Chapter 84: Dropping the Knife
Time, they said, was a butcher's knife.
Well, not for her.
Stelle studied her reflection in the mirror. Ever since she'd transmigrated, the system had frozen her age and appearance in place. As long as she had emotional value to exchange for life, she would never age, never change. Her clones typically handled any necessary alterations on their own, while her main body relied on the Transformation Cards provided by the system.
Those cards were absurdly overpowered, far more effective than any of her own techniques. A definite five-star review.
But she was getting sidetracked. While nothing had changed for her, the same couldn't be said for others. Hiruzen Sarutobi, for instance, was getting married. His bride-to-be was none other than Biwako, the woman he was destined to be with in the original story.
As the Hokage's assistant, Hiruzen's wedding was a significant event in Konoha. With him preoccupied, his workload had to be redistributed. Stelle only took on a small fraction, while the rest was divided among the other assistants, making them all significantly busier.
More for her team, Hiruzen's wedding preparations meant he had no time to lead them on missions. Their assignments devolved into mind-numbing village chores.
"I refuse to do any more of these boring missions! Cleaning up trash? Moving bricks and planting trees in District One? No! I want to leave the village! I want a real fight!"
Jiraiya's voice boomed across the mission assignment desk. The jonin in charge could only offer a helpless look; he'd received orders from above to assign them nothing but D-rank missions, and he wasn't about to disobey.
The complaint was lodged in the morning; by noon, Jiraiya was gone. The mission desk simply forwarded the issue to Hiruzen for him to handle personally.
"I told you, I've been very busy lately. I don't have time to accompany you out of the village. Jiraiya, you need to behave," Hiruzen said, his voice laced with the weariness of a man juggling wedding plans and a hot-headed student.
"But Kou said that real combat is the best way to increase our strength," Jiraiya argued, his voice full of conviction. "We're just wasting away in the village doing chores every day! We're not making any progress at all."
He shot a look at his teammates, hoping to rally them to his cause.
"Besides, Kou is so powerful—she's a jonin! Even without a teacher, we still have a jonin leading the team. Sarutobi-sensei, you don't need to follow us at all. You're purely extra."
Hiruzen nearly coughed up a mouthful of blood. When Jiraiya was begging for ninjutsu advice or they were peeping together, he was a 'good teacher,'but the moment his student wanted to leave the village, he was suddenly'extra'?
Could he even keep this rebellious disciple?
In the end, however, Jiraiya's persistence won out. Hiruzen conceded that with Kou, a jonin, present on the team, and with their record of successfully completing three B-rank missions, a C-rank mission shouldn't pose a problem.
And so, the group of four departed from Konoha, heading toward their destination.
A vicious group of bandits had recently appeared near a village in the Land of Fire. The local nobles had immediately reported the matter to Konoha, offering a substantial reward for their elimination. Normally, such a mission wouldn't command a high bounty, but the nobles were generous, hoping to curry favor with the powerful ninja village.
With no particularly strong shinobi rumored to be among the bandits, it was the perfect mission for Jiraiya's team.
The moment they were clear of Konoha's gates, Jiraiya was like a frog released into a pond, hopping and bounding about with uncontainable energy. His unreliable antics prompted even Tsunade to speak up.
"Jiraiya, stay alert. Don't be so lax."
Orochimaru added his own cool reminder. "Don't always assume Kou will be there to save you. The next time she isn't here, we won't have that kind of backup."
"I am being alert, okay?" Jiraiya grumbled, reluctantly reigning in his wandering focus and adopting a more guarded posture.
Soon enough, the four of them arrived at the bandits' stronghold.
These were roaming brigands who lived a life on the edge. Having just raided a group of villagers, they were in the midst of a raucous celebration. Standing outside the dilapidated structure, the team could hear boisterous laughter echoing from within, a clear sign they had plundered a significant amount of supplies.
Two guards stood at the main entrance, looking around with bored expressions, their eyes occasionally flicking back toward the house with unconcealed impatience.
Stelle caught Jiraiya's eager look and gave him a subtle hand signal. The two of them circled around from behind, and with swift, synchronized movements, ended the guards' lives before they could make a sound.
The four of them slipped into the stronghold, concealing themselves to observe the situation. In the spacious main hall, several burly men were drinking and carousing. In a dark corner, two women wept silently, while several villagers lay strewn across the floor—some already dead, others clinging to a final, shallow breath. They had clearly been brought back along with the loot.
Against such small fry, no complex tactics were needed; they could simply steamroll them. The only concern was preventing the civilians from being caught in the crossfire.
Stelle noted one chunin among the bandits and signaled that she would handle him.
The next second, she burst through a window like a phantom.
Jiraiya, Orochimaru, and Tsunade rushed into the hall in perfect coordination, unleashing the combination ninjutsu they had honed during their training. Jiraiya cast first, his hands flying through seals. "Earth Release: Swamp of the Underworld!"
