Chapter 6

Ryuu felt a surge of pure, unadulterated terror wash over him, colder than any ice he might accidentally summon. This wasn't a random Chunin patrol. This was one of Kiri's elite, infamous for their brutality and skill. 

Why was he here, in a forgotten village like Shiosai?

Kasumi's intake of breath was sharp, audible even over the pounding in Ryuu's ears. She knew who this was, or at least recognized the significance of the sword, the uniform, the sheer oppressive presence. 

Her hand tightened on Ryuu's arm until it hurt, her knuckles white. She wasn't just vigilant now, she was radiating a fear so profound it felt like a physical force in the small room.

Jūzō stood unmoving on the dock for a long moment, a silent, imposing statue against the grey backdrop. His face was partially obscured by the standard Kiri forehead protector and a grid-shaped marking covering his jaw, but his eyes, visible beneath the brim of the protector, were sharp, cold, and utterly devoid of emotion as they swept across the huddled houses of Shiosai. 

He seemed to catalog everything, dismiss everything, in a single, chilling gaze.

Then, he moved.

Not with the explosive speed of his arrival, but with a deliberate, almost casual stride, stepping off the dock onto the path leading into the village proper. His boots crunched on the damp earth, each step measured, confident. He didn't look left or right, simply walked towards the center of the village, near the well where the headman's house stood. 

The few villagers who had been outside, tending to early morning tasks despite the mist, froze like startled rabbits, scrambling back into their homes, pulling doors shut, peering fearfully through cracks.

The oppressive silence was broken only by Jūzō's steady footsteps and the distant cry of gulls. He stopped near the well, his gaze fixed on the largest, slightly better-maintained house belonging to the village headman, a stout, nervous man named Ichiro.

"Headman," Jūzō's voice cut through the air. It wasn't loud, but it carried an unnerving resonance, flat and cold. "Present yourself."

There was a delay, then the door to Ichiro's house creaked open slowly. The headman emerged, bowing low, his hands trembling visibly. He was clearly terrified but trying desperately to maintain some semblance of dignity.

"Swordsman-sama," Ichiro stammered, avoiding direct eye contact. "Welcome to Shiosai. How… how may we serve the will of the Mizukage?" He carefully didn't name the Mizukage, perhaps unsure himself who truly held power or simply afraid of misspeaking.

Jūzō didn't respond immediately. He tilted his head slightly, surveying the headman, then the shuttered houses around them. The massive Kubikiribōchō on his back seemed to pulse with latent menace in the silence.

"Serve?" Jūzō repeated, the word dripping with disdain. "You will provide information. There have been… disappearances. Shinobi operating outside Kiri authority along this coast. Have you seen any strangers? Anyone suspicious passing through?"

Ichiro swallowed hard, his face pale. "N-no, Swordsman-sama. Shiosai is… isolated. Few travelers come here. Just the usual merchants, and even they are rare now."

"No unfamiliar chakra signatures? No signs of passage? No whispers?" Jūzō's voice remained flat, but the pressure intensified. Ryuu could feel Kasumi holding her breath beside him. This line of questioning was dangerously close. Were they looking for rogue shinobi? Or were they hunting specific bloodlines?

"N-nothing, Sama," Ichiro insisted, bowing lower. "We are simple folk. We see nothing, hear nothing beyond the waves."

Jūzō remained silent for another long moment, his cold eyes seeming to pierce through the flimsy walls of the houses, directly into the fearful hearts within. Ryuu felt pinned by that unseen gaze, convinced the Swordsman somehow knew they were there, knew Kasumi was more than she seemed.

Then, Jūzō shifted his attention. His gaze swept towards the docks, where Old Man Takeda, drawn by the confrontation or perhaps unable to simply hide, had emerged from his small shack. Takeda stood straight, his weathered face set in grim lines, his one good hand clenched into a fist at his side. He wasn't bowing.

"You," Jūzō said, his voice unchanged but his attention now fully on Takeda. "The old fisherman. You were obstructive during the last patrol's collection." It wasn't a question.

Takeda spat onto the damp earth. "Collection? You call theft and extortion 'collection'? Bleeding poor villages dry while you hide in your cursed city!"

Ichiro gasped, whispering frantically, "Takeda-san, no! Please!"

