On one side, life in the village went on as usual.
On the other, the Feudal Lord of the Land of Fields was furious. "You useless fools! How long has it been? You can't even handle such a simple matter!"
As he spoke, the Feudal Lord casually hurled the cup on the table in front of him. It hit the ground and shattered.
The guards kneeling below let the wine splash over them without complaint, lowering their heads even further.
After venting his frustration, the Feudal Lord turned to the man behind a small table beside him. "Clan Head Nagata, it was your people who determined after inspecting the scene that the guards weren't killed by bandits. It's been quite some time. Have you found anything?"
The man being questioned was Nagata Nobufuku, head of the Nagata Clan, a local ninja clan in the Land of Fields and a representative of the faction loyal to the Feudal Lord.
After Bai Sui ambushed the Feudal Lord's guards, their bodies were discovered and the incident was immediately reported to him.
At first, when his subordinates said bandits might have ambushed them, the Feudal Lord had been angry but helpless. After all, the gang had been running rampant in the Land of Iron for more than a decade. If they really were responsible, he doubted they would care about his authority.
When his subordinate had reported the incident, Nagata Nobufuku had been at the Feudal Lord's residence discussing official matters. To show his sincerity, he had volunteered to send members of his clan to investigate. If the gang of bandits really was responsible, they could teach them a lesson.
With someone willing to take the initiative, the Feudal Lord had no reason to refuse. So Nagata Nobufuku had assigned Nagata Ietsugu, an elder who had accompanied him, to go investigate the scene.
After reaching the scene and examining it, Nagata Ietsugu concluded that it had been tampered with. Yet even after the attempt to disguise it, some unmistakable signs remained. He suspected that someone had framed the bandits.
However, the guards' heads had all been pierced with swords, damaging their brains. Nagata Ietsugu suspected that a professional had arranged the scene specifically to mislead anyone investigating from a ninja's perspective.
"Clan Elder, this scene has clearly been tampered with. It wasn't the work of ordinary bandits. Something's wrong here," a middle-aged ninja reported to Nagata Ietsugu.
Nagata Ietsugu smiled and nodded, stroking his goatee. "Good. Domen, you observed things carefully. Look here. Their brains weren't just pierced by blades; there are signs they were deliberately damaged as well.
"It was clearly meant to mislead anyone gathering information as a ninja. Even if the culprit wasn't a ninja, they must have dealt with ninjas before. Hmm?"
After examining the victims' brains more closely, Nagata Ietsugu noticed something unusual.
The traveling merchant's brain looked no different from the others. But when he covered it with chakra, he could clearly sense that it had been struck by some kind of force. Although all of the victims' brains looked damaged, the samurai's brains had been destroyed from the outside in. Some relatively intact fragments showed that they had merely been cut apart; the brain tissue itself was undamaged.
"This man's brain was destroyed from the inside out. It resembles the damage left by a certain ninja clan's interrogation technique. His memories were forcibly read, leaving this injury behind." Nagata Ietsugu shared his discovery with the clan members beside him, his mind racing as if he had caught hold of an important clue.
Though he had a suspicion, Nagata Ietsugu gave nothing away. He continued his inspection as if nothing were amiss, hoping to find more clues.
Before long, the Nagata Clan members finished their examinations and gathered behind Nagata Ietsugu.
When it seemed there were no more clues to be found, Nagata Ietsugu waved for the Feudal Lord's servants to clean up the scene.
The Nagata Clan members didn't linger to speak with them. They headed straight for the Daimyo Mansion.
Ninjas traveled swiftly. A journey that would take an ordinary person half a day took only an hour for ninjas who could run along tree branches. They returned before the evening banquet at the Daimyo Mansion.
After they returned, Nagata Ietsugu found an opportunity to speak privately with the Nagata Clan Head.
"What?" The clan head lowered his voice after the first word. "You think the Yamanaka Clan might have done this? How is that possible? They have no reason to!"
Ignoring the clan head's distress, Nagata Ietsugu continued reporting his findings. "Yes. I found traces of a secret technique having been used on the merchant's brain.
"Our examination of the scene also revealed signs of deliberate staging. The victims had plenty of wounds, but some were clearly inflicted after death. In reality, they were killed cleanly."
The clan head nodded. "That makes sense. Whoever did this included at least one skilled fighter who killed them quickly. Someone who could wipe out an entire group without giving them a chance to fight back couldn't have been an ordinary bandit.
"I've heard of the bandits in the Land of Iron. Their leader is from a fallen minor ninja clan. The reason the Land of Iron hasn't wiped them out all these years is that he has an inherited secret technique that lets him detect enemies in advance and escape. He isn't particularly strong himself. Killing these people might have been easy enough, but if the attack was as swift and ruthless as you described, he couldn't have managed it."
Clan Elder Nagata Ietsugu agreed. "Exactly. Those are the reasons I judged that the Yamanaka Clan was responsible. After all, the Ino-Shika-Cho clans are among the most powerful in the Land of Fire—not to mention the entire Ninja World.
"For a great clan like that, raising a skilled fighter like this would hardly be difficult."
The clan head knitted his brows. "That may be true, but why would they do it? They had no reason to attack ordinary people like these, let alone stage the scene this way."
Nagata Ietsugu hesitated before answering. "I do have a theory, though I have no evidence to support it. Please consider it only as a possibility."
The clan head looked somewhat surprised. "Oh? Please, Clan Elder. What do you think?"
"From what I observed, there probably weren't many people involved in staging the scene—perhaps two or three. Since the Ino-Shika-Cho clans always act together, it could well have been three.
"Although the scene was staged with plenty of mistakes, it was clear that whoever arranged it had received some training. It didn't look like the work of a competent ninja. Instead, it seemed like the work of a beginner.
"So I wondered whether these might have been three young prodigies from the clans, venturing into the Ninja World for the first time. Compared with the Land of Fire, where fighting never ceased, they chose the relatively peaceful Land of Fields. That would have kept their children reasonably safe while still giving them a chance to train."