They clamored one after another, loudly accusing Shiro of being a spy sent by Gato to sow discord and make them kill each other.
Facing the sudden, aggressive clamor of these thugs, Shiro only offered a calm, almost pitying smile.
"Well, the traitors have voluntarily jumped out to identify themselves, so I suppose I don't need to explain my deduction to the Village Elder anymore," Shiro noted lazily.
As soon as these words were spoken, the surrounding crowd fell into a stunned silence.
"Y-You! What do you mean by that?!" The lead thug stammered, his face flushing red. "Elder, don't listen to him! He's slandering us!"
"Yeah! Slander!"
The thugs' expressions immediately became tense, their bluster faltering. It was quite normal; after all, what kind of ironclad mental fortitude could you really expect from a bunch of low-level street toughs in a backwater town?
"You... you boys?"
The Village Elder looked at the group of thugs, his expression twisting into one of profound anger and betrayal. He was far more inclined to believe Shiro. After all, the composed, professional demeanor of the Konoha ninja was infinitely more trustworthy than these idle, violent delinquents who terrorized the streets.
"We've been wronged, Elder! We swear it! We also feel terrible about the missing children!"
The thugs desperately tried to squeeze out a few crocodile tears, but the Elder wasn't buying it. The seed of doubt had firmly taken root.
"If you are truly innocent," Shiro interrupted smoothly, "then perhaps you can explain a simple biological discrepancy to everyone here."
Shiro gestured broadly to the surrounding crowd. "Take a look around. Every single villager here has hollow cheeks and sallow skin, showing clear signs of prolonged malnutrition from severe hunger. Yet, the five of you are practically glowing with health. You have meat on your bones and clear complexions."
Shiro's single sentence brutally and thoroughly exposed their disguise.
"He's right!" a villager shouted, realization dawning. "These punks don't farm, and they don't fish! But lately, they've been eating meat and drinking imported sake at the tavern every single night! Where are they getting the money?!"
Following Shiro's airtight reasoning, the entire crowd finally realized the horrific truth. The murmurs turned into angry shouts.
Seeing that their cover was entirely blown and the mob was turning against them, the thugs immediately flew into a rage born of humiliation and panic!
---
"Screw this! Everyone, grab him! If we capture this Konoha brat and drag him to Lord Gato, the bounty will set us up for life!" the lead thug roared, drawing a rusty switchblade.
Seeing they were exposed, the group simply stopped pretending to be innocent villagers. They reasoned that the vast majority of the village consisted of the elderly, women, and the sickly. As long as the five of them worked together to quickly overwhelm the lone, pint-sized ninja who was ruining their lucrative side-hustle, who would be able to stop them?
"You are actively seeking death," Shiro sighed.
He looked at this pathetic bunch of civilians who didn't possess a single drop of chakra, yet actually dared to raise weapons against him.
Before the lead thug could even take two steps, Shiro vanished.
*SMACK!*
A sound like a whip cracking echoed across the square. Shiro reappeared, having delivered a casual, backhanded slap to the leader's face.
The sheer kinetic force of the blow lifted the grown man entirely off his feet. He was sent flying backward like a ragdoll, skipping across the muddy street for dozens of meters before finally tumbling to a bruised, groaning halt against a wooden fence.
"T-This... This... This is impossible!!!"
The remaining four thugs froze in their tracks, their rusty knives trembling in their hands. Their eyes widened in absolute, abject terror as they looked at the small boy. He hadn't even used a jutsu; he just slapped their biggest fighter across the street!
"Does anyone else want to step forward?" Shiro asked, his cold, flat voice stinging their frayed nerves.
Truthfully, if he didn't strictly need a few of them alive to act as guides to the holding facility, he would have instantly used Wood Style to bury them beneath the mud. What use was there in keeping such treacherous scum alive?
"Lord Ninja, have mercy! Please, have mercy!"
The remaining thugs dropped their weapons and fell to their knees with decisive speed, bowing so low their foreheads touched the muck. However arrogant they were a minute ago was exactly how pathetic and cowardly they were now.
"I am going to ask questions, and you are going to answer them. If I detect a single lie..."
*BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!*
Shiro casually formed a single hand seal. A rapid series of massive, concussive water explosions erupted out in the nearby ocean channel, kicking up geysers of seawater dozens of meters into the air, raining mist down upon the village.
He was too lazy to waste chakra using offensive ninjutsu on these grunts directly, but a little theatrical display of power never hurt during an interrogation.
"Understood, Father! I mean, Grandfather! We'll tell you absolutely anything you want to know!" the thugs shrieked, pressing their faces into the mud. They didn't dare to clamor or negotiate. They had seen what happened to their boss, and they had just seen the ocean explode on command.
"Who exactly is orchestrating the kidnappings, and where are the children being held right now?" Shiro demanded.
"Grandfather, it was us! We colluded with Lord Gato... uh, no, we colluded with that bastard Gato's mafia enforcers!" one thug babbled frantically. "We gave them the names and addresses of the families who supported Tazuna!"
"But as for where they were sent, we swear we don't know the final destination! We only know the location of the primary holding stronghold where they do the initial processing!"
At this point, the thugs were frantically kowtowing to Shiro, their scalps beginning to bleed from scraping against the gravel, but Shiro remained entirely indifferent. They weren't sorry for what they did; they were just terrified of dying.
"Lord Ninja!"
*Rustle.*
Led by the Village Elder, practically every able-bodied adult in the entire village suddenly dropped to their knees in the mud, bowing deeply toward Shiro.
"We beg of you, Lord Ninja, please lend us your strength and save our children!" the Elder pleaded, tears streaming down his wrinkled face.
Before Shiro could respond, the Elder spoke again, his voice trembling with desperation.
"We know we cannot afford a mission of this magnitude with standard currency. But we will not let you risk your life for nothing! If you save them, we are willing to offer you the sacred Treasure of our Village!"
The Elder knew perfectly well that asking a shinobi to assault a fortified mafia stronghold and directly oppose a billionaire tyrant vastly exceeded the parameters of a standard C-rank missing-persons investigation. He had to offer something of equivalent value to secure the boy's continued help.
"Regardless of whether you succeed in bringing them all back, simply for making the attempt against Gato, we are willing to offer the heirloom!" the Elder declared, hardening his heart.
"A Village Treasure?" Shiro raised an eyebrow, genuinely surprised.
He hadn't expected a destitute, civilian-run island like the Land of Waves to possess anything worthy of being called a 'treasure.'
But thinking about it logically, the Ninja World was vast, and the Hokage's academy curriculum didn't cover every obscure piece of lore. The Land of Waves had been an independent nation for generations. It was entirely possible they had secured some form of ancient inheritance. Even minor, obscure hidden villages like Takigakure or Hoshigakure possessed unique artifacts.
"There is no need for such dramatic compensation," Shiro said calmly, gesturing for them to stand. "Since I have formally accepted the mission to investigate the disappearances, I will naturally see it through to the end."
His primary objective in coming to the Land of Waves was to completely dismantle Gato's empire and seize his assets anyway; rescuing the kids was just a convenient side quest along the way. As for this so-called 'Village Treasure,' he was mildly curious, but he didn't care too much. With the system, he was destined to stand at the absolute peak of the world regardless; it was only a matter of time.
More importantly, he simply abhorred scum who targeted children for political leverage.
Shiro's confident words undoubtedly injected a massive boost of morale and hope into the despairing villagers.
After extracting the exact coordinates of the mafia stronghold from the sniveling thugs, Shiro prepared to head out alone.
"P-Please, Lord Ninja," the Elder offered hesitantly, "should I gather a militia of the village's young men to accompany you and provide backup?"
To this, Shiro merely shook his head.
Bringing a bunch of untrained civilians into a combat zone would only create liabilities. A dungeon run of this pathetic difficulty was something he could speed-run with his eyes closed.
---
A short time later, deep within the coastal forests.
Shiro had dialed his sensory abilities to the maximum, quickly pinpointing the abandoned warehouse the thugs had described.
There were roughly fifteen chakra-less mafia enforcers patrolling the perimeter and guarding the main entrance.
"Hey! Who goes there?!"
