They could see the smoke before they could see the village.
A black column rising from the valley floor, too thick and too dark to be a cook fire. Then a second one. A third. The wind carried the smell of it uphill, wood burning and something worse underneath.
Mikoto ran faster.
They cleared the treeline and the valley opened below them. The village was burning. Three buildings on the eastern side were already engulfed, flames climbing the wooden walls and sending sparks into the sky. Figures moved between the houses. Some running. Some chasing.
Screaming. Even from the ridge, she could hear it.
"Sensei…" Inoichi said. His face was white.
Mikoto scanned the village in two seconds. The bandits were spread across the settlement, clusters of them hitting different sections. The storage barns on the south side. The houses on the east. The community hall in the center. Two dozen, maybe more, swarming through the village like rats through a granary.
Some villagers were already on the ground. She could see bodies. She couldn't tell if they were dead or just injured.
She turned to her genin. Three eleven-year-olds staring at a burning village with their fists clenched and their eyes wide.
"Shikaku. West side."
"Got it." Shikaku frowned at the sight.
"Inoichi. East side."
Inoichi nodded. He was sweating.
"Chōza. South side. Go."
"Yes, sensei." A look of worry was present on his face.
"Protect the villagers first. Fight only what's in your way." She drew the transformed Shark Skin. "I'll handle the rest."
They split.
Shikaku hit the western residential area at a dead sprint.
The houses here were smaller, packed closer together, with narrow paths between them. Two bandits were dragging a screaming woman out of a doorway by her hair. Another was kicking in the door of the house next to it. A fourth was carrying a sack of stolen grain on his shoulder, heading for the village exit.
Shikaku ignored the grain thief. He went for the woman first.
Shadow Possession Jutsu.
His shadow stretched across the dirt path and caught both bandits mid-step. They froze. The woman fell to the ground and scrambled away on her hands and knees.
The jutsu held them as Shikaku tossed two shuriken into their throats.
Then he heard a child's scream.
He turned.
Genzo was backed against a wall at the end of the path. A bandit stood over him with a hatchet raised, the blade catching the firelight. Genzo's face was twisted in terror. His mouth was open but no more sound was coming out.
Shikaku moved.
He wasn't fast enough. He knew he wasn't fast enough. The distance was too far and the hatchet was already coming down and his legs couldn't close the gap in time.
He closed it anyway.
He threw himself between the bandit and the boy. The hatchet came down and caught him across the back, the blade biting through his shirt and into the muscle along his left shoulder blade. The pain was annoying and awful and for one second his vision went dark.
He didn't fall. He turned into the strike, grabbed the bandit's wrist with both hands, and wrenched the hatchet free. Blood ran down his back in a hot sheet.
The bandit stumbled, off-balance from the disarm. Shikaku looked at him. Looked at the hatchet in his own hands. Looked at Genzo behind him, pressed against the wall, crying without sound.
"Get out of here," Shikaku said to Genzo. His voice was steady. The pain was not. "Leave it to the ninjas, you annoying brat."
He swung the hatchet.
It went through the bandit’s neck. The man's eyes went wide as his head went flying. A sight that Shikaku would see in his sleep for a very long time, and then he fell.
Shikaku dropped the hatchet. His hands were shaking. His back was screaming. Blood was soaking through his shirt and dripping from his elbow.
Genzo stared at him. The boy who hated ninjas stared at the ninja who was bleeding to save him.
"RUN!" Shikaku shouted.
Genzo ran.
Inoichi ran toward Mei’s house when he saw the door broken wide open.
The scene inside stopped him for half a second. Kazuha was on the floor, backed against the far wall. Her kimono was torn at the shoulder where someone had grabbed it. Two bandits stood over her. One had his hand on the collar of her garment, fingers curled, ready to tear. The other was grinning, his eyes crawling over her. Mei was in the corner, pressed behind a table, shaking so hard the wood rattled.
The one reaching for Kazuha saw Inoichi in the doorway. He turned. He opened his mouth to say something.
Inoichi's kunai went through his throat.
It was faster than anything he'd ever thrown before. The blade pierced through flesh and the man's hand fell away from Kazuha's collar and he dropped straight down like a puppet with its strings cut. Blood sprayed across the wall.
