The guard's sudden collapse made everyone inside the stronghold freeze.
They hadn't even seen how he fell.
Fear rippled through the bandits, hands trembling around crude weapons.
"W-What are you scared of?" someone shouted, voice shaking as he tried to rally the others. "He's just one kid! There are dozens of us!"
"That's right!"
These men lived by violence. Even if they couldn't understand what had just happened, they weren't cowards. Blades were drawn. Clubs were raised.
It didn't matter.
The gap between ordinary people and shinobi was a canyon no numbers could bridge.
Fujimoto Tōma didn't care about their morale. To him, they were already defeated.Slowly, he lifted his blade.
Each swing erased a life.
One after another.
From the shadows, Fox watched carefully. "Inkshadow's… considerate."
"Considerate?" Hyena muttered bitterly, staring at the carnage. "That's what you call this?"If he were down there, he wouldn't hesitate either, but could he be this efficient? This calm?
"Yes," Fox replied. "After the first strike, every cut goes straight for a vital point. He's minimizing suffering. Against shinobi, they were dead the moment this started. Ending it quickly is… mercy, in its own way."
Hyena stared, then shook his head hard. "That logic's twisted."
"Enough," Tenzo said quietly. "Move."
"Honestly, Captain," Fox added, "we don't even need to intervene."
Tenzo didn't answer right away. Blood soaked the ground. The stronghold wasn't small. There had to be over a hundred people inside.
First mission. First time.Was this really okay for him?
For the first time, Tenzo felt uneasy about the assignment.
"…Captain," Hyena suddenly said, scratching his head. "What if this mission wasn't meant for Inkshadow alone in the first place?"
Tenzo and Fox stiffened.
They had assumed this task was chosen specifically for Tōma. Simple. Low risk. A training exercise.But what if there hadn't been a better mission available at the time?
What if this was just routine work… and they'd overthought it?
After all, a seasoned genin could have completed this. Their squad just happened to include a newcomer. And that newcomer happened to have special backing.
"Should we step in?" Fox asked.
Tenzo watched as Tōma cut his way deeper into the stronghold.
"…It's too late," he said. "He's almost done."
Hyena and Fox both inhaled sharply.
That fast?
They remembered Tōma's introduction.
Rapid assault.
He hadn't exaggerated.
Inside the stronghold, Tōma stepped through pooled blood toward the final survivor.
The man didn't look like the others. Cleaner. Sharper eyes. Someone who might once have been educated.
He didn't raise a weapon.
Staring at the blood-soaked blade, he spoke dully, as if already broken.
"We just wanted to live… Was that really wrong?"
Tōma paused for a fraction of a second.
Then the blade fell.
Blood sprayed.
His clothes were stained now. The once-blank mask bore a thin red line. He'd noticed it earlier. At some point, he'd stopped caring.
Looking at the body, he spoke quietly.
"Maybe you weren't wrong."
He sheathed the sword and walked away, stepping through corpses, his small frame moving through the aftermath like an executioner leaving the scaffold.
Tenzo, Hyena, and Fox emerged from the shadows.
"Captain," Tōma said evenly. "Mission complete."
Tenzo spoke immediately, carefully. "Inkshadow… they were criminals. Murderers. You don't need to burden yourself over this."
"Yes," Fox added. "Whatever they were before, what they did after was unforgivable."
None of them mentioned the mission report.None of them mentioned how it described these men as former villagers driven to banditry by hunger.
That detail felt unnecessary now. Cruel, even.
Tōma was quiet for a moment.
"From their perspective," he said slowly, "doing anything to survive probably didn't feel wrong."
The three of them felt their chests tighten.
Had they failed him? Had his first mission already scarred him?
Tōma noticed their expressions and almost laughed. Almost. His face felt stiff, uncooperative.
"I'm fine," he said. "I'm just saying that from their side, survival justified everything."
Then his voice hardened.
"But I don't believe I was wrong either."
He had chosen this path. If blood shook him now, then this was as far as he would ever go.
Tōma glanced back at the blood-soaked stronghold.
A memory surfaced.An ancient toad.A half-forgotten prophecy.
"So this is what you meant," he murmured. "Blood and upheaval."
It had come faster than he expected.
But so what?
Corruption? Sin?
He almost scoffed.
This was his road. Even if it led across corpses, he wouldn't turn aside.