Chapter 5: The Moonlit Decision
Shūji and Itachi's figures vanished down the trade road. In the shadows, one of the watching pairs of eyes withdrew, and a figure sprinted back into the village. Several other shadows quietly tailed the two shinobi.
The real Shūji, clad in his dark green shinobi attire, leaned against the shadow of a beech tree. Itachi was crouched silently beside him. They both watched as the trackers followed Shūji's Shadow Clone, gradually disappearing in the direction of Koizumi Town.
Inside the village chief's residence, the oil lamps burned much brighter than usual. Several of the village's most influential elders were gathered. The air was thick with suppressed anxiety.
"I said from the start we should have reported them! The moment those brats snuck back, I knew they'd bring disaster down on us!" a coarse voice was the first to break the silence, laced with an anger he couldn't hold back.
At first, the villagers truly hadn't known what the young people who left were doing. Not until news of the Land of Rivers' bandit pursuit arrived, at the exact same time a dozen of the village's young men were missing. When those men reappeared, the raids had started again. The coincidence was enough for the core leaders of Shirakawa to piece together the unsettling truth.
Across from him, a middle-aged man with round glasses pushed them back up. The lamplight danced on his lenses. "When the pursuit team came asking, we swore we knew nothing. We're supposed to change our story now? What will the officials think?" His voice was quiet but crystal clear. "Besides, things are harder now, but we're surviving. If the outside world finds out our village produced bandits..."
"Easy for you to say! Your warehouse is empty!" a burly, heavyset man snarled, slamming his hand on the low table. The teacups rattled. "I've got half a year's harvest rotting in mine! If this goes on, the whole village will be starving!" His eyes were bloodshot with rage.
"Those two shinobi... they've already guessed." Shirakawa Kiesuke, sitting in the head seat, spoke with a dry throat, as if it took all his strength to force the words out.
The room fell deathly silent.
"Bang!" An elder with a full head of white hair, Shirakawa Sōsuke, smashed his palm on the table. Water sloshed from the cups. His hawk-like gaze swept over them all, his voice carrying a heavy, oppressive weight. "There's no more time to hesitate, Kiesuke! They are shinobi acting on a formal mission!" His withered fingers dug into the edge of the wood. "Where are they now?"
Kiesuke's lips trembled. "I... I sent someone to warn Koichirō... to tell them..." The old man's calloused hands twisted the hem of his robes. "That boy... he was just led astray by an outsider... he was always such a good kid..."
"Enough!" the burly man cut him off, his voice like grinding gravel. "Koichirō has blood on his hands! He's not a kid anymore! Chief, if you keep protecting him, are you going to drag the entire village down to the grave with him?"
Shirakawa Sōsuke slowly stood up. His stooped form cast a huge, swaying shadow in the lamplight, enveloping his younger brother. "Kiesuke, this is no longer a simple matter of a few dead outsiders." His voice was a low rumble, like distant thunder. "Now that shinobi are involved, there must be an end to it!"
"...We can't hand them over," the man with the glasses said after a long silence, his voice strained. "And we cannot let anyone know they were from Shirakawa."
"Then what are you suggesting?!" The burly man whipped his head around, his eyes glinting with menace.
Shirakawa Sōsuke slowly closed his eyes, the wrinkles on his face looking like carved ravines in the light. "After the Warring States Period ended, this trade road finally brought us prosperity. We've only had a few good years." He opened his eyes again, and they were now a frozen, icy surface. "The village's reputation is its lifeblood. Every family here depends on those caravans to eat."
"Kiesuke. You will cooperate."
"Nii-san, but..."
"No 'buts'!"
The weak protest was completely swallowed by the sharp crackle of the lamp's wick, finally dissolving into a few heavy, suffocating sighs.
When the scout ran back to confirm that the two shinobi were truly outside the village bounds, the air in the room seemed to freeze, then immediately began to swirl violently. Without another word, the men dispersed quickly and silently, melting into the village night.