One of the guards shouted, raising a crossbow as he finally noticed Shiro strolling casually down the dirt path toward the warehouse.
Shiro didn't bother responding. He hadn't even attempted to suppress his footsteps or hide his presence. He was simply going to push straight through the front door.
"Boss! Get out here! This kid is wearing a ninja headband!" a guard yelled in panic as he watched Shiro's unhurried, steady approach.
The mafia members began to sweat. Even though they could clearly see the intruder was just a child, the sheer, suffocating confidence and predatory aura he projected paralyzed them. They instinctively knew that if they pulled the trigger, they would die.
"Don't... don't take another step!" The mafia boss burst out of the warehouse doors, dragging a crying little girl by the hair and holding a kunai to her throat.
In his desperation, recognizing he was outmatched by a real shinobi, the boss immediately resorted to using a hostage to threaten him.
"Hmph. Seeking death," Shiro's eyes turned ice-cold.
"Forbidden Secret Art: Instant Hell Murder Formation."
Shiro's body seemed to blur, becoming momentarily untargetable as he melted into the spatial fabric.
In the very next fraction of a second, he materialized directly behind the boss.
Before the man's brain could even register the spatial shift or send the signal to slice the girl's throat, a swift, brutal chop to the back of his neck instantly severed his consciousness. The boss crumpled to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut.
Before the remaining fourteen guards could even raise their weapons or scream, Shiro flickered through their ranks like a phantom, delivering precise, non-lethal strikes that rendered every single one of them unconscious before they hit the ground.
"So cool..."
Inside the holding cell, the dozens of kidnapped children stopped crying, staring in stunned, wide-eyed awe at Shiro's lightning-fast, flawless entrance. For a moment, they entirely forgot to be afraid.
"Hello there. I was hired by your Village Elder to bring you all home," Shiro said, offering a warm, reassuring smile as he shattered the lock on their cell with a flick of his finger.
Knowing that walking dozens of traumatized children through the forest would be slow and dangerous, Shiro simply linked his chakra to them.
"Hold on tight."
Activating the *Instant Hell Murder Formation* once more, he utilized its spatial swapping properties to instantaneously teleport the entire group of children back to the safety of the village square, utilizing a shadow clone he had left behind as an anchor.
*The more I use this, the more broken I realize it is,* Shiro thought, highly impressed. Not only did it achieve the same instantaneous, untraceable teleportation as the Flying Raijin, but it didn't require placing physical seals, making it perfect for invisible assassinations and mass transport!
---
Meanwhile, on the top floor of the primary Shipping Company headquarters.
Gato, the billionaire tyrant, had just received an emergency radio transmission from a scout reporting that his primary holding facility had been breached and the hostages secured.
---
"Audacious! Inconceivable! Someone actually dares to openly oppose my empire?!"
Gato roared, his pig-like, rotund frame wobbling with fury as he slammed his fists onto his mahogany desk. He was currently completely exasperated. His flawless plan to crush the bridge-builders had been ruined.
"Hey! Zabuza! I didn't pay you a fortune just to sit there and brood in the dark!" Gato shrieked, turning his annoyance toward the corner of the room.
Gato was infuriated seeing the legendary mercenary acting as if this massive security breach was none of his concern. *I spent a mountain of ryo to hire you for protection, and when my operations are attacked, you act like it's not your problem?!*
Facing Gato's shrill provocation, Zabuza Momochi's face—partially obscured by bandages—was currently a mask of pure, concentrated thunder.
Just as Gato was stepping forward, pointing a fat, accusatory finger at Zabuza's nose to shout again...
*Thwack.*
A gleaming metal senbon needle embedded itself into the mahogany desk, a mere millimeter away from Gato's pointing finger.
The implication was clear: If Gato cursed at him one more time, the next needle would be buried in his throat.
"Do you honestly think I wanted to come back to this pathetic, godforsaken island?" Zabuza growled, his voice vibrating with barely suppressed, resentful rage.
Zabuza was currently boiling with humiliation. For a relatively measly paycheck, he had accepted this lowly assassination contract in the Land of Waves, completely unaware that he would run face-first into a monster.
__________________________
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