Kill Them All

Lin Qing remembered this orange.

It was the one Sasuke had given Xiaotao to eat on the ship; the girl couldn't bear to eat it, so she had drawn a smiley face on it with a pen and kept it as a treasure.

At the time, Sasuke had even scoffed, calling her childish.

He hadn't expected Xiaotao to still have it...

Sasuke's eyes turned red. He drew a kunai, strode over, and with all his might, slashed at the chains of the cage.

Clang—

The crisp sound of the impact echoed.

It startled the group of prisoners inside the cages.

Usually, when people are jolted awake from their sleep, they would complain one way or another, but in this room, Lin Qing couldn't hear a single sound. Everyone seemed to have had their vocal cords severed; they crouched down, lowered their heads, and kept their eyes tightly shut or fixed on their toes.

Like well-trained animals.

Lin Qing couldn't imagine what kind of inhuman torture could turn people into this state.

"Sasuke... brother..."

Xiaotao looked up, her young face filled with bewilderment.

She couldn't believe her eyes.

She had fantasized about this scene so many times that when it actually happened, she thought it was a hallucination.

"Star Platinum."

Lin Qing summoned his Stand.

Star Platinum violently tore the cage open, and Lin Qing reached out to lift Xiaotao out of the bars.

She was light, as light as a feather.

After rescuing Xiaotao, Lin Qing expected the others locked in the cages to cry out for help and beg to be saved as well.

However, there was only dead silence.

Not a single pair of eyes dared to cast a glance their way.

They were afraid.

Afraid of the punishment that would follow if they escaped.

Only by remaining inside the cages could they find a shred of false security.

Lin Qing asked the Xiaotao in his arms, "Where is your mother?"

Xiaotao raised her hand, trembling as she pointed in a certain direction.

"Mom... was taken away by them..."

Aero Smith took to the air, scouting a room in the direction Xiaotao pointed, where six or seven people were gathered.

In the Naruto world, women gave birth early; Xiaotao's mother was only twenty-six or twenty-seven, possessing both the liveliness of a young girl and the gentleness of a young woman, with an excellent face and figure.

Taken away by a group of men, what would they do...

It was obvious.

Lin Qing carried Xiaotao to the front of the room, handed her to Sasuke, and instructed, "Cover her eyes."

Sasuke complied.

Lin Qing grabbed the doorknob and opened the door naturally.

Inside the room were six men, and Xiaotao's mother was lying on the office desk.

She was completely naked.

Her scalp was bald and covered in blood scabs; it looked as if her hair had been ripped out in handfuls, causing large areas of skin to peel and bleed.

A short man was on top of her, and blood was dripping, flowing from between her legs.

Her eyes, staring straight at the ceiling...

The pupils were dilated, having lost their focus.

Xiaotao's mother was dead.

Hearing the door open, the six men inside turned their gazes over. Seeing Lin Qing's unfamiliar face, the man who had been on top of Xiaotao's mother pulled up his pants.

"Who are you? Who let you in!"

Lin Qing did not answer his question and said to Sasuke, "Wait outside for a moment, I'll handle this right away."

His tone was calm as he walked into the room.

He closed the door.

And locked it.

"Hey! Kid!"

The six men drew the kunai and ninja blades from their waists.

They were ninjas from Kirigakure, tasked with assisting the Seven Ninja Swordsmen in managing the processing plant; tonight was merely a way to find some amusement in their dull lives, just as they always did.

A man with a goatee stroked his whiskers and said viciously, "Kid, I don't care who you are. You've seen things you shouldn't have. Surrender now, and I might just spare—"

Bang!

The goatee-man's head exploded like a balloon.

Blood sprayed upward from his bare neck, splattering against the ceiling before dripping down, tick-tock, tick-tock.

The remaining five men stood frozen, their minds blank.

What just happened?

As the thoughts flickered through their minds, another bang rang out. A tall, thin man flew into the air, his chest caved in, spewing organs and gore from his mouth; he was dead before he even hit the ground.

Another one dead!

