Starring:
Date: September 13, 2014
Summary:
After directly encountering the Silence, Sousa publishes some information he and the rest of Sunagakure gleaned from them.
"The Silence - Suna's Observations"
All around the Shinobi Nations
An open letter from the Kazekage has been circulated amongst the nations, primarily to the Great Shinobi Villages, but also to some lesser organizations and even underworld contacts. The letter reads as follows:
From the desk of Kokoroe Sousa, Kazekage of Sunagakure,
To all interested parties,
Greetings.
In recent times there has been much excitement in the shinobi world regarding the group that calls themselves the Silence. They have demanded that all secrets of the shinobi villages be revealed and complete honesty be maintained. In the spirit of this ideal, I now wish to share with you the observations that Sunagakure has made about the Silence themselves during our contact with them.
Membership of the Silence, so far as we are able to determine from the few wayward souls who became separated from them and remained in our care after their group visited Sunagakure, consists primarily of mercenaries who have been thoroughly and rigidly reeducated. The exact nature of this reeducation is unknown, but it appears quite effective, leaving the tutee capable of thinking about little else than following the ideals of the Silence and the orders of their leaders. Considering the Silence informed us their ranks consist of operatives from other organizations who chose to sever ties based on personal convictions, I find it quite impressive that they managed to inspire such unquestioning devotion.
Regarding the head leaders of the Silence, two men who refer to each other as brothers, they do indeed have formidable combat capability. They appear able to absorb chakra to an astonishing degree, and have used this gift to nullify all ninjutsu used against them thus far observed — for the benefit of those who would like to collect data in an empirical manner, this consisted primarily of wind ninjutsu during their visit to Sunagakure. They are also able to expel the chakra they have gathered in the same nature by which it was absorbed, or transform it into blue flames. While strong, this flame appears to behave in a manner similar to ordinary fire ninjutsu, and can be defended against by avoidance or by sturdy barriers. I suspect water ninjutsu would be effective as well, but have not had an opportunity to test this hypothesis.
While knowing the nature of their abilities should definitely be helpful, the general combat capability of these two (or even one of them alone) is well beyond what even most jounin could realistically compete with. I would recommend a force of at least four elite ninja for any attempt to encounter them. Furthermore, to counteract their ability to absorb and expel ninjutsu, any ninjutsu used against them should be of a nature that can easily be defended against by your group. Use of strong taijutsu would likely be even more ideal, but bear in mind that they are capable of absorbing chakra directly from a person's body, not just from ninjutsu. How well they can defend against genjutsu is currently unknown.
Finally, a few thoughts for future research. The origins of the two brothers is thus far totally unknown, which is quite perplexing. One would expect shinobi of this caliber to have needed formal training, but no record we are able to find tells of anyone having encountered them or their unique capabilities before. Should anyone have such information, of course, I encourage you to share it. Also, one of the brothers said some bemusing things when we encountered them. He referred to adult ninja, including my middle-aged self, as 'kids', and asked his brother whether the centuries had aged him more than they had himself. If this is not simple misdirection, it is likely information which they are confident will not help us, but it is an interesting tidbit to note.
