Return

Meanwhile.

Mizutani Shizuko stood guard beside the mountain road, her thoughts churning. One moment she was worried about Qian and Ryosuke's safety; the next, she was wondering what she should do if the enemy came.

Time slowly slipped by in her anxious waiting.

She did not know how much time had passed when a burst of hurried footsteps suddenly came from the distance.

Mizutani Shizuko snapped awake, her nerves stretching to the limit in that instant.

"Who is it?"

"Qian? No, his footsteps aren't that heavy."

"Ryosuke? Not him either. The strides are too long. Those are an adult's footsteps."

"It's the enemy!"

In a flash, Mizutani Shizuko had her answer.

At that moment, all the thoughts in her mind vanished.

Almost without hesitation, Mizutani Shizuko moved in.

On the mountain road, two Mountain Bandits were sprinting one behind the other.

As they ran, they did not forget to glance back from time to time.

Fear was written across their faces, as if they were afraid something behind them would catch up.

Whoosh—

Suddenly, the sound of something cutting through the air came from the side.

Before the Mountain Bandit in front could even see what was coming, a Kunai pierced through his lower leg.

"Ah!"

A scream tore from his mouth. Then he stumbled and crashed heavily to the ground, rolling several times in a sorry state.

Seeing this, the Mountain Bandit behind him immediately stopped, looking in extreme tension toward the direction the Kunai had flown from. Then he saw a little girl, barely half a person tall, walk out of the forest.

With just one glance, his eyes were drawn to the thing on the girl's forehead.

Not long ago, two demons wearing the same thing had slaughtered dozens of their men. Now he had run into another one.

It filled him with terror.

However, when he saw the girl's delicate face, a trace of hope could not help but rise in his heart.

Without the slightest hesitation, he dropped to his knees with a thud and cried out, "Spare me! I only joined them because I had no choice. I haven't done anything evil.

"I still have two children at home, about the same age as you. If I die, they won't be able to live.

"They're so young, so pitiful.

"Please, I'm begging you. For the sake of my children, let me go. I'll never do anything bad again."

As he spoke, he knocked his head against the ground several times with loud bangs. He used so much force that his forehead started bleeding.

His miserable appearance made a trace of pity rise in Mizutani Shizuko's heart. She thought to herself, Could what he said be true? If it is, then if I kill him, his children...

Just as Mizutani Shizuko was torn, unable to make up her mind for a moment, and a look of relief appeared on the Mountain Bandit's face, a Kunai suddenly shot over from the distance and pinned itself precisely into his throat.

Qian arrived in front of the Mountain Bandit in a few flickers. Then he yanked the Kunai out, letting blood spray.

After that, he walked up to the other Mountain Bandit, who had already been scared stupid, and calmly stabbed the Kunai into his chest, ending his life.

"Q-Qian."

Mizutani Shizuko looked at Qian and spoke haltingly.

"Don't think too much during a mission."

Before she could continue, Qian raised a hand and cut her off. "Don't forget the mission requirements."

With that, he walked down the mountain on his own.

Mizutani Shizuko stood where she was, stunned for quite a while before she murmured, "Kill all the Mountain Bandits."

That was right. The requirement for their mission this time was to kill all the Mountain Bandits on Little Black Mountain. If they let even one escape, strictly speaking, it would count as a mission failure.

It was not that Qian was especially fixated on missions. He was not Kakashi. The reason he did this was only to make Mizutani Shizuko understand that a mission was a mission.

Thinking too much while carrying out a mission could easily ruin things.

For the foreseeable future, for a long time, their Class 17 would be a single unit and would carry out missions together. Qian did not want to be dragged down by a stupid teammate one day.

So, when it was time to be cold, he had to be cold.

Of course, this was also a temporary measure.

It was impossible for him to do whatever the village told him to do. Wouldn't that make him the same as a Root Ninja, turned into a mission tool?

Once his strength rose, he would naturally be able to make choices.

As for the current stage...

He should just obediently be a good tool!

At the foot of the mountain.

The three of them gathered together once more.

Furukawa, who had vanished for several hours, appeared again as well.

His gaze swept over the three of them one by one. In the end, he said only, "Not bad," then led them toward the village.

Perhaps taking the dangers outside into consideration, Furukawa had no intention of sleeping in the open. He planned to bring them back overnight.

Qian approved of that with both hands and feet.

If possible, he would have liked to stay in the village forever.

Unfortunately, that was simply impossible.

In fact, from now on, he would have to leave the village from time to time to carry out missions.

Now he could only hope Furukawa would take it easy and not accept too many C-Rank Missions.

In the blink of an eye, several hours passed.

Early the next morning, Qian and the others returned to Konoha. The journey had been uneventful, so smooth that it felt unreal to Qian.

"Sure enough, I'm not the main character. The world won't revolve around me."

Thinking of how any random mission Naruto took would end up shooting all the way to S-rank, Qian could not help feeling a dull ache in his teeth.

"Good thing I don't have a protagonist's halo. I won't be that unlucky."

Qian secretly felt relieved.

"All right, go back and rest."

After entering the village, Furukawa stopped and said, "There won't be any missions for the next three days. You can relax a little."

"Goodbye, Teacher!" ×3

Qian and the other two replied listlessly.

"All right, get going!"

Furukawa waved his hand, indicating they could leave.

After saying goodbye to his two companions, Qian quickly headed for the Uchiha Clan Grounds.

When he got home, Qian sat in a chair for a while before finally taking off his equipment.

Although this mission had only lasted about a day from start to finish, to him, it felt as if a very long time had passed.

And he had gone from an ordinary person who had never even killed a chicken to an executioner with more than twenty lives on his hands.

Although he had convinced himself that those people had deserved to die—and had even had the spare attention to worry about his teammates' mental states—now that he thought back on it, he still felt somewhat unsettled.

The scenes of those people before they died kept replaying before his eyes, leaving him unable to muster even the spirit to train.

However, whether he could muster the spirit or not, he could not slack off on training.

Qian forcibly steadied his mind and, as if he were a beginner, began to perform the Mind Reflection Technique step by step.

Nothing unexpected had happened during this mission, and killing those Mountain Bandits had not required much Chakra, so the Chakra inside him was still fairly abundant.

Naturally, he could not let it go to waste.

And so, Qian started grinding the Proficiency of the Mind Reflection Technique.

Watching the Proficiency on the Status Panel increase bit by bit, Qian's heart unknowingly calmed down.

Very soon, his Chakra was exhausted, and Qian began refining Chakra again.

Once his Chakra was full, he once again practiced the Mind Reflection Technique.

Just like that, after two rounds of training, it was already noon. Qian could no longer hold on. He washed up casually, then fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.

In the bedroom, Qian seemed to be dreaming of something. His brows furrowed and relaxed from time to time.