No one knew where Katō would be next.
The way of the ninja is gathering information, ensuring survival with endurance of physical and psychological pressure having patience with adaptability through any means such as deception, disguise, and unconventional weapons. The main aim is spiritual refinement to overcome fear, greed, ego, and cultivate calmness of mind a concept known as Fudoshin.
The five natural elements are used to hide or escape: earth, water, fire, wood, and metal.
The 18 skills that are attributable to the ninjas way:
Skills 1 to 3: Spiritual refinement, including self-cultivation, meditation, self-knowledge, and endurance. Skills of unarmed combat (striking, grappling, silent movement, and falling). Sword techniques (straight blade and other sword styles).
Skills 4 to 6: Staff fighting (with different types of staffs). These techniques are frequently used to defend against attackers with weapons like swords or knives. Throwing blades, whether ninja stars shurikens, daggers, stilleto’s etc. Spear techniques used for hooking onto trees, traversing obstacles or as tools for hiding.
Skills 7 to 9: Halberd techniques, used for deception, distance management and striking. Chain and Sickle used for distance, entrapment, and swift, lethal counters to disarm or incapacitate opponents. These are weapons of different natures and styles that the ninja is familiar with and practices with to enable an advantage for himself over the enemy.
Skills 10 to 12: Use of fire and explosives for distraction or evasiveness, or even spreading turmoil. Disguise and Impersonation, changing appearance, voice, and behavior. Adaptability of seven disguises to blend into society. Stealth and infiltration, entering, navigating, and exiting enemy territory silently.
Skills 13 to 15: Horsemanship, riding, caring for, and fighting from a horse. Water training, silent swimming, diving, and hiding in the water. Strategy, misleading the enemy, understanding political and unconventional tactics.
Skills 16 to 18: Espionage, gathering information, psychology, and recruiting informants.
Escaping, concealment, hiding in nature, and retreating when required to win. Meteorology, understanding weather conditions for timing and planning missions. Use of geography, knowing the terrain, the maps, and the tactical advantage one can obtain by knowing the territory, or the environment.
The ninja that you see may be the enduring aspects of why he sees and is seen by others: silently moving and fighting through the use of intelligent design, natural environments, and knowing oneself and the enemy.
Finding information to survive through combat, gathering knowledge, and silently waiting with patience to elusively move from the apparent to the hidden and gone, to leave only the mark of his presence, the emptiness or the void of existence, a place like the darkness of space where even the scream is inaudible.
The stance of the ninja is the flying Katō, gone but never forgotten. The ninja that knows the unseen, yet you cannot see Katō and the Tens.
Kato Danzo the Mystical Flying Ninja that endured with honor, romance and the love of the unseen.