[You have successfully destroyed a damaged mechanical puppet (Special Jonin level).][Achievement Points +102!]
With the system notification popping up, Ayane confirmed that the puppet was completely scrapped.
According to the textbooks, the best course of action would be to dismantle the thing into a hundred pieces to prevent puppeteers from recycling the parts.
But with the system's "authoritative certification," she wasn't about to waste extra energy on manual labor.
She pulled back her leg and gave the iron hunk a sharp kick.
"Sss—"
The puppet went flying, but Ayane hissed through her teeth. Thank goodness she had been channeling chakra to her soles during the fight. If she had come through a life-and-death battle unscathed only to injure her toe on a scrap heap, she'd never live it down.
Who decided ninja sandals should have open toes? she grumbled internally. Do they have any idea how impractical this is in the Land of Rain?
Shaking off the thought, Ayane paused to assess her situation. Instead of blindly rushing after Woodpecker, she began to move cautiously toward the center of the village. The sounds of slaughter that had lured them here were gone now, replaced by an eerie, heavy silence.
The drizzle picked up again. Under the shroud of night, Maba Village was a graveyard. The bodies soaking in the mud were frozen in grotesque poses: a woman reaching out as if struggling to crawl away, a man with wide, furious eyes, and a small child curled into a tight ball.
One by one, they were being swallowed by the eternal rain—ripples in an ocean, dust settling on the earth. Ayane swallowed hard, her jaw tight. This was the first time, in either of her lives, that she had witnessed such a hellish tableau.
"Someone else is coming..." "Is it Mama? It must be Mama coming back..." "It's not Mama. It's... a ninja! Shut up, Toshiro! Shut up now!"
Ayane's ears twitched. The whispered conversation drifted from a nearby shack. Though the voices were barely audible over the pitter-patter of the rain, they were crystal clear to her chakra-enhanced hearing.
She glanced toward the sound. It was coming from a half-shattered water vat lying on its side. It sounded like two children.
Despite the pity she felt, Ayane didn't lower her guard. Stormrazor slid from its sheath with a soft shing. She approached the vat slowly.
Step. Step. Step.
The children inside seemed to sense her presence. The thin thread of their voices snapped instantly. Ayane stood silent before the trembling ceramic shards.
"Come out. I know you're in there," she said coldly.
No response. Only the rain.
Taking a deep breath, she channeled the chilling, theatrical tone of a classic villain—something like Orochimaru from the anime she remembered. "Fire Style..."
That was the final straw.
"Die! Die! You monsters, just go to hell!"
A grey-haired boy burst from the water vat. Clutching a jagged brick, he charged at Ayane with zero technique but pure, murderous intent.
To a trained ninja, such an attack was nonexistent. Ayane didn't even need her sword. She simply reached out with her left hand, parried the clumsy swing, and delivered a sharp palm strike.
"Ouch!"
The boy fell back into the mud on his rear, and the brick was snatched from his hand before he could blink.
"Brother!"
A tragic cry rang out as a smaller child scrambled out of the vat. Seeing his brother in the mud, he ran over on short legs.
"Toshiro! I told you not to come out!" the older brother barked, trying to maintain his dignity even in defeat. "Stop crying! Don't look at them!"
Little Toshiro didn't listen. He hugged his older brother, sobbing uncontrollably. "Mama, where are you? Why aren't you back yet? I want Mama..."
Watching them, the older brother's voice softened. He looked like a wounded cub, curling around his sibling and patting his back. "I'm sorry. I'm useless. I couldn't protect you."
The village orphans?
Ayane felt a pang of sympathy, but Stormrazor remained steady in her hand. Her arm was as cold and rigid as a statue. Ninja combat was the combat of information. Whether it was the current war or the "alien-goddess-and-tattoos" eras to come, that rule never changed.
Without a sensory jutsu, how could she know if these pathetic kids weren't just a ninja using Transformation Jutsu?
She suppressed her wavering emotions. Her gaze sharpened, and Stormrazor drew a beautiful, lethal arc through the rain, slashing down toward the younger child's neck!
"NO!"
The older brother tried to lunge in the way, but he was far too slow. He could only watch in horror as the blade descended.
Poof!
A cloud of white smoke erupted. Ayane's blade stopped inches from the ground. She hadn't intended to finish the strike; instead, she used the moment to snatch the older boy and pull him back.
"Wow. You Rain ninja really are cold-blooded, aren't you?"
A mocking voice drifted from the smoke. Little Toshiro, who had been sobbing seconds ago, had transformed into a short, squat ninja. He looked at the masked Ayane with a sneer. "And here I thought I was the only heartless one left in this world~"
Ayane looked up. She saw the forehead protector on the man's head. The symbol wasn't from any of the Five Great Nations; instead, a jagged horizontal scratch ran through the metal plate.
A rogue ninja. A stray.
Ayane let out a soft huff. "Oh. So you're just a homeless stray dog."
The rogue ninja's expression soured instantly.
"Hey, kid," he didn't snap back at Ayane immediately. Instead, he turned to the dazed grey-haired boy and grinned. "Want to know where your brother and mother went?"
The boy didn't answer. Realizing the "Toshiro" he had been holding wasn't his brother, he stared at the rogue with the intensity of a cornered wolf.
"Haha, don't look at me like that! If I remember correctly, I stuffed them both into the kitchen stove..." The ninja's smile widened, turning into something demonic. "That meal tasted pretty good, didn't it? I remember you ate quite a bit of that soup earlier."
"AAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!"
A wave of visceral nausea hit the boy, and he clutched his stomach, letting out a primal, hysterical scream.
Ayane's eyes went completely cold. A surge of unidentifiable, burning rage exploded in her chest.
"You animal."
She tapped the back of the screaming boy's neck, knocking him unconscious, and her pale lips moved behind the mask.
"I am truly... angry now."