Dongfang Mao

"Big Brother, they've caught up!"

In the damp, moss-covered Tiger Trap Cave, a burly man covered in bandages rushed inside in a panic.

On an uneven stone platform, a youth who looked no older than 14, his hair disheveled and his body stained with blood, jolted awake from his sleep.

Opening his bloodshot, scarlet eyes, Dongfang Mao looked at the man kneeling on one knee before him, his throat bobbing as he spoke in a hoarse voice.

"How many are there?"

"Uh... three..."

"Hmm?"

Dongfang Mao paused for a moment.

"What do you mean?"

"The government soldiers didn't follow us. It's just those three brats wearing headbands. That so-called Special Jonin isn't with them."

Hearing this, Dongfang Mao instinctively furrowed his brows, but then relaxed.

"Our stronghold has already been razed by them; the ninjas' mission is technically complete. Those three brats must have acted on their own initiative and followed us in secret."

Upon hearing this, the burly man became indignant.

"Those ninjas look down on us too much! We still have over a hundred brothers here. Do they really think they can wipe us all out with just three wet-behind-the-ears kids?"

"Enough, Yasuke. You should be glad they look down on us, otherwise, it's not certain we would have been able to escape at all."

Dongfang Mao comforted the man, then continued.

"Those three brats are green. Take the brothers, hide in the woods, and fire a few arrows to scare them off; they should retreat obediently. Don't fight them head-on. Also, be careful in case that Jonin is secretly following them. If things look bad, tell the brothers to scatter and flee immediately—save whoever you can."

"Understood, Big Brother!"

Yasuke acknowledged the order and retreated.

Watching Yasuke leave, Dongfang Mao lay back on the stone platform, feeling weak. His injuries were not light; he had even been struck by one of the ninjas' techniques earlier—the Great Fireball Technique!

If not for his physique being different from ordinary people, he might have truly met his end.

He was not originally from this world. Fourteen years ago, he was just a college student with clear eyes who had found his first love on campus. Under his girlfriend's hints, he was about to transform from a boy into a man, only to inexplicably hit the jackpot and die on the way to buy "supplies."

Following that, he was born into a small mountain village in the Land of Fire called Red Leaf Village.

Yet, even in a new world, he couldn't escape the fate of a lonely star. In his past life, he was an orphan; in this life, his mother died in childbirth, and after his father raised him until he was four, he also passed away.

Fortunately, as he grew up, he discovered that not only had his memory become exceptionally sharp, but he could also remember everything he had seen and heard in his previous life with perfect clarity.

Even the fleeting glimpses of suggestive videos he'd seen in passing, or the tiny black mole on the side of a girl's immeasurable cleavage, remained vivid in his mind.

Furthermore, his body seemed somewhat special. Even though he didn't eat much—barely enough to fill his stomach—his strength grew at an astonishing rate. By the age of four, he felt stronger than he had been at twenty in his past life.

He was essentially a little monster capable of beating a grown man to death.

Just like that, relying on this talent, he successfully survived the "newbie" phase. But good times didn't last; there was a severe drought in the mountain village that year, and with no harvest, he became a refugee. By a stroke of luck, Dongfang Mao turned to banditry, and thanks to his innate gifts, he successfully climbed to the top seat.

Relying on the memories of his past life, he developed the stronghold quite well. He even secretly reached an agreement with the magistrate of Pine Wind Town at the foot of the mountain: the other party provided money and grain, and he helped them clear away trouble. Both sides were very happy with the arrangement.

However, for reasons unknown, that magistrate suddenly fell from power. The newly appointed magistrate purged the old faction and even went to Konoha to issue a bounty, leading troops into the mountains to suppress the bandits.

Fortunately, Dongfang Mao was well-informed. He had made preparations in advance and managed to escape with a portion of his men.

Even so, they had been chased like stray dogs, hiding here and there. By his estimation, they were now close to the border of the Land of Fire.

"Big Brother, we've caught those three little brats!"

Just as Dongfang Mao was lost in memories and drifting off, Yasuke's excited shout rang out from the cave entrance.

