People Become Beasts

"All right, all right! Quit pretending to be asleep. Do you think I'm blind?" Morino Kei kicked the fat man in the ass.

"Your lousy acting wouldn't fool an idiot."

"Heh heh... Esteemed ninja, I wonder what we've done to offend you. Surely we can talk this out... Whoever hired you, I can offer more..."

Seeing that he couldn't keep up the act, the fat man forced himself to sit up, his face ingratiating.

When the others didn't answer, he immediately brightened.

They're just flowers fresh out of the ninja village. What could they possibly know? the fat man thought darkly. Still, that's strange. Where'd that useless walking stick go?

"Could you untie me first? It's hard to talk like this... Once I'm loose, we can discuss things properly, right?" The fat man tried to seize the opening, smiling as he spoke, as if he'd found the key to gaining the upper hand.

Thwack!

The iron ring on the butt of a kunai slammed down. In the fat man's blurred vision, he thought he saw his own bloodied teeth scatter.

"Do you think you're in a position to bargain?" Uchiha Kai's cold voice rang out, barely concealing his anger.

"Urgh... Cough, cough!" The fat man endured the agony and spat out a mouthful of blood and froth. He could feel air leaking through his mouth.

"Uh... No, no, I wouldn't dare. Whatever you say, sir." The fat man quickly suppressed the anger and hatred that had flashed in his eyes, managing a crooked smile. His two rows of crooked teeth only made it look comical.

Thwack!

Unfortunately for him, all he got in return was another blow.

"Did I say you could speak?" The boy planted a foot on the fat man's chest.

The merciless stomp was followed by the faint sound of bones cracking in the man's chest.

"Ghk... hah..." The fat man's face turned several shades paler, and he struggled to breathe.

In his eyes, the cold figure before him began to grow taller and twist out of shape, becoming a terrifying beast whose features he couldn't make out, but whose claws and fangs he could feel.

It's over... Why does that damnable Konoha Village keep producing these freakish little monsters? The fat man's heart sank. Knowing this wouldn't end peacefully, he began calculating how to talk his way out of it. Then the boy spoke again.

"Did you think I woke you up to interrogate you for information?"

The boy's voice was playful and nonchalant.

The fat man's pupils contracted, and his body tensed.

The boy's lips curled up. "You must think you've got a strong will, that you can withstand any torture. You're already working out how to fool us two greenhorns, aren't you?"

The fat man's expression slackened, then turned sullen and blank.

"Just so you know, I'm from the Uchiha Clan." The boy's voice was taunting.

In the next instant, an eerie scarlet flooded his eyes, and the rounded tomoe began to spin. The world before the fat man seemed to twist, swallowed entirely by red and black.

"Ha... hah... urgh..." Cold sweat streamed down the fat man's face as he gasped for breath, feeling as if something had clamped around his throat.

The next moment, the scene before him changed. All the illusions vanished in the blink of an eye, as if none of it had ever happened.

The boy's crude half-face mask, clearly fashioned from a strip of cloth he'd torn off at random, now gave him a bizarrely terrifying air.

Beneath the mask, the boy's lips curled up. He spoke gently.

"But it doesn't matter. I never planned to pry anything out of you anyway." Uchiha Kai shrugged.

"Your buddy was practically telling us the color of your lover's underwear."

"Damn it! That worthless walking stick! I should've killed him for being such a dog!" The fat man could no longer hold back his anger and cursed.

Thud!

A combat boot came down without mercy, pressing the fat man's head into the sand.

"You seem to have a poor memory."

Uchiha Kai arched an eyebrow, grinding his right foot against the fat man's face until it left a smeared bootprint.

Feeling the pressure on his head and sand filling his mouth, the fat man's face twisted.

"Kai!"

A girl's voice suddenly came from behind him, unmistakably furious.

"Rei, you're back. How did the scouting go? Was the information accurate?" The boy lifted his foot and turned around.

Seeing that the girl was close to losing control, Uchiha Kai's voice softened.

