Chiba Shun glanced from one man to the other. Neither of them wore a village headband, which only made the situation murkier. So these people really were tied to the Sound Village somehow—or what was left of it.
Still, since Yukawa had no intention of joining forces with the other side to deal with him, that was good enough.
"Fine," Chiba said.
The instant he made his decision, he moved.
He did not waste time on threats, boasting, or posturing. His fingers flashed through a string of hand seals the moment his answer left his mouth.
Across from him, Sakamoto Kei's expression changed. He shouted at once, "Attack!"
His men reacted fast. Some hurled projectiles toward Chiba Shun, while others turned and resumed their assault on Yukawa's side. Sakamoto Kei himself formed hand seals, clearly intending to overwhelm Chiba before he could finish his ninjutsu.
But he was too slow.
Chiba had begun first, and his seal speed was no longer what it had once been.
"Earth Release: Swamp of the Underworld!"
The ground beneath Sakamoto Kei and his group liquefied in an instant.
Mud turned to sucking mire. One after another, men lost their footing and sank, their legs caught fast as if the earth itself had grown hungry. Sakamoto Kei's prepared technique collapsed before it could even take shape.
Yukawa's eyes lit up the moment he saw it.
He didn't hesitate. He barked an order, and his men immediately switched to ranged attacks, striking Sakamoto Kei's trapped people from a safe distance. Kunai, shuriken, and ninjutsu crashed down on the group like a finishing blow.
Chiba Shun, meanwhile, didn't stay to watch.
The instant his technique took hold, he led the three children around the battlefield from the flank, as if he intended to leave the conflict behind entirely.
Yukawa did not pursue him. In his eyes, Sakamoto Kei remained the greater threat. As long as he dealt with that man first, there would be time to worry about the outsider later.
That assumption cost him dearly.
Though trapped in the swamp, Sakamoto Kei was still a Jonin-level fighter. He used ninjutsu to retaliate, and for a while the battle raged fiercely in both directions. Mud splashed, steel rang, and the night filled with screams and bursts of chakra.
But the outcome had already been decided the moment the swamp formed.
Sakamoto Kei and his people were eventually cut down one after another.
At last, Yukawa exhaled and turned to his own men.
"Recover your chakra. Then we go after that fat sheep," he said with a grin.
"That guy brought three rookies with him. He's definitely from one of the great villages. He used two A-rank techniques in a row. His chakra has to be running low by now."
His eyes gleamed with greed.
"Ninjas from the great villages always carry good stuff. Maybe even high-level ninjutsu scrolls."
He swept his gaze over the survivors.
"We go together. Everything we take, we split evenly."
A cheer rose from his side at once.
And then the ground under their feet rippled.
Yukawa's smile vanished. He nearly stumbled as the earth rolled beneath him like a wave. Pure instinct made him leap away at once, landing hard several meters back.
The moment he stabilized himself, he whipped his head around, searching for the enemy.
What he saw made his heart lurch.
His men were still trapped inside the reach of the Earth Wave Technique. Some were fighting for balance. Some had already fallen. Others were shouting in confusion, unable to understand where the attack had come from.
Behind them stood Chiba Shun with both palms pressed to the ground.
No.
Not Chiba Shun.
A clone.
Yukawa understood almost too late.
He had been so focused on the enemy in front of him that he never realized Chiba had doubled back.
The man who had led the children away had only been an earth clone. The real Chiba had already gone underground.
Yukawa reacted fast. The instant he realized he was in danger, he swung his sword downward.
But before the blade could strike, a hand shot up from the ground beneath him and seized his ankle.
His breath caught. He had judged correctly—but a correct judgment that came too late was no better than a mistake.
Before his sword landed, the world around him plunged into darkness.
He felt himself dragged down.
Soil closed around him from every side. Chakra bound his body in place, pinning him beneath the surface like prey buried alive. And around his throat, something tightened.
A thread.
He tried to move his arms. He couldn't.
He tried to force his chakra outward and break the restraint. Chiba Shun had already prepared his control in advance, while Yukawa was resisting in blind panic. The struggle was over before it truly began.
Even when Yukawa finally gathered enough chakra to push back, he discovered the problem was no longer just chakra.
It was dirt.
Weight.
Pressure.
The earth itself was helping strangle him.
By the time the men on the surface finished dealing with the clone and regained their footing, Yukawa had already gone still underground.
Chiba Shun emerged from the earth a moment later, dragging Yukawa's corpse up with him.
He tossed the body aside carelessly.
That single action silenced the entire field.
The remaining men stared at the corpse, then at Chiba Shun, and swallowed.
Their leader was dead.
Sakamoto Kei was dead.
Two factions had just butchered each other, and the one outsider they'd all assumed was a passing nuisance had ended up standing over both sides.
For an instant, nobody moved.
Then Chiba formed a hand seal behind his back and vanished with a Body Flicker.
He reappeared among the two closest enemies.
Two flashes of steel cut through the air.
The man on the left had his throat opened before he even understood what was happening. The man on the right tried to block, but Chiba's chakra-conducting sword sheared through him at the waist.
Blood sprayed. A body folded in half.