The second bandit lunged for him. Inoichi sidestepped, caught the man's arm, and drove a second kunai into his ribs. The blade went in up to the handle. The bandit grabbed Inoichi's shoulders, fingers digging in, and for a terrible second they were face to face, close enough that Inoichi could see every vein in the man's eyes.
He twisted the kunai. The bandit's grip loosened. He fell.
Inoichi's hands were red. His breathing was ragged. The room smelled like blood.
More footsteps outside. Three, maybe four bandits converging on the sound of the commotion. Inoichi positioned himself between the door and the two people behind him.
"Mei," he said. His voice cracked but his hands were steady. "Go to your mom. Stay behind me."
Mei scrambled from behind the table and threw herself into Kazuha's arms. Kazuha was shaking. Tears were running down her face but she was holding her daughter and her eyes were on Inoichi.
"It's okay," Inoichi said. He forced a smile. The same kind of smile Mikoto gave them when she chopped off those bandit’s heads. "I'm here. Nothing's going to happen to you."
The first bandit came through the door. Inoichi met him with a kick to the stomach that doubled him over, then drove his knee into the man's face. The second came through the window. Inoichi threw a shuriken that caught him in the shoulder, then closed the distance and put him down with a combination of blows.
The third pushed through the broken window. Bigger than the others. He had a sword. Inoichi didn't have time to think. He parried the sword with his kunai and slashed across the man's forearm. The bandit dropped the sword. Inoichi kicked it away and drove the kunai into the man's chest.
Three down. One more at the door. This one saw his dead friends and ran. Inoichi didn’t let him get away with a flurry of what ninja tools he had left. The man dropped into the dirt, unmoving.
Inoichi stood in the middle of the room with blood on his hands and blood on his clothes and four bodies on the floor. Behind him, Mei was crying into her mother's chest.
He wanted to throw up. He didn't.
He turned to them and smiled.
"See? It's okay now. Just trust… the reliable ninjas." He gave a thumbs up.
Chōza heard Toguro before he saw him.
The sound of metal on metal, not the ringing of a forge hammer but the clang of weapons clashing. He rounded the corner to the forge and found the blacksmith in the doorway of his shop, wielding a red-hot iron bar against three bandits. His face was set in a snarl. Blood ran from a cut above his eye.
"Get out of my shop!" Toguro said through his teeth. He swung the iron bar and the nearest bandit jumped back from the searing heat.
"Just give us what's in there, old man," one of them said. "Don't make this harder than it has to be."
"Come and take it over my cold dead body."
They came.
Two of them rushed him at once. Toguro caught the first one across the arm with the iron bar and the man screamed as the hot metal seared his skin. But the second one got inside his reach and drove a knife into his gut.
Toguro's eyes went wide. He looked down at the knife handle sticking out of his stomach. His hand went to it.
The bandit twisted it.
"TOGURO-SAN!" Chōza screamed.
He was moving before the scream finished leaving his mouth. Bo staff out, full sprint. He caught the bandit who'd stabbed Toguro with a swing that hit like a battering ram, the staff connecting with the man's ribs so hard it launched him off his feet and into the far wall of the forge. The man crashed into the wall and didn't get back up.
The one with the burned arm turned to face Chōza. Chōza didn't give him time. Staff to the kneecap. The crack was loud. The man went down howling. Chōza brought the staff down on his head and the howling stopped.
The third one backed up, hands raised.
"Wait, I'll go, This was just a misunder-"
Chōza hit him anyway. Across the chest, hard enough to shatter his ribcage. The bandit flew.
The forge was quiet.
Toguro was on his knees. The iron bar had fallen from his hand. Both hands were pressed against his stomach where the knife was still embedded. Blood was pooling on the floor beneath him.
"Toguro-san!" Chōza dropped his staff and knelt beside him. "Don't move. Don't pull it out."
"Boy..." Toguro's voice was wet. "My shop..."
"Forget your shop!" Chōza's hands were trembling. He pressed around the wound the way Mikoto had taught him. Stabilize the area. Don't remove the object. Control the bleeding around it. He tore a strip from his own shirt and packed it against the wound.