Kasumi's fingers dug into Ryuu's arm again. "Foolish old man," she breathed, so low only Ryuu could hear, her voice tight with dread.

Jūzō tilted his head slightly, a gesture that might have indicated curiosity on another man. On him, it felt like a predator assessing prey. "Obstructive," he repeated calmly. "And defiant. An example is required."

He reached back, his hand closing around the hilt of Kubikiribōchō. The sound of the massive blade sliding free from its back-strap was surprisingly quiet. The sword itself looked brutal – thick, heavy, wide, with a semi-circular cutout near the top and a hole near the base, designed more for hacking and decapitation than finesse. It pulsed with a faint, almost thirsty aura in Jūzō's grip.

Takeda stood his ground, glaring, but Ryuu saw the tremor in his legs, the sheen of sweat on his brow despite the cool air. He was terrified, but pride, anger, or sheer desperation kept him rooted.

Jūzō took one step towards him. Then another. He wasn't rushing. There was no anger in his movements, just cold, inevitable purpose.

Ichiro tried again, stumbling forward slightly. "Swordsman-sama, please! He is old! He means no harm! Shiosai is loyal!"

Jūzō didn't even glance at the headman. His eyes were fixed on Takeda. He raised the Kubikiribōchō slightly. It didn't look impossibly heavy in his grasp, he wielded it with the ease of long familiarity.

"Loyalty," Jūzō said, his voice still flat, "is demonstrated through obedience. Fear ensures obedience."

He moved. It wasn't the blinding speed of his Shunshin arrival, but it was still incredibly fast, far faster than any normal man could react. He didn't aim for Takeda's head, didn't go for a clean kill. The Executioner's Blade swung in a deceptively simple arc, aimed low.

There was a sickening crunch of bone and sinew, a strangled gasp from Takeda. The old fisherman crumpled, clutching at his legs – or where his legs had been. The massive blade had sheared through both thighs just above the knee with contemptuous ease, leaving him writhing on the ground in a rapidly spreading pool of dark blood.

Ryuu felt bile rise in his throat. He clamped a hand over his mouth, his eyes wide with horror. This wasn't an anime fight scene with dramatic clashes. This was brutal, efficient, crippling violence designed to inflict maximum terror and suffering before death inevitably followed.

Jūzō stepped back, casually flicking gore from the blade of Kubikiribōchō. He looked down at the gasping, bleeding form of Takeda without a flicker of emotion. Then, his cold gaze swept across the terrified, silent villagers peering from their doorways, lingering for a moment on the headman who stood frozen in horror.

"The Mist remembers defiance," Jūzō stated calmly. He slid Kubikiribōchō back into its strap with another soft whisper of metal. "Ensure it does not happen again."

Without another word, he turned and walked back towards the dock with the same measured stride. He didn't look back at the dying man, didn't acknowledge the terrified villagers. 

He stepped onto the dock, and a moment later, simply vanished – Shunshin again – presumably reappearing back on the deck of the grey vessel, which was already beginning to pull away from the shore, its engine thrumming steadily as it disappeared back into the concealing mist.

Silence, thick and suffocating, descended once more, broken only by Takeda's weakening, agonized gasps and the quiet, horrified sobbing that began to emanate from one of the nearby houses, likely Takeda's own family witnessing his brutal end. 

The metallic tang of blood, sharp and coppery, began to cut through the usual scents of salt and damp earth, a visceral reminder of the violence just inflicted. It clung to the air, heavy and sickening.

Kasumi remained frozen against the wall for a long moment after the boat's engine faded completely, her knuckles still white where she gripped Ryuu's arm. Her eyes were distant, glazed over, as if replaying the horrifying efficiency of the Kubikiribōchō's swing, the casual cruelty in the Swordsman's posture. 

Ryuu was paralyzed in fear. He had never seen such a horrific scene.

He had expected death, gore, blood. But he was not prepared for it. He felt bile rise up, but he held it in. He wasn't even near the scene, yet it had effected him to such an extent. 

Kasumi let out a long, shuddering breath, the sound ragged in the stillness. Her body slumped slightly as the immediate threat receded, the tension draining away only to be replaced by a different, perhaps even more dangerous, kind of fear – the fear of the aftermath. Ryuu could feel it radiating from her, a cold certainty settling in the pit of his stomach. 

