Fend for Yourself

County Magistrate Senmura stared blankly at the two bodies on the ground. His hands and feet went cold, and his head swam. He staggered, about to faint.

Someone beside him hurried to catch him.

"Thank you, Dire Wolf," County Magistrate Senmura said absentmindedly.

"My lord, I'm not Dire Wolf."

County Magistrate Senmura turned and met the gaze of an unfamiliar samurai.

Only then did he suddenly come to his senses.

Dire Wolf was already dead.

Biwa Juzo and Raiga Kurosuki were dead too.

County Magistrate Senmura's eyes darted around in panic. He raised a hand and pointed at Lin Qing. "How could you... How dare you!"

These were the Seven Ninja Swordsmen, high-ranking members of Kirigakure.

If Lin Qing had killed Suikazan Fuguki because the truth about his human trafficking had come to light, then public opinion might have been divided.

But now, Lin Qing had charged into the Magistrate's Mansion and openly killed two of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen. That meant he had truly made an enemy of Kirigakure.

And since the deaths had happened within County Magistrate Senmura's jurisdiction, he would be implicated too. His career—

County Magistrate Senmura's thoughts came to an abrupt halt.

A shadow fell over him.

Thud.

The Blade of Ruin crashed down beside County Magistrate Senmura's feet, making the ground tremble. The few samurai guarding him immediately dropped to the ground in fright.

County Magistrate Senmura saw a pair of shoes. He stiffly raised his head, but before he could fully look up and meet Lin Qing's eyes, a hand grabbed him by the hair.

"Ah—"

County Magistrate Senmura let out a pig-like squeal.

To his credit, the life of luxury had given him a fine set of lungs. His scream rang out loud and clear, reaching half the county town.

Heads poked out from behind window after window, mouths half-open, as they watched County Magistrate Senmura get dragged along by the hair like a stray dog.

The earlier vortex had left a large open space. Lin Qing tossed County Magistrate Senmura into its center, then sent a Ripple-charged kick into him.

Terrified, County Magistrate Senmura felt as though his body had been bewitched. It moved against his will, dropping him onto his knees. He bowed his head, his only movable eyes wide with fear, beads of sweat covering his forehead.

This...

It was clearly the pose of someone about to commit seppuku, waiting for his second to cut off his head!

Just then, the sound of hurried footsteps approached. A row of torches drew closer.

The samurai who guarded the county town had arrived to provide support. There were as many as one or two hundred of them, and the accountant was at their head.

"Stop!"

The accountant's eyes were bloodshot with panic.

"You can't kill him!"

County Magistrate Senmura quickly chimed in. "That's right! You can't kill me!"

"Why can't I?"

Lin Qing's gaze swept over the bodies of Biwa Juzo and Raiga Kurosuki.

He'd killed those two. Why should he spare an official from a remote little county town?

"It's different!" The accountant strode over. "Killing ninja and killing an official are two different things!

"You killed two of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen. That only makes you an enemy of Kirigakure.

"But if you kill County Magistrate Senmura, a local official appointed personally by the Daimyo, you'll be declaring war on the entire Land of Water!

"You need to understand that Kirigakure is just a hidden village. The Daimyo could order it renamed the Hidden Mist Village or the Fog Village tomorrow.

"But the Land of Water and the Daimyo will never change."

The accountant walked up to Lin Qing.

"If you kill County Magistrate Senmura, you'll be committing an unforgivable act of treason!"

"You've done enough today."

"Let it go."

The accountant made himself perfectly clear.

The Land of Water and Kirigakure were in completely different leagues.

Kirigakure was merely a blade. The Daimyo was the one who wielded it.

The Daimyo of the Land of Water wouldn't bat an eye if Lin Qing killed any number of ninja, but killing Morimura would be taking a bite out of the Daimyo's own interests.

After all, County Magistrate Senmura managed to send regular tribute from even this barren land, helping fill the treasury.

If a man so capable of easing the Daimyo's burden were killed, the Daimyo of the Land of Water would be devastated.

"Do you understand now, Lin Qing? If you kill me, you'll bring endless trouble upon yourself! If you let me go, I'll split the gold and silver in my storehouse with you. No, you can have it all!"

