Chapter 95: Cannibalism (Patreon)

Outside the official guesthouse Konoha kept for receiving foreign dignitaries, Genshin waited, bored out of his mind.

In truth, after six years of being worn down, he'd finally caved to Tsunade's relentless badgering and agreed to take this troublesome escort mission off her hands. Six years together, and Tsunade knew exactly how to make her little disciple fall in line — all it took was one long, breath-stealing hug.

Under Shizune and Karin's awestruck stares, Genshin, still half-dazed, had agreed to every single one of Tsunade's demands.

If I end up with a thing for big-chested women later in life, that's definitely her fault, no matter how you slice it, Genshin thought with a sigh.

Just then, the guesthouse doors opened, and two neat rows of attendants filed out, lining up before the building in a single formation.

Looks like the main attraction was about to make his appearance.

Genshin split off a Shadow Clone Technique to handle his teaching duties back at the academy. After all, the academy paid him a salary too, and he intended to earn it.

As the clone departed, a broad, hefty silhouette soon appeared.

According to the mission briefing Tsunade had given him, the daimyo's younger brother was named Yuan Zonglian — surname Yuan, given name Zonglian.

Yuan Zonglian looked to be around forty, the very picture of a stereotypical noble — portly, with cheeks so plump they squeezed his eyes into two thin slits.

His personality, at least, was warm enough. The moment Genshin stepped forward and introduced himself, the man's thick, fleshy hand clamped down on his and pumped it back and forth without stopping.

"Uzumaki Genshin? Why, if it isn't the famous Red-Haired of Konoha! Wonderful, wonderful! When Princess Tsunade sent word this morning, I confess I worried she'd fob me off with some nobody. Seems I misjudged her — my apologies!"

Yes — these days, Genshin's moniker throughout the Shinobi World was 'Red-Haired.' Never mind that he had no straw hat to pass on to anyone, hadn't lost an arm, and certainly hadn't eaten any 'Face-Face Fruit.' His fellow shinobi just called him that regardless.

Three years ago, once Genshin had mastered the Heavenly Magnetism Sky Flight Technique, Tsunade