That did it.
Whatever courage remained in the others shattered completely.
They scattered at once.
None of them stopped to think about how much chakra Chiba Shun had left. None of them considered that he had already used the Mountain Earth Technique, then the Swamp of the Underworld, then a series of B-rank techniques in succession.
All they knew was what they had seen.
A man who could wipe out eight people with a single technique.
A man who could trap dozens in a swamp and turn them into slaughtered livestock.
A man who had murdered their leader from underground before anyone even noticed.
And a man who, even after all that, could still kill two more in the blink of an eye.
Against that kind of monster, nobody wanted to be the one who stayed behind and tested whether his chakra was truly empty.
Chiba watched them flee until their figures vanished.
Only then did he let out the breath he had been holding.
He was bluffing.
His chakra reserves really were running on fumes now.
He could manage three A-rank techniques at most, and using two in succession had already nearly emptied him. Killing Yukawa had required a chain of B-rank techniques and careful preparation underground. If the rest had truly charged him together, he would have had no choice but to run.
And if he ran, the three children behind him would never make it.
That was why he had chosen the cruelest method possible.
Not just to win.
To terrify.
A short while later, the three little ones finally gathered the courage to come closer.
The moment they saw Chiba still standing, they all let out the breath they'd been holding.
Chiba had Ayana seal away Yukawa's corpse along with Sakamoto Kei's.
This time he really was exhausted, so he left the battlefield cleanup to the children. Under his supervision, the three of them excitedly ran around collecting spoils like squirrels preparing for winter.
For once, the haul was decent.
These people really did seem connected to the Sound Village. Their equipment didn't resemble what wandering shinobi usually carried, and there was a surprising amount of valuable gear among the dead.
By Chiba's estimate, the total take should exceed two hundred thousand ryo.
Not a fortune by Jonin standards, but more than enough to make the trip feel worthwhile.
He patted his ninja pouch in satisfaction, then led the children to the nearest town to rest for a few days.
Only after arriving there did they slowly piece together what was happening in the Land of Rice Fields.
A power struggle had broken out inside the Sound Village.
Or rather, what remained of it.
Someone had staged a coup. The result, however, was a spectacular disaster. Both sides had wounded each other badly, and no clear victor had emerged. Now the entire Land of Rice Fields was crawling with men claiming legitimacy, all while none of them had enough strength to truly control the village.
The two groups Chiba had just encountered were most likely both remnants of the original Sound Village. They had been fighting each other for authority when he happened to pass through and smashed both factions to pieces.
Once he understood that, Chiba had even less interest in getting involved.
After a few days of rest, he took the children and left the Land of Rice Fields as quickly as possible.
Once they crossed into the Land of Iron, the atmosphere changed at once.
Trouble grew noticeably scarcer.
There were still ninjas in the Land of Iron, of course, but outsiders were not welcomed there. Most shinobi passed through in a hurry and knew better than to stir up conflict on samurai territory. Chiba Shun and the three children were only crossing through, so no one came looking for trouble.
That said, he understood perfectly well that the situation would be different if they stayed too long, or tried to do business inside the country. The samurai of the Land of Iron might not wear headbands, but the strongest among them were no weaker than the Kage of the great villages.
Ayana watched a group of passing samurai with wide eyes and lowered her voice.
"Shun-sensei, are samurai really that strong?"
Chiba nodded. "The strongest ones are. The greatest samurai in the Land of Iron can stand on the same level as our Kage."
The three children all sucked in sharp breaths.
They had assumed samurai were just ordinary people with swords—fighters who didn't know how to use chakra, relics from an older age.
Chiba gave them a sidelong look.
"Use your brains. If the samurai were truly weak, how could the Land of Iron remain neutral while surrounded by the Five Great Nations?"
He paused, then added evenly, "The weak don't get the luxury of neutrality."
That clearly made an impression.
The three children nodded so hard their heads nearly fell off.
Since none of them had any desire to provoke the samurai, the group picked up the pace and headed deeper into the country.
At first, Chiba had planned to pass through the Land of Iron without stopping at all.
But fate had other ideas.
As they entered a small town, they stumbled into a grand local ceremony.
The Land of Iron was more conservative than any place Chiba had seen so far. The people here preserved customs older than the ninja villages themselves—rituals, festivals, and beliefs that had survived from an age when clans and warlords still ruled openly.
What they had arrived in the middle of was one such event.
A lavish festival for the Rabbit Goddess.
The town was packed.
Wealthy patrons from across the region had come to offer prayers, and among them were rich merchants, local notables, visiting celebrities, and even a few shinobi from outside the Land of Iron, each openly wearing their headbands despite the locals' disapproval.
The whole place glowed with lanternlight. Offerings piled up before the shrine. Music echoed through the streets. The air smelled of incense, grilled meat, sweet dumplings, and expensive perfume.
For the three children, it was the most dazzling thing they had ever seen.
All three turned to Chiba Shun at the same time, their faces full of naked hope.
He looked at them, at the crowded streets, at the ceremony he had never expected to encounter, and finally gave a helpless sigh.
It seemed their journey through the Land of Iron was about to become a little less simple than planned.