Shuji and Itachi’s figures gradually disappeared down the trade road.
One of the hidden gazes watching them withdrew.
A figure immediately hurried back into Shirakawa Village, while several other shadows quietly followed the departing pair.
Yet the real Shuji, dressed in dark green shinobi gear, was leaning against a beech tree concealed in shadow.
Itachi crouched silently beside him.
Together, they watched the men tailing Shuji’s shadow clone until both pursuers and clone vanished in the direction of Koizumi Town.
Inside the village chief’s residence, the oil lamps burned brighter than usual.
Several of the village’s most influential elders had gathered there, and the air was thick with suppressed anxiety.
“I said from the beginning that we should report them immediately!
The moment those bastards secretly came back, I knew they’d eventually bring disaster down on all of us!” A rough voice shattered the silence, barely containing its anger.
At first, the villagers truly hadn’t known what the young men who had left home were doing.
Then news arrived that the Land of Rivers was hunting a group of bandits—and at almost exactly the same time, more than a dozen able-bodied young men had disappeared from Shirakawa Village.
When those same young men later returned and the robberies suddenly began again, the coincidence became impossible for the village’s leaders to ignore.
Piece by piece, they had assembled a truth none of them wanted to face.
Across the room, a middle-aged man wearing round spectacles pushed his slipping glasses back up his nose.
Flickering lamplight reflected across the lenses.
“When the pursuit force came here before, we insisted that we knew nothing.
What happens if we suddenly change our story and admit that we did know?” His voice wasn’t loud, but every word was distinct.
“What will the authorities think?” He paused before adding, “Besides, things may be difficult right now, but we’re still getting by.
If word gets out that the bandits came from our village…” “Easy for you to say!
Your warehouse is already empty!” A burly man with a fleshy face slammed his palm onto the low table, making the teacups rattle.
“I’ve still got half a year’s harvest rotting in my warehouse!
If this keeps up, everyone in the village will be tightening their belts until there’s nothing left to eat!” His eyes were bloodshot with anger.
“Those two shinobi…
have already figured it out.” Seated in the place of honor, Shirakawa Kisuke spoke in a dry, exhausted voice, as though forcing out those few words had drained what little strength he had left.
The room instantly fell dead silent.
Bang!
An elderly man with completely white hair and beard—Shirakawa Sōsuke—slammed his palm onto the table hard enough to spill water from the teacups.
His hawk-like gaze swept across everyone in the room, carrying a heavy authority.
“We can’t hesitate any longer, Kisuke!
Those are shinobi who accepted an official mission!” His thin fingers dug into the edge of the table.
“Where are they now?” Kisuke’s lips trembled.
“I…
I sent someone to warn Koichiro…
to tell them…” His calloused hands clenched the hem of his clothes until his knuckles tightened.
“That boy…
that boy was only led astray by outsiders.
He used to be such a good child…” “Enough!” the burly man barked, his voice scraping like gravel.
“Koichiro already has blood on his hands!
He’s not a child anymore!” “Chief, if you keep protecting him, are you planning to drag the entire village into the grave with him?” Shirakawa Sōsuke slowly rose to his feet.
His stooped body cast an enormous, wavering shadow beneath the oil lamps, swallowing his younger brother beneath it.
“Kisuke, this stopped being a matter of a few outsiders dying a long time ago.” His voice rolled through the room like distant thunder.
“Now that shinobi are involved, this has to end.” “…We can’t hand them over.” After a long silence, the bespectacled man finally spoke again, his voice strained.
“And under no circumstances can outsiders learn that the bandits came from Shirakawa Village.” “Then what exactly are you suggesting?!” The burly man whipped his head around, fury flashing in his eyes.
Shirakawa Sōsuke slowly closed his eyes.
Beneath the lamplight, the wrinkles carved into his face looked as deep as knife marks.
“After the Warring States Period ended, it took years for this trade road to finally prosper.
Only then did we begin living decent lives.” He opened his eyes again.
They were as cold and still as a frozen lake.
“This village’s reputation is its lifeline.
Every household here depends on the caravans for food and income.” His gaze settled on his younger brother.
“Kisuke.
You will cooperate.” “Brother, but…” “There is no ‘but.'” Kisuke’s feeble protest was swallowed by the sharp crackle of the oil lamp’s wick, eventually dissolving into several heavy, suffocating sighs.
When the villager assigned to keep watch returned and confirmed that the two shinobi had indeed left the boundaries of Shirakawa Village, the atmosphere inside the room seemed to freeze for a heartbeat—then suddenly burst into motion.
No one spoke again.
They quickly dispersed, silent and purposeful, disappearing into the village night.
Not long afterward, more than forty able-bodied men gathered beneath the cold moonlight at the village threshing ground.
The objects in their hands were no longer farming tools.
They were weapons.
Freshly sharpened sickles gleamed with a cold edge.
Pitchforks bristled with vicious iron tines.
