The only house in the village that wasn't on fire.
Boom! With a deafening crash, the wooden door exploded into splinters. The interior came into view—and Reiji's expression, already dark, turned utterly grim.
"Bastard… You monster!"
Inside, shattered furniture lay in heaps, blood smeared across the walls. In the center stood a shirtless man, slowly turning his head, his face twisted into a grotesque grin of perverse delight.
In his hands, a naked woman covered in blood slid lifelessly to the ground. She had clearly been a stunning beauty—but now, her breathing was faint, barely clinging to life.
Not far away, a man in civilian clothes sat tied to the only intact chair in the room. His eyes were wide open, the corners torn and bleeding, streams of blood trailing down his cheeks, staining his eyeballs a deep, horrifying red.
He was dead. Reiji could tell—no injuries on the surface, but dead all the same.
"Well, well—if it isn't Kohei-kun! Long time no see. I bring greetings from Kandachi-sama! Hehehe~" The man sneered as he kicked the woman aside and turned to face Reiji, locking eyes with him.
Reiji said nothing. The scene in front of him battered at his sanity, rage boiling to its peak.
And in that moment—something snapped in his mind.
A jutsu—dark and twisted beyond reason—suddenly surfaced in his thoughts.
Reiji lowered his head. A slow grin crept across his lips.
"Perfect timing..."
As he spoke, Onoton vanished.
In the next instant, he reappeared behind Reiji. A burst of force—then a kunai stabbed straight into Reiji's heart.
Pain.
A pain he hadn't felt in a long time.
His newly regrown heart—pierced again.
Behind him, Onoton stepped back, smirking with amusement. He lightly flicked the hilt of the embedded kunai.
"Kid, looks like you didn't learn a damn thing from Hanzō-sama~"
Blood trickled from the corner of Reiji's mouth as he slowly turned around, baring bloodstained teeth in a twisted smile.
"Is that so? Then why don't you... teach me—what is the essence of Hanzō-sama teachings?"
He stammered as he staggered forward, step by step, closing the distance between them.
Onoton instinctively considered using the Body Flicker Technique—but he had stabbed Reiji through the heart. The boy had to be dying.
Cruel by nature, Onoton relaxed his hand mid-seal and chose to toy with him like a cat with a cornered mouse.
"Heh, and you call yourself Hanzō-sama's student? What a disgrace.
But since you're dying anyway, I'll be generous and give you a parting lesson.
Listen closely—what made Hanzō-sama truly fearsome wasn't just his power. It was that when he dealt with trash like you, he held nothing back. He crushed you completely—left no chance for weaklings like you to survive!"
Onoton grinned smugly, his eyes locked on Reiji's bowed head.
Suddenly, the sick bastard felt an urge—to savor the look of regret on Reiji's face before he died.
He reached out. Just as his hand moved to grab Reiji's throat...
Shing! A sudden flash of steel tore through the air.
Onoton, a Jōnin, reacted instantly—much faster than the four before him. In a blink, he dodged Reiji's kunai slash.
He reappeared in the center of the room, as if nothing had happened.
But a thin, bloody line now marked his cheek.
It wasn't Genjutsu.
And it meant Reiji's strike—one meant to kill—had missed.
Still staring at Reiji, Onoton raised a hand to his face.
"Blood... You made me bleed! Hehehe! You made me bleed!
That's great! You're not even a Genin—just some pathetic trash—and you made me bleed!
Come on! Struggle for me! I love watching you squirm on the edge of death!"
He began to laugh wildly, spinning and twitching like a man unhinged. His beady eyes gleamed with a bloodthirsty red light.
"Heh~ You'll see soon enough."
Reiji's low voice echoed, the flickering flames casting thick shadows across his face.
Splurt! A mouthful of blood burst from his lips.
The next second, Reiji's head snapped up. His mouth stretched into a wide grin, teeth gleaming pale and cold like a predator's.
While he had staggered toward Onoton, Reiji had quietly drawn a blood-red seal on the ground—painted entirely with his own blood.
A crimson circle, enclosing a crimson triangle.
Raising his hand slowly, Reiji licked the blood on his kunai, locking eyes with Onoton, who looked on in confusion.
"No—!" The wild gleam in Onoton's eyes vanished in an instant. A strange, sinister link had just snapped into place between the two of them.
