These Bandits Are No Good!

Bandit extermination was one of the most common missions in the Shinobi World. From the Warring States era to the present, the "lucrative profession" of banditry had never disappeared.

There was the Land of Fire, with its broad, gently rolling hills covering the country, its abundant resources, its vast population, and its thriving economy.

There was also the Land of Wind, whose territory was vast but largely covered by desert, with little rainfall year-round and villages built around desert oases.

Then there was the Land of Water, located offshore and made up of many islands with distinctive cultures and unusual terrain.

There was also the Land of Lightning, where thunder echoed among towering mountains, winding coastlines offered views of a majestic, beautiful sea, and hot-spring districts dotted the country.

And there was the Land of Earth, much of which consisted of barren rock faces, with rocky mountains along its borders obstructing travel to and from other countries.

Besides those Five Great Nations, there were numerous smaller countries squeezed between them, such as the Land of Swamps and the Land of Rivers.

Nearly every year, they hired shinobi to eliminate bandits who were terrorizing parts of their territories.

There were two main reasons why these bandits could never be wiped out and kept appearing in an endless stream:

First, before becoming bandits, these people had lived in villages struck by natural or man-made disasters. With nowhere else to turn, they could only survive by raiding other villages and passing merchant caravans.

Second, when shinobi from other countries needed to carry out intelligence gathering, reconnaissance, and other operations, they used threats and violence to conceal their movements, forcing these people to turn to banditry.

If the mission was to exterminate people who had become bandits under the first set of circumstances, it was a C-Rank Mission at most.

But exterminating people who had turned to banditry under the second set of circumstances was a B-Rank Mission.

Whether shinobi from other hidden villages appeared and interfered with the mission was the dividing line between C-rank and B-rank missions.

The bandits Miya had been sent to exterminate fell into the second category. Their leader had given himself away as a shinobi and had been confirmed to be a spy from the Land of Earth.

Besides wiping out the entire bandit group, Miya also had to obtain whatever intelligence the Land of Earth spy might possess.

Mission reward: 150,000 ryō.

The destination was rather far from Konohagakure, so Miya traveled by day and rested at night. It took him three days to reach the foot of Mount Batō in the Land of Fire.

The targets of his mission were holed up on that mountain.

The sun was about to set, and Miya didn't want to waste time. Once night fell and it got dark, things would be troublesome.

As he headed up Mount Batō, Miya had no intention of following the standard shinobi procedure he'd learned at school: infiltrating the base first and stealing intelligence.

Why not just fight them as soon as he met them and get it over with?

They were just a few Iwagakure shinobi at the Chunin level. Why did he need to be so careful?

Miya swaggered along, practically shouting to the bandits that he was coming.

Yet Miya, who had expected to be spotted quickly, didn't encounter a single bandit along the way. If he hadn't seen the wisps of cooking smoke rising nearby, he would have thought the intelligence was wrong.

"These bandits are no good!"

When he finally saw the gate to the bandits' stronghold, Miya shook his head and said it aloud.

Suddenly, the bandit keeping watch over the surroundings from the gate's lookout tower spotted Miya. He also saw the Konoha Ninja Forehead Protector on Miya's forehead.

The bandits' leader, an intelligence operative from Iwagakure, had ordered them to report anyone wearing a Forehead Protector, regardless of age, so he immediately shouted:

"Enemy! Enemy!"

"A Konoha Ninja is coming!"

Miya, who had swaggered up to the stronghold and "accidentally been spotted," immediately grinned when he heard the bandit shouting.

"Finally, I got spotted! That was way too hard!"

Miya sounded rather... happy!

The next second, Miya vanished from where he stood and appeared beside the shouting bandit, holding a Kunai with blood on its blade.

Thud.

The bandit fell heavily onto the lookout tower's floor, blood pouring from the wound in his neck. His eyes were wide open, as if he couldn't rest in peace.

"Enemy! Where's the enemy?"

"Quick, quick, gather up! A shinobi's here!"

"Go tell the three bosses! A Konoha Ninja's here!"

Miya's smile widened as he watched the bandits rapidly gathering below.

Look, the bandits were all gathering.

Wouldn't dealing with them now be easier than sneaking in and assassinating them?

"The enemy's up on the lookout tower!"

Having failed to hear the shouts of the bandit Miya had killed, one of the bandits in the stronghold looked up and saw Miya grinning. He immediately pointed at Miya and shouted.

Swish, swish, swish...

Once he saw that all the bandits were looking his way, Miya smiled and brought his hands together.

Shadow Clone Technique.

Poof, poof.

In an instant, Miya summoned two Shadow Clones.

"Kill."

"Kill."

Miya's Shadow Clones knew what they had to do. Each holding a dozen Kunai in both hands, they leaped down and charged at the roughly two hundred bandits below.

"Kill them! Kill them!"

"Kill those two brats! Show them what we can do!"

"Kill..."

The leaders among the bandits, presumably captains or the like, pointed at Miya's two Shadow Clones as they jumped down and gave orders.

They didn't believe Miya, still just a brat, could survive being surrounded and attacked by them.

So what if he was a shinobi?

Even so, they felt a faint unease as they watched Miya's Shadow Clones, identical to him, suddenly appear on the lookout tower and charge toward them.

For they had no idea what had caused it.

Ignorance was another word for folly.

And the reaper's scythe, claiming lives.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh...

"Ugh."

"Ugh, ugh, ugh..."

Miya's two Shadow Clones darted through the crowd of bandits, their blades rising and falling. The bandits couldn't even catch sight of their shadows. Only after their throats were cut did they let out quiet, pained groans and fall heavily to the ground.

Miya, who was using his Shadow Clones as killing tools, was in a good mood. If he dealt with so many bandits himself, he would surely get bloodstains on him.

Soon, Miya's two Shadow Clones had killed about half of the slightly more than two hundred bandits. From the lookout tower, Miya also spotted the three Iwagakure shinobi hurrying over.