Battle

Battle

The instant Shin'ya finished his hand seals, the ground beneath his feet suddenly sank. A hand caked in wet mud burst from the earth and clamped around his ankle like iron pincers.

"Damn it!"

His pupils constricted sharply as a tremendous force dragged him downward. The soil swallowed him like a living thing, and in the blink of an eye, only his head remained above the ground.

He watched helplessly as "Shuji," pierced through by Poison Senbon, dissolved into white smoke in the morning breeze.

Earth Release: Double Suicide Decapitation Technique!

And...

A Shadow Clone!

A jonin?!

The soil compressed his body as Shin'ya struggled frantically, but a piercing pain suddenly tore through his waist and abdomen.

"Urgh..." His face twisted. Several hard wooden spikes punctured his internal organs and began growing wildly inside him. Wooden fibers spread through his blood vessels, piercing his organs. With every heartbeat, new branches burst from his wounds.

"Cough—"

Blood spurted out, staining the ground before him red. Scarlet seeped from his seven orifices, droplets trailing down his chin and falling into the dirt.

"Puppet Technique, poisoned senbon, Sunagakure's style." Shuji appeared before Shin'ya's head and looked down at him. "A rogue ninja?"

Shuji's voice remained calm. "What the Shirakawa villagers took was only a fraction, right? Where did you hide the rest? Not on you, it seems."

"Any last words? Like why you deserted? It'll make the report easier to write." Shuji did not seem to care. "Of course, if you don't say anything, I'll just make something up."

As the branches within him bored deeper and shredded him apart, Shin'ya's eyes bulged, bloodshot veins filling them. He desperately opened his mouth, but only bloody foam came out, accompanied by a broken rasp from his throat.

"Too... too..." His hoarse voice scraped like gravel. "Worked so... hard... couldn't... see... hope..."

The sandstorms grew worse with every passing year. Commissions did not increase, yet the Feudal Lord of the Land of Wind kept cutting military funding. War never ended. Meanwhile, weak merchants lived more securely and prosperously than ninja like him.

Why? The strong honed themselves so painfully, yet still struggled on the line between life and death, while ordinary people could enjoy peace... It was unbearable...

He had fled the village amid the chaos of the Third Shinobi World War. He patiently waited for the Anbu sent to confirm his death to leave, waited for the heat to die down, then carefully assembled a team, selected targets, and accumulated enough money to live out the rest of his life.

Then he would dispose of those followers. They were seeds of unrest. If he wanted a peaceful retirement, he had to clean them out... When he discovered that the Shirakawa villagers could no longer endure it and had decided to act, he simply went along with it. Everything should have been flawless.

"Why..." Why, when he was so close to the finish line?

Those damned villagers had concealed the fact that the people coming to track him were ninja. If... if he had known they were ninja, he would not have been so careless...

Why? If they were ninja, why were ordinary people the ones coming up the mountain to deal with bandits? Ninja did not operate that way.

To recover stolen goods from bandits, ninja only needed to investigate traces along the trade route. They would find clues, and his warning puppets would detect them as they climbed the mountain, rather than being triggered by ordinary people...

The Land of Tea... The memory was vivid: endless green fields, warm sunlight, camellias swaying in the wind. He would build a villa there, with white walls and a red roof, breathing in the salty sea breeze every morning...

Now, everything had turned to dust. His vision blurred, and Shuji's figure melted into a black silhouette in the morning light.

A cold flash.

His head hit the ground. The Double Suicide Decapitation Technique was complete.

Shuji took out a scroll from his breast pocket and unfurled it, placing Shin'ya's head atop it before forming hand seals with both hands.

The scroll glimmered faintly, and the head vanished, leaving only sealing runes that flashed and disappeared. When encountering rogue ninja from another village, the standard practice after eliminating them was to bring back their heads. The Intelligence Division would find a way to extract information. If it proved valuable, there would be a special reward; if not, there would still be a basic subsidy.

The moment the sealing was complete, Itachi appeared at the entrance to the stronghold.

"Did you settle it?"

"Yes. As instructed, I finished negotiating with Shirakawa Kisuke and the people in charge. I made it clear that Konoha would remain silent regarding Shirakawa Village, as agreed, and would publicly declare that we eliminated the bandits." Itachi took out a cloth pouch. "This is the property they turned over. I accepted it as instructed."

Shuji took the pouch and put it away. "Clean up the site. See whether this Sunagakure rogue ninja left anything else behind."

"Let the villagers deal with these bodies themselves later," Shuji added. The bodies had originally been preserved as physical evidence to prove the mission to the Land of Rivers. Now, there was no need. The head of a Sunagakure rogue ninja was enough. The Intelligence Division would confirm that he was the mastermind, and Konoha would guarantee that the commission had been completed.

For a mere C-rank mission, killing a ninja had already far exceeded the requirements.

Itachi walked toward the dismantled puppet on the ground without rashly approaching its main body. He quickly formed hand seals and created a Shadow Clone. The Shadow Clone cautiously approached the wreckage. The moment its fingers touched the wooden surface, the contact point immediately turned bluish-purple. The poison was not potent enough to make the Shadow Clone collapse, so Itachi controlled it to move faster and carefully removed a scroll from inside the puppet's chest cavity.

The scroll itself was not poisoned. Itachi remained cautious and had the Shadow Clone unfold and inspect it. Only after confirming there was no trigger trap did his real body approach for a closer look.

"Senior, this is a sealing scroll."

"A tool-storage type." Shuji nodded in understanding. "The remaining valuables should be in here." He was not skilled in Unsealing Technique, so he could only bring it back to the village. Taking out a specially made small sealing tube, he collected some of Shin'ya's blood and carefully sealed it away. This was the key to breaking the seal.

Chakra was a mixture of spiritual and physical energy.

After ninja learned to refine it, some chakra would remain fixed within their body's cells. Thus, ninja could use their own blood as a summoning medium.

By the same principle, before blood completely lost its vitality, it could also be used to break item seals placed by its owner—though this required an expert proficient in Sealing Jutsu.

After putting the sealing scroll into his ninja tool pouch, Shuji carefully searched the entire stronghold once more. Once he confirmed that nothing had been overlooked, he dusted off his hands, turned to the boy beside him, and smiled lightly. "The mission is basically wrapped up. All that remains is returning to the village to submit the report."

Seeing Itachi standing quietly where he was, Shuji suddenly blinked. "Oh, right. Before we head back, want to take a look around Koizumi Town?"

"Take a look around?" The eight-year-old Uchiha tilted his head slightly, a trace of confusion passing through his eyes.

"The mission's done. How can we not relax properly?" Shuji smiled and reached out to pat Itachi lightly on the shoulder.

"Yes... Senior." Itachi's voice was steady.

Shuji crouched down until his gaze was level with Itachi's. "That isn't an order. So don't say 'yes.' Just tell me whether you want to go."

Uchiha Itachi fell silent for a moment. The morning wind swept over the ruins, carrying the lingering scent of blood and the fresh scent of grass and wood. His gaze seemed to pass beyond the broken fence, toward the faintly visible trade route at the foot of the mountain.

"...Dango?" he asked softly.

"Good idea!" Shuji rose and stretched, the morning light outlining his sharp figure. "Then let's try Koizumi Town's dango. Since we're out here, we can pick up some local specialties to bring back."

(End of Chapter)