If it were a head-on encounter, he might have had a chance against Orochimaru, but this was a carefully planned ambush by Orochimaru, with multiple methods prepared. Furthermore, his chakra was suppressed by Orochimaru's snake venom, and he was no longer a match for Orochimaru.
Mifune was tightly entangled by Kakuzu and unable to escape.
"Mifune-sensei, if you are willing to hand over the Kusanagi Sword to me, then... um?"
Orochimaru suddenly paused.
The next instant, a scythe wrapped in chains descended from the sky.
Orochimaru's head was instantly chopped off by the scythe.
On the other side, a dazzling bright blue blade light flashed,
Kakuzu's body was also instantly cut open by Shimizu, even sliced into several pieces.
And the blade light continued towards Mifune with undiminished momentum.
"Clang! ~"
The refined ninja sword newly exchanged in Shimizu's hand collided with the Kusanagi Sword in Mifune's hand, emitting a clear sword sound.
Mifune revealed a look of horror, his figure retreated violently, and he crashed heavily into the wall, spitting out a mouthful of blood.
On the other side, Orochimaru tore apart his remaining body and crawled out of his headless corpse, covered in mucus, looking at the Kusanagi Sword that had already fallen into Hanzo's hands, his face gloomy.
He had been schemed against!
The sudden attacks of the two old schemers caught everyone off guard.
"Damn it!"
Black threads surged, and Kakuzu looked at Shimizu, cursing.
One of his water-style hearts had been pierced by Shimizu!
"Orochimaru, thirty million taels is not enough for me to help you snatch the Kusanagi Sword again!"
Kakuzu's implication was either add more money, or he would withdraw.
If it was just dealing with the two from the Land of Iron, he wouldn't have a problem, but adding these two who had just arrived, the difficulty had increased more than twofold.
Hanzo had been a force to be reckoned with in the ninja world for many years, known as the pinnacle of the ninja world, an absolute peak Kage-level figure.
And Shimizu had already been recognized by Kakuzu.
A rising star from a ninja village like him would definitely have a bounty placed on him by opposing ninja villages, and the bounty amount was often not low.
If he were an easy target, Kakuzu wouldn't mind earning some extra money, but judging from his performance of breaking through one of his hearts with that one strike just now, and repelling Mifune, Shimizu's strength was definitely very strong, and it wouldn't be an exaggeration to overestimate him.
"Orochimaru, in recent years, your strength has improved quite a bit."
Hanzo held the chained scythe in one hand and the Kusanagi Sword in the other, standing on the wall, looking down at Orochimaru, just like back then, when he stood on top of Ibuse, the Salamander, and bestowed the title upon the Sannin with disdain.
"Hmph, what will become of you in a few more years? Hanzo, even you cannot resist the great power of time."
Orochimaru sneered, looking at Hanzo with eyes as cold as a poisonous snake.
"There will always be young people who stand up. Old guys like me just need to pave the way for the young people while we still have time."
Hanzo said to Orochimaru with a very open-minded look.
Orochimaru did not answer, but decisively bit his thumb and summoned a giant purple snake.
"Orochimaru, this time I will…"
"Two hundred, help me stall for a while."
Orochimaru did not stand on top of Manda's head, but instead had Manda surround him as a cover.
"Three hundred!"
"If you don't help me get through this trouble, you won't get even one."
Orochimaru said coldly, reaching out to form a hand seal, splitting off a shadow clone, and then the clothes on his main body fell off, and he transformed into countless small snakes scurrying away.
The shadow clone also summoned countless snakes, cooperating with Manda to indiscriminately attack the surroundings.
He was running away, and Manda was left behind to block the enemy's pursuit.
When Manda couldn't hold on any longer, he would release the Summoning Jutsu and return to Ryuchi Cave.
Orochimaru fled very decisively, and Hanzo did not summon Ibuse, the Salamander, to assist in the battle either.
The sword was already in his hands, so there was no need to look for trouble again.
And just as decisively as Orochimaru ran away, was Kakuzu.
He had no choice but to run, he had lost another heart!
"Swordsmanship · Reppūzan!"
The sharp sword qi cut open the Riryu with difficulty, and Mifune gripped the Kusanagi Sword tightly with both hands, gasping for breath.
He had exchanged a move with Hanzo many years ago, so for many years he had been chasing Hanzo as his goal.
But at this moment, fighting with Shimizu, the feeling the other party gave him was even more terrifying than Hanzo!
Mifune felt that even if he were to face Hanzo at his peak, he wouldn't be in such a sorry state!