The ground beneath the bandits turned to viscous mud. Orochimaru followed instantly with a blast of "Wind Release: Great Breakthrough," which sent several of the ensnared men flying. Tsunade then charged in, her Monstrous Strength making short work of anyone who had managed to avoid the initial assault.
As for the chunin, Stelle appeared before him, her Sharingan flaring to life with three tomoe. He froze for a fraction of a second—all the time she needed. A kunai flashed, slicing cleanly across his carotid artery. Done.
The commotion alerted another ninja in a distant room. Sensing danger, he moved to provide support, but upon realizing the caliber of his opponents, he immediately turned to flee.
"Chase him!"
The sight of the murdered villagers had ignited Jiraiya's fierce sense of justice. He instantly gave chase after the fleeing ninja.
"You two treat the villagers and gather intel," Stelle ordered Orochimaru and Tsunade. "I'll follow him and see where he leads."
With her providing backup, Orochimaru and Tsunade were at ease. They split the work: one began administering first aid to the wounded villagers while the other grabbed the bandit leader—whom Stelle had left barely breathing—to interrogate for information.
Jiraiya quickly dispatched the weaker of the two fleeing bandits. The other, a chunin, saw Stelle closing in behind Jiraiya and knew he was no match. He scrambled into an empty room at the back of the stronghold.
When Jiraiya caught up and kicked the door open, he was met with a horrifying sight. The bandit was holding a knife against two small children huddled on the floor.
"Don't move! If you dare come any closer, I'll... I'll kill them!"
The two little girls, twins by the look of them, couldn't have been more than five or six years old. Their left feet were shackled to a heavy iron ring bolted to the corner of the wall. With a blade hovering over their heads, they trembled uncontrollably, their small faces streaked with tears and grime.
"Please... save us," one of them whispered.
"Dammit!" Jiraiya froze at the doorway, not daring to take another step.
The bandit was a nervous wreck. He was one against four; if he didn't act fast, he would never escape. He screamed at Jiraiya to back away, and as the young ninja hesitated, the bandit spun around to leap out the window.
But before he could make his escape, another Jiraiya burst in from the window, tackling him hard.
The bandit's knife plunged into the attacker's body, but with a soft poof, that Jiraiya vanished in a cloud of white smoke. A Shadow Clone.
In that single moment of hesitation, the real Jiraiya seized his chance. He rushed into the room.
With two civilians present, he couldn't risk using ninjutsu. He engaged the bandit in pure taijutsu, overwhelming him with a flurry of strikes before knocking him to the ground and ending his life with a kunai to the throat.
"It's okay now," Jiraiya said, his voice gentle as he knelt before the two children. "I'm here to save you." He took out a kunai, preparing to pry open the heavy shackles.
The little girl on the left was sobbing uncontrollably. As Jiraiya reached for her, she shrank back, her large, terrified eyes wide with fear.
"It's alright, we're ninja from Konoha," Jiraiya soothed. "We came specifically to save you."
He was kind by nature, with a deep-seated pity for the weak. Seeing the little girl trembling, he was endlessly patient, comforting her softly while trying to help her up from the floor.
Standing at the door, Stelle felt her eye twitch.
'What a sophisticated Transformation Technique,' she thought, her gaze fixed on the scene. The girl on the right was a jonin in disguise. It had to be an expert in the art, as the transformation was nearly seamless.
However, one's own strength was still the foundation. This kind of trick was only good for fooling kids—or someone like Jiraiya.
The girl on the left, however, was genuinely a five-year-old. Yet her entire presence felt... incongruous.
Good grief. These two were practically Oscar-level actors. They had smeared blood all over themselves, and the real little girl had even ruthlessly inflicted wounds on her own body to complete the illusion. She looked wretched and pitiful, completely harmless, every bit the part of an ordinary, traumatized child.
The disguised jonin next to her kept darting pathetic glances at Stelle, as if she wanted to plead for help from another girl but was too afraid to speak. In reality, they were trying to lure her closer. This trap may have seemed intended for Jiraiya, but it was actually targeted at her—the team's high-end combat power.
A truly fine performance.
Unfortunately for them, they had run into her—the 'Best Actor' award winner who had only ever fumbled her lines in front of Tobirama. She saw through their disguise at a single glance.
Children in the world of Naruto matured early; it wasn't unheard of for bandits to have a young accomplice. Perhaps this little girl was the one who helped scout their targets, allowing the bandits to raid them so successfully. After all, a child was the easiest way to make people lower their guard.
Case in point: Jiraiya had already been completely taken in by the little girl's act.
And the bandit on the floor nearby wasn't quite dead either. He was still playing possum.
How could Jiraiya be so reckless? The moment he was away from Hiruzen's direct supervision, his mission performance was riddled with holes.
'Is it because I've intervened too much?'Stelle wondered.'Have I been cleaning up their messes so often that Jiraiya has lost his sense of vigilance?'
This butterfly effect was no joke. She had to teach Jiraiya a lesson, one that would be seared into his memory. Otherwise, what if he got himself killed? The Child of Prophecy wasn't even born yet.
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