Splat!
A blade flashed, and blood sprayed.
The woman fell to the ground in agony. Trembling, she pressed her hands to the wound in a futile attempt to stop the bleeding, her mouth opening in a garbled plea for mercy.
Seeing she was still moving, Fushark drove his sword into her chest again.
Her head slumped, and she finally died.
Fushark chuckled darkly, turning to see his Kirigakure comrades reporting their successes, chasing and slaughtering the fleeing Konoha ninjas.
"Hahaha, Konoha is so weak! Konoha!"
"All you do is run, you Konoha scum!"
"Die!"
"Hmm? Hiding in a water barrel? Do you know who we are? We are the Kirigakure ninja, masters of Water Style!""What a one-sided battle," Fushark laughed, revealing his sharp teeth. In his ten years as a ninja, he had never fought such an easy battle. These Konoha ninjas seemed like regular people just thrown onto the battlefield, running in panic like a flock of sheep.
Fushark spotted another Konoha ninja, a young boy, who, unlike the others, dared to fight back. Though clumsy, the boy's defiance annoyed him.
The boy wielded two kitchen knives, eyes closed, slashing wildly at Fushark while crying and cursing:
"You bastards, murderers, you even kill civilians… you're worse than rogue ninjas!"
Fushark didn't bother to dodge; the boy couldn't hit him with his eyes closed. Watching this pitiful display, he cleaned his ear with his pinky finger. Growing bored, he blew off the earwax and shook his head:
"Blabbering on about who knows what… If you're on the battlefield, be ready to die if you can't fight back."
With that, Fushark sliced off the boy's hand holding the knife. As the boy stared in disbelief at his severed limb, Fushark's second strike pierced his throat.
"Ugh…"
Blood poured out uncontrollably as the boy clutched his neck, eyes widening in despair.
First, his strength faded, and he collapsed to his knees. Then, as his consciousness dimmed, his body toppled over.
Blood pooled beneath him as he swiftly felt his life slipping away.
The boy couldn't comprehend why this was happening, his eyes filled with absurdity and hatred.
Fushark wiped his blade on the boy's clothes, speaking nonchalantly:
"Facing the ‘mighty' Konoha ninja, we expected a tough fight. Lady Mei instructed us to go all out, leaving no survivors."
"So, blame yourselves for being too weak… I wonder how you even graduated from the Ninja Academy."
His tone was mocking and disdainful.
Under the vast sky, the battle was quickly ending. Standing atop a tree, Fushark looked down at the blood-soaked village, where only a few dozen Kirigakure comrades remained, comparing their kill counts. Occasionally, a voice of discontent broke the harmony.
Fushark smiled faintly. As the leader of this Kirigakure squad, he shouted to a young ninja below:
"Go inform Lady Mei that the Konoha forces here have been completely annihilated. Our total kills… Hey, Chojuro, count the bodies… Yes, tell Lady Mei we killed over four hundred enemies, with zero deaths and one injury on our side!"
A fifty-man Kirigakure squad annihilating a four hundred-strong Konoha force was undoubtedly an unprecedented victory.
Despite sensing something odd, the sight of the fallen Konoha ninja uniforms quickly quelled Fushark's doubts, as if a voice whispered for him not to delve deeper.
He chose to heed his inner voice, smacking his lips before continuing:
"The rest of you, rest here. This was likely just a rookie squad from Konoha. Their main forces haven't shown yet. We still have a tough fight ahead, so don't let your guard down."
His casual warning provoked laughter and lively reactions below.
"Hahaha, Captain, you're joking. These Konoha ninja are no different from ordinary villagers in the Land of Waves. They came here to die!"
"After Neiki's and the Uchiha's rebellions, Konoha's strength plummeted, but I didn't expect it to fall this low. What a boring fight."
"If this is the rookie squad, the main forces won't be much better."
"These must be regular ninjas who've never seen a battlefield."
"In our Kirigakure, they wouldn't even make it out of the academy. Yet, Konoha sent them here to die…"
They toyed with the corpses, mocking their foes whose legs turned to jelly at the sight of blood. These Konoha ninjas, with forehead protectors so tight they seemed fused to their skulls, even bled with a fishy stench.
Unnoticed by the jubilant Kirigakure ninjas, a group of individuals on a distant hill watched them with burning hatred.
A man in a wooden mask spoke calmly:
"See that? This is the price of weakness."
"In peacetime, the great nations maintain their rule and false image by signing peace and human rights agreements, pretending not to massacre civilians, bully the weak, or kill prisoners… Hypocrites, deceiving themselves and others."
"When war breaks out, these nations abandon all pretense, slaughtering civilians, bullying the weak, killing prisoners. They'll do anything to effectively hurt their enemies, no matter how cruel."
"Reckless and unrestrained."
"Teacher, can't we do something?!" Inari, eyes red with fury, clenched his teeth.
From Hanabi, he learned that only the strong could do as they pleased.
From his teacher, he learned that being too weak meant facing unimaginable cruelty.
Those four hundred villagers from the Land of Waves hadn't done anything wrong but were brutally slaughtered by the rampant Kirigakure ninjas!
Inari couldn't understand why they did this.
He had only one desire now.
To repay blood with blood!
An eye for an eye!!
Inari wasn't alone. The twenty or so A-rank talent students from Sword Concealment Village shared the same vengeful expressions, which pleased Hashirama.
It was worth using his Genjutsu: This World’s Purgatory to disguise the four hundred islanders who hadn’t or refused the Byakugan Cursed Seal as Konoha ninjas.
"I’ve recorded their slaughter. Soon, everyone in the Land of Waves will understand the cost of weakness," Hashirama said softly.
"But what about now?!" another girl, Hiyara Fuyuka, demanded. "I don’t want to wait for the future. Can't we make them pay now?"
"No, you're still too weak," Hashirama shook his head. "You need more training."
A sorrowful silence followed.
"Of course, while we can't directly retaliate, we can still do something else."
As the children looked on in confusion, Hashirama smiled slightly and waved his hand. The thick mist in the distance began to dissipate. A Konoha ninja, who had been searching the perimeter for Kirigakure clues, immediately spotted the resting Kirigakure ninjas atop a roof.
The two sides locked eyes.
Almost simultaneously, they reached into their pockets. Two differently colored signal flares shot into the sky and exploded.
"We've found the Kirigakure forces here!!"
"They’re coming, Konoha’s main force!!!"
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