Chương 72: Pleasure

The village chief gave them a thorough accounting of the situation. A month ago, a band of marauders had descended on the area and set up a stronghold in the nearby mountains, and they hadn't left. They'd begun harassing the village almost immediately — raiding, threatening, demanding. The village's able-bodied men had resisted, at first. They hadn't stood a chance against armed bandits. Most of the men were dead. Some had joined the bandits.

What remained in the village was the old, the young, the sick, and the women who had stayed behind to hold the settlement together. They couldn't run either. The village sat at the foot of the mountain range, and the paths out were all watched. Anyone who tried to slip away risked being hunted down. The chief also told them how many there were, and where. Roughly a hundred and ten. The stronghold was not far from the village at all. Yugao stepped outside. Shin, Sōen, and Sai fell in around her.

"These bandits are all ordinary people," Yugao said, looking over the three of them.

"But there are a lot of them. For genin, that's a genuine threat." Sōen stood with her head slightly bowed, turning something over in her mind.

"The mission contract specifies we drive them off — not that we wage open war," Yugao said.

"Do any of you have thoughts?" A jonin instructor's purpose was to help her genin grow, not to do the work for them. A hundred-odd men posed no actual threat to Yugao. But if she stepped in now, the mission would mean nothing. She kept her hands folded and waited.

"Infiltrate the camp. Capture the leader." Sōen's answer was brief and clean. Then she smiled.

"Kill him." Yugao looked at her, expression unreadable for a moment. She looked at Shin.

"Agreed," he said. Sai nodded alongside him. Yugao let out a slow breath.

"It's executable. It won't be easy. But since you've all decided — you're the ones who'll carry it out." She didn't refine their plan or offer to walk them through it. She had no intention of providing assistance during the operation either. Her job was to be close enough to intervene if things went truly wrong. That was it. She was a new instructor, without any real experience leading a team, and she had decided early on to let her students find their own way through. They agreed to move after nightfall.

That day, the villagers hosted them with more warmth than any of them had expected. Yugao spent a while talking idly with the older residents, watching the light change on the mountain. Shin found an open patch of ground and began working through sword forms. Sōen and Sai settled nearby and watched. Sōen watched the way he moved. His strokes were unusual — each swing of the katana flowed into the next with an ease that was almost indulgent, ornamental in the best sense, beautiful to follow.

She'd assumed at first it was just flashy. But she used a blade herself. She could read technique. There was nothing hollow about his form at all. The light began to fade. Shin lowered the katana and found Yugao, Sōen, and Sai all looking at him.

"Something wrong?" he asked.

"Your blade technique," Yugao said, studying him with steady eyes.

"It's interesting."

"All flash, no substance," Sōen said, with a small dismissive pull at the corner of her mouth.

"Would you like me to show you?" Shin said to her. Sōen's brow went up. She moved. She crossed the distance between them in a single instant. The ōdachi left its sheath with a shriek of steel on lacquered wood, and the tip of the blade hovered one centimeter from Shin's throat, motionless. Shin felt the cold against his neck.

"I thought you'd move," Sōen said, looking up at him. He hadn't shifted at all. She could see that clearly — not a flinch, not a step back. He'd simply let it happen.

"I'm not going to draw on you," he said. She felt, somehow, that she'd been made a fool of. A spark of irritation caught somewhere behind her sternum.

"Ahem." Yugao cleared her throat, cutting through the moment.

"Time to move." Sōen shot Shin a sharp look, sheathed the ōdachi, and turned to fall in beside Yugao. When Shin joined them, Yugao gave her instructions.

"We approach the camp first. Scout the layout. Full engagement after deep night." Everyone acknowledged. They prepared quietly and walked out of the village, following the direction the chief had indicated. It wasn't long before the camp came into view — a rough compound of timber and canvas, built against the hillside. It wasn't large. Guards stood at the gate, weapons in hand, laziness wearing into their posture. From a rise overlooking the camp, the squad could see the layout in reasonable detail.

