Chapter 120: The Nauseating Evil Spawned by a Sick Ninja World
Meanwhile, in a dense forest not far from Tanuki Pass, three blurred figures moved swiftly through the trees.
"Phew... the mission's finally done. A-rank missions are really dangerous; we almost didn't make it back. Thankfully, Hayate's Hiding in the Mist Technique played a crucial role at the last minute, or at least two of us would have been lost just to complete the mission."
The sigh of relief made it clear that all three of them were Konoha shinobi on a mission outside the village.
"If I'm not mistaken, that should be Tanuki Pass up ahead. We can rest there tonight and head back to Konoha in the morning. I'd love to find a bathhouse and really relax."
"Hayate, what do you think? Hm? Hayate? Why'd you suddenly go quiet?" The one speaking looked at the ninja beside him, asking with concern, "You didn't get hurt, did you?"
Running with his head down in the moonlight, Hayate Gekko came to with a start. He shook his head and replied, his expression complicated, "It's nothing, I just remembered a bad memory..."
Ever since his younger brother died at the hands of Ikeizumi Uchiha, Hayate Gekko had repeatedly dreamt of that night, to the point where he felt like he was losing his mind. He had asked the Hokage for a mission so he could leave the village for a while to clear his head.
"Hah!" Hayate slowly exhaled, feeling that his time away had indeed calmed him down a bit.
But just then, the third shinobi, who had been silent, cried out in surprise, "Look ahead!"
The forest ahead of them was thinning out, and they could now see Tanuki Pass in the distance. However... they saw huge fires blazing across the town! The thick smoke, highlighted by the light of the flames, was especially noticeable in the moonlight.
When a gentle breeze carrying a wave of heat came toward them, the other two shinobi looked startled, but Hayate's expression changed completely. He had caught the pungent smell carried on the wind! It was... the unique smell of sulfur from lava!
"Let's go check it out!" The Konoha shinobi on the left sped up, charging toward Tanuki Pass, and the one on the right immediately followed. Hayate alone wanted to stop them, but they were already just two retreating figures.
"It can't be... that much of a coincidence, can it?" Hayate gritted his teeth and hurried to follow them.
...
The three Konoha shinobi who arrived at Tanuki Pass were completely stunned by the scene before them.
Lava! Flames! Corpses!
These three elements were the theme of the night. As they looked around, they saw the streets covered in bodies. Trickles of blood pooled and flowed down the slope of the street into the gutters.
The fires in the distance grew more intense, and the pungent smell of sulfur was now overwhelming. It felt less like they were in Tanuki Pass and more like they were standing next to a volcano.
Blood-soaked heads lay scattered on the roadside, and they could see many terrified people on the sidewalks.
"All one-hit kills!" The shinobi to Hayate's left, suppressing his shock, knelt to inspect the bodies. He said in a low voice, "Some were decapitated by a shinobi sword, others had their hearts pierced... some were killed by a kunai piercing their skulls, and others had their arteries severed by shuriken."
"The perpetrator had no wasted movements. He's definitely a cruel, experienced killing demon! And without a doubt, a shinobi. My preliminary guess is that he's a shinobi highly skilled in taijutsu. His power is at least... jonin level!"
The shinobi to Hayate's right swallowed hard. He immediately grabbed a passerby and urgently asked, "Why were these people killed? Who's the killer?"
" Ikeizumi Uchiha... Ikeizumi Uchiha..." The passerby he grabbed kept muttering, "He's back... that killer grew up and came back... he's killed more people than he did nine years ago..."
The man's muttering caused all three shinobi to freeze.
Ikeizumi Uchiha?!
...
Meanwhile, Tsunade and Shizune finally caught up to Ikeizumi Uchiha. But their posture was "comical" because, due to her severe hemophobia, Tsunade hadn't dared to open her eyes the entire time. She hadn't even dared to walk on the street, as it was covered in blood. She had to stay in her debt-evading disguise as a twelve-year-old girl, keeping her eyes shut and making Shizune carry her the whole way. Even so, the acrid stench of blood in the air made Tsunade extremely uncomfortable. It made her pale face even paler.
"Whew..." Tsunade tried to pry open her eyes just a little, her gaze falling on Ikeizumi Uchiha. She saw the Uchiha brat holding his shinobi sword in one hand while using the other to grab a man by the hair, the blade already plunged into his chest.
"Hey, Uchiha brat..." Just as Tsunade said this, she watched Ikeizumi Uchiha throw the corpse aside. The blood spraying from the corpse's chest made her bite down hard on her lower lip.
"What you're doing... isn't this going too far...? There are a lot of villains in Tanuki Pass, it's true. But..." Tsunade said in a low voice. "There can't be this many, can there? I had Shizune count the bodies on the way here, and she's already at two hundred seventy-six."
She didn't look at the blood-gushing corpse again, adding, "Now, it's two hundred seventy-seven... Are you so sure there are no innocent people?!"
Ikeizumi Uchiha calmly watched Tsunade, her face ashen. One of the Legendary Sannin, crippled by her hemophobia, was cowering like a weak animal in the presence of so much blood, without the fierce spirit he remembered her having.
"Lady Tsunade, Ikeizumi-sama's eyes can see a person's past evil and future evil. No crime can hide from his eyes. No one who dies at Ikeizumi-sama's hands can possibly be innocent."
