Kill Them All

Lin Qing remembered this orange.

Sasuke had given it to Xiaotao to eat on the boat. The girl couldn't bring herself to eat it, so she had drawn a smiley face on it and treasured it as a gift.

Back then, Sasuke had even sneered and called her childish.

Who would have thought Xiaotao had kept it...

Sasuke's eyes reddened. He drew his kunai and strode over, putting all his strength into a slash at the chain on the cage.

Clang—

The clear ring of metal echoed through the room.

It roused the prisoners in the cages.

Usually, people woken from sleep would complain, at least a little. But in this room, Lin Qing couldn't hear a sound. Everyone seemed to have had their voices cut off. They crouched with their heads bowed, eyes shut tight or fixed on their toes.

Like animals that had been trained.

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

"Sasuke... brother..."

Xiaotao raised her head, confusion written across her young face.

She couldn't believe her eyes.

She had imagined this moment so many times that now it was actually happening, she thought she was hallucinating.

"Star Platinum."

Lin Qing summoned his Stand.

Star Platinum violently tore open the cage, and Lin Qing reached in and lifted Xiaotao out.

She was so light, like a feather.

After rescuing Xiaotao, Lin Qing thought the others locked in the cages would cry out for help, begging him to save them too.

But the room remained utterly silent.

Not a single pair of eyes dared look their way.

They were afraid.

Afraid of the punishment that awaited them if they escaped.

Only inside the cages could they find even a little false sense of security.

Lin Qing asked Xiaotao, who was in his arms, "Where's your mother?"

Xiaotao raised a hand and pointed shakily in one direction.

"Mom... they took her away..."

Aero Smith took to the air. In the direction Xiaotao had pointed, it spotted a room with six or seven people inside.

Women in the Naruto World gave birth young. Xiaotao's mother was only twenty-six or twenty-seven. She had a young girl's liveliness and a married woman's gentleness, and was beautiful and shapely.

A group of men had taken her away. What they would do to her...

It was obvious.

Lin Qing carried Xiaotao to the room and handed her to Sasuke, instructing him, "Cover her eyes."

Sasuke did as he was told.

Lin Qing grasped the doorknob and opened the door as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

There were six men inside. Xiaotao's mother lay on the desk.

Completely naked.

Her scalp was bare and covered in scabs. It looked as though someone had ripped out her hair in handfuls, tearing away large patches of skin and making her bleed.

A short man was on top of her. Blood dripped from between her legs.

Her eyes stared blankly at the ceiling...

Her pupils were unfocused, her gaze empty.

Xiaotao's mother was dead.

At the sound of the door opening, the six men turned to look. Seeing Lin Qing's unfamiliar face, the man on top of Xiaotao's mother pulled up his pants.

"Who are you? Who let you in?"

Lin Qing didn't answer. He said to Sasuke, "Wait outside with her. I'll take care of this in a moment."

His voice was calm as he walked into the room.

He shut the door.

He locked it.

"Hey, kid!"

The six men drew the kunai and Ninja Blades at their waists.

They were shinobi from Kirigakure, assigned to help the Seven Ninja Swordsmen manage the factory. Tonight, they were doing what they always did—looking for a little fun to relieve the tedium of their lives.

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

Bang!

The goateed man's head exploded like a balloon.

Blood spurted from his bare neck, splattering across the ceiling before dripping down.

The five remaining men froze, their minds blank.

What had happened?

As their thoughts raced, there was another bang. A thin, tall man shot into the air out of nowhere, his chest caved in. Blood and chunks of flesh spewed from his mouth. He died before he hit the ground.

Another one was dead!

"You bastard!"

A bald shinobi charged with his blade raised.

"ORA!"

Star Platinum threw a third punch, striking the blade as it came down. The Ninja Blade snapped on the spot and rebounded, slicing open the bald shinobi's throat.

Another shinobi leaped to the ceiling, trying to launch a surprise attack from behind.

Lin Qing seized his arm. The Ripple Breathing Method surged into action. With immense strength, he swung the man in a circle and slammed him into the ground. There was a crack as his spine broke, and then he went still.

Screams echoed through the room, but they soon grew weaker and weaker.

Lin Qing walked up to the last short man.

He had fallen to the floor, his will to fight gone. As Lin Qing approached step by step, he immediately dropped into a kowtow.

"Sir! We were only following orders! Please, spare me... I swear I'll defect from Kirigakure right now and never come back... Please..."

He kowtowed again and again, until his forehead was bloody.

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

Lin Qing looked down at the short man and spoke for the first time since entering the room:

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

"She..."

The short man was speechless.

He didn't know which answer would save his life and which would get him killed.

Blood dripped from his forehead. The short man chose to tell the truth. "I... I don't remember. I took some 'product' from the Land of Waves. It was really pure. I wasn't thinking straight..."

"I see."

Lin Qing gave a slight nod, then pressed a finger to the man's forehead.

The Ripple's power flowed from his fingertip. The wound on the short man's forehead quickly healed, and he smiled with relief at having survived. But soon, he felt a searing heat.

His brain was boiling!

"Ah—"

The short man screamed as a thick, red-and-yellow liquid, steaming with heat, seeped from his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.

Thud.

The corpse fell to the floor.

On the other side of the door, Sasuke listened to the screams and crashes inside, waiting silently outside.

He believed Lin Qing was invincible.

That trust came from the overwhelming victories he had witnessed time and again.

The closed door opened again, and a strong smell of blood wafted out.

Lin Qing stood in the doorway, blocking the two children's view. He held Xiaotao's mother's body in his arms, her nakedness covered by a curtain. Only her pale, bloodless face remained visible.

Xiaotao's sorrowful cries echoed through the factory.

Sasuke put an arm around her shoulders.

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

Men were sold off for labor.

Women were treated as breeding machines.

Children with talent were selected and trained from a young age as shinobi and assassins.

People were always a more reliable store of value than gold.

Sasuke stared blankly at the people in the cages.

They had rescued Xiaotao, but her mother was dead.

A fire smoldered inside Sasuke.

If he just left like this, the helpless frustration would eat him alive.

But if he stayed, what could he do?

Report it to the authorities?

Kirigakure itself was behind this. Reporting it would be no different from walking into a trap.

A suffocating sense of being trapped, with no way to heaven or escape underground, closed in around Sasuke.

The last time he had felt this way was during the Uchiha Clan Massacre, when he saw his parents killed by Itachi and Itachi Uchiha grinned as he walked toward him.

How had he dealt with it then?

A hand rested on Sasuke's head.

That's right.

Sasuke remembered.

Just when he had been at his most helpless and desperate, Lin Qing had appeared and pulled him out of the abyss of fear.

"What should we do?" Sasuke asked.

He had already guessed the answer.

"Open the cages and tear this hellhole apart."

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

"Then we only save those who still have the courage."

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

"If they really do come..."

Lin Qing lowered his eyes to the woman's pale face in his arms and said softly,

"Then we'll kill them all."