A Choice Beneath the Moon

A Choice Beneath the Moon

Shuji and Itachi's figures disappeared down the trade road. One of the gazes watching from the shadows withdrew, and a figure quickly ran back into the village, while several other shadows quietly followed behind.

The boy in dark green ninja gear leaned in the shadow of a zelkova tree, with Itachi crouching silently beside him. The two watched as the pursuers followed Shuji's Shadow Clone, gradually vanishing in the direction of Koizumi Town.

Inside the village chief's residence, the oil lamps burned much brighter than usual. Several influential elders of the village had gathered there. The air was thick with suppressed agitation.

"I said long ago we should report it immediately! The moment those bastards sneaked back, I knew they'd bring disaster down on us sooner or later!" A rough voice was the first to break the silence, filled with anger he could no longer hold back.

At first, the villagers truly had not known exactly what those young people who had left home were doing. Not until news arrived from the Land of Rivers that bandits were being hunted, and the village just so happened to be missing more than a dozen young men. When those people appeared again, the raids flared back up. That coincidence was enough for the key figures of Shirakawa Village to piece together a disturbing truth.

Across from him, a middle-aged man in round glasses pushed up his slipping frames, the lenses reflecting the flicker of lamplight. "When the pursuit team came to ask questions back then, we insisted we knew nothing. Now we change our story and say we did know? What will the officials think?" His voice was not loud, but every word was clear. "Besides, life is a little difficult now, but we can still get by. If outsiders learn that bandits came from our village..."

"Your warehouse is already emptied out, so of course you can talk like it doesn't hurt!" A burly man with a fleshy, hard-set face slammed his palm onto the low table, making the teacups rattle. "My warehouse still has half a year's harvest piled inside! If this keeps going, the whole village will be tightening our belts and living on air!" His eyes were bloodshot with fury.

"Those two ninja... have already guessed it." Shirakawa Kisuke, seated in the main seat, spoke in a dry voice, as if it had taken all his strength to force the words out.

The room fell deathly silent.

Bang! An old man with white hair and beard, Shirakawa Sosuke, slammed his palm onto the tabletop, splashing water from the teacups. His hawk-like gaze swept over everyone, his voice carrying a heavy pressure. "We can't hesitate anymore, Kisuke! They're ninja who accepted a commission!" His bony fingers dug tightly into the edge of the table. "Where are they now?"

Shirakawa Kisuke's lips trembled. "I... I sent someone to notify Koichiro... to have them..." The old man's callused hands clenched the hem of his clothes. "That child... that child was only deceived by outsiders... He was a good child once..."

"Enough!" the burly man cut him off sharply, his voice grinding like gravel. "Koichiro's hands were stained with blood long ago! He stopped being a child long ago! Village chief, if you keep protecting him, are you going to drag the whole village into the grave with him?"

Shirakawa Sosuke slowly stood. His stooped figure cast a huge, swaying shadow beneath the oil lamp, enveloping his younger brother. "Kisuke, this is no longer as simple as a few outsiders dying." His voice was low, like muffled thunder rolling over the ground. "Now that ninja have gotten involved, this must be settled!"

"...We can't hand them over." After a long silence, the middle-aged man in glasses spoke, his voice strained. "And we absolutely can't let outsiders know that people from Shirakawa Village did it."

"Then what are you suggesting?!" The burly man whipped his head around, a vicious light flashing in his eyes.

Shirakawa Sosuke slowly closed his eyes, the wrinkles on his face carved deep as knife marks in the lamplight. "After the Warring States Period ended, this trade road finally began to prosper, and only then did we get to live a few decent days." He opened his eyes again, and they were already like a lake sealed in ice. "The village's reputation is our lifeline. Every household relies on the caravans to eat."

"Kisuke, you will cooperate."

"Brother, but..."

"No buts!"

The faint words of protest were completely swallowed by the crackle of the oil lamp's wick, finally turning into several heavy, suffocating sighs. When the villager responsible for keeping watch ran over again and confirmed that the two ninja had indeed left the village's perimeter, the air in the room seemed to freeze in an instant, then violently began to move again. No one spoke anymore. Quickly and silently, they scattered, melting into the village night.

