Sin and Punishment

"Did you kill them all?"

Jaeger looked dazed as he raised his head and stared at the smoking Leaf Village ninja leading the group.

The man had a full beard, rugged features, and a weathered appearance, with a hint of amusement brewing in his eyes.

Jaeger sat there blankly.

How could he not recognize those headbands? He had risked his life to pick them up from the battlefield and give them to nearby refugees, so they could deter bandits.

Asuma took a drag from his cigarette, smiled, and exhaled smoke. "Oh, just a few rogue ninjas."

"They weren't rogue ninjas..." Jaeger said absentmindedly.

"Oh, weren't they?"

Still smiling, Asuma leaned his face close to the thin man's and blew a thick cloud of smoke at him. "Where is your headband?"

Jaeger's pupils widened, and his face turned deathly pale.

Clang—

The veins on the Hyuga Branch Family Jonin's forehead bulged as he activated his Byakugan and inspected the wooden house through his black-and-white vision.

During his sweep,

the Hyuga Branch Family Jonin said disdainfully:

"As refugees, it doesn't matter whether you have rogue ninja headbands on you. Killing you is no great matter.

The Land of Fire has no need for refugees.

If we say you are rogue ninjas,

then you are rogue ninjas!

In the Ninja World,

no matter which country's border you are on, you are nothing but homeless insects.

You are treated as cannon fodder by the major ninja villages.

And used by ninjas as rogue ninjas to claim rewards. Hasn't that always been your fate?"

His words carried the pride of the Hyuga Clan, even though he was merely from a branch family.

Jaeger stared blankly at the ceiling.

"War turned them into refugees. After fleeing here, they never robbed anyone or committed evil. They lived by hunting."

Nonō rose to her feet and spoke coldly.

She drew a kunai from the table and flicked it lightly, cutting through the ropes binding Jaeger and Doctor Nakku.

As Nonō stared at the Leaf Headbands on the four men's foreheads, she suddenly felt that coming from the same ninja village as people who trampled on human lives so casually was an enormous disgrace.

Jaeger remained seated in his chair.

Doctor Nakku, however, hurried behind Nonō. Being a shrewd man, he could naturally tell that this woman had no intention of killing them, while the four Leaf Village ninjas who had just arrived were pure-born killers.

"Who cares?"

The Hyuga Clan jonin raised an eyebrow, ignored Nonō, and headed straight for the kitchen.

Asuma scanned the floor of the wooden house before finally focusing on Nonō.

She looked familiar to him, but he could not remember who she was, so he asked with a smile:

"I didn't expect to run into a ninja here. Which ninja village are you from?"

Although Nonō was well-known, few people had seen the true face of the Wandering Shrine Maiden, even within the Root Organization. That was basic professional conduct for an intelligence operative.

As for her identity as the head of the Konoha Orphanage, who cared? Leaf Village ninjas would not have nothing better to do than visit an orphanage every day.

"My name is Yakushi Nonō. I am a former member of Leaf Village's Root Organization, out on a mission.

How did you find this place?

And what is your purpose?"

Nonō took out her Leaf Headband and a Root Organization mission scroll from her pocket, dropped them onto the table with a smack, and met Asuma's gaze.

Asuma glanced at the headband and mission scroll. His eyes suddenly lit up, and he immediately remembered something. He admitted openly:

"So you are the head of the Konoha Orphanage!

Heh heh.

Sorry.

We have no obligation to tell you the details of our mission."

The moment he heard Nonō's name, Asuma recalled her. He and his colleagues had once discussed the figures of Leaf Village's beautiful female ninjas.

One colleague had praised Nonō as one of the most beautiful and best-built female ninjas in Leaf Village.

At that moment, the Inuzuka Clan ninja forcibly led along his snow-white dog and said with a smile:

"Of course, Yukimaru and I followed the scent of blood all the way here. But this place is seriously remote. It took us forever to find it!"

The five of them had waited by the water route outside Kikyo Castle until well past midnight without seeing Uchiha's deserter squad. They had then waited for reinforcements and spread out across Kikyo Mountain to search.

The ninja dog had caught the scent of human blood.

They guessed that Uchiha's deserter squad had fought somewhere on the mountain.

So their pursuit squad gathered at this mountain stronghold.

"The scent of blood..."

Guilt appeared in Nonō's eyes, and her body trembled slightly. Her accidental act of hunting down actual rogue ninjas and bandits had brought utter disaster upon this refugee settlement.

She also realized that this seemingly well-equipped Leaf Village ninja squad had been pursuing the group that had just escaped.

Nonō glanced at Jaeger, her heart filled with complicated emotions. Since she had made a mistake, she had to find a way to make amends. At the very least, she could not let this family of three die at the hands of Leaf Village ninjas.

Bang—

The Hyuga Clan jonin carried a set of used teacups out of the kitchen and placed them on the table. There were twelve in total.

Asuma, the Inuzuka Clan jonin, and the Akimichi Clan jonin examined the teacups.

Jaeger noticed something as well. His pupils trembled, and he snapped back to his senses.

"Woof! Woof!" Yukimaru barked twice at the teacups, then hid beside his master's legs, visibly uneasy.

"Yukimaru is saying that twelve people used these teacups."

The Inuzuka Clan jonin explained with a smile.

Asuma pushed a teacup in front of Jaeger. "One cup belongs to the hosts, leaving eleven. It seems our intelligence was wrong. This rogue ninja squad has eleven people, not just ten."

"I ask. You answer!"

With his Byakugan active, the Hyuga Clan jonin observed Jaeger's facial expressions and asked indifferently:

"Which direction did those eleven people flee?"

Jaeger's mind raced. Without giving it much thought, he raised his hand and pointed south.

"They went that way!"

He did not know the full situation.

But he knew that if Yinyue Captain had escaped from Leaf Village, then he absolutely could not point east, where Leaf Village was located.

The Hyuga Clan jonin frowned and drove a heavy kick into Jaeger's abdomen, sending both him and his chair flying into the wall before they crashed to the ground.

Jaeger clenched his teeth, held his stomach, and braced himself against the wall as sweat poured down his forehead.

"Ah..."

Jaeger's wife cried out and tried to shield her husband, but before the thought had fully formed, one kunai rested against her neck while another pointed at the swaddled baby in her arms.

The Hyuga Clan jonin appeared behind her, two kunai held steadily in the air. He said softly, "Don't move. If you move, all of you die."

Nonō's pupils contracted. She clenched her fists and silently waited for the best opportunity to strike.

Doctor Nakku had already crouched in the corner, trembling uncontrollably.

Judging by these ninjas' movement techniques and methods, they would be considered strong even in Leaf Village.

"Four Konoha Jonin..."

Nonō's expression turned grave as she stared straight at the four men, feeling enormous pressure.

She thought to herself, Just who were the people who stole my bathtub, to warrant Leaf Village sending a pursuit squad of this level after them?

Asuma turned a blind eye to the scene. The Hyuga Clan jonin he had brought along had once served in the Torture Department.

Morino Ibiki had dismissed him because his interrogation methods were too cruel.

"Don't try to play tricks. I can tell from your facial expressions whether you are lying. I will not waste words with you. There are four directions. South is eliminated."

The Hyuga Clan jonin said coldly:

"Of the remaining three directions, only one is correct. If you lie, I will casually kill one person!

You only have two chances!

Once those chances are gone, you die."