After dying so many times during my last attempt and still feeling like I didn't fully understand the combat system, I decided I needed to figure it all out before moving on. I went to the area where we fought a bit last time and kept running through all those enemies around the giant to practice. After doing that for what felt like forever, I decided to finally move on. I quickly ran into some people who told me about some kind of fiery weapon that they had heard rumors about. I wanted to find out more, so I went and checked some other let's plays of the game to see how I should proceed. I found out that there is another place you can go to through the Buddha statue in the temple. I went there and eventually made it to the Hirata estate, where I found not one, but two Shinobi tools. Everything went really well, actually, and I feel pretty good about my combat skills now. It's going to be fun to move from here and test my skills against the next bosses. See you all then!
I hope you like the video and please let me know your thoughts in the comments!