The slaughter took only a few minutes from start to finish. Corpses littered the bandit stronghold, every one of them killed with a single strike.
By the time the chaos ended, only ten bandits remained in the stronghold.
When the bandit leader saw how few men had gathered around him, his face turned a dark, purplish red.
Over a hundred men had been slaughtered in the blink of an eye. No one could have accepted such a devastating reversal.
Tap, tap, tap...!
Yechen and Ito Miyuki entered the largest wooden building side by side. It was where the bandits usually gathered to drink and amuse themselves.
"Boss, they're ninja!" a bandit cried in terror when he spotted the forehead protector on Ito Miyuki's brow.
"We're done for! We're done for! They're going to kill us!"
To ordinary civilians, ninja were synonymous with terror, and these bandits felt the same way.
The Shinobi World War had dragged not only the major ninja villages into its turmoil, but countless ordinary people as well.
Normally, they would never have dared go too far, afraid that ninja would come to wipe them out.
But with the Shinobi World War underway, they had started getting ideas, hoping to profit from the chaos. They had never expected ninja to set their sights on them anyway.
Thud!
"Please spare us, honored ninja! We're just ordinary folk! We were oppressed and forced to become bandits in the mountains. We haven't done anything evil!"
Realizing how dire the situation was, the bandit leader immediately dropped to his knees and begged for mercy.
The other bandits caught on and began pleading that they, too, had been forced into this life.
"Sob, sob...!"
Yechen looked toward the sobbing and saw several women huddled fearfully in a corner. Their clothes were disheveled, their eyes full of terror. The bruises on their bodies made it clear they had been abused.
"Th-this..." The bandit leader noticed them too and hurried to explain.
"They're all our wives. They're just frightened by the corpses. I..."
Before he could finish, a blade pierced his throat. The kunai passed through it and embedded itself in the wooden floor. As crimson blood stained the boards, it looked like a flower of death blooming.
The bandit leader clutched his throat with both hands, spewing a mouthful of blood. His eyes widened as he tried to speak, but he could no longer utter a word. He toppled backward in bitter disbelief, dying with his eyes still open.
"They killed the boss!" the remaining bandits cried in terror.
As they tried to flee, a figure shot forward. The Flash Teleportation Technique was like instantaneous movement, and in the blink of an eye, Yechen had killed all ten men.
He stood ahead of them, cold and impassive, blood still dripping from the kunai in his hand.
Ito Miyuki was stunned by the sight. She was familiar with the Flash Body Technique, but she had only seen ninja with Jonin-level strength master it to such a degree.
Yechen was still only a Genin, yet he had already mastered the Advanced Three Body Technique. It left her feeling rather discouraged.
Yechen ignored Miyuki behind him and walked toward the women. Seeing their terrified expressions, he spoke evenly.
"You're free now. Come down the mountain with me in a little while. Tell me, are all the abducted women here?"
"A few others were taken away," one of the braver women replied.
Yechen thought of the women who had been abused in the other rooms and understood.
"Get yourselves ready and gather the other women. I'll take you home."
At the word "home," the women burst into tears.
Yechen said nothing more and turned to leave.
He searched the entire stronghold and found no bandits who had escaped the slaughter. He did, however, find quite a lot of money, presumably taken during their raids.
Ito Miyuki sent a signal, and Abe Rō rushed over. The moment he saw her and Yechen, he started complaining. They had agreed he would wait down there for any bandits who slipped through.
Yet the fighting on the mountain had already started, and not a single bandit had come his way. When he saw the corpses strewn across the ground, he could not stomach it and hunched over in a corner, dry heaving.
"Is that all you can handle?" Ito Miyuki curled her lip, then ignored him and turned to Yechen.
"What do we do now? Are we really taking them home?"
"What else would we do?" Yechen glanced behind him.
"There are bandits all over this area. If we let them go back on their own, they might just get abducted again."
In times this chaotic, Yechen hardly expected those bandits to have any humanity.
He insisted on taking the women home only because he did not want what little humanity he had left to be worn away as well.
"So much treasure!" After retching for a while, Abe Rō felt a little better. His eyes lit up at the pile of jewels and silver coins on the ground.
"Forget it, idiot. All confiscated valuables have to be handed over. We can't take any for ourselves," Ito Miyuki said.
Abe Rō looked disappointed. He had never seen so much money before.
"You did very well. You even surprised me."
Nakagawa Ichirō appeared before them, accompanied by a ninja in black robes. The man wore a demon mask and carried a short sword on his back. He looked like an Anbu ninja.
"Our mission is complete. Leave the rest to the Anbu investigator."
The Anbu ninja gave a slight nod, indicating that he would handle it.
Nakagawa Ichirō looked at the three of them. "Let's go. We'll head back and report the mission's completion."
Yechen took a step, then stopped. He glanced back at the women behind him before turning to the Anbu ninja.
"Could you take them home and leave them some money?"
The Anbu ninja considered it for a moment, then nodded and gave a brief answer.
"Yes."