On the 142nd day, Kenshin received good news from Third and Fourth. Both of his sons, through long training, learned to perform a joint technique.
Standing in the gym, he watched an incredible scene. Two of his sons synchronously formed hand seals and then shouted:
"Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu!" And instead of releasing one fireball each, they formed one giant ball one and a half meters in size, which a second later rushed toward the wooden mannequin but was stopped by an invisible barrier. After half a second of furious barrier flickering, the reduced to half a meter fireball broke the defense and burned the wooden mannequin to ash.
"No way! Even my best protection formation could not fully absorb all the damage…" Kenshin muttered and approached the mannequin, barely withstanding the remaining heat. He scraped with a long iron pole and found a half-melted amulet on which the formation was applied.
Even Ichiro was quite surprised by the power of the two younger brothers. He believed that if the technique application was accelerated, it would become an incredibly formidable weapon in the hands of the Nakayama family.
"Ichiro, train with Third and Fourth. You must learn to create a triple fireball." Kenshin ordered, and all three unconditionally obeyed his will.
Before leaving the gym, he decided to look at his children's "status" and see the degree of their progress.
(Statuses as in the original text)
*****
144th day.
Two figures of strong men quickly rushed through the forest, jumping from tree to tree, and after half an hour one sharply stopped and said to the other:
"Stop, Izao. This place is perfect. We'll lie low, stay here for a few weeks until the noise dies down. In these mountains they definitely won't find us."
"You're right, Toru. After what we did in that city, a punitive squad from Konoha probably set out after us. We definitely need to lie low!" replied the broad-shouldered black-haired man dressed in black pants and a black t-shirt with a gray vest full of pockets thrown over.
The two men quickly headed to the nearest mountain, but suddenly Izao noticed something strange out of the corner of his eye and stopped sharply.
"Look, there's a potato field!" he said in surprise to his comrade.
"You're imagining things. There can't be potato fields here." Toru shook his head but still looked in the right direction and froze in surprise.
The two comrades rushed to the potato field, and ten seconds later both were turning large potatoes in their hands.
"Hm, really potatoes. But who planted them in such a wilderness? Need to check, maybe someone lives nearby!" Izao said with an evil smirk and, separating from his comrade, began inspecting the entire area.
An hour later they concluded that someone definitely lived in this place or even lives to this day. Having explored all the nearest caves, they found nothing but were not upset at all. Collecting a sack of potatoes and finding two snares with live hares, they chose one of the caves and decided to set up a temporary base there.
"Judging by the snares and potato field, in a day or two we'll meet the 'owner' of all this splendor and see what he's like!" Toru said with a laugh and bit off a large piece of meat from the hind leg of a fried hare.
*****
Kenshin immediately noticed the intrusion of two strangers and hoped they were just passing by. But when they approached the potato field, he instantly transmitted a combat readiness command to his sons. They had practiced the enemy intrusion scenario many times, so they quickly came to combat readiness and waited for orders.
Kenshin clearly saw all the movements of the strangers but with a slight delay. The information coming to his brain was similar to echolocation, without colors and precise images, only barely recognizable outlines.
When the uninvited guests began rummaging through every cave, Kenshin realized that conflict was most likely unavoidable and feared that the strangers would somehow find the entrance to the hideout in an unseen way, and when one of them entered that very cave, Kenshin held his breath, mentally ordering all sons to be ready for battle, but after a few seconds finally exhaled. The stranger wandered around the cave, noticed nothing, and went outside.
When the two strangers finally stole two hares and a sack of potatoes and then hid in one of the caves, Kenshin recalled his sons and ordered them to train harder and improve the combined fireball technique as much as possible, while he began thinking about a plan to eliminate the enemies.
That they were enemies — he had no doubt. From their behavior he understood that these were definitely not Konoha shinobi who were on a mission and decided to spend the night in the mountains. In any case, Kenshin planned to wait at least a few days before making a move. If by ridiculous chance these obvious bandits-looking people were Konoha shinobi, by then they would be obliged to leave.
Based on the observed speed, Kenshin assumed that these two were at least peak Genin or even Chunin. Their speed was slightly higher than Ichiro's speed, so Kenshin hoped that the next day they would leave and never return.
To his deepest regret, the next day they did not go anywhere but began rummaging through the area with even greater diligence. One of them was a Doton user and even collapsed several caves, but then either got bored or it was very difficult, so he spat on collapsing caves and began walking around the area.
Kenshin did not sleep all last night and for a long time tried to come up with a plan, and when he finally came up with one — he began drawing a prototype of the needed formation, replacing key nodes and making corrections to it.
All adult sons of Kenshin trained in the sweat of their brow, trying to prepare for the upcoming battle. His two wives were very worried, and Natsumi even volunteered to participate in the attack on the strangers but was refused.
By lunch of the 146th day, all preparations were ready, and Kenshin planned to act that night.