Cries of begging and screams echoed from cellars, village gates, and shaking houses. Each bite of pain guided her toward those who had once tortured her. There were no blind spots and no survivors.
Screams, curses, pleas, explosions, and the clash of weapons followed one another. All sounds of the living vanished without a trace, swallowed by complete silence.
There was only death left walking through the night.
"Huh?"
The returning squad leader, the Jonin Aoki, stared at his subordinate with a stunned look and spoke. "Are you joking?"
"Cap, Captain, they are all dead! Really! All dead!"
The Kusagakure Ninja was crying hard, snot and tears running down his face. Fear twisted his features, and his voice was close to a scream.
"Bastard! Do you know what you are saying?"
Aoki frowned tightly, then led the confused and uneasy group forward, forcing down the pounding in his chest as they entered Kusagakure.
When the darkest moment before dawn passed, the sky turned a dull gray without warmth, like the belly of a dead fish. The fog over Kusagakure began to sink and fade.
The morning light only drove away the mist, but it brought no warmth or life.
What appeared under the weak light was a wasteland of death, silent to a Zetsu degree.
It was a complete dead zone, silent to a Zetsu degree.
There was no movement anywhere in Kusagakure. No voices, no birds, and even insects seemed to have vanished at this moment.
The wind swept through the empty streets, carrying fog and dust, making a low sound like a dying breath.
"…"
The shock and faint impatience on Aoki's face froze in place.
Behind him, the group of Kusagakure Ninja who had been longing for hot food and beds after their return all stood stiff. The desire on their faces turned into blank disbelief.
"No… impossible…" someone forced out a dry whisper.
But when the fog fully cleared and the full sight of Kusagakure appeared, their last weak hope collapsed like bubbles.
Bodies.
Bodies everywhere.
On the streets, in courtyards, inside houses.
Hundreds and thousands of bodies lay scattered in different poses. Every one of them was a familiar Ninja.
Their empty eyes reflected the cold morning light, twisted, curled up, standing stiff, or reaching out in vain. They silently showed the fear and Zetsu Wang they felt at the moment of death.
Every corpse had lost all color, showing a strange mix of waxy white and gray.
That was the mark left when the soul was taken and all life dried up.
The density of the bodies was so great that they covered almost everything the eye could see.
A heavy smell of death and fear hit everyone's noses, causing instant nausea and dizziness.
"Ugh!"
A young Genin's legs gave out and he dropped to his knees, retching loudly.
No one helped him. The others stood like statues, their eyes unfocused as they scanned the nightmare before them.
"Really… all of them…" one Kusagakure Ninja said, his voice rough like sandpaper.
"What happened here?" Aoki felt his hands and feet go cold, as if his blood had stopped. He staggered forward a few steps without thinking.
Just then, a very weak and suppressed sobbing sound came from a house on the left, almost lost to the wind.
In this Zetsu-level silent graveyard, that small sound was like a spark in the dark. Everyone's gaze snapped toward it at once.
"There are survivors!" a Kusagakure Ninja shouted.
Like drowning people grabbing the last straw, fear mixed with wild relief as they rushed toward the sound in a mess of footsteps.
Hearing them approach, a pale head peeked out from the house, its face completely drained of color.
When he saw the group of Kusagakure Ninja, the same lost and stunned relief appeared on his face.
Not only him, more people began to come out of hiding after hearing the noise.
Some of the Kusagakure Ninja found their family members and ran to hold them, crying without restraint.
But without exception, all the survivors were civilians.
"What is going on? What happened?"
Aoki grabbed the man by the shoulders and demanded harshly, his face twisted. "Why are only you alive? Where is everyone else?"
"Dead… all dead…" the man muttered blankly. "A monster, an invisible monster. Root couldn't stop it. No one could escape."
"What do you mean?" A chill crawled up Aoki's spine. "What are you talking about?"
An invisible monster?
Had fear driven him mad, making him talk nonsense?
"Captain, look! Over here!"
A Kusagakure Ninja crouched by a corpse and looked up in terror. "No wounds, and no signs of poison!"
"What?"
