"The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword."
— Ned Stark
--
Otis swept through Kusagakure like a silent storm.
Every location in his chakra sense that held fear, pain, or even the slightest wrongness — he visited it.
He walked into another building, a factory disguised as a storage house — where children were chained and forced into experiments while two Grass-nin watched their suffering.
Otis didn't hesitate.
A single pulse of his chakra cracked the floor, and an earth pillar surged upward, coiling around the two ninja and crushing their bodies.
He freed the children carefully… and then he vanished again.
In another corner of the village, Otis struck from above — his axe swinging once, twice, three times.
No screams. Just silence and falling bodies.
One building turned out to be a medical ward. He knocked out three ninjas experimenting with sealing formulas on a girl's face.
Another was a basement where two teenagers were chained and dehydrated. Otis broke their restraints and knocked out their captors with a flick of his wrist.
The last place he checked was a small house at the edge of the village.
He heard crying inside.
Otis stepped in.
A girl, maybe twelve or thirteen, with short red hair knelt beside her mother. The woman, her hair a faded, dull red, was too weak to even breathe properly — her chakra nearly gone, flickering like a dying candle.
Otis recognized the girl instantly. She looks like Karin… maybe I came at the right time, he thought.
(Pic)
Three Grass-nin stood over them.
The girl stepped in front of her mother, voice shaking. "Y-You can use me… just leave my mother. She can't heal you anymore."
One of the ninja slapped her and grabbed her by the hair.
"Stop crying or I'll—"
The girl smacked his hand weakly, a small, desperate act of defiance.
He raised his other hand to hit her back—
—but before he could swing, a large hand gripped his neck from behind.
Otis lifted him effortlessly into the air.
For a moment, the ninja only twitched, like a fish caught on a hook.
Then—
CRACK.
The sound was sickening. His spine snapped cleanly enough that bone fragments pierced through the skin.
The man's eyes bulged. His tongue fell out as his body went limp like a puppet cut from above.
Otis dropped him like a bag of trash.
The girl stared up at him, trembling.
Another ninja lunged at Otis.
He didn't even look.
Otis swung his arm sideways in a casual backhand, and the man went flying, his skull smashing into the wall with such force that the plaster cracked before his body folded onto the floor.
Silence.
Karin.
But right now, she wasn't the loud, confident girl she would become one day. She was terrified. Exhausted. Her arms trembled violently as she tried to stand between the corpse Otis had dropped and the man who had saved her.
"D-Don't come closer…" she whispered, voice cracking. "D-Don't hurt us! Please! Please don't—"
Otis lowered himself to one knee, slowing his breath. He made himself small — something he rarely did.
"I'm not your enemy," he said softly.
"If I wanted to hurt you," he added calmly, "those men wouldn't have been the first to die."
Karin didn't lower her arms, but her eyes flickered with confusion, fear… and a fragile hope.
"You're… you're not going to bite her?"
Otis shook his head.
"No. I'm here to end what they're doing — to get you out of this village. To somewhere safe. You and everyone else like you."
He pointed at the ninja bodies bleeding on the floor.
"They can't hurt you anymore."
Karin swallowed, her breath trembling, but she slowly lowered her arms. Behind her, her mother stirred faintly.
"Mama…" Karin whispered.
Akari's eyes barely opened
"You're… not Grass…" she rasped.
"No," Otis replied.
Akari's shaking hand reached for Karin, resting weakly on her daughter's elbow.
"Take her," Akari whispered. "Please…"
Karin's eyes widened in horror.
"No! No, Mama, no! I'm not leaving you—!"
"Karin," Akari breathed, coughing blood. "Go. Live."
Otis placed a hand gently on the girl's shoulder.
"Listen," he said quietly. "I'm not leaving her here to die."
Karin froze.
"You're… not?"
Otis shook his head.
He moved to the woman, resting two fingers against her neck. Weak pulse. Shallow breathing. She needed help. Soon.
"Let's get her out of here," Otis said.
Without hesitation, he lifted Akari carefully into his arms. Karin instinctively grabbed onto his cloak, clinging to him as he stepped through the ruined house.
"Stay close," Otis murmured.
"I-I will…" Karin whispered, wiping her tears.
He glanced at the remaining Grass-nin in the room. The man was frozen in terror, unable to move.
Otis's voice turned cold.
"If you move… I will put you in the ground."
He turned away and moved toward the exit. When Karin looked back, the surviving ninja tried to crawl away.
Otis glanced over his shoulder — and the earth beneath the man suddenly collapsed, swallowing him whole before sealing back up as if nothing had ever happened.
Otis stepped outside. His expression didn't change.
But his eyes burned.
"I'm ending this place tonight," he murmured. "Every last part of it."
***
At the corner, there was an old abandoned house Otis had converted into a safe point.
Inside, children huddled together under blankets, trembling yet alive. The house was crowded — filled with rescued children and a few injured adults. A shadow clone paced the room, guarding the windows.
The doctor Otis had spared earlier was also there, hands shaking, sweat dripping down his brow. He'd been watched nonstop by the clone. Kneeling beside a makeshift bed, he worked in terror, treating the wounded with trembling fingers.
When Otis kicked the door open, every child looked up in fear until they saw him… and the woman in his arms.
"O-Otis-sama…!" one child cried in relief.
The shadow clone nodded. "Found more?"
Otis laid Akari on the empty bedding. Karin immediately dropped to her knees beside her, gripping her mother's hand.
Otis stared down at the medical-nin.
"Look at her condition."
The doctor scrambled over and examined her. His eyes widened as he assessed the wounds.
After a moment he muttered,
"Her injuries are severe. Stab wound, internal bleeding, damage to the liver and possibly the pancreas. I can stabilize her pain and prevent shock… but without a full surgical team—"
"Just don't let her die," Otis said, tone quiet but absolute. "Stabilize her. I'll take care of the rest."
"Y-Yes. Yes, I can do that."
The doctor got to work, his hands trembling under Otis's gaze.
--
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