The arrangement was sloppy. No pattern to it, no defensive logic. Whoever had built this place hadn't expected the villagers to be able to do anything about it. Beyond the gate guards, clusters of men sat around a fire at the center of the camp, eating, drinking, talking too loudly. They had the ease of people who believed they had nothing to worry about.

"No real threat," Sōen said, sweeping her gaze across the camp.

"Just common bandits." She noted a tent that stood apart from the rest — larger than the others, ornamented in a crude way, positioned at the back of the compound. This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"That's probably where the leader sleeps," she said, tilting her head toward it.

"Likely," Yugao agreed. Shin, Sōen, and Sai exchanged a look. All three faces had gone composed, serious. Sōen's eyes held something brighter than the others. They waited. The fires guttered low. The lamplight inside the tents dimmed one by one.

"Move," Sōen said under her breath. All three vanished into the dark at once. Yugao shifted closer to the camp's edge, positioning herself to intercept any emergency that came their way. The three genin landed without sound at the gate. The guards had fallen asleep against their posts, weapons loosely held. Shin was about to step forward when a shape moved at the edge of his vision. Sōen was already there — lunging toward the nearest sleeping guard, ōdachi clearing its sheath in silence. The blade came down.

The man never woke. His body shuddered once and went still.

"You said we were only killing the leader," Shin said, frowning. Sōen turned back toward him, the corner of her mouth curved upward. She flicked the blade downward with a small, casual motion. The blood left the steel cleanly, as if it couldn't hold. Her blade was something unusual.

"People who deserve to die," she said lightly, "should die." Shin kept his eyes on her face for a moment. Her draw had been too easy, too practiced. Not a first time. He did not like watching her kill. He didn't push it further. The three of them moved deeper into the camp. The moon was out and full, making the ground bright enough to read by, but their passage left no trace. No one stirred.

Then a figure stepped around the side of a tent — sleep-creased, one hand working at his trousers, blinking in the moonlight as if he'd just finished relieving himself. He looked up and found three strangers standing in the middle of the camp.

"Who are—" A short blade drove through his chest. The tip emerged from his back. He looked down at it, then up, and saw a pale face wearing a mild smile. Sai withdrew the blade. The man folded to the ground without a sound. Shin looked at Sai, whose technique was just as practiced as Sōen's. He was starting to wonder what kind of team this was. He exhaled. The three of them moved on, stopping before the target tent at the rear of the camp.

Without glancing back, Sōen stepped through the entrance and left a single instruction behind her.

"I'll handle it. Keep watch." The camp was silent enough that the forest insects outside sounded close. An owl called somewhere in the dark, its voice carrying clearly through the still air. Shin glanced once at Sai, standing a few steps away. Sai's face was colorless in the moonlight, the same faint smile as always. He grew up near the border, Shin thought. Somewhere unstable. Probably not a quiet childhood. The tent erupted with a scream.

"No!"

"Don't come near me! Don't—!" The sound tore through the silence, bright and terrible. Shin turned and went inside. What he found: a middle-aged man on a cot, bleeding badly from his abdomen, Sōen standing over him with the ōdachi buried in his gut. Blood was spreading across the bedding, across the ground, everywhere. The man was still alive, both hands wrapped around the blade that had entered him. She could have killed him cleanly. She hadn't. She was watching him bleed out.

"Sōen." Shin's voice was sharp. She glanced over her shoulder at him. Her expression held a thin, crooked satisfaction — wrong in a way that was hard to name. The hem of her skirt was soaked with blood, the pale fabric turned vivid. The man's hands went slack. He fell back against the cot, wide-eyed, not yet gone. Sōen pulled the ōdachi free, shook it clean with a single arc in the air, and sheathed it. She walked toward Shin.

"Why?" he said. She looked up at him when she reached him — that expression already gone, replaced by wide, unclouded eyes and an air of complete innocence.

"What's wrong with me? The plan was to kill him. I killed him." She stepped past him and out of the tent. Shin stood in the dark for a moment. He looked at his fist. Opened it. Then he followed her out. Outside, they were surrounded on all sides. The camp had woken up. Men ringed them three-deep, weapons drawn, faces tight with anger. Sōen and Sai had already drawn, standing back to back, facing them down.

