The night was so beautiful it felt almost sinful to stain it with blood.
The full moon lit up the clearing between the trees, its silver glow gleaming on the blades sheathed at the sides of the shinobi hidden in the shadows. The wind whispered through the branches, utterly indifferent to the massacre about to unfold.
I tighten my grip around the kunai. The cold metal presses against my skin—but it's nothing compared to the ice spreading through my chest. This is my first real assassination mission. Not a drill. Not a simulation. A true extermination.
It's been six months since the Chuunin Exams. Since I watched Uchiha Itachi claim victory with an ease so effortless it bordered on insulting. But I'm not the same as I was then. I'm no longer the child who stood frozen in front of that prodigy.
My body is stronger. My chakra, deeper. My Phantom Step has been refined to near perfection—I can use it more than three hundred times before exhausting myself, and the interval between uses has shrunk to just a third of a second. If that damned genius faced me now, he'd see a different Kenshin.
Dekai-sensei has been training us without mercy. His brutal regime expanded my chakra reserves and honed my body into a weapon. He said that before the next Chuunin Exams, we need to become true shinobi.
And apparently, that means learning how to kill.
It's not like I wasn't prepared. This past week, he conditioned us—mind and body—to cross that line. Jimei and I got special attention. We were the youngest. Which also made us the weakest when it came to this kind of thing.
A burst of static crackles in my earpiece.
"Green positioned south of the camp. Two guards at the east gate, two at the south. The rest seem to be inside their tents."
Natsu's voice comes through distorted, but clear enough. These radios are a new invention from the Konoha Research Institute—still in testing, only used in C- and D-rank missions. A fancy toy for the village shinobi.
I press the button near my collar and reply. "Silver at the eastern perimeter. Brown, do you copy?"
Silence.
I roll my eyes and spoke again. "Jimei, you have to press the button for it to work."
A few seconds later, Jimei's voice finally comes in, annoyed.
"Brown reporting from the west. This thing sucks."
I sigh. Would've been nice if these radios could play music. But from what I've seen so far, the ninja world doesn't quite appreciate art the way my old world did.
My thoughts are cut short by Dekai-sensei's cold, commanding voice.
"White in position at the north. Start attack."
One hand sign. I no longer need to say the name of the technique. Before I was reborn, I never understood why shinobi shouted their jutsu names. Now I know—it helps with focus. But I don't need that anymore.
I take a deep breath and move. Phantom Step propels me forward, the world blurring past in an instant. The two guards appear before me. My eyes already catch their posture, their weak points, their breathing rhythms.
I materialize between them and leap, focusing my chakra into my legs.
"Ryūkai Kōgeki (Twin Serpent Attack)" I whisper under my breath.
My feet strike their throats with surgical precision. I feel the cartilage snap beneath my heels. Their eyes go wide, mouths opening and closing like fish out of water. Panic floods their faces as they struggle to breathe.
I grit my teeth and draw my kunai. One stab to each heart. Fast. Efficient. My hand trembles for a brief second.
The smell of blood fills my nose. Something heavy settles deep in my chest.
But this is necessary.
I whisper to myself, a bitter line pulled from the memory of another life. "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."
I grip the kunai tighter and move toward the tents, burying any hesitation along with the bodies I've just dropped.
The night's shadows embrace me as I slip between the tents. The air is thick with muffled conversations and the sound of snoring. My steps are light, deliberate. Every movement echoes Dekai-sensei's ruthless training. This is the moment to prove we are worthy of being called true shinobi.
I approach one of the larger tents. The thin fabric lets me make out the silhouettes of two men sitting around a table. One raises a cup, laughing at something. The other nods slowly. They're no different from the many I've seen in the village—living their lives, unaware that death already hangs above them.
I move in silence, slicing the fabric with my kunai—clean, noiseless. My body slips inside like a ghost.