County Magistrate Senmura had amassed a fortune. The wealth in his storehouse was enough to let anyone live comfortably for the rest of his life.

He gasped for breath, his eardrums pounding.

"Are you done?" Lin Qing asked.

More than a hundred samurai held their torches high. Their crimson light fell across Lin Qing's face, then across the faces of the villagers secretly watching.

The accountant swallowed.

He had spent his life tallying accounts and reading people, yet he couldn't calculate Lin Qing's next move or see through his thoughts.

"I—"

The accountant parted his lips, about to say more, when a hot, foul liquid splashed across his face and ran into his mouth.

Blood.

County Magistrate Senmura's blood.

Thump.

A head dropped to the ground.

Behind countless doors and windows, the county town's residents watched and let out faint cries of shock.

The all-powerful magistrate had actually...

died!

A gust of wind swept past, making the samurai's torches flutter, but not one of them dared to draw a sword.

The bodies of two of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen had yet to grow cold. No one thought they were stronger than Biwa Juzo or Raiga Kurosuki.

Just looking at the enormous sword in Lin Qing's hands filled them with an overwhelming sense of pressure. Their samurai swords looked like toothpicks beside it.

County Magistrate Senmura's head rolled to the accountant's feet. He wanted to pick it up, but he couldn't bend at the waist. In the end, he fell back onto the ground, cradling County Magistrate Senmura's head and weeping bitterly.

"Kill me too! Lin Qing, just kill me as well!"

The accountant wailed, watching Lin Qing cautiously from the corner of his eye.

Since begging for mercy was useless, he decided to try the opposite, hoping it might win him a sliver of a chance to live.

Lin Qing walked past him. "I'll spare your life. Preserve that head and hand it over to the next county magistrate. Give him a message."

"W-what message?"

"Fend for yourself."

The accountant watched Lin Qing walk away. The four words churned in his mind. Gradually, his tears stopped, and a flood of complicated emotions rose within him, finally giving way to a heavy sigh.

Fend for yourself?

Had County Magistrate Senmura really done anything wrong?

It was true that he'd imposed harsh taxes, but...

Had he embezzled the money?

Most of the money County Magistrate Senmura had squeezed from the people went to the Daimyo.

From the commoners' perspective, life was indeed hard, but...

Did the commoners count as people?

In the eyes of the powerful and the ninja, commoners were nothing but a herd of fools, livestock capable of producing grain.

Only Lin Qing saw people as people.

The accountant dropped to his knees and bowed deeply in the direction Lin Qing had gone.

"Thank you for sparing my life, my lord. Thank you..."

"For showing me the way."

After Mei Terumi collected the bodies of the two members of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen and gathered up the two broken Ninja Blades, she found Lin Qing in the Magistrate's Mansion storehouse.

He was walking out of the storehouse with a bag of candied fruit in his hand. He ate one, then tossed one to the horse waiting by the entrance.

Mei Terumi looked him up and down, confirming that aside from a bag of candied fruit, he hadn't taken a single valuable item. She asked in disbelief:

"You're not taking anything?"

Lin Qing chuckled. "I told you, I'm not short on money. You need it more than I do, don't you?"

Mei Terumi fell silent.

Now she understood what Sasuke had meant.

As she observed Lin Qing, he had been observing her too.

The man before her was even more perceptive than she'd imagined.

Mei Terumi didn't know how to bring it up.

If she voiced her thoughts and plans, she would bring a death sentence upon anyone who heard them.

Lin Qing had already gotten into enough trouble.

As she hesitated, Lin Qing held something out to her.

It was a piece of candied fruit.

She took it and bit into it.

It was sweet.

The troubles weighing on her heart seemed to fade a little.

"I have something big to do. I want to..."

Lin Qing glanced at Mei Terumi and spoke the words on her mind for her.

"You want to overthrow the unjust and execute the tyrant."

"You want to kill the Fourth Mizukage, Yagura, and put an end to the Village of the Bloody Mist."

"Am I wrong?"

Mei Terumi's mind went blank. The composure and cunning she'd cultivated over years as a ninja vanished, leaving only one question:

"How did you know?!"