Shin stepped forward, put himself in front of the others, and pointed to the wooden forehead protector on his brow.

"Your leader is dead," he called out.

"We are Hidden Leaf shinobi. Anyone who doesn't want to die should put down their weapons."

"Why waste breath on them?" Sōen muttered.

"Quiet," Shin said, without looking at her.

"You—!" She turned, eyes blazing.

"Some of you may not have wanted this life," Shin continued, ignoring her, projecting his voice toward the surrounding men.

"The gap between shinobi and ordinary people — you know what it is. We're not here to slaughter. This is your chance." The crowd wavered. Men exchanged looks. The momentum of their anger stuttered. Then someone near the back shouted.

"Don't listen to them! They're just kids! Three brats, that's all they are — everyone rush them! Avenge the boss!" Some of the men called back in agreement. Shin found the speaker with his eyes. Held the look for a breath. The man's shoulders pulled inward, and he took a step back. Sōen was already moving. She reached the man before anyone registered it. The ōdachi sang free of its sheath — a single flash, a sound like tearing silk — and the man grabbed at his throat.

He opened his mouth but his voice was already gone. His eyes went wide and glassy, and he toppled. The crowd shrank from her like she'd thrown heat. Every man near her gained distance. They looked at her the way you look at something you do not understand. Shin's jaw tightened. There was nothing to do about it.

"Kill them! Avenge the boss!" The cry surged up from somewhere in the crowd and spread, and the bandits came.

"Sai," Shin said.

"Prepare to break through." Sai nodded. He reached into his kit and produced a black scroll. His other hand brought out a brush. He rolled the scroll flat against the ground, and the brush moved fast across the surface, ink-lines forming in a single practiced breath.

"Ninja Art: Super Beast Imitation Drawing!" He pressed one hand to the scroll and exhaled the seal. The ink came alive. Two lions, massive and fluid, burst free of the paper in a surge of black, launching themselves into the crowd. Screaming broke out immediately. Men scattered, tripping over each other. Sōen's expression changed — sharpened, brightened — and she drove into the mass of them, the ōdachi moving in wide, continuous arcs. The reach of the blade kept anyone from getting close.

Men came at her and fell, or wheeled back, or froze. The screaming and the motion built into something chaotic and loud and she moved through the center of it with blood in her hair and her face, and a look that might have been joy. Cry. Scream. That's all the weak deserve. Feed me your fear. She drove the ōdachi back into its sheath. Her knees bent fractionally, shoulders squared. The iai stance settled over her like something she was born wearing.

"Ōdachi Form—" Her voice came out low and almost fond.

"Reaping Flash: Three Absolute Strikes." Shing. The blade left the sheath with a scream. Three arcs of cold light tore free from the steel in rapid sequence, the sound of it drilling into the ears of everyone nearby. The men who had been surging forward slowed. One by one they looked down at their chests. Three deep cuts across each of them, laid open to the air. They fell. Are you afraid? Are you? Tell me you're afraid.

Sōen stood among the motionless with one hand on her sheathed blade, blood dripping from the lacquered scabbard in slow beads, leaving no mark on the steel beneath. Then a shadow crossed her sight. Something came up behind her. She hadn't read the angle in time— Steel into flesh. A sound she knew. She turned. Shin was standing in front of her. His katana was extended at his side, single-handed, the tip pointing back. A man lay behind him on the ground, the weapon he'd been holding tumbling free of his fingers.

"You think that was fun?" Shin's voice had dropped. The warmth she'd seen in him earlier was not there.

"Wasn't it?" Sōen said. She did not look away from him. Her chin came up a fraction. A smile crossed her face, slow and precise, and she drew her tongue over her lower lip. Blood from the carnage had touched her cheek, her jaw. In the moonlight it made her look like something out of a painting that belonged in a different kind of story.

She drew the ōdachi halfway free with her left hand and leveled it between them, the flat of the blade catching the light near eye level, the cold gleam of it reflected in the dark of Shin's eyes.

"Let me teach you," she said, very sweetly.