The first man realizes something is wrong far too late. My kunai cuts through his throat in a clean motion. His companion's eyes widen. His mouth opens to scream—but my foot slams into his chest, knocking him backward against the table. Before he can recover, I spin the kunai in my hand and plunge it beneath his sternum. His eyes glaze over as blood trickles from the corner of his mouth.
I try to pull the blade free, but it seems stuck in a bone. I let it go—I can't afford to waste time. I drag the bodies into the corner of the tent and slip out as swiftly as I came.
I move with caution. Warm blood still stains my boots, but I can't stop. I have to keep going.
The next tent is small. I slip inside, the canvas parting softly beneath my fingers. A man sleeps on his side, snoring gently. I stare at his face for a moment, clenching my fist.
A swift, firm strike crushes his windpipe. His eyes shoot open in panic, a soundless grunt escaping his mouth. I grab his head and twist it sharply. He dies without understanding. Better that way.
My steps carry me to another large tent. I can hear muffled voices through the thin fabric. I crouch beside the entrance and slip inside without a sound. Five men sit on worn rugs, playing some kind of gambling game.
One of them turns and spots me, his eyes widening. But before he can call out, I'm already on him. My foot crashes into his jaw with brutal force, dislocating it and driving his own teeth into his tongue. He chokes on the blood filling his throat.
Another man stands, scattering the game pieces, drawing a kunai and swinging it at me in a clumsy arc. I duck beneath it, twist his wrist hard, forcing the blade to fall. Before he can react, I spin and drive my foot into his gut. He drops to his knees, gasping for air, hands clutching his throat. I raise my leg and bring my heel down hard on the back of his skull. His body crumples, lifeless.
A third man, tall and broad, reaches for a blade—but I'm faster. My hand grabs the back of his neck, and I twist with a sickening snap.
One of them tries to run. A mistake. I lunge after him, sliding across the ground. My hands catch his ankle, and with a yank, his body spins in the air before slamming to the ground with a dull thud. He opens his mouth to scream. My kunai pierces his eye before a single sound escapes.
A sudden sense of danger grips me—I barely dodge an attack from the last bandit behind me. I can already hear distant shouting echoing through the camp. Sounds like Natsu and Jimei are doing their part. I wasn't about to be stopped by a second-rate thug like this one.
I activate Phantom Step again, reappearing in front of him. My foot crashes into his chin with an upward kick, launching him into the tent's canvas wall.
Before he can hit the ground, I leap after him, delivering a flurry of punches that reduce his face to an unrecognizable mess of flesh and shattered bone. My fists hammer down, venting every ounce of frustration through each blow.
When I rise, my breathing is ragged. The air reeks of blood. My clothes are soaked in a mix of sweat and crimson.
Soon, I reach the final tent. I crawl in, muscles tense, eyes fully adjusted to the dark. One man is still somehow asleep, even with the shouting outside. The scattered sake bottles explain everything—he was too drunk to notice the chaos.
I press one hand over his mouth, the other tightening around his throat. He thrashes, kicks, his nails digging into my arms. But I'm stronger. I keep squeezing, holding on until the spasms stop—until his body goes limp beneath me. His eyes find mine in those final moments. Fear. Desperation. Confusion.
As silence settles over the camp and I walk toward its center, my thoughts begin to wander. In my past life, I was against the death penalty. Or at least, I thought I was. I came from a country without executions, where a proper justice system was supposed to deal with criminals fairly. But I also knew that system was broken.
Rapists often walked free. For certain crimes—pedophilia, rape—I saw execution as the only just answer, and I'd seen people take that justice into their own hands. But murder? That was complicated. Not every killer deserved death. Motive mattered. Circumstance mattered. Justice mattered.
But here, in the ninja world, justice doesn't matter.
Killing bandits is just part of the mission now. But I know that one day, I'll be ordered to kill innocents too. Here in Konoha, a shinobi follows the mission—no matter the target. Age, gender, guilt… none of it matters.
And one day, I'll have to come to terms with that.