A short time later, at the threshing ground, more than forty young and able-bodied men gathered under the cold moonlight. In their hands were not farm tools, but weapons glinting in the low light: freshly sharpened sickles, menacingly toothed pitchforks, and the tautly-drawn longbows of the hunters. Familiar faces were now drawn tight with grim purpose.
Shirakawa Sōsuke stood at their head. Shirakawa Kiesuke stood beside him. Behind them were several large baskets of sake and meat. The moonlight, like water, stretched the shadows of the silent party and their cold blades into long, distorted shapes that pointed toward the deep mountain forest. The only sounds were heavy breathing and the occasional soft clink of weapons.
This was not a truly peaceful time. The Warring States Period had ended only fifty-four years ago. In that era, it wasn't just shinobi who were conscripted for the battlefield. The white-haired Shirakawa Sōsuke was a survivor, one who had crawled out of that sea of blood and bodies. He knew how to command a slaughter.
Like a silent serpent, the column of men followed the old man, slithering into the mountains behind the village.
"Did you predict this, Senpai?" Itachi's voice broke the silence from the shadows of the trees. His pupils reflected the moving column of men below.
Shūji, leaning against the tree trunk, slowly shook his head. "I considered several possibilities. That they would reach an internal agreement and confess to us, begging for secrecy. That one of them would warn the bandits out of loyalty. That they would fall into infighting... But I never, not once, calculated for this."
He stared at the glinting steel in the moonlight below, at the men who were, by day, simple neighbors, uncles, and friends. "For the village's reputation... to protect their livelihood... they chose to do it themselves."
A complex, nameless feeling swelled in his chest. Were these villagers too rash? Or was his own understanding of this world's true nature far too shallow?
"But... it is the correct choice," Itachi's voice cut in, so calm it was almost indifferent, a chilling contrast to his eight-year-old face.
He watched the column disappear into the dark forest. "For them to end the evil their own village spawned is a form of atonement. It also preserves the village's foundation to the greatest possible extent."
Shūji turned his head, his gaze falling on Itachi's young, emotionless face. In the moonlight, those dark eyes were bottomless.
It seemed that he was the one who had been too naive about this world, after all. He looked away, back toward the mountain forest, now a menacing silhouette against the moon.
Halfway up the mountain, a hidden camp was set into a natural cave, fortified with a simple wooden stockade. Only two men were lazily guarding the campfire. When they saw the chief, Shirakawa Kiesuke, appearing on the path with six others carrying heavy loads, they showed no alarm. Instead, they broke into familiar smiles and walked over to greet them.
"Chief! What brings you all the way up here? And with so many supplies!" One of them was Koichirō.
His face was full of a young man's energy. He even moved to affectionately take the carrying pole from the chief's shoulder, as if just welcoming a long-unseen elder.
Shirakawa Kiesuke stopped, his steps heavy. He forced a strained smile onto his deeply wrinkled face. In the flickering firelight, he looked exhausted and ancient. "Koichirō... down in the village... we have more investigators. It's serious this time. Are you... are you sure you won't leave, just to lay low for a while?"
"Ah, come on, Chief! Didn't we promise you already?" Koichirō waved his hand dismissively, his face flush with a young man's pride.
"We're careful! We only hit those crooked, out-of-town merchants. We never touch the regulars who do business with our village! Those greedy merchants deserve to be robbed! You can relax!"
Koichirō peeked at the sake jars and chunks of meat in the baskets. His eyes lit up, and his smile grew even wider. "And you even brought all this good stuff up for us! Wait here, I'll go get Shinmi-aniki! He was just complaining we were out of good sake!"
A muscle in Shirakawa Kiesuke's face twitched uncontrollably.
That outsider they called "Aniki!" It was this man, Shinmi, who had used his silver tongue and promises of the "good life" to utterly corrupt the boy he had watched grow up—the boy who had once been the most sensible and hardworking in the village.
A torrent of anger, grief, and despair washed over him, shattering the last bit of strength in his stooped body.
He knew, right at this moment, in this moonlit forest, that some things, like an arrow loosed from a bow, could never be taken back.