Superb swordsmanship, stronger attacks, and precognitive prediction!
Mifune had a feeling that his swordsmanship was being deciphered by the other party, so he could only constantly change his moves, speed up the speed of his attacks, and with the sharpness of the Kusanagi Sword, he could barely parry Shimizu.
"Very impressive!"
Shimizu couldn't help but take a second look at this middle-aged samurai.
In the original timeline, when Mifune, at the age of sixty-five, participated in the Fourth Shinobi World War, he was able to fight evenly with the Edo Tensei Hanzo, and in the end, he rekindled Hanzo's faith, allowing Hanzo to forcibly break free from Kabuto's Edo Tensei.
Even if that was a Hanzo who had lost his spirit, Mifune was already quite old at that time.
It should be known that samurai and ninjas have essential differences.
Although both have chakra, the former generally does not use ninjutsu in battle like ninjas, but relies more on ninjutsu centered on physical fitness - in the ninja world, swordsmanship is also a type of nintaijutsu.
Therefore, the physical condition has a much greater impact on samurai than on ninjas.
No matter how much Mifune insists on training and maintaining his body, his physical fitness at the age of sixty-five will definitely not be comparable to that of his middle age.
From Shimizu's point of view, Mifune's current combat power is roughly at the middle to upper level of Kage-level.
He is a bit weaker than the current Five Kage, who can have peak Kage-level strength, but other than that, not many people can be stronger than him.
A master of this level can be killed, but it is not easy to kill, it would be quite troublesome.
And don't forget that there is also a Hanzo next to him.
Although Sunagakure and Amegakure are currently allied, and Shimizu and Hanzo had agreed to join forces in advance, the binding force of alliances is actually limited.
Before the alliance between Amegakure and Sunagakure, it was Konoha that was allied with it!
After seeing that Konoha could not help Amegakure achieve victory, Hanzo's speed in changing camps was very fast.
Now, just the benefit of a Kusanagi Sword is not enough for Hanzo to abandon his alliance with Sunagakure, which is currently one of the top two powers in the ninja world, but it is always necessary to be prepared.
Not to mention Kakuzu and Orochimaru who just ran away.
These two must have left behind some means to monitor what is happening here, in case Shimizu and Hanzo might have a falling out due to unequal distribution of spoils, or the two Land of Iron samurai want to fight to the death and drag people down with them.
If you ask Shimizu why he is so clear, it is of course because he has already noticed the methods arranged by these two.
Not far away, several small white snakes were hiding underground, their snake eyes peeking out.
Further away, a thin, almost imperceptible black line stretched into the distance.
Kakuzu was a contemporary of the First Kage of various villages, and having lived for so many years, he must have developed many methods. Orochimaru is also a man of deep thought and many tricks. It is not surprising that the two of them have such methods.
What if they have other ideas?
Shimizu, with one hand gripping the ninja sword with already slightly chipped edges, unleashed two more slashes, suppressing Mifune even more thoroughly.
"Clang! ~"
Another sword clang.
Without error, one head, one hair, one inside, one face, one look!
"Are you going to continue fighting? Lord Mifune, perhaps you can continue to wear me down for a while, but Lord Suikawa may not be able to withstand Orochimaru's snake venom."
A look of hesitation appeared on Mifune's face.
Shimizu, however, took the initiative to stop at this moment, taking a step back.
The expression on Mifune's face became even more hesitant at this moment.
But Shimizu took the initiative in front of Mifune, using his hand to cut open the back of his hand, revealing a deep wound that could see the bone.
Then he quickly cast a Mystical Palm Technique.
If he didn't cast it, this small wound would heal on its own.
In just under a second, the wound healed and recovered, as smooth as new, without leaving a trace of a scar.
Hanzo's eyes narrowed slightly.
"Your medical ninjutsu has surpassed your old hag teacher. In my experience, even Tsunade-hime wouldn't heal wounds on the battlefield faster than you with medical ninjutsu."
"That's right, just as Senior Hanzo said, I am a pretty good medical ninja."
Shimizu said confidently.
He had just used his own body to demonstrate.
But in reality, Shimizu's medical ninjutsu level already belonged to the top ranks in the ninja world.
Hanzo's statement that Shimizu's medical ninjutsu surpassed Chiyo was not an exaggeration.
In specific fields, Shimizu's medical ninjutsu had already surpassed Chiyo's, especially in medical ninjutsu like the Creation Rebirth technique, which required extremely meticulous perception down to the cellular level, and also had to be combined with a huge amount of chakra to be performed. Shimizu could do it better than Chiyo.
