"Then let's kill them all!"
Minato Namikaze voiced his agreement, which surprised Shin'un. He hadn't expected Minato Namikaze to be so ruthless toward people from other villages.
Noticing Shin'un's surprised look, Minato Namikaze explained:
"It's not that I'm cruel. These bandits are taking advantage of the chaos to loot."
"In past years, we in Konoha regularly took missions from residents of the Land of Fire. There was simply no room for bandits like these to survive here.
Now, we in Konoha don't have time to deal with these bandits. But since we've run into them, we might as well wipe them all out."
"This is part of our duty as Konoha Ninja, too."
With that, Minato Namikaze looked back at the dozens of bandits in the distance.
Shin'un fell into thought at Minato Namikaze's words. As someone born and raised in the Shinobi World, Minato Namikaze still thought somewhat differently from Shin'un.
The bandits before them had clearly turned to roaming and banditry because of the war. Just look at their weapons-what bandits went around robbing people with sledgehammers and sickles?
Unfortunately, there was no question that they were bandits now. The situation in the Land of Rain occupied much of Konoha's attention, leaving it unable to maintain order within its own country as thoroughly as usual. In that case, wiping these bandits out was the only option.
"Nothing we can do. This is the only way."
Having thought it through, Shin'un nodded, agreeing with Uchiha Yūichi's proposal to annihilate these bandits.
"Then let's go. There might be a lot of them, but they aren't worth taking seriously." Uchiha Yūichi was already growing impatient.
"Don't mess around. These bandits might be weak and powerless, but let's not waste them.
Our team needs a fight to learn to work together anyway. We can put these bandits to use."
Shin'un held back Uchiha Yūichi, who was itching to move behind him, and began discussing a suitable approach with Minato Namikaze beside him.
In the end, the two decided to divide the bandits in the distance into two groups, with each team handling one.
"Then may fortune favor you in battle!" With that, Minato Namikaze immediately led his teammates around toward the other side of the bandits.
"May fortune favor you in battle!" Shin'un blurted out the same blessing. After all, saying something nice only cost a little breath.
After waiting a short while, Shin'un, who had been watching the treetops opposite him, spotted a flash of light. This was the signal he and Minato Namikaze had agreed on to begin the attack.
Shin'un brought his hands together and immediately began forming hand seals.
"Move!"
At his low shout, Yūichi and Shiina Kō immediately charged out from behind him.
"Lightning Release: Lightning Current!"
Then Shin'un finished his hand seals, and a Lightning Release technique was ready.
Bzzzt!
Amid the crackle of electricity, streams of blue-violet current surged from between Shin'un's hands, racing through the air past Yūichi and Shiina Kō toward the distant bandits.
Through the extreme perception granted by his [Extreme Reaction], Shin'un could clearly see every branching path, turn, and leap of the currents in the air.
Boom!
The current struck the center of the bandits. Blue-violet electric light swept across the area, engulfing most of them and leaving nearly all the bandits affected by the current, twitching where they stood.
"Nicely done!" At the sight, Uchiha Yūichi immediately bulldozed into the crowd, drew his kunai, and began slaughtering them. None of the bandits could resist. With their bodies paralyzed by the current, even escape had become a distant hope.
On the other side, Shiina Kō refused to be outdone, darting and weaving through the bandits with extraordinary agility, harvesting lives as easily as a cheetah and with tremendous efficiency.
The two attacked from opposite sides of the crowd, about to slaughter every bandit within just a few seconds.
Seeing this, Shin'un dared not delay. He hurriedly used the Body Flicker Technique to charge straight toward a bandit still alive in the distance.
With wild gusts buffeting his ears, Shin'un swiftly arrived before the bandit.
This lucky bandit hadn't been caught by Shin'un's Lightning Release. Unlike his companions, he could still move his body freely. The moment he saw the electrical attack, he realized ninjas were attacking and immediately turned to flee.
Unfortunately, being able to move freely amid a motionless crowd made him far too conspicuous, and Shin'un had singled him out.
"What?" The bandit noticed a sudden, loud roar behind him, rapidly drawing closer.
The relatively quick-witted bandit swiftly turned to look, but his ordinary powers of observation only let him see a blurry black shadow hurtling toward him through the air. He had no time to react at all.
Then he suddenly felt a chill at his neck, and warm liquid gushed out. Although there was no pain, the bandit immediately realized what had happened. He clamped both hands tightly around his neck, trying to seize his vanishingly slim chance of survival.
Unfortunately, as he lost large amounts of blood, the bandit's mind gradually grew foggy. Combined with the suffocation caused by blood entering his windpipe, it soon left him too weak to stand. He fell to his knees, his life rapidly fading.
With a soft thud, the bandit collapsed to the ground. His pupils gradually dilated, and his body slowly lost its vitality.
After killing this bandit, Shin'un immediately killed another four or five nearby.
By then, Yūichi and Shiina Kō had finished off all the bandits. Even Minato Namikaze's side had reached the final stage.
Seeing this, Shin'un couldn't be bothered to help. He turned to look at the bandits he had killed behind him.
All of them had died from massive blood loss caused by cuts to their necks, combined with suffocation as blood blocked their windpipes.
Across this life and his previous one, this was the first time Shin'un had killed anyone. According to the conventions of ordinary novels, he ought to go through a whole sequence of nausea, vomiting, tension, and fear. Under normal circumstances, that was how a normal person reacted their first time.
So... Shin'un stood where he was, looking at the corpses of those he had killed, quietly assessing the state of his entire body.
At last, he reached a conclusion.
"I'm not normal?"
"Doesn't everyone say the first time hurts and feels awful? Why aren't I reacting at all?"
Perhaps Shin'un had already been assimilated during his ten years in the Shinobi World. Now, after killing for the first time, he felt no ripples in his heart, only utter calm.
He even felt a so-called desire for battle burning within him. Because that desire had found no outlet, Shin'un condemned these bandits for being so weak that he could kill them with ease.
"A hell joke?"
Shin'un thought about it. Perhaps he would go to hell after he died?
He shook his head with a smile and turned to leave.
Squelch.
With the thick grass concealing the ground, Shin'un carelessly stepped into a pool of blood, soaking both feet red.
Looking at the dark red on his feet, wiggling his toes and feeling the sticky blood coating them, with the smell of fresh blood filling his nose, Shin'un felt a faint wave of nausea rise within him.
"Looks like I'm normal after all?"
Shin'un hurriedly stepped aside, looked around, and pulled some tender leaves from a thick patch of grass to wipe the blood from his feet.