"Bastard!"

A bald ninja raised his blade and lunged forward.

"ORA!"

Star Platinum threw its third punch, slamming directly into the descending blade. The ninja sword snapped instantly, the rebound slicing through the bald ninja's throat.

Another ninja seized the chance to leap onto the ceiling, attempting a sneak attack from behind.

Lin Qing grabbed his arm, activated the Ripple Breathing Method, and with immense force, swung him around and slammed him into the ground. A sickening crack of a breaking spine echoed, and the man went still.

Screams echoed through the room, but they quickly grew weaker.

Lin Qing walked up to the last, short man.

He had collapsed onto the floor, having lost all courage to fight. Seeing Lin Qing walking toward him step by step, he immediately shifted into a dogeza kneeling position:

"My lord! We're just a bunch of people following orders! Please, spare me... I swear, I'll defect from Kirigakure right now and never come back... I beg you..."

He kowtowed repeatedly, his forehead bleeding from the impact.

The short man was the weakest of the six, which was why he was the "last one"—he had been abusing a corpse when Lin Qing first entered.

Lin Qing looked down at the short man and spoke his first words since entering the room:

"When it was your turn, was she still alive?"

"She..."

The short man was struck dumb.

He didn't know which answer would let him live and which would lead to his death.

As blood dripped from his forehead, the short man chose to tell the truth: "I... I don't remember. I was on the 'goods'—the stuff from the Land of Waves. It was very pure, and my mind wasn't very clear..."

"Is that so."

Lin Qing nodded slightly and extended a finger, tapping it against the man's forehead.

The power of the Ripple traveled through his fingertip, and the wound on the short man's forehead healed rapidly. He broke into a smile of relief, but soon, he felt a wave of intense heat.

His brain was boiling!

"Ah—"

The short man let out a scream as a thick, red-and-yellow liquid emitting rolling heat poured from his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.

Thud.

The corpse collapsed to the floor.

Separated by a door, Sasuke listened to the screams and impacts inside, waiting silently outside.

He believed that Lin Qing was invincible.

This trust stemmed from victory after victory, each a crushing display of power.

The tightly shut door opened again, and a thick scent of blood wafted out.

Standing in the doorway, Lin Qing blocked the two children's view. He held the body of Xiaotao's mother in his arms; her naked body was covered by a curtain, revealing only a pale, bloodless face.

Xiaotao's sorrowful weeping echoed through the processing plant.

Sasuke put an arm around her shoulders.

The Fourth Mizukage's method of amassing wealth was human trafficking.

Men were sold for labor.

Women were used as breeding machines.

Children with talent were selected and raised from a young age as ninjas or assassins.

People were always a harder currency than gold.

Sasuke looked blankly at the people in the cages.

Xiaotao had been rescued, but her mother was dead.

A ball of fire burned in Sasuke's heart.

If he were to just leave like this, he would be stifled to death by the humiliation.

But if he didn't leave, what else could he do?

Report it to the authorities?

This entire affair was orchestrated by Kirigakure; reporting it would be no different than walking straight into a trap.

A sense of being cornered, with no path to the heavens and no door into the earth, enveloped Sasuke.

The last time he felt a similar emotion was during the Uchiha Clan Massacre, when Sasuke watched his parents being killed by Itachi, and Itachi Uchiha walked toward him with a sinister grin.

How was it resolved back then?

A hand had rested on Sasuke's head.

That was it.

Sasuke remembered.

Just when he was at his most helpless and desperate, it was Lin Qing who appeared and pulled Sasuke out from the abyss of fear.

"What are we going to do?" Sasuke asked.

He had already guessed the answer in his heart.

"Open the cages and smash this hellhole to pieces."

Sasuke asked, "What if they don't dare to come out?"

Lin Qing said, "We only save those who still possess courage."

Sasuke asked again, "What if the Seven Ninja Swordsmen come looking for us?"

"If they truly come..."

Lin Qing looked down at the pale face of the woman in his arms and said softly:

"Then we kill them all."