In this regard, even Tsunade might not be as fast as Shimizu, because the Creation Rebirth technique consumed too much chakra.
Basically, multiple Jonin-level medical ninjas need to join forces to construct a magic circle in order to barely perform a reduced version of the Creation Rebirth technique, the Healing Rebirth technique.
Currently, there are only two people in the ninja world who can perform this technique alone.
Tsunade has both Senju and Uzumaki bloodlines, and is also the granddaughter of the First Hokage. Her chakra reserves are naturally huge, so she can barely perform this ninjutsu, but if she wants to use it multiple times, or for a long time, she has to open the Yin Seal and perform the Strength of a Hundred Seal technique.
Before the stored chakra is exhausted, she can have an immortal body that instantly heals all wounds.
Shimizu is simple, purely because he has a lot of chakra and recovers quickly.
The Perfect Oni Transformation body gives him the same super-strong physical recovery ability, huge chakra reserves, and incredibly fast chakra recovery ability as Hashirama Senju, who possesses the Sage Body.
For himself, he almost doesn't need the Creation Rebirth technique.
Before all the energy stored in his body is exhausted, he can regenerate his body indefinitely. For others, he can also perform the Creation Rebirth technique multiple times in a row.
The amount of chakra alone innately disqualifies the vast majority of people in the ninja world from learning the Creation Rebirth technique.
Those who have this amount of chakra are either Tailed Beast Jinchuriki, or like Tsunade, have innate advantages such as bloodlines. The total number added together will not exceed twenty people.
Apart from Shimizu and Tsunade, either their chakra reserves are there, but their medical ninjutsu level is too far behind, or like Chiyo, their medical ninjutsu level is there, and they can even perform forbidden techniques that can revive people, such as the Reanimation Jutsu, but they just don't have such a huge amount of chakra.
Of course, in terms of pharmacology, poison making, detoxification, and handling various rare and strange intractable diseases, Shimizu still has a considerable gap from Chiyo and Tsunade.
"General Suikawa, not only can I detoxify you, but I can also heal the hidden injuries you have accumulated over the years. I think you should have noticed it too. The speed at which your body is declining is far beyond your expectations. If you don't treat it in time, I think in two or three years, Mr. Mifune can become the new General."
Shimizu turned his head again and looked at Suikawa on the other side.
This man is now covering his wound, holding a spare wakizashi short sword, and staring at Hanzo warily.
"These hidden injuries are all thanks to Hanzo!"
The shadow that Hanzo left on him and these samurai of the Land of Iron back then was indeed a bit too big, and it had even become PTSD.
Seeing Suikawa like this, Hanzo was still at ease.
Although I beat you up badly back then, and now I've also beaten the Kusanagi Sword, what's it to me?
Isn't it still because you're weak?
"Sigh..."
Mifune reluctantly put down the Kusanagi Sword, and together with the scabbard, threw it to Shimizu.
"This sword is yours, Your Excellency. Both you and Mr. Hanzo are swordsmen whose swordsmanship is above mine, and are more worthy of a divine sword like the Kusanagi Sword. I also hope that this friend from Sunagakure can keep his promise."
Shimizu took the Kusanagi Sword with a sword guard in one hand, and looked up and down a few times.
The sword body is slender and straight, the weight is moderate, and the center of gravity is stable. It is very easy to use, absolutely a good sword.
It's just that the hilt and sword guard are a bit too old. It can be seen that Mifune and his samurai have carefully restored it, but the craftsmanship is mediocre. Although the feel is good, there are still some slight flaws.
This is just a small problem. Shimizu can go back and hand-craft a new set, and according to the weight, length, center of gravity, and shape of the sword body, he can use mathematical tools to create the most perfect hilt and sword guard.
"Very good."
Shimizu inserted the Kusanagi Sword back into its scabbard and walked towards Suikawa.
Suikawa moved his gaze away from the life-and-death enemy Hanzo, looked at Shimizu, then looked at Mifune who shook his head helplessly at him, and finally nodded, and finally sighed.
"Whatever you guys want, Mifune, this is your idea, so you might as well make all the decisions in the future. From tomorrow onwards, you will be the General of the Land of Iron."
Mifune's face was filled with guilt. He just wanted to open his mouth, but was interrupted by Suikawa.
"Don't make noise, let the doctor detoxify and heal me! I still want to live a few more years, and I'm too lazy to take care of these trivial matters!"
