"How was it?" Minato Namikaze's voice came from beside him.
Shin'un, who was wiping the blood off his feet, looked up. The bandits Minato had taken charge of on the other side had all been killed.
"What do you mean, how was it? It was what it was."
As he spoke, Shin'un continued observing the others' reactions.
It was everyone's first time killing someone. Although Shin'un himself had no reaction, that did not mean the others would not.
Still, perhaps because the people of the Shinobi World really were tough, Shin'un was relieved to discover that none of his teammates had any adverse reactions to their first kills.
Even Shiina Kō, whom Shin'un had been rather worried about, showed no reaction now.
With a cold expression and her high ponytail swaying, she was moving the bodies with Yūichi, preparing to burn them.
Seeing this, Shin'un raised an eyebrow, and a smile appeared on his lips.
After all, she was an elite-class student who had properly graduated from the Ninja Academy. Even if she was somewhat shy, that did not stop her from fighting and killing enemies.
Besides, perhaps she only showed that shy side of herself around him...
After wiping the blood off his feet, Shin'un joined the others in moving the bodies.
They gathered all the bandits' bodies in a clearing, and Uchiha Yūichi, who specialized in Fire Style, set them alight.
"Fire Style: Fire-Setting Jutsu!"
Boom!
Scorching flames surged from Yūichi's mouth, igniting the small mountain of bandits' bodies before him. Fat and flammable materials made the flames burn even more fiercely.
As the fire grew and the bodies burned, Shin'un even caught a scorched smell.
"Let's go. The convoy should be coming soon." Seeing that the flames had destroyed every trace left by the bandits, Minato Namikaze turned and left.
"Let's go!" Shin'un glanced at Minato, then looked toward his teammates.
Uchiha Yūichi answered, then turned and headed out of the dense woods. Shiina Kō, however, seemed to be staring blankly at the burning bodies.
"Shiina Kō? What are you doing?" Shin'un asked.
Shin'un's voice startled Shiina Kō, and she looked up at him as though frightened.
"Huh? Nothing, it's just..."
"Just what?"
Shiina Kō looked up at Shin'un beside her, her delicate brows drawing together against her fair skin.
There was less than a person's width between them now. Normally, Shiina Kō would have rushed off to tell her best friend the good news, her face instantly flushing red, and she would even have smiled with happiness in her sleep that night.
But right now, Shiina Kō was in no mood to feel happy about something like that.
"I knew that older man. I used to see him often when I was little. By family seniority, I should call him Uncle."
"But I don't know why he became a bandit, and then we..."
Shiina Kō pointed at a charred corpse in the flames, explaining why she was acting a little strangely.
Shin'un followed her finger. After studying the charred corpse for a moment, his eyebrows immediately rose, and he could not help glancing at Shiina Kō beside him, feeling somewhat awkward.
As luck would have it, the man Shiina Sora called Uncle was the very one he had killed...
"Are you sure you haven't mistaken him for someone else?" Shin'un asked, unwilling to give up.
"There's no mistake. My uncle always carried a long-stemmed pipe. It even has a little cat I scratched into it while playing when I was young," Shiina Kō said quietly, her head lowered.
At that, Shin'un turned toward the charred corpse. Sure enough, he found a long-stemmed pipe tucked at its waist. On what should have been the pipe's smooth surface was a scratch vaguely resembling a cat.
Upon discovering this, Shin'un immediately widened his eyes, somewhat speechless.
How could it be such a coincidence? The first person I killed was someone an acquaintance knew. Even that grim reaper of an elementary schooler wouldn't hurt Ran's dad, Kogorō Mōri!
This is just ridiculous!
After marveling at the coincidence, Shin'un looked at Shiina Kō beside him.
"Then... my condolences?" Shin'un said somewhat uncertainly.
"Mm... thank you." Shiina Kō thanked Shin'un for comforting her.
"Tell me, these people were all ordinary civilians of the Land of Fire before. Why did they become bandits?"
Shiina Kō looked at her uncle's charred corpse and asked Shin'un beside her, her face expressionless.
After thinking for a moment, Shin'un answered.
"Probably because they couldn't survive anymore."
"Couldn't survive?" Shiina Kō raised her head and looked at Shin'un.
"Yes. We're already on the outskirts of the Land of Fire. You know, it's wartime now. Rain Ninja, Stone Ninja, Sand Ninja, wandering ninja, and spies from every village all show up here.
"If your uncle lived nearby, then after being intimidated, threatened, and robbed by ninja from other countries day after day, becoming a bandit would have been his only way to survive."
Based on his own understanding, Shin'un laid out his entire conjecture.
"Is that so?" After hearing Shin'un's explanation, Shiina Kō seemed to look a little better.
"It can't be helped. It's wartime."
Shiina Kō closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her gloomy expression seemed to disappear.
Turning toward Shin'un beside her, Shiina Kō said with a smile:
"Don't worry. I'm fine."
"This outcome can only be attributed to the war. I can't blame anyone." With that, Shiina Kō turned back toward the flames before her.
After considering his words for a moment, Shin'un asked.
"Don't you want to know who killed your..."
Hearing this, Shiina Kō turned to glance at Shin'un and laughed.
"Would knowing make any difference?"
"Honestly, I hadn't seen him since I was four. I didn't have any affection for this uncle in name."
"Back then, he never worked and treated our family like an ATM. He racked up huge gambling and tobacco debts. Those debt collectors knew he had no money, so they came to our door every day to splash paint, threaten us, and intimidate us. They even spread rumors about our family in the village."
"It was precisely because we couldn't stay in our old village anymore that we applied to move to Konoha."
"That was the only way to keep him from coming to us every day, shamelessly demanding money, and disrupting our family's lives."
"So why would I want to know who killed him? To avenge him? Not a chance."
With that, Shiina Kō gave Shin'un beside her a toothy grin. Her playful manner contrasted with the restrained, shy way she usually acted when meeting him, bringing an involuntary smile to Shin'un's face.
Suddenly, as though remembering something, Shiina Kō said with a smile:
"Oh, right."
"Those debt collectors actually followed us to Konoha and kept up the same old routine of splashing paint, threatening us, intimidating us, and disrupting our lives."
"But the day after they did all that, the Uchiha clan members in charge of public security strung them up and beat them. They also expelled them from Konoha."
"After that, I never saw them in Konoha again."