"Huh?"
Aoki, a squad leader returning from a mission, looked at his subordinate with a bewildered expression and said, "Are you kidding me?"
"Cap-captain, they're all dead! Really! They're all dead!!"
Tears and snot streamed down the Grass ninja's face. Fear twisted his features, and his voice was almost a shriek.
"Damn it! Do you know what you're saying?"
Aoki's brows furrowed tightly. He then led the startled and doubtful group, suppressing the unease in his heart, into Grass Village.
As the darkest moment before dawn passed, the sky took on a ghastly, fish-belly gray that offered no warmth, and the mist shrouding Grass Village began to settle and dissipate.
However, the morning light only dispelled the moisture; it brought no warmth or vitality.
What lay exposed in the faint morning light was a landscape of absolute deathly silence.
An absolute realm of death.
At this moment, Grass Village held no signs of life. There were no human voices, no bird calls, and even the insects seemed to have vanished.
The wind swept through the empty streets, stirring up a cold current of morning mist and dust, wailing like the sighs of the departed.
"..."
Aoki's bewildered expression and a hint of impatience froze on his face.
The Grass ninja following him, who had previously shown longing for hot food and beds after their tiring return, now had their expressions completely frozen.
"No... impossible..." someone choked out a dry voice.
But when they truly saw the full extent of Grass Village after the morning mist receded, even their last shred of self-deceiving hope burst like a bubble.
Corpses.
Everywhere were corpses.
On the streets, in courtyards, inside houses...
Hundreds, thousands of corpses lay scattered in various poses. Every single one of these bodies belonged to ninja they knew.
Hollow eyes reflected the deathly silence of the morning, twisted, curled, stiff, or futilely reaching out, silently narrating the horror and despair when death descended.
Every corpse, without exception, had lost its color, appearing in a bizarre, waxy white intertwined with grey and decay.
These were the traces left when their souls were stripped away and their vitality withered.
The density of these corpses was so immense that they practically covered every visible surface.
An indescribable aura of death and fear, like a tangible scent, harshly assaulted everyone's nostrils, instantly triggering physiological nausea and dizziness.
"Ugh!"
A young genin's legs gave out, and he collapsed to the ground, his violent dry heaves tearing through the deadly silence.
No one helped him. The others stood like clay statues, their gazes unfocused as they swept across the nightmarish scene.
"Really... all of them..." a Grass ninja's voice was as dry as sandpaper.
"What exactly happened?" Aoki felt his hands and feet turn ice cold, as if his blood had stopped flowing. He instinctively stumbled a few steps forward.
But just then, an extremely suppressed, faint sob, almost carried away by the wind, suddenly came from a house on the left.
In this absolutely silent graveyard, this single sound, like a spark cutting through the darkness, instantly drew everyone's gaze.
"Someone's still alive!" a Grass ninja cried out in a lost voice.
Like drowning people grasping at a last straw, the group, in their terror, rushed towards the source of the sound with a trace of wild joy, their footsteps chaotic.
It seemed to hear their footsteps, and a head peeked out from the house, its face pale, devoid of any color.
And upon seeing the group of Grass ninja, the face also showed the bewilderment of someone who had survived a catastrophe.
It wasn't just him; more people heard the sounds and began to emerge from their hiding places.
The Grass ninja found their family members among them and immediately rushed over, embracing them and crying as if releasing pent-up pain.
But without exception, all those who survived were civilians.
"What's going on? What exactly happened?"
Aoki grabbed the person's shoulder, his face twisted and grim as he demanded, "Why are only you alive? Where are the others?!"
"Dead... they're all dead..." The person's eyes were dull, as he mumbled dazedly, "Monsters, invisible monsters, couldn't stop them at all, couldn't escape..."
"What do you mean?" An inexplicable chill crept up Aoki's spine. "What are you talking about?"
Invisible monsters?
Could he have been scared out of his mind, just spouting nonsense?
"Cap-captain! Look!"
A Grass ninja knelt before a corpse, seemingly having discovered something, and looked up with a face full of terror, trembling as he said, "No wounds, no signs of poison!"
"What?"
Aoki's heart clenched. He rushed forward a few steps and carefully examined the corpse.
Then, he ran to other corpses, flipping through them one by one.
The first, the second, the third...
None! None! Still none!
Not a single one of these corpses had any external wounds or signs of poisoning!
"How is that possible?" his voice was dry, as he whispered, "How did they die?"
It was so eerie, almost as if they had been...
Their souls extracted?
"Captain! Here, here's another one..."
Just then, a Grass ninja stumbled over, carrying a still bleeding corpse on his shoulder.
Blood?
Noticing this single different corpse, Aoki instantly flashed to the person, snatched the corpse, and saw the pierced, heartless chest.
He suddenly looked up at the ninja and asked in a deep voice, "Where was this body found?"
"It, it was in..." The Grass ninja's throat bobbed up and down. "That woman's house."
"Woman?" Aoki froze for a moment but quickly remembered, disbelievingly saying, "That woman from the Uzumaki clan?"
Her? How is that possible? That woman, how could she have the guts to do such a thing, and how could she have the power to slaughter half of Grass Village?!
"Cap-captain," the Grass ninja pointed at the corpse, trembling, "You, look at his back..."
Aoki instinctively lowered his head, turned the corpse over, and then his pupils slightly constricted.
Two lines of characters were clearly carved on the corpse's back.
[The gnawing pain suffered by the flesh in the past]
[Now, without entering the Pure Land, it is all returned]
"It really was that vile woman?!"
Aoki's expression gradually turned savage, vengeful fury overwhelming his fear: "We took her and that brat in. It's one thing for her to be ungrateful, but to do something like this!"
Though he didn't know how the woman had done it, these two sentences made it very clear!
"Chase!" He suddenly stood up, looking at the other Grass ninja, and barked, "She took that brat, she definitely hasn't escaped far! Get after her—"
"Captain!"
Before he could finish, a Grass ninja beside him couldn't help but interrupt, his body shaking like a sieve: "She's already dead!"
"..."
Silence. The air seemed to freeze instantly.
Everyone present couldn't help but cast astonished glances. Someone blurted out, "What did you say?"
"She's dead! Dead! Her body was already burned, right in that house!"
The Grass ninja finally couldn't bear the fear that reached his very soul. Pointing at the bloody characters, he screamed in despair, "It was that woman! It was her curse after she died that got all of us!"
These words ignited the fear of the survivors present.
"Her? That monster, that monster was her?!"
The image of an invisible, intangible grim reaper from last night, devouring souls, merged with the image of a woman who had died full of resentment after prolonged suffering.
A chilling fear, originating from the depths of their souls, instantly engulfed everyone present.
Even Aoki, who had been the most enraged just moments ago, felt a cold dread surge from his feet to the top of his head.
This was humanity's innate fear of the unknown.
Moreover, besides those who had died, he himself had once tormented that woman.