"You need to hold still. I'm going to find my sensei. She can heal you."
"I'm not going anywhere." Toguro coughed. Red on his lips. "Too damn heavy to carry."
Chōza lifted him easily.
"Put me down, boy." Toguro said.
"No."
"I said put me down."
"And I said no."
He walked so that he didn’t aggravate his injury. Through the forge, past the burning buildings, past the bodies in the road. He walked with a dying man in his arms and tears running down his face and he didn't stop.
"Mikoto-sensei!" he shouted. "MIKOTO-SENSEI!"
Mikoto was carving through the center of the village.
Her rage had a shape. It moved through her arms and into Shark Skin and out the other side into every bandit that got within range. She was not the girl who cooked great meals and healed injuries and giggled when her boys were being boys. She was the thing that the Ame and Iwa scouts had warned their people about. The girl with the sword. Don't engage alone. Don't let her get close.
These bandits didn't know that. They learned.
The first group of four that rushed her lasted two seconds. Shark Skin swept through them in a wide arc that cleaved through their weapons, their clothes, their skin. The transformed cleaver sliced through flesh with ease and the men fell in pieces.
She suddenly appeared next to the nearest cluster. Three bandits setting fire to a storage barn. She appeared behind them and the sword came down on the first one's back and the sword sliced him from shoulder to waist, the body coming away in two. The second turned to face her and she drove Shark Skin into his gut and let the sword drain him dry. His eyes rolled back. The third tried to run. She caught him by the collar and Shark Skin separated his torso from his legs.
She moved on without slowing down.
More. There were always more. She found them in the houses, in the barns, in the roads. Some were stealing. Some were hurting people. Some were just destroying things because they could.
She destroyed them instead.
A bandit with a sword tried to meet her blade-to-blade. Shark Skin cleaved his sword in half and then cleaved him. Another one threw a torch at her. She caught it, tossed it back, and finished the burning man with a swing of her sword. A third put his hands up and begged for his life, tears running down his face, pure regret and fear.
She hesitated for one second, then heard a child crying somewhere behind the man, looked past him, and saw the bruises on a woman's face.
She didn't hesitate after that.
The village center was a mess of fire and blood and corpses and destruction. Bodies lay where they fell, bandit and villager alike. The screaming had thinned. Either people had found hiding places or there was nobody left to scream.
She heard Chōza's voice. Distant. Desperate.
"MIKOTO-SENSEI!"
She turned.
Shuji stood at the edge of the village with the bandit leader.
The leader was a heavyset man with a thick beard and cold eyes. He watched the raid from the treeline like a man watching livestock being sorted. He didn't participate. Leaders didn't.
"The storage barns are cleared," a runner reported. "Grain loaded on the carts. We've got maybe ten minutes before those shinobi get back, if they survived the cave."
"They survived," Shuji said quietly. He was standing beside the leader, watching his village burn. His face was blank. "The girl is fast. She got them out."
The leader looked at him. "Then we move. Get the carts going."
"Wait."
A figure was walking toward them from the village. Old. Bent. Leaning on a walking stick with hands that shook not from age but from something else.
Jinbei stopped ten meters away. He looked at his son. He looked at the bandit leader. He looked at the burning buildings behind him.
"Shuji…" he said.
Shuji didn't answer.
"You did this."
"Old man, get out of here," the leader said. "This doesn't concern you."
"It concerns me." Jinbei's voice was steady in a way the rest of him wasn't. He kept his eyes on his son. "I spent everything I had to protect this village. And you sold it."
Shuji's jaw tightened.
"Why?" Jinbei asked. His voice cracked on the word.
"Because this village is a dead end." Shuji's voice was flat. "Because I've been rotting here my entire life watching crops grow and nothing else. Because the world is on fire and you're still pretending that if we just keep farming, everything will be fine."
"People are dead, Shuji."
"People were always going to die. At least now I get something out of it."
Jinbei stared at his son. The walking stick trembled in his hands.
The bandit leader looked at Shuji. He looked at the old man. He pulled a knife from his belt and held it out, handle first.
"Prove yourself, boy." he said.
Shuji looked at the knife. He looked at his father.
"Son…" Jinbei said. "Please..."