Aoki's heart tightened as he rushed over and examined the body.
He then moved to other bodies, checking them one by one.
The first, the second, the third.
Nothing. Nothing. Still nothing.
All the corpses showed no external injuries and no signs of poisoning.
"How is this possible?" he said hoarsely. "How did they die?"
It was so strange, almost as if someone had taken something away.
Their souls?
"Captain! Here, here is another one!"
At that moment, a Kusagakure Ninja stumbled over carrying a corpse that was still bleeding.
Blood?
Seeing the only different body, Aoki used Shunshin and appeared in front of him, snatching the corpse. He saw the chest pierced through, the heart missing.
He looked up sharply at the Ninja and asked in a low voice, "Where was this body found?"
"It was… it was in…" the Kusagakure Ninja swallowed hard. "In that woman's house."
"A woman?" Aoki froze, then quickly understood. "The Uzumaki Clan woman?"
Her? How could that be possible? How could that woman dare to do this, and how could she have the power to slaughter most of Kusagakure?
"Cap, Captain," the Kusagakure Ninja pointed at the corpse and trembled. "Look at his back."
Aoki lowered his head and turned the body over, his pupils shrinking.
Two lines were clearly carved into the corpse's back.
"For the pain my flesh once suffered, the pain of being gnawed."
"Now barred from the Pure Land, all of it is returned."
"So it really was that filthy woman?!"
Aoki's face became twisted as bitter rage overwhelmed his fear. "We took her and that little brat in, and she dared to do this instead of being grateful!"
No matter how she did it, these words made everything very clear.
"Chase her!" He stood up abruptly and shouted at the other Kusagakure Ninja. "She took that little brat with her, she can't have gone far. Get me…"
"Captain!"
Before he could finish, a Kusagakure Ninja interrupted, his body shaking hard. "She's already dead!"
"…"
Silence fell, as if the air had frozen.
Everyone stared in shock, and someone blurted out, "What did you say?"
"She's dead! Dead! Her body was already burned, right there in that house!"
The Kusagakure Ninja finally broke under the fear that reached his soul. He pointed at the bloody words and screamed, "It was that woman! She cursed all of us after she died!"
Those words ignited the fear of everyone still alive.
"It was her? That monster, that monster was her?!"
The image of the invisible, formless reaper that devoured souls last night merged with the image of a woman who died with hatred after long suffering.
A deep, bone-level fear flooded everyone present.
Even Aoki, who had been the angriest moments ago, felt cold rush from his feet to his head.
This was the human fear of the unknown.
And more than that, he himself had once bitten into that woman.
At this moment, on a cliff not far from Kusagakure. Nagato, Kakuzu, and the figure called Shadow stood within the shade, facing the rising morning light as they quietly looked down at distant Kusagakure. Only their robes moved, snapping softly in the wind.
"The last words have been delivered." Nagato withdrew his gaze and sighed in his heart. "Let's go."
Kakuzu also looked away, then turned to stare at Shadow beside him and let out a cold laugh. "Your methods are terrifying. Even I have never seen anything like this."
To make the spirits of the dead rise and take revenge was an ability more frightening than Impure World Reincarnation. This was an entire ninja village.
Only those Kusagakure Ninja from Hozuki Castle who belonged to the so called Grass Fruit Faction faction were left alive. Even though Kusagakure had already declined to the extreme, being almost wiped out overnight was enough to fill anyone with fear.
It was easy to imagine how fast this news would spread and how it would shake the entire Ninja World. "This is only the beginning," Shadow said with a smile. "You will see much more in the future."
Hearing this, both Nagato and Kakuzu sensed the deeper meaning in his words, and their eyes flickered slightly. "What do you mean…"
Kakuzu was about to press further when he suddenly felt his sleeve being tugged. He looked down and met a pair of misty eyes filled with tears.
"Tsk." Impatience rose in his eyes. "What do we do with this burden?"
Sensing Kakuzu's dislike, Karin recoiled as if bitten by a venomous snake. Her small body trembled as she stumbled back in fear.
"Don't be so rough." Shadow stepped forward and walked calmly toward Karin.