He was instantly wide awake. He then saw Yasuke walk in with a few men, throwing three children, who were already tied up like dumplings, in front of him.

"Good, good, good!"

Dongfang Mao was pleasantly surprised.

"How did you catch them?"

"Heh, Big Brother, don't let their performance when they were with that Jonin fool you. They were so arrogant, killing our men with such ease. But when they came after us alone, a few arrows from the shadows panicked them. We drove them into Tiger Trap Cave and caught them all in one go."

Yasuke said with a smug laugh.

Dongfang Mao nodded, then turned his gaze toward the three disheveled little Konoha ninjas, examining them closely.

There were two boys and one girl. The two boys were slightly older, probably around ten, while the girl was the youngest, looking no more than six. Her hair, which should have been soft and shiny, was now scattered in a mess.

Her small, cute face was covered in dust and clay, and a pair of very unique scarlet eyes were currently filled with panic and helplessness.

Clearly, the process of being captured hadn't been very pleasant.

Dongfang Mao felt that the little girl looked somewhat familiar, so he asked instinctively.

"What is your name?"

The girl looked up at the sound of his voice and stared at Dongfang Mao, then froze.

The person before her looked barely older than them, yet his face was extraordinarily handsome. His features were delicate, his skin as white as porcelain, his brows like ink, and his nose bridge high and elegant—he looked like someone out of a painting.

Although he looked somewhat disheveled at this moment, covered in uncleaned bloodstains with his ink-black hair hanging in messy disarray, the pure, unadulterated black eyes of his occasionally radiated a sense of wildness and sharpness.

It made him appear like a bewitching, malevolent flower blooming amidst a pool of scarlet blood!

She almost forgot her own predicament in that instant, her mind falling into a trance.

However, she quickly snapped back to reality; this person was the leader of this group of heinous bandits, so she immediately spoke with a fierce expression that masked her inner fear.

"You detestable bandits, just you wait! My teacher will catch up soon, and when that happens, none of you will be able to escape!"

"Yasuke, teach them how to speak properly."

Dongfang Mao had been chased for the entire journey and was full of resentment; he was in no mood to trade barbs with this little girl, so he left it directly to Yasuke, who was a professional.

"Hehe, Boss, leave it to me!"

Hearing this, Yasuke's face twisted into a sinister grin as he drew a bone-carving knife still stained with dark red spots from his waist.

With Yasuke's current appearance, set against the dim lighting of the cave, he looked like a demon crawled out of hell in the eyes of the three little ones.

At the end of the day, the three of them were just children; having never seen such a scene, they immediately began to wail and howl, tears and snot streaming down their faces.

The little girl was also frightened to the point of turning deathly pale.

She had been strong-willed since she was young. Upon hearing that a genius named Kakashi in the same grade at the Ninja Academy had passed the Genin exam at the age of six and started executing missions, she had stubbornly made her father arrange an early exam for her as well. After successfully passing and joining this ninja squad, and handling a few months of trivial, minor requests, she finally waited for this opportunity to leave the village and execute a dangerous mission.

Everything had been going smoothly at the start. Under the supervision of a Special Jonin, they and the soldiers of the Land of Fire had successfully wiped out the bandits entrenched on Mount Yoshino, and they were originally prepared to return to the village to submit the mission.

However, she felt there were still fish that had slipped through the net and that the mission had not been completed perfectly.

Taking advantage of the time their Jonin mentor was resupplying and resting in a nearby town, she secretly incited her two young teammates to track the trail of Dongfang Mao and his group as they retreated, leading them here—never expecting such an outcome.

"Heh heh, cry, you little brats. You won't have the strength to cry later. Because of you, hundreds of my brothers died, and I will make sure to pay each of you back with a blade for them!"

As Yasuke approached step by step with a strange laugh, the bodies of the three little ones trembled even more violently.

Finally, one of the children with a round face and an afro could no longer hold it in and cried out loudly.

"Wuu wuu, don't hurt me! My name is Ueno Daiki!"

The other two children were infected by Ueno Daiki's crying, and their fear completely shattered their final line of defense.

"My name is Nara Kazuma!"

"I... my name is Yuhi Kurenai!"