Shuji took the knife.
He walked to his father. Jinbei didn't move. Didn't raise his hands. Didn't step back.
"I'm sorry, pops." Shuji said.
The knife went in below the ribs. Jinbei's breath left him in a gasp. His walking stick clattered to the ground. His hand went to his son's shoulder, gripping the fabric.
Shuji twisted.
Jinbei sagged. His hand slid from Shuji's shoulder. He looked at his son's face one last time, and whatever he saw there, he took it with him as he crumpled to the ground and lay still.
Shuji pulled the knife out. His hand was red. His face was empty.
The bandit leader clapped him on the back with a loud laugh. "Welcome to the family, son."
They left with the carts. By the time Mikoto reached the edge of the village, there was nothing but wheel tracks in the mud and an old man's body cooling in the dirt.
Mikoto found Chōza first.
He was standing in the middle of the road with Toguro in his arms and tears on his face. The blacksmith was barely conscious, his hands pressed against the knife wound, blood seeping between his fingers.
"Sensei, please…" Chōza begged.
Mikoto held Shark Skin in one hand, the green glow already around the other. She placed her palm over the wound, felt the damage, sealed the severed vessels, knitted the muscle wall, and coaxed the tissue back together. It took three minutes. The bleeding stopped. Toguro's breathing steadied.
"He'll live. Set him down gently." she said.
Chōza set him down. His arms were shaking. His shirt was soaked red. He stared at his hands.
"I killed them… The ones who did this. I killed them." He said.
"I’m proud of you, Chōza. You did what was needed to save someone else." Mikoto didn’t want him to feel guilty for the wrong reason.
"It felt different than I thought it would…"
"Yeah, I thought the same..."
She found Inoichi next. He was sitting on the steps of Kazuha's house with Mei in his lap. The little girl was asleep, her face pressed into his chest, tear tracks on her cheeks. Kazuha sat beside him, her torn kimono pulled tight around her shoulders, her hand on Inoichi's arm.
"She cried until she fell asleep. I told her it was okay." Inoichi said. His voice was very quiet.
"You saved them."
"The ones inside are dead."
"I can see that..." There was blood all over his outfit.
"I killed them, sensei..."
"You protected people who couldn't protect themselves. That's what we're here for."
He nodded. His hands were still red.
She found Shikaku last. He was sitting against a wall with his shirt off, the wound on his back exposed. The cut was deep but not life-threatening. He'd packed it with a torn strip of his own sleeve.
"You okay?" she asked.
"Could be better, sensei. Could be better…" He smirked.
She knelt behind him and healed the wound. The muscle knitted under her hands. The skin closed.
"I didn’t expect you to get hurt like this…" she said.
"A stupid kid was going to die in front of me."
"You could have died."
"I didn't though, sensei."
She finished the healing. She sat down next to him. He stared at the ground.
"I killed a scumbag with his own hatchet." he said.
"How are you feeling?"
"If I had to do it again, I would."
"That's good."
"I just..." He rubbed his face. "I have to get used to the messier parts of this job."
"You will. It takes time."
"How much time?"
Mikoto looked at the burning buildings. The bodies in the road. The smoke rising into the sky where the morning should have been bright.
"I'll let you know when I find out." She had a small smile that didn’t seem like much of a smile at all.
“Sometimes being a ninja is a drag, sensei…” Shikaku exhaled.
“Mm.” Mikoto agreed.
She gathered them together at the well in the village center. Three boys who had been children sometime ago and were something else now. Something harder. Something sadder.
She looked at each of them.
"I'm proud of you boys." she said.
None of them answered.
She stepped forward and put her hand on Shikaku's head. She ruffled his hair gently. He didn't pull away.
She put her hand on Inoichi's head. He closed his eyes.
She put her hand on Chōza's head. He wiped his face with his sleeve and nodded. Hard. Strong.
"You had the strength to do what was necessary. You protected people. You saved lives. That matters. What you're feeling right now, the weight of it, that matters too. Don't run from it. Carry it." Mikoto said.
Shikaku exhaled. Long and slow. He raised his head. His eyes were clear.
Inoichi smacked both his cheeks with his palms. The sound was sharp in the quiet. He forced a smile, the same smile he'd given Mei and Kazuha. It was shaky but it was there.