Before long, at the threshing ground, more than forty young and able-bodied villagers had gathered under the cold moonlight. What they held in their hands were no longer farm tools, but weapons glinting with cold light—sickles sharpened to a keen edge, pitchforks bristling with sharp tines, and strong bows gripped tightly by hunters, their strings already drawn taut. Every familiar face from ordinary days was now pulled tight.

Shirakawa Sosuke stood at the very front of the group, with Shirakawa Kisuke beside him. Behind them were several shoulder-loads of wine and meat. Moonlight flowed like water, drawing out long, twisted shadows from the silent group and those cold blade tips, winding toward the depths of the mountain forest. Only heavy breathing and the occasional soft clink of weapons remained in the air.

This was not an age of true peace. Only fifty-four years had passed since the Warring States Period ended, and in that era, ninja had been far from the only ones conscripted onto the battlefield. The white-haired Shirakawa Sosuke was a survivor who had crawled out from that mountain of corpses and sea of blood, and he knew how to command a slaughter. Like a silent serpent, the group followed the old man and moved wordlessly toward the great mountain behind the village.

"Did you anticipate this, senior?" Itachi's voice rang out from the shadows of the trees, breaking the silence. His pupils reflected the moving line of people below the mountain.

Shuji leaned against the tree trunk and slowly shook his head, shadows casting deep darkness over his face.

"I thought of several possibilities. After reaching an internal consensus, they might confess to us and request secrecy."

"Some of them might tip the others off out of personal feelings."

"They might descend into chaos first... This was the only outcome I didn't account for."

He looked at the cold glints flashing beneath the moonlight below the mountain. Those were honest neighbors, uncles and elders on normal days. "For the village's reputation, to preserve their livelihoods, they chose to act themselves."

An indescribably complicated feeling churned in his chest. Were these villagers too reckless? Or was his understanding of the true color of this world far too shallow?

"However, it is also the correct choice." Itachi's voice sounded, calm to the point of near indifference, forming a jarring contrast with his age of eight.

He watched the group disappear into the dark mountain forest. "For them to personally put an end to the evil bred by their own village counts as atonement, and it also preserves the village's foundation to the greatest extent."

Shuji turned his head slightly, his gaze falling on Itachi's still-childish face, which held not the slightest ripple of emotion.

Under the moonlight, those black eyes were bottomless.

It seemed that, in the end, his own understanding of this world was still too naive. He looked away and once more turned his gaze toward the mountain forest, whose savage outline was traced by moonlight.

Halfway up the mountain stood a hidden settlement enclosed by a natural cave and simple wooden palisades. Only two people were lazily guarding the fire at the entrance. When they saw village chief Shirakawa Kisuke appear on the mountain path with six people carrying shoulder-loads, not only did they show no wariness, they even greeted him with familiar smiles.

"Village chief! Why did you come up here yourself? And you brought so many things!" One of them was Koichiro.

His face carried the vitality unique to young people, and he even moved affectionately to take the carrying pole from the village chief's shoulder, as if merely welcoming an elder he had not seen in a long time.

Shirakawa Kisuke stopped with heavy steps. On his deeply wrinkled face, he squeezed out an extremely forced smile, looking especially old and exhausted under the leaping firelight. "Koichiro... down below... people came to investigate again, and it wasn't a small commotion. You all... really don't plan to leave for a while and avoid the trouble?"

"Oh, village chief! Didn't we already promise you long ago?" Koichiro waved a hand, looking utterly unconcerned, even carrying a hint of youthful pride.

"We know what we're doing! We only rob those passing foreign profiteers, and we absolutely don't touch regular customers who have dealings with our village! Those black-hearted merchants deserve to be robbed! You can rest completely easy!"

Koichiro craned his neck to look at the wine jars and slabs of meat visible in the shoulder-loads, his eyes brightening and his smile growing even more radiant. "You even specially brought so many good things to see us! Wait here, I'll go call Big Brother Shin'ya! He was just grumbling that the wine wasn't strong enough!"

The muscles on Shirakawa Kisuke's face twitched uncontrollably.

That outsider they called "big brother"! It was this man named Shin'ya who, with sweet words and so-called "carefree days," had completely bewitched Koichiro, the child he had watched grow up, the once most sensible and hardworking child!

A torrent of anger, grief, and despair instantly washed away the last bit of support left in his stooped body.

He knew that at this very moment, here in this mountain forest illuminated by moonlight, some things had already become like an arrow loosed from the string, never to return.