The Ninja Assassin -

As Kaito stepped back into the rain, the first light of dawn bled over the mountains. Behind him, Lord Oda Hidetora screamed—not from pain, but from the understanding that he would never hold a sword, a chopstick, or a seal of power again. His clan would devour him within a week.

He threw the kusarigama .

He raised the kusarigama . The chain began to swing in a slow, hypnotic circle. the ninja assassin

Kuro roared and swung the nodachi. The greatsword sheared through a cedar pillar as if it were reeds. Kaito backflipped, landing on the blade itself for a fraction of a second before launching himself at Kuro’s face. His fingers found pressure points—temples, throat, the hollow behind the ear. Kuro’s eyes went wide, then blank. The giant crumpled like an empty robe.

Kaito said nothing. He had not spoken a word in three years. His voice had burned away with his village. As Kaito stepped back into the rain, the

Kaito’s target was Lord Oda Hidetora, a warlord who had paid the Koga handsomely to destroy the Iga. Hidetora believed himself untouchable, surrounded by a hundred samurai guards in his fortified villa. He did not know that walls were merely suggestions to a man who had trained to walk on rice paper without tearing it.

The chain wrapped around the sake cup, yanking it from Hidetora’s hand. The warlord’s eyes widened. Kaito closed the distance in two strides, his left hand seizing Hidetora’s jaw, his right drawing the tanto—his mother’s blade—from his belt. He threw the kusarigama

For three years, the world believed the Iga were extinct, burned out of their mountain stronghold by the rival Koga clan. But Kaito had survived the fire. He had crawled from the ashes clutching his mother’s tanto blade, his ears still ringing with the screams of his sensei. The Koga had made one fatal error: they had left a child alive.