The Kiri shinobi were gone, but the terror they had inflicted remained, a poison injected directly into the heart of the village, ready to curdle into something unpredictable and vicious.

She finally released his arm, her own hand trembling slightly as she flexed her fingers, restoring circulation. Her gaze swept over Ryuu, checking him automatically for injury or undue distress, a mother's instinct briefly overriding the shinobi's calculations. Seeing him pale but outwardly calm (a mask he was perfecting), she seemed to regain a sliver of composure.

Of course Ryuu was barely able to keep himself standing.

"Stay here," she whispered, her voice hoarse, raw. She moved like a ghost towards the screen door again, cracking it open just enough to peer out cautiously, her body pressed flat against the wall, minimizing her silhouette.

The scene outside was grim, bathed in the flat, grey light filtering through the dissipating mist. Villagers were slowly emerging from their homes like crabs scuttling from beneath overturned rocks after a storm. 

They moved hesitantly at first, drawn by a morbid, magnetic pull towards the center square where Takeda lay. No one rushed to help, the sheer volume of blood staining the damp earth told its own story. 

Some women covered their mouths, stifling cries. Others, mostly men, stood stiffly, their faces blank masks of shock and simmering, impotent rage. Ichiro, the headman, looked utterly broken, swaying slightly on his feet, mumbling incoherently to himself, his authority shattered by the casual violence he had been powerless to prevent. 

The air itself felt heavy, charged with unspoken accusations and the suffocating weight of fear. They were all trapped, all vulnerable, and the question hanging unspoken amongst them was simple: Who would be next?

Then, the whispers started again, insidious at first, like the rustle of dry leaves skittering on the wind before a storm. Louder this time, more frantic, less coherent than before.

"...Kiri... why him? Why Takeda?" The question wasn't seeking an answer, it was a cry against the randomness, the injustice.

"...punishment... but for what? Just for speaking?" The implication was terrifying – mere words could warrant such brutality.

Then, inevitably, the search for a reason, for a scapegoat, began. Eyes, desperate for focus, darted around, settling on the anomaly, the outsiders who had always been watched with suspicion.

"...it's them... the outsiders... the pale one..." The whispers gained traction, fingers perhaps subtly pointing towards Kasumi and Ryuu's house on the edge of the village, slightly separate, easily isolated.

"...Misaki was right... cursed blood... bad luck brought upon us..." Superstition, a comforting shield against incomprehensible violence, found fertile ground in their terror.

"...they saw his eyes! The Swordsman saw his eyes! That little demon!" A blatant fabrication, a lie born of pure panic, needing a tangible reason, however illogical, for Kiri's wrath to have fallen upon them. 

It was easier to believe the Swordsman had been provoked by Ryuu's 'demonic' eyes than to accept that Kiri could cripple and kill one of their own for simple defiance, implying any of them could be next for any reason, or no reason at all.

"...get them out! Before Kiri blames us! Before they come back!" The whispers coalesced into a unified, desperate thought – excise the perceived source of the problem, offer a sacrifice, appease the angry gods of the Mist.

The fear, denied a target in the departed Kiri, needed a new vessel. It found one in the pale woman and her ghostly child who lived apart, shrouded in secrecy and unsettling difference.

Ryuu watched Kasumi's face pale further as the murmurs outside shifted, grew into angry shouts, as gazes filled with suspicion and naked hatred turned unmistakably towards their small house. 

The fragile peace of Shiosai, built on shared hardship and mutual avoidance, had shattered completely. The villagers, desperate and terrified, were turning on the weakest, strangest members of their unwilling flock, transforming from wary neighbors into a burgeoning mob.

Kasumi slammed the screen door shut, the sound echoing the finality of their situation. Her eyes were wide with dawning horror, not just fear of Kiri now, but the sickening realization of betrayal from the community they had hidden within. 

"Ryuu," she gasped, grabbing his arm again, her voice tight with an urgency that replaced her earlier paralysis. "The floorboard. Now!"

The shouts outside were becoming a roar. Heavy footsteps pounded on the path, no longer hesitant but driven by righteous, terrified anger. The mob was coming.