicked the bug user in two neat halves.

The two falling halves exploded into a fury of biting, stinging and buzzing insects, biting at his skin, attempting to inject poisons that did everything from cause pain to numb the effected area and some even eating away at his chakra. The aged shinobi released chakra from everywhere he could manage, not a forceful expulsion as a Hyuuga might when utilising their defence but a steady flow. The chakra, given the water element manipulation and a 'hot' type manipulation, boiled many of the bugs to death, all of them were at least rendered incapable of clinging to him and as he leapt to the cover of the undergrowth and sought a hiding place to recover from that little display. Blasting out that much chakra meant that hoping to take a few of them down before he tired too much was now out of the question.

He thought wistfully of the kusari-kama he had dropped in the excitement of that little moment and sighed with irritation. Still – in his youth, at a time when the seven swordsmen of mist hadn't been forced to run and adopt new names by the actions of those fools Zabusa and Kisame, he had been known by another name.

For the first time in a long time Manji the twelve blades drew the weapon he had, in a bout of unusual humour, named mumei. Ha! A weapon named 'no name', the irony tickled him even now. It was currently like a pair of nunchucks with long curved blades attached to the handles, but that wouldn't do for an ambush, not the explosion of surprising and complicated attacks that he would need to overcome three younger and more physically prepared shinobi. With a short hand motion he flicked the switches controlling the locking mechanisms in the handles of his weapon and released a huge length of extra chain.

He could go for the girl first, she seemed to be weaker in close combat than the boy in the samurai gear, but he hadn't observed enough of her abilities to be certain that he wasn't simply charging into a deadly defensive manoeuvre. The newcomer could really be anything, he hadn't had the chance to observe the boy's movements all day as they rode the carriages like he had with the other two and the only skill he had seen was either an offensive version of the replacement technique or some sort of suicide attack clone. The target had to be the swordsman. Even if the boy's abilities were unknown in their specifics Manji himself was a swordsman and he understood the tactics of fighting against another swordsman intimately, he already had a list of possible tactics for victory and it wouldn't take more than a few blows from the boy to gain enough an idea of his style to choose the most likely to succeed, go for it and, in the event of a successful gamble, move on to which ever of the other two he understands the movements of better by then.

Grasping mumei by the middle of the chain's length he flung out the two bladed 'handles', one each side of his target. Naturally the blonde boy moved to evade while his allies both launched a kunai attack to trap the chain, a standard response to the standard tactic governing the use of such a weapon against multiple enemies. Fortunately Manji was anything but a standard shinobi. With the smallest twitches of his chakra reserves the links that would have been pinned by the projectiles were shifted ever so slightly out of the way of the attacks and the bladed hooks suddenly turned outward, flying with deceptive speed at the two other gennin.

The girl and the dark haired boy had at least not positioned themselves directly opposite each other so their missed throws would not be impaling their allies, too bad since them having to dodge yet another thing would only have helped Manji. None the less the sweeping of the gleaming sickle blades was enough to force both of them to move even further from the blonde, leaving his, still airborne, form to retreat as Manji yanked his weapon back to his hands and charged forth.

The boy landed and dropped into a crouch as the elder nin approached, Manji noted that he was using a left handed stance and was primed mostly for thrusting attacks, the correct offence jumped readily to his mind. Left handed styles were a byword for styles that gripped the sword at the furthest point down the handle rather than close to the guard, where the left hand would grip in a traditional two handed style rather than styles that simply used the left hand. Whereas simply using the left hand would be no different to using a sword right handed except for the side facing the enemy, gripping the sword in the 'left hand' position (even if you did it with your right hand) gave the wielder an extra six inches of reach – a not inconsequential advantage – and much greater power from each blow than the same strike made with the hand gripping the sword at the 'right hand' position at the cost of a huge portion of the wielder's control of the sword. Even among ninja, who had the option of using chakra to compensate for that loss, the technique of left handed wielding was very uncommon.

The combination with a thrusting style, the strongest force that can be exerted by the upper body in one motion, made it clear that the boy preferred speedy strikes with little potential to do coincidental damage but high probability of destroying the body part that was struck, for a ninja this meant more frequent killing and crippling blows early on in the battle. This style clearly took every part of 'traditional' swordsmanship that was meant to kill quickly and without fuss and accentuated them to the peak at the cost of also accentuating the traditional weaknesses of the sword.

