[You have successfully destroyed a damaged mechanical puppet (Tokubetsu Jōnin-level).] [Achievement Points +102!] With the prompt popping up on the holographic panel, Ayane could finally confirm that the puppet in front of her was completely scrapped.
Although the standard shinobi protocol she had learned dictated that she should chop the puppet into pieces to prevent the puppet master from recycling it, having the authoritative certification of her system panel meant she naturally wouldn’t waste the extra effort.
The young girl raised her leg and delivered a vicious kick to the hunk of metal!
‘Hiss~’ The puppet was kicked flying, but the girl immediately sucked in a sharp breath of cold air.
Thankfully, she had kept chakra concentrated in the soles of her feet throughout the fight.
Otherwise, getting through a battle completely uninjured only to stub her toe on a petty post-fight kick would have been incredibly embarrassing…
‘Seriously, who made it a rule that ninja sandals have to be open-toed?’ she grumbled internally.
Did they have any idea how inconvenient this footwear was in the Land of Rain?
She quickly pushed the petty complaint to the back of her mind.
Ayane stood in place and thought for a moment.
She didn’t blindly follow the direction Woodpecker had disappeared in to track him down.
Instead, she cautiously made her way toward the center of the village.
The sounds of slaughter that had originally drawn them here were clear just moments ago.
But now, it had gone completely, deathly silent.
She had no idea what the situation was.
A light drizzle began to fall again.
Under the cover of night, Maba Village was eerily quiet.
The corpses soaking in the muddy water lay in all sorts of grotesque postures.
There were women with arms outstretched as if struggling to crawl away, men with their eyes wide open in furious anger, and young children curled up into tight balls…
Without exception, they would all eventually be silently swallowed by the relentless, year-round rain, disappearing like a drop of water into the ocean, or a speck of dust into the mud.
Ayane swallowed hard, her lips pressed tightly together.
This hellish tableau…
Whether in her past life or this one, this was the first time she had ever been exposed to a massacre of this scale.
“I think someone else is here…” “Is it Mom?
It has to be Mom coming back…” “It’s not Mom.
It’s…
it’s a ninja!
Shut up, Toshiro!
Keep quiet!” Ayane’s ears twitched slightly.
A few desperately hushed whispers drifted over from a nearby thatched hut.
Although whispers of that volume were practically imperceptible amidst the pattering rain, with her hearing enhanced by chakra, Ayane could hear them as clear as day.
She turned her head and cast a glance in that direction.
The voices were coming from inside a toppled, half-shattered water vat.
It sounded like two young children…
Despite this, Ayane did not relax her guard.
With a sharp shing, Arashikiri was drawn from its scabbard.
She slowly approached the vat.
Step, step, step.
The children inside seemed to sense something, as their faint whispers instantly vanished.
Ayane walked right up to the vat and stood perfectly still, her chakra blade at the ready.
The entire world seemed to fall silent, leaving only the half-broken vat trembling slightly in front of her.
“Come out!
I know you’re in there,” she demanded coldly.
No response.
Only the sound of the falling rain filled the air.
The girl took a deep breath, drawing upon the memories of anime villains from her past life—specifically mimicking Orochimaru’s trademark sinister drawl: “Fire Style…” That was the final straw that broke the camel’s back.
“Die!
Die!
You demons, just die!” A gray-haired boy bolted out of the water vat.
Clutching a brick, he charged at Ayane with a fierce, desperate expression, swinging it wildly without any real form.
A little kid who clearly hadn’t undergone a single day of formal training.
To a fully alert shinobi, he posed absolutely zero threat.
Ayane didn’t even need her sword or a jutsu.
“Oof!” The girl simply parried and struck his wrist with her left hand.
The boy fell back onto his rear in the mud, the brick easily confiscated from his grasp.
“Brother!” Another sorrowful cry rang out.
An even younger child poked his head out of the vat.
Seeing his older brother sprawled in the mud, he scrambled out on his short legs and ran over.
“Toshiro!
Didn’t I tell you not to come out?!” Even though he had been easily defeated by the enemy, the older brother maintained his protective authority, scolding loudly, “Are you disobeying me?!
And stop crying!” Little Toshiro didn’t reply.
He just threw his arms around his brother—who was only a few years older himself—sobbing uncontrollably with a runny nose.
“Mom…
where are you?
Why haven’t you come back yet?
Toshiro misses you so much…” Seeing him like this, the older brother’s voice gradually softened.
Looking like a helpless, abandoned cub, he curled his body protectively around his younger brother, patting his back and whispering, “I’m sorry.
I’m useless.
I couldn’t protect you.” “…” Are they orphans left behind by the villagers?
Looking at the two children before her, Ayane’s heart filled with sympathy.
But sympathy aside, her grip on the drawn Arashikiri remained perfectly steady, her arm as cold and rigid as a statue.
Battles between ninja were battles of information.
This rule held true whether it was the current Great Ninja War, the era of towering Chakra Avatars decades later, or even the era of Karma Marks beyond that.
It never went out of style.
She didn’t possess any sensory jutsu.
Who was to say these two pitiful-looking children weren’t just enemy shinobi using the Transformation Jutsu?
Of course, verifying it wasn’t too difficult.
Ayane suppressed her fluctuating emotions.
Her gaze hardened.
Arashikiri drew a beautiful arc through the rain, slashing violently toward little Toshiro’s neck!
“No!” The older brother desperately tried to block it, but how could his speed possibly match a chakra blade?
The boy could only watch helplessly as the gorgeous blade descended upon his brother’s throat…
Poof!
A cloud of white smoke erupted.
Ayane halted her blade mid-air.
Instead of following through with the strike, she used the sudden opening to grab the older boy by the collar and yank him away.
“Hey, are all you Amegakure goons this cold-blooded?” “Such an incredibly touching scene, and it didn’t stir your emotions in the slightest?” A mocking voice drifted from the smoke.
The continuously crying little brother, Toshiro, had suddenly transformed into a stocky, short-statured shinobi.
He sneered at the masked Anbu before him.
“My, my, it seems kind-hearted people like me are a rare breed in the shinobi world~” Ayane’s gaze drifted upward slightly.
She saw the forehead protector strapped to his head.
The symbol engraved on the metal plate didn’t belong to any of the Five Great Nations, but a deep, horizontal slash had been gouged across the insignia!
A missing-nin from some minor hidden village!
Or rather, a wandering rogue ninja!
The girl let out a short scoff, her tone flat.
“Oh.
So it’s just a homeless stray dog.” With just a single sentence, the rogue ninja’s expression visibly twisted in anger.
“Hey, brat.” He didn’t rush to trade insults with Ayane.
Instead, he turned his head and looked at the dumbstruck older boy, flashing a sickening grin.
“Want to know where your mom and little brother went?” The boy said nothing.
Finally processing that his “brother” was an imposter, he just glared fiercely at the man, looking like a cornered, lone wolf.
“Haha, don’t look at me with such a scary expression!” “If I remember correctly, I threw them both into the kitchen stove…” The rogue ninja’s smile grew even more deranged, looking exactly like a demon crawled out of hell.
“Brat, how did that meal taste?
I recall you eating quite heartily after I finished cooking for you!” “Aaaaaaaah!!!” A violent wave of nausea surged into the boy’s chest.
He clutched his stomach, letting out a hysterical, agonizing wail.
Ayane’s eyes turned completely devoid of warmth.
An indescribable mass of emotion suddenly violently erupted in her chest.
“You animal!” With a quick chop of her hand, she easily knocked the frantic boy unconscious to spare him further torment.
Her pale pink lips parted to spit out a few terrifyingly calm words: “I am truly…
pissed off.”