"Body Flicker—"
Before Onoton could complete the hand seal, a sharp pain flared in his left wrist, his chakra flow grinding to a halt.
He looked down. At some point, a deep, bone-cutting gash had opened across his wrist.
Not far off, Reiji sat holding the kunai, now plunged into his own wrist. His voice was icy and hollow.
"Curse Technique: Death Controlling Possessed Blood."
"You little bastard! I'll tear you apart and feed you to the dogs!" Gone was the madness from Onoton's face—replaced now by raw fear flickering in his eyes.
He drew a kunai and charged.
Even without ninjutsu, he was confident he could tear this brat apart.
Too bad he overestimated himself. In pure taijutsu, he wasn't necessarily stronger than Reiji.
As for why Reiji hadn't just used taijutsu to begin with—it was simple. He needed Onoton's blood.
A noble plan—but reality had other ideas.
Onoton hadn't taken two steps before blood sprayed from the back of his heel.
Thud! He crashed to the floor, eyes darting to his foot—then up at Reiji.
There he was, sitting cross-legged within the seal, calmly severing his own Achilles tendon with a kunai.
Onoton's face twisted with terror. The smirk he once wore was long gone.
"Kohei-kun! Please, don't kill me! Spare me! Spare my miserable life! We're both from Amegakure! For Hanzō-sama's sake, let me go!"
But before the begging was over, Onoton suddenly lashed out. From the ground, he flung a kunai with his uninjured hand, aiming straight at Reiji's face.
Reiji raised an eyebrow and gave a cold chuckle. Calmly, he lifted his right hand and caught the kunai.
Shunk! It stabbed clean through his arm.
Still composed, Reiji flicked the hilt of the embedded blade, just like Onoton had earlier.
Across from him, Onoton clutched his bleeding arm and screamed, rolling in agony like a dying pig.
"This is nothing yet. Hidan, you watching? This is how you use Death Controlling Possessed Blood."
With that, Reiji pulled a senbon from his ninja pouch and jammed it into the tip of his left index finger.
Onoton's wailing cut off—then erupted again tenfold, shaking the whole house. He dropped to his knees, clutching his finger, slamming his head against the floor again and again.
Maybe it was the volume, but in the center of the room, the near-dead woman slowly raised her head. Her pale lips trembled as she bit down hard, eyes locked on Onoton, glittering with the thrill of vengeance.
Reiji's expression softened at the sight of her.
"Don't worry, I—"
He started to say he'd avenge her, but Onoton's screams drowned him out.
"Damn it, can you shut up already?" Reiji snapped, annoyed, only to be interrupted again by the screeching.
"Tch! You're really asking for it."
Without hesitation, he shoved the kunai into his mouth and twisted it hard.
Snap! Reiji's tongue—and Onoton's—hit the floor at the same time.
Silence.
"Hff... hff... hff..." Even as he writhed in agony, Onoton couldn't scream anymore.
Three-second rule. Three-second rule... Reiji muttered to himself, then reached down, picked up his tongue, and shoved it back into his mouth.
After a long silence, Reiji cleared his throat and spoke to the barely-breathing woman.
"Woman, he's your enemy. What do you want to do?"
At his words, her eyes suddenly lit up. Trembling, she forced herself upright.
"His fingers," she rasped.
"Like this?" Reiji swung his blade without hesitation, cleanly severing all five fingers of his own left hand.
At that exact moment, the five fingers on Onoton's left hand were sliced off at the base. Blood gushed out as the wretched man clutched his palm, howling in pain, snot and tears streaming down his face.
The woman stared at the suffering Onoton, her teeth grinding audibly.
As Reiji began reattaching his fingers, he popped a soldier's pill into his mouth, his expression calm.
"Continue."
The woman's gaze shifted slowly toward Onoton's crotch. Reiji instantly felt a chill down below and shook his head like a rattle.
"No, no, not that. No way."
He had already experienced something similar back at the Jashin cult's base, and he had no intention of going through that again.
"Forget it... I can't hold on anymore. Please, just kill him!" the woman rasped.
"Alright!" Reiji nodded and drove the kunai in his hand straight into his own heart without hesitation.
"Splurt!"
Finally, it was quiet. And clean.