Receiving the strong with the soft Manji gently shifted the point of the blade off course, getting in close long before the follow up could be made Manji capitalised, swinging the blade he hadn't used to block in toward the boy's exposed ribs too bad this child would never get to learn the folly of his mistake and gain the experience needed to beat a real opponent. It was really too bad that such an interesting swordsman should die so young, but in a choice between the future he and his student fought for and that this boy may or may not have he knew where the greatest importance lay.

The boy's audacious stance left an area where his enemy was too close to attack freely which was much wider than that of a more conventional sword style and he would pay blood for that. Of course, when one deals with ninja the unexpected is always on the cards and the incoming sickle blade was stopped the only way the blonde could, against his hastily raised forearm. There wasn't even the spray of blood that usually came with someone deciding that a wound incapacitating one arm was better than a fatal one. What was there was the disheartening clang of steel hitting steel, clearly the boy wasn't as inexperienced as he at first seemed. Certainly he was apparently experienced enough to tie kunai to his free arm in case he couldn't block with his sword at least.

But nor was Manji inexperienced enough to rely completely on his initial gamble. He simply abandoned the left hand grip of mumei, with a twist of his hand the tiny blade called kotengu, the little devil, seemed to leap into his now free hand and he thrust it out, barb first toward his adversary's chest. He didn't expect a killing blow after the previous exchange and he wasn't disappointed when the boy slipped away from his strike at the throat, but with the flaring of his yukata sleeves his sudden turn toward the closest shoulder was hidden from view until too late. First the long barb bit into the muscle along the chest, running bellow the surface of the skin and sticking then the straight blade was twisted forward and impaled directly into the joint of the boy's sword arm shoulder.

There he may not be dead but with the barb sticking he wouldn't be getting the blade out soon and with a destroyed sword arm he would be little threat when he did. Manji moved on to the other male, whose movements revealed that he didn't deal well with close range and preferred to execute sneaky attacks from hiding, some would say a 'proper ninja'.

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A pair of shuriken flashed in the afternoon light, thrown in sync by a pair of ninja wearing leaf hitai-ate and followed in an instant by a pair of kunai. The shuriken each pinned a link of the chain to a separate tree and the kunai each pierced the hole at the centre of a star, locking it completely beyond the ability of a mere strong pull to dislodge.

Shino charged, preparing for close combat to retrieve his ally before a killing blow could be landed, beside him ran Ino, already forming seals to launch a torrent of pretty lights. The enemy was looking to the right, apparently distracted, that meant he had spotted the 'true' Shino in the trees. Of course the ploy of having a clone hide while the real version charges isn't exactly unheard of in the wide world of the shinobi and Shino held little doubt that a nin with so much experience would see through it and realise which Shino was real. He could only really hope that in his uncertainty the missing nin would chose to strike at the more definite target, Ino.

With her wall of floating lights the attacking nin would have to be more careful since he still didn't know that the lights were really a harmless distraction and that extra care would slow him enough for Shino to land a telling blow.

Just as predicted the aged shinobi suddenly turned his eyes on the kunoichi, drawing two katana from somewhere in his robes that should not have been able to hold even the weapons he had already yanked from them. With a snap he locked the blades together at their hilts, forming a sort of bladed staff. A voulge, with a helicopter spinning motion he brought about his enormous cutting disk and simply stepped through the balls of chakra barring his way and swung at her abdomen.

Damn, he apparently had realised that the light balls were a ruse and chose to ignore them. Preparing a replacement technique Shino launched himself in the path of the blade, as it struck the Aburame heir activated his jutsu, replacing himself with the clone who was currently moving to recover Naruto.

Grasping the blade piercing it's stomach as close to the hilt as possible the decomposing clone made sure to spray it's bugs as far over the swordsman as possible. Once more he released a burst of boiling chakra and once more the bugs died around him, but also once more he was forced to abandon a weapon because of their presence.

