Shuji and Itachi's figures receded along the trade route. Hidden eyes withdrew as several villagers dashed back into Shirakawa Village, shadows slipping in pursuit.
In the trees beside the path, a youth in dark-green ninja attire leaned against a beech, Itachi crouching quietly beside him. They watched the followers track Shuji's form until both vanished toward Koizumi Town.
Inside the village chief's house, oil lamps burned brighter than before. Several of Shirakawa's elders had gathered, the air thick with suppressed agitation.
"I told you we should've reported at once! I knew when those bastards slipped back here, they'd bring trouble on us!" a gruff voice burst out, seething with anger.
At first, the villagers truly didn't know what the young people who left had been doing. Then news of the River Country's manhunt for bandits arrived, and the village was missing a dozen strong youths. When those same youths reappeared, the raids flared again. That coincidence let Shirakawa's power brokers piece together a dire truth.
Across the table, a middle-aged man in round glasses pushed them up his nose. His voice was low but clear: "When the official pursuit team first came, we all swore ignorance. Now we admit knowing? What will the River Country think?"
A burly man slammed his fist on the low table, rattling tea bowls. "Your warehouse is empty, so you can talk all you want! Half our year's harvest still sits rotting—soon the whole village will starve!" His eyes were bloodshot with rage.
"They've already guessed," the village chief, Shirakawa Kisuke, croaked from the head seat, as if the words cost him all his strength.
Silence fell instantly.
"Enough!" the white-haired elder, Shirakawa Sōsuke, slammed the table, sloshing tea. His hawk-like gaze swept the room as he thundered, "No more hesitation, Kisuke! They're the commissioned ninja—where are they now?"
Kisuke's lips trembled. "I… sent word to Koichirō… to have them—" His calloused hands gripped his robe. "That boy… he was simply deceived… he was such a good child…"
"Stop!" the burly man snarled, voice like grinding stone. "Koichirō's hands are already stained with blood! He's no child anymore! Chief, if you keep protecting him, you'll bury this whole village with him!"
Sōsuke rose slowly, his stooped silhouette trembling in the lamp glow as he loomed over his brother. "Kisuke, this is no longer just about a few dead outsiders," his voice rolled like distant thunder. "Ninjas have stepped in—this must end in slaughter!"
"…We can't hand them over," the glasses-wearer said after long silence, voice hoarse. "Nor can we let outsiders know this came from our village."
"So what do you suggest?!" the burly man snapped.
Sōsuke closed his eyes. His face, deeply lined in the lamplight, looked chiseled by grief. "After the Warring States era, this trade route finally prospered. We've only known decent days for a moment." He reopened his eyes, now ice. "The village's reputation is our lifeline—every family relies on these caravans."
"Kisuke, you must cooperate."
"Brother, but—"
"There is no 'but'!"
Their weak protest drowned in the lamp's crackle, ending in heavy, suffocating sighs. When the lookout confirmed the two ninja had indeed left, the room's air first congealed then rushed like floodwater. The elders slipped away silently into the night.
Not long after, on the threshing ground under the pale moon, over forty youths gathered. Their tools had become weapons—gleaming sickles, toothy pitchforks, sturdy bows strung taut. Familiar faces were taut with grim resolve.
At the front stood Sōsuke, beside him Kisuke, behind them stacks of provisions. Moonlight cast the silent company and their cold blades into long, twisted shadows pointing toward the mountains. Only heavy breaths and the occasional clink of iron broke the stillness.
This was not an era of true peace. Only fifty-four years had passed since the Warring States ended, and those conscripted were far more than just ninjas. Sōsuke, white-haired and hardened by past carnage, knew how to command slaughter. Like a silent serpent, the company moved beneath his lead toward the forest behind the village.
"Did you expect this, Senior?" Itachi's voice broke the quiet from the tree shadows, eyes tracking the seething company below.
Shuji leaned against the trunk, shaking his head as shadow cloaked his face. "I considered several possibilities. Perhaps they'd confess privately and ask for secrecy… that someone would betray them out of personal ties… or that they'd act out of internal chaos—but never that they'd take matters into their own hands."
He watched the moonlit flicker of steel—once gentle neighbors, uncles, now weapons in hand. "To protect their reputation and livelihood, they chose to do the killing themselves."
A complex swirl of emotions churned in his chest. Were the villagers reckless, or had he misunderstood the world's darker hues?
"But it is the right choice," Itachi's voice answered, calm to the point of detachment—startling for an eight-year-old.
He watched the company disappear into darkness. "By ending their village's stain themselves, they atone and preserve their roots most fully."
Shuji turned to Itachi—his face still childlike but devoid of wavering.
Under the moon, those black eyes were fathomless.
It appeared that his own view of this world had been too naive. He looked away to the forest's jagged moonlit outline.
Halfway up the mountain, a hidden hamlet built around a natural cave and rough wooden palisade lay quiet. At its entrance, two guards idly tended a fire. Spotting Kisuke carrying provisions with six others up the path, they greeted him with familiar smiles rather than alarm.
"Chief! You came yourself—bringing all this!" One was Koichirō, full of youthful vigor. He reached toward the load on Kisuke's shoulders as though welcoming a beloved elder home.
Kisuke stopped with a labored step, forcing a thin smile under the dancing flames—his face looking ten years older in exhaustion. "Koichirō… officials came down again. It's serious. Don't you… want to lie low for a while?"
"Oh, Chief! Didn't I promise you already?" Koichirō waved dismissively, pride in his grin. "We know our limits! We only rob outsiders on the road, never traders our village knows! Those greedy merchants deserve it! Don't you worry one bit!"
He glanced at the jars of sake and meat poking from the load, eyes lighting up. "You even brought us so many goodies! Wait—I'll fetch big brother Shin'ya! He was just saying we needed stronger sake!"
Kisuke's face twitched involuntarily.
That "big brother" outsider—Shin'ya, the man whose smooth words and promises of "good times" had utterly beguiled the boy Kisuke had raised: hardworking, obedient Koichirō.
A surge of anger, sorrow, and despair shattered the chief's final reserves.
He knew that right now, beneath the moonlit forest, some deeds had been set in motion like arrows loosed—never to return.
Chapters in advance there: patreon.com/Thaniel_a_goodchild