Hunters gripped heavy bows, their strings already drawn taut and ready.
Faces that were normally familiar and friendly had become rigid with grim resolve.
Shirakawa Sōsuke stood at the head of the group, with Kisuke beside him.
Behind the brothers were several shoulder poles laden with jars of sake and cuts of meat.
Moonlight spilled over them like water, stretching the silent villagers and the cold points of their weapons into long, distorted shadows that seemed to crawl toward the depths of the mountains.
Only heavy breathing and the occasional quiet clink of weapons disturbed the night.
This was not an age of true peace.
Only fifty-four years had passed since the end of the Warring States Period.
Back then, shinobi hadn’t been the only people conscripted and thrown onto battlefields.
The white-haired Shirakawa Sōsuke was one of the survivors who had crawled out of those mountains of corpses and seas of blood.
He knew how to command men when the purpose was killing.
Under the old man’s leadership, the group moved like a long, silent serpent, winding toward the mountain behind the village.
“Did you expect this to happen, senpai?” Itachi’s voice emerged from the shadows of the trees, breaking the silence.
His dark pupils reflected the moving line of villagers below.
Shuji leaned against the tree trunk and slowly shook his head.
Branching shadows lay heavily across his face.
“I considered several possibilities.” “I thought they might reach an agreement among themselves, confess everything to us, and ask us to keep it quiet.” “I thought someone might secretly warn the bandits because of personal feelings.” “I even thought the village might fall into infighting first…” His eyes followed the cold flashes of steel moving beneath the moonlight.
Those people were ordinarily honest-looking neighbors, uncles, fathers, and family friends.
“But this is the one possibility I didn’t anticipate.” His voice became quieter.
“To protect the village’s reputation—to protect the livelihoods they depend on—they decided to deal with the problem themselves.” A complicated emotion churned inside Shuji.
Were these villagers simply too reckless?
Or had he failed to understand just how harsh the foundations of this world truly were?
“Still…
it’s the correct choice.” Itachi’s voice was calm to the point of indifference, an unsettling contrast with the fact that he was only eight years old.
He watched the procession disappear into the dark mountain forest.
“If they personally put an end to the evil their own village produced, it serves as atonement.
At the same time, it protects the village’s foundation as much as possible.” Shuji turned his head and looked at Itachi.
The boy’s face was still unmistakably childish, yet there wasn’t the slightest ripple of emotion upon it.
Beneath the moonlight, those black eyes seemed impossibly deep.
So in the end, perhaps Shuji himself had simply been too naive about this world.
He looked away and returned his gaze to the mountains, whose jagged outlines appeared almost monstrous beneath the moonlight.
Halfway up the mountain stood a hidden encampment built around a natural cave and enclosed by a crude wooden palisade.
Only two men lazily guarded the entrance beside a fire.
When they saw Village Chief Shirakawa Kisuke climbing the mountain path with six men carrying shoulder poles, neither guard showed the slightest suspicion.
Instead, they greeted them with familiar smiles.
“Chief!
What are you doing all the way up here yourself?
And you brought so much stuff!” One of the guards was Koichiro.
His face carried the lively energy of youth.
He even stepped forward affectionately to take the carrying pole from Kisuke’s shoulder, as though he were simply welcoming an elder he hadn’t seen in a long time.
Kisuke came to a heavy stop.
He forced an painfully strained smile onto his deeply wrinkled face.
In the flickering firelight, he looked especially old and exhausted.
“Koichiro…
people came down below to investigate again.
This time, they’re making quite a stir.” He hesitated.
“Are you…
really not planning to leave for a while and let things calm down?” “Oh, come on, Chief!
Didn’t we already promise you there was nothing to worry about?” Koichiro waved dismissively, his expression unconcerned and even carrying a hint of youthful pride.
“We know what we’re doing!
We only rob crooked merchants from out of town who happen to pass through.
We never touch regular customers who do business with our village!” His grin widened.
“Those black-hearted merchants deserve to be robbed.
You can relax, Chief.
There’s absolutely nothing to worry about!” Koichiro leaned over and peeked into the baskets hanging from the shoulder poles.
The moment he spotted jars of sake and chunks of meat, his eyes lit up and his smile grew even brighter.
“You even brought all this good stuff up here for us!
Wait right here—I’ll go get Big Brother Shinya!
He was just complaining that the sake we had wasn’t strong enough!” A muscle in Kisuke’s face twitched uncontrollably.
That outsider they called ‘Big Brother.’ That man named Shinya.
It was him.
With honeyed words and promises of some so-called ‘carefree life,’ that outsider had completely corrupted Koichiro—the boy Kisuke had watched grow up, once the most sensible and hardworking child in the village.
A torrent of anger, grief, and despair crashed through Kisuke all at once, destroying the last bit of strength supporting his stooped body.
He knew it now.
At this very moment, beneath the moonlight in these mountains, certain things had already been set into motion.
Like an arrow released from the bowstring, there was no calling them back.