"It was accurate..." The girl gritted her teeth and tossed the scrawny man she'd been dragging along like a dead dog to one side.

"The defenses match what we were told." The girl paused. "And I confirmed where they're holding the hostages..."

"These... These animals!" Hyuga Rei was so furious her eyes seemed ready to burst.

She remembered the horrifying scene her Byakugan had revealed: the narrow cave was crammed with women, barely clothed, numb and corpse-like.

Bodies hung upside down from iron hooks on the walls, mutilated and skeletal. Some were men, some women... and a few bodies were horrifyingly small.

"The women have been tortured beyond recognition. A few of the elderly are still alive."

"They... They eat people! They even ate... children!"

Hyuga Rei cried out, the corners of her eyes red.

"!"

Before she could say more, Uchiha Kai and Morino Kei both turned their heads, their eyes gleaming with a chilling light.

"Are you sure?" Uchiha Kai asked.

The girl didn't answer. She only nodded through clenched teeth.

Shing!

A silver-white flash. Zhulu sprang from its sheath and carved a ghastly gash into the scrawny man. Blood gushed out as if it were free.

The lecherous scrawny man, nicknamed Walking Stick, grimaced in pain and spoke.

"You! You said... you'd let me go if I told you everything..." The man's cloudy eyes began to glaze over.

"You... You broke your word."

But no one paid the dog's whimpering any mind.

The blade flashed again. Five withered fingers flew into the air, trailing a spray of blood.

"Ah..." Walking Stick writhed and wailed.

A shuriken flew out and struck between the man's legs.

"I'll f—ing kill you, you little brats!" The beaten dog began to bark.

The blade flashed again, slashing open his wrist and carving off both his ears.

"Ah! No! I was wrong! Don't kill me!" The man who'd been so defiant a moment ago broke at once, sobbing and begging for mercy.

It did him no good. His wrist was severed, then his tongue.

Now he couldn't even bark.

In the fat man's fading vision, Walking Stick's head flew into the air and fell. Scalding blood splashed squarely across his forehead.

"Are you trying to scare me?" The fat man grinned.

"Under my Buddha's watch, death is the gateway to paradise. How could death itself sway me?"

"You're angry? Heh heh heh... Hahahaha!" The fat man laughed madly.

"Open your narrow minds! We're only guiding people into paradise. The suffering they endured in life was the karmic retribution of their past lives."

"To die by our hands is to be cleansed of worldly impurities and sent swiftly to paradise! You should be happy for them!"

The fat man's face began to twist, like that of a dying, diseased pig.

"Come on, smile! What's with the long faces?"

"Hehahahahaha!"

Hyuga Rei and Morino Kei stared in shock and moved as if to act, but Uchiha Kai stopped them.

"Don't pay attention to that clown," the boy said, shaking his head.

"Let's move. We can't afford to wait."

As soon as he finished speaking, the boy casually swung his blade, cutting into the fat man's chest.

The two glared at the man, swallowed their anger, and followed Uchiha Kai as he walked away.

The fat man lay motionless on the ground for a long time, as if he were completely dead.

Five minutes later.

"Guhaha... Huh? Hahahahaha!"

"Heaven hasn't forsaken me! Those idiots really fell for it?! Hahahaha! I'm alive, I'm alive!"

The fat man suddenly opened his eyes and gasped for breath. The horrifying wound on his chest had stopped bleeding.

"Still talking about my Buddha? What a load of crap. That's the kind of nonsense you tell kids, and they actually bought it. As if I believe in that stuff." He cursed, then scanned his surroundings. When he spotted the shuriken on the ground, he immediately brightened.

"I just need to... just need to cut the rope and get out of here... Then I'll run..." The fat man crawled toward it.

He happily grabbed the "shuriken."

"Strange... Why doesn't it hurt at all?" The fat man's vision blurred as he wondered.

The next moment, he felt the thing in his hand grow hot.

A heartbeat later, a terrifying wave of heat and blinding light erupted.

It swallowed the ugly old dog whole.