Chōza wiped his tears one more time and nodded at Mikoto. Firm.
They were going to be okay. Not soon. But eventually.
Mikoto wasn't glad this had to happen. She was glad they would be stronger for it.
…
[Ding!]
[Weekly Sign-in available!]
[Signing in…]
[Obtained: Chakra Blades x2!]
Name: Mikoto Uchiha
Age: 13
Rank: Chunin
Affinity: Lightning Affinity, Fire Affinity, Yin Affinity, Water Affinity
Unique: Immense Chakra Reserves, Sharingan (Dormant), Advanced Growth Rate
Skills: Fire Style Mastery, Water Style Mastery, Clone Jutsu, Substitution Jutsu, Transformation Jutsu, Shurikenjutsu, Basic Taijutsu, Basic Genjutsu, Body Flicker, Perfect Chakra Control, Uchiha Style: Kenjutsu, Stealth, Survival Knowledge, Cooking, Medical Ninjutsu (Mystical Palm), Fūinjutsu Affinity, Pedagogy Mastery, Space-Time Ninjutsu Affinity, Seven Heavens Breathing Method
Equipment: Kunai, Shuriken, Smoke Bomb, Explosive Tags, Poison Gas Bomb, Flash Bomb, Gas/Sleep Bomb, Food Pills x103, Wire Strings, Shark Skin, Giant Folding Fan, Bingo Book, Training Weights, Fūma Shuriken x100, Hero Water x10, Chakra Blades x2
They buried the dead before they left.
Eleven villagers. Farmers, laborers, a woman who sold fabric, an old couple who lived at the edge of town. And Jinbei, found at the village boundary with a knife wound in his gut and his walking stick in the dirt beside him.
Mikoto stood over his grave the longest.
She had liked the old man. He had been kind and grateful and he'd trusted her. He'd spent everything he had to keep his village safe, and she'd let his own son lead her into a cave while the people she was supposed to protect died.
Never again.
She would never be this stupid again…
…
The walk back to camp was the quietest trip they'd taken together.
Mikoto filed the mission report herself. She wrote it honestly. Every detail. The deception. The cave. The explosive tags. The eleven dead. She signed it and handed it to the jonin at the command tent.
An hour later, she was standing in front of Takeda's desk with her genin behind her.
Takeda read the report before he set it down.
"Eleven dead?" he said.
"Yes, sir."
"All bandits eliminated?"
"All except the ringleader and the informant. They fled before we reached the village."
"The informant was the village chief's son."
"Yes, sir."
Takeda looked at her. He wasn’t angry. It was something more tired than that.
"A shinobi must see through deception, Mikoto. That's not advice. That's the job. Every smile can hide a knife. Every helpful hand can be leading you to a trap. The people who hire us give us their trust, their money, and sometimes their lives. When we fail them, people die. And they did."
Mikoto said nothing. There was nothing to say.
"Your team fought well. They saved lives. They killed bandits. That's nice. But the mission objective was to protect the village through the harvest, and eleven people are in the ground who shouldn't be. That's a failure."
He let the word sit.
"No payment will be issued for this mission. The failure will be recorded in your team's file."
"Understood, sir."
The genin were silent behind her. She could feel their shame. It matched her own.
Takeda leaned back. He looked at them for a long moment. Something in his face softened by a fraction.
"A shinobi who fails and learns is worth more than one who's never been tested. I don't expect perfection from a chunin leading her first genin squad. I expect growth." He pulled a mission sheet from the stack. "I'm giving you a chance to get back on the horse. C-rank. Wildlife suppression. Displaced overgrown animals threatening farmland west of here. Straightforward. Should be simple."
He held out the sheet.
"Don't let me down twice."
Mikoto took it. She bowed. The genin bowed.
"We won't, sir."
They left the command tent. The evening was quiet. The sky was grey. Somewhere in the camp, someone was cooking dinner and the smell carried on the wind.
Mikoto looked at the mission sheet. Then she looked at her team.
"We’ll deal with this tomorrow," she said. "Tonight we get some food and some much needed rest."
Nobody argued.
They walked to the mess tent together.