They settled on a crooked ridge above the ancient track that cut through the Land of Iron. Below, the caravan would have to squeeze through a canyon of frozen rock and twisted pines, perfect funnel for an ambush. Corrupted treasurers were moving a southern shipment: a single crate, wrapped and guarded, worth more in one night than a village could hold in a year.
The job was painfully simple: don't let any of the treasurers leave alive.
Hosoi traced his thumb along the strap of his tanto. The leather was cold; the metal underneath promised a cleaner certainty than the mouths around him. He narrowed his eyes and watched.
"Wait." A hand on his shoulder. Tsuri's grip was firm enough to bruise.
"We don't have time for this, Tsuri. If they clear this path, we'll be chasing ghosts." Hosoi kept his voice small, close to the wind.
Tsuri let her fingers squeeze once, twice. "You've been acting strange." Her tone dropped to a hush. "On your first mission you… cut without hesitation. Most shinobi choke on that the first time."
Hosoi didn't look at her. They're tools, he thought. Best to know what you are before the world decides for you. He shrugged her hand off, polite as a blade. "Better to be efficient than sentimental," he said aloud, more to himself than to her.
Tsuri named him then, low enough for the cold to swallow the sound. "Hosoi Okami. A lean wolf. Names aren't thrown about by the instructors."
He watched the treasurers argue below, bundles of fur and coin wrapped tight, men who laughed too easily for the circumstances of war. He let Tsuri drop first, then the others followed—slick as black moths through the trees.
They hit the path silent as snowfall. The first blade slid into a throat before the second breath could form. The second man's head arced back with a wet sound; blood painted the snow and bit at the light.
The last man fell to his knees and screamed—high, wet, useless. He begged in a language Hosoi could, by now, translate into a single thing: please don't make this stop.
Tsuri climbed down with her blade held in a reverse grip, eyes flat as iron. She leaned toward the crouched man, and Hosoi stepped between them. The crowd's noise dulled to the soft crunch of boots and the small, bedside sounds of a man preparing to die.
"Leave him to me," Hosoi said, and there was nothing theatrical in his voice. No prayer. No hesitation.
Tsuri's blade met his in a clash that snapped the air. "I didn't mean to kill him—just fingers," she hissed, teeth bared. "A warning."
"A warning for what?" Hosoi said, the word a barb. They think removing fingers makes a man careful. They don't know what a clean death does to someone who earns the habit of killing. He smiled something like a thought and stepped aside.
"Fuck off," he muttered in an old language that felt private as a bone.
Tsuri's blade cut. The man's scream tore the clearing open, then closed. Husks of coin and cloth slumped in the snow. Hosoi watched the way his comrades moved around the bodies, the casual, practiced disrespect for human shape. He felt nothing for the corpses—only a small, steady note of curiosity. Was the cut clean? Was the blood hot? He cataloged, always cataloged.
---
They took the spoils back to camp. Tents steamed with breath; the air smelled of iron and old leather. Hosoi pulled a pipe from his belt and pretended to smoke while he waited. It was the sort of waiting that had sharp edges.
Kaito, the leader of Legion Five, sat with a coil of smoke hanging around his mouth like a halo. One eye watched Hosoi closely. "You look like hell," the older man said, not kindly.
Hosoi kept his hands still. He's trying to read me. Let him. He did not answer.
Kaito exhaled a slow circle. "Your squad's running slower than usual. Time wasted at the wrong moment kills men." He flicked ash toward Hosoi's boots. "Do better."
"Why tell me and not Tsuri?" Hosoi asked. The question was neutral; the accusation would come later if needed.
"Tsuri's growing soft," Kaito said casually, then smiled the way predators do when they taste weakness. "Your ruthlessness was… interesting. Not much else to note. If Tsuri had your edge, I'd sleep easier."
Hosoi let the words settle where they might. Compliment is poison wrapped in sugar. He tilted his head. "We all have our parts. I bring efficiency. Tsuri brings strategy."
Kaito's one good eye narrowed. "Efficiency. Don't flatter yourself. You've grown—five months is plenty to learn tricks—but you're not at the top. Your reflexes are rough. Your fundamentals are weak." He stood fluid as water drawn back. "I'll show you what needs polishing."
Hosoi didn't move fast enough to stop what came next.
A gust of movement blurred the tent's canvas. Hosoi slammed into the hard earth, snow exploding under him. Pain lanced in his shoulder and he tasted copper. Kaito was already there, loose as a shadow. The camp circled like birds at a kill, watching.
He moves too cleanly. Hosoi pushed to his knees, hands going to the pouches on his belt. He launched a string of shuriken. Kaito stepped through them like wind through grass, each blade a syllable he'd already finished speaking. The old man's foot caught Hosoi's jaw in a way that spun his head, and the world white-screened with snow.
A faint pulse, something like chakra, Hosoi thought, sang at his ribs. Then a kick that pivoted into his gut sent him sliding. He spat snow.
Kaito's grin was slow. "Reaction time," the man said. "You're asleep on reflex."
Hosoi recovered, breath shredded. He threw two kunai. Kaito snatched one from the air and with a single motion redirected the other. Simple, thought Hosoi, until the red mist flickered and Kaito blurred at the edge of vision, a trick Hosoi couldn't parse.
Two small shuriken Hosoi had tucked away curved past the tent stake and, by chance or design, struck the kunai Kaito had deflected. The iron rang and the pieces spat metal into the night. For half a heartbeat it looked like Hosoi's trick had worked: a glancing blow struck Kaito's shoulder from behind.
Kaito laughed low and vanished into a red smear that smelled of cut citrus and steel. Hosoi's stomach dropped as Kunai and shuriken phased through where Kaito had been and screamed toward him.
He pulled his tanto from its strap and burned his forearm catching the projectile meant for his skull. Metal bit his palm hard enough to draw a line of blood. He whirled, every muscle a wire strung tight and hot.
Kaito materialized behind him, a kunai at Hosoi's throat. The crowd inhaled. The cold was a knife. "This is what you need to polish," Kaito said, voice wet with amusement.
Hosoi let his anger come up in a bright flare—sharp and animal. No one had made him look this small in front of others. Not since before. For a beat he saw the other life, felt the smell of oil and concrete and the thrill of silence after an exacting kill.
No holding back, he told himself, and it was not an order so much as a ritual.
He let the thought sit under his ribs, practiced and patient. If the world demanded a monster to survive, he'd grow into one. Not for glory. Not for honor. For efficiency.
Kaito dropped the point from his throat, stepping back. The watching clan murmured, approving and hungry. Hosoi breathed in the metallic night and, for once, let himself be proud of the cold arithmetic in his chest.
***
I'll be taking a while to stockpile more chapters, so if you don't like the direction this story is taking right now, you should drop a suggestion, I'll see if I can blend my own idea with yours. With that said, see ya.