Kyujiro spoke, his voice full of absolute certainty. "Lady Tsunade hasn't been back to Konoha in a long time, so perhaps she's unaware of this. Even the Third Hokage knows of Ikeizumi-sama's ability."
"And since Ikeizumi-sama believes in 'Absolute Justice,' he would never use this special ability to wrongly condemn an innocent person. Ikeizumi-sama only points his blade at villains. And he shows them no mercy!"
"This... is Ikeizumi-sama's 'Absolute Justice'!"
Kyujiro's words caused both Tsunade and Shizune to freeze. The ability to see a person's past and future evil? Shizune looked utterly baffled and disbelieving, while Tsunade suddenly thought of something. "Mangekyo Sharingan?" she said slowly.
Ikeizumi Uchiha didn't respond. He gripped his now-dull shinobi sword and glanced at the seven or eight bulging money bags tied to Shizune's waist. Shizune's expression immediately became a bit awkward.
Ikeizumi Uchiha spoke to Tsunade. "If you think I've gone too far, if you think I shouldn't have killed so many people, or if you think Tanuki Pass doesn't have this many villains..."
"You can follow me and see for yourself just how twisted and sickening the evil bred by this sick ninja world truly is."
After saying this, Ikeizumi Uchiha walked directly into a building ahead. Tsunade looked up at the brightly lit sign. She had a faint memory of the place; it was the largest dance hall in Tanuki Pass. But since it wasn't a casino, she usually didn't bother to even think about it, as she had no interest in that kind of thing.
"Lady Tsunade?" Shizune asked timidly, still carrying Tsunade on her back.
Tsunade was silent for a moment before saying, "Follow him."
"Yes!" Shizune quickly complied.
...
CRUNCH!
When Tsunade hopped down from Shizune's back, she silently walked up to a cage, reached out, and squeezed the metal lock. The metal lock was crushed in her small hand!
Tsunade picked up a girl who looked to be only five years old. Feeling the girl's body trembling with fear, Tsunade opened her mouth, unsure of what to say. She could only gently stroke the girl's hair, take a deep breath, and whisper, "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..."
Just then, Tsunade suddenly looked up. Without her noticing, Ikeizumi Uchiha was standing right in front of her. The boy had shown no signs of fatigue after killing two hundred seventy-seven villains. Yet in this moment, she saw a clear weariness on his face—a sign of the Mangekyo Sharingan's excessive use.
"Give her to me," Ikeizumi Uchiha said. "I've woven a beautiful dream for her. When she wakes up, she will have forgotten everything."
He paused, then added, "All the children are the same. They won't remember what they've been through."
If there was a single person who was purely good in this ninja world, Tsunade felt that it could only be Ikeizumi Uchiha.
She stared at Ikeizumi Uchiha's calm Three-Tomo Sharingan and asked the question that had been weighing on her heart, "Have you seen a lot of things like this?"
Ikeizumi Uchiha's response was brief and to the point: "Not many, but not few, either."
Tsunade felt a little lost.
This ninja world... what has happened to it?
...
As a sliver of dawn tore through the darkness, the raging fires all over Tanuki Pass finally died out.
The acrid smell of sulfur in the air dissipated greatly with each passing breeze. But... the rusty scent of blood lingered stubbornly.
Because no one dared to come out and gather the bodies on the street! And no one dared to wash away the blood that had soaked into the cracks between the paving stones!
"So many... people died..." A resident of Tanuki Pass couldn't help but swallow hard. He summoned his courage, opened his door, and stepped outside. Right outside his home lay three headless bodies, and a head rested on his doorstep, its eyes staring blankly at him!
He was immediately terrified, but the next second, he was shocked to realize that the face on the head looked familiar.
"This guy..." He gasped and muttered in astonishment, "Isn't this one of the most vicious gang leaders in Tanuki Pass?"
Spurred by a sudden curiosity, he held his breath and, gathering his courage, found a second head. "Gasp! This looks like the boss of the casino next door! I heard he's worth three hundred million ryo!"
When he saw the third head, he was completely terrified. "This is Tanuki Pass's famous enforcer, isn't it? I heard he killed at least a dozen people..."
At that moment, even as a common person, he had discovered a pattern.
"It feels like all the people killed were villains?!"
"Is that just my imagination...?"
...
On the other side of town.
"Shizune... how many villains died last night?" The sleepless Tsunade had returned to her adult form, resting her bothersome chest on the table, a gloomy expression on her face.
The equally sleepless Shizune quickly replied, "Last night, Ikeizumi Uchiha killed five hundred nineteen people! And that ninja cat named Kyujiro killed one hundred twenty-one."
"Together, the man and the cat killed six hundred forty people."
Here, Shizune paused, carefully glancing at Tsunade before continuing, "And if you add the nineteen people Lady Tsunade killed, that's six hundred fifty-nine villains..."
As she said this, Shizune still found it hard to believe. After Lady Tsunade helped Ikeizumi Uchiha rescue the children from the underground chamber last night... she had personally killed people!!!
Shizune remembered how Lady Tsunade, with a furious look, had single-handedly lifted a dance hall shareholder and thrown him dozens of meters into the air. By the time the man hit the ground, there was no need to check his condition; he was definitely dead. This was the first time Lady Tsunade had killed someone since she had developed her hemophobia.
Lady Tsunade knew about her own hemophobia, so when she couldn't contain her killing intent, she would brutally throw people high into the air, making Tanuki Pass the stage for nineteen 'human fly' incidents.
That way... she wouldn't have to see any blood.
...
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