As Shino helped Naruto to his feet the enemy seemed to grow enraged, drawing another pair of swords, this time a short blade of perhaps a foot in length with three huge barbs along it's length, one near the base and one at the tip on the front of the blade and one halfway on the blade's reverse edge. In his left he clutched an equally short stabbing sword, with wide serrations along it's length to increase the collateral damage of each thrust and a wickedly sharp point at it's tip. He thrust with full rage at Ino.

The gennin kunoichi screamed and nearly fell on her rump in terror at the sudden ferocity, launching one more ball in her panic. It may be that her enemy's realisation that her light balls were a ruse that saved her, as he ignored the blast he could otherwise have evaded with ease and thrust his blade forward he was affected by a different chakra than the light chakra that normally filled the balls, this blast was packed full of mental chakra that the girl had learned to use almost instinctively due to her family's specialty. Where it would normally force a mind out of control of a body this half formed chakra merely released conscious control of the body part it hit. Fortunately this happened to be the arm holding the incoming serrated blade and the nin dropped his precious weapon in surprise.

Then Naruto came from behind, screaming to cover his pain and wielding his sword rather unsteadily in his off hand he thrust. The arm Ino hit was not quite fast enough to recover from it's first blow and the tapezius muscle along the top of the shoulder was severed, moving the arm up scale from temporarily disabled to out of commission completely.

With a howl the nin spun on the spot, delivering a fierce back kick to the hilt of his smallest weapon still protruding from Naruto's shoulder, the blonde went down in a screaming, private world of agony.

Behind him came Shino with a vicious backhand blow to the nin's face, dropping him to the mossy floor of the forest. As he fell the aged master slammed out his occupied hand, the hooked monstrosity of a blade sank deeply into the bug user's upper arm, going all the way through and sticking with all three barbs.

With his enemies suitably distracted he took the chance to draw his last normal katana and slam the hilt into the girl's throat, though he no longer had the strength to close the throat and kill her as tired as he was it was still enough to leave her choking and coughing on the ground as he scurried to find a hiding place where he could catch his breath and re-evaluate the situation.

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Shino made a spot judgement. Ino had fallen unconscious from lack of oxygen, but the sudden cease to her struggles also freed up a lot of the muscles in her throat and she was not breathing normally, she should be up in a short time. Naruto had pulled the dagger from his shoulder, worsening the damage to a level that most would never recover from, and was currently a writhing spasm of pain on the dirt. Knowing the incredible level of healing capacity that his team mate had exhibited in the past Shino estimated that he would be back to normal fighting capacity in two to four hours.

The two were now out of the battle and Shino was alone, on one hand he could give chase and hope to catch the elder missing nin while he still had the stamina advantage and risk leaving his team mates open to finishing blows or he could stick with them and try to hold a defensive position and risk his enemy not attacking them and thus having time to recover. If he chose to wait and the older nin didn't try to finish Naruto and Ino then the recovery of his stamina would probably spell Shino's own death. But if he gave chase and the nin circled back then he would be sacrificing his closest friends.

There really was only one right choice, he had no idea of how he would tell which was which before it became too late but he made the choice his training had conditioned him to make properly. His enemy would want to ensure survival to aid his apprentice more than he wanted to finish a few gennin. And his enemy didn't realise that he had managed to place a female Kikaichuu.

Shino gave chase.

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Explaining-ness –

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Kisame of the seven swords – because he isn't widely known as kisame of the akatsuki because ... well they don't advertise

Manji the twelve blades – that was manji's (the manji from blade of the immortal who I am basing this character on) nickname before he became known as the killer of one hundred, which is in turn before he became immortal.

Kessennashi Manji – lit: manji without kessen(chu), kessenchu (holy blood worms) are what make manji from blade of the immortal ... immortal.

Mumei – looks like a pair of nunchucks with sickle blades attached to the handles (not the normal combat sickles, recurved ones like on the soviet flag) the handles hide and extra seven feet of chain which can be let out by pressing a locking mechanism.

Kotengu – little devil, about the size of a kunai with two parallel prongs pointing forward, one of the prongs bends to the side at a right angle half way along it's length forming the barb of this nasty bit of gear. Can be attached to the hilt of a katana to catch and trap enemy blades like a sai. It's actually meant for climbing walls.