Chapter 7: Engagement
The instant Shinmi completed his hand seals, the ground beneath his feet suddenly sank. A hand covered in wet mud burst from the earth, locking onto his ankle like an iron pincer.
"Damn it!"
His pupils shrank. Shinmi's body was dragged down by an immense force. The earth swallowed him like a living thing, and in the blink of an eye, only his head remained above the surface.
He watched helplessly as the "Shūji" that had been riddled with poison senbon dissolved into a cloud of white smoke in the morning breeze.
Earth Style: Headhunter Jutsu!
And... a Shadow Clone!
A Jōnin?!
The earth squeezed his body. Shinmi struggled frantically, but a sharp, intense pain suddenly exploded from his abdomen.
"Gah...!" His face twisted in agony. Several spikes of hard wood had pierced his organs and were now growing wildly inside him. Wood fibers spread through his blood vessels, impaling his insides. With every beat of his heart, new branches drilled out from his wounds.
"Cough—!"
Blood sprayed from his mouth, dyeing the ground dark red. Blood seeped from his eyes, nose, and ears. Droplets ran down his chin and splattered into the mud.
"Puppet Jutsu, poisoned senbon... the Suna style." Shūji's real body appeared in front of Shinmi's head, looking down on him. "A missing-nin?"
Shūji's voice was calm. "What the Shirakawa villagers took was just the scraps, wasn't it? Where's the rest? Doesn't look like it's on you."
"Any last words? Reason for defecting, maybe? It'll make the report easier." Shūji sounded completely unconcerned. "Of course, if you don't talk, I'll just make something up."
As the branches inside him tightened their lethal grip, Shinmi's eyes bulged, a thick web of blood vessels covering them. He tried desperately to speak, but only spat up bloody foam as a "hehh... hehh..." rattled in his throat.
"It's... too..." His hoarse voice was like grinding sand. "Too hard... Can't see... any... hope..."
The sandstorms... worse every year. Missions weren't increasing, but the Land of Wind's Daimyō kept cutting the military budget. War... never-ending. And those weak merchants... they lived better, more peaceful lives than a shinobi like him.
Why? Why did the strong have to hone their skills, only to keep struggling on the line between life and death, while those ordinary people got to live in peace? He couldn't stand it...
He had used the chaos of the Third Shinobi War to desert Suna. Waited patiently for the Anbu sent to confirm his death to give up. Waited for the heat to die down. He carefully built his crew, screened his targets, and saved up just enough money to retire.
And then... he'd dispose of his followers. They were loose ends. To retire in peace, he had to clean house. When he realized the Shirakawa villagers were at their breaking point, he just let it happen, a perfect way to tie everything up. It should have been flawless.
"Why..." Why, right at the finish line.
Those damn villagers! They never told him the trackers were shinobi! If... if he had known they were shinobi, he wouldn't have been so careless...
But why? If they were shinobi, why would they let ordinary villagers come up the mountain to do the dirty work? That wasn't the shinobi way. To hunt bandits, a shinobi would just investigate the trade road, find the trail... and his warning puppets would have detected them on the way up. They would never have been triggered by those civilians...
The Land of Tea... The memory was so clear: endless green fields, warm sun, camellias swaying in the wind. He was going to build a villa there, white walls and a red roof, and breathe in the salty sea air every morning...
Now, it was all smoke. His vision blurred. Shūji's form melted into a black silhouette against the dawn light.
A flash of cold light. The head fell. The Headhunter Jutsu was complete.
Shūji took a scroll from a pouch on his chest, unrolled it, and placed Shinmi's head on it. He formed a single hand seal. The scroll glowed faintly, the head vanished, and a sealing fūin flickered for an instant and was gone. When encountering a missing-nin from another village, the default procedure was to bring back the head. The Konoha Intel Division would try to extract information from it. If it was valuable, there was a special bonus. If not, there was still a basic stipend.
The moment the seal was complete, Itachi's figure appeared at the camp's entrance.
"All settled?"
"Yes. As you requested, Senpai, I finished speaking with Shirakawa Kiesuke and the other leaders. I made it clear that Konoha will remain silent on Shirakawa's internal affairs, as agreed, and will officially report that we eliminated the bandits." Itachi took out a cloth bag. "This is the property they turned over. I have accepted it as instructed."
"Sweep the area," Shūji said, taking the bag and stowing it. "See if this Suna missing-nin left anything else."
"Have the villagers deal with these bodies later," Shūji added. The bodies were originally meant to be physical evidence for the Land of Rivers. That wasn't necessary now. The head of one Suna missing-nin was more than enough. The Intel Division would confirm he was the ringleader, and Konoha would guarantee the mission's completion.
For a mere C-Rank mission, taking down an enemy shinobi was already far above and beyond the requirements.
Itachi walked toward the shattered puppet on the ground but didn't approach the main body. He quickly formed a seal and created a Shadow Clone. The clone cautiously neared the wreckage. The instant its fingers touched the wooden surface, the point of contact turned a sickly purplish-blue. The poison wasn't potent enough to disperse the clone, so Itachi had it move faster, carefully pulling a scroll from inside the puppet's chest cavity.
The scroll itself wasn't poisoned. Still, Itachi remained cautious, having the clone unroll it to check for traps. Only after confirming it was safe did his real body approach to look.
"Senpai, it's a sealing scroll."
"Item-sealing type." Shūji nodded in understanding. "The rest of the loot should be in here." He wasn't skilled in unsealing jutsu, so he'd have to take it back to the village. He took out a small, specialized sealing vial and carefully collected some of Shinmi's blood, sealing it inside. This was the key to breaking the seal.
Chakra was a mixture of spiritual and physical energy. After a shinobi learned to mold it, a trace of that chakra remained fixed in their cells. This was why shinobi could use their own blood as a medium for summoning jutsu.
By the same logic, before the blood lost its "activity," it could also be used to bypass an item seal set by its owner—though this, of course, required a specialist skilled in fūinjutsu.
Placing the sealing scroll in his gear pouch, Shūji searched the entire camp one last time. Confirming nothing was missed, he dusted off his hands and turned to the boy beside him, a relaxed smile on his face. "The mission is basically wrapped up. All that's left is to go back to the village and file the report."
Seeing Itachi standing there quietly, Shūji blinked. "Oh, right. Before we head back, want to swing by Koizumi Town?"
"Swing by?" The eight-year-old Uchiha tilted his head slightly, a trace of confusion in his eyes.
"The mission's done. We've got to relax a little, right?" Shūji smiled, reaching out to pat Itachi's shoulder.
"Yes... Senpai." Itachi's voice was level.
Shūji crouched down, bringing his eyes level with Itachi's. "That wasn't an order. So you don't have to say 'yes.' Just tell me if you want to go."
Uchiha Itachi was silent for a moment. The morning wind swept through the ruins, carrying the lingering smell of blood and the fresh scent of the forest. His gaze seemed to pass over the broken stockade, toward the faint outline of the trade road far below.
"...Dango?" he asked softly.
"Great idea!" Shūji stood up, stretching, his form cutting a sharp silhouette against the morning light. "We'll go get some dango in Koizumi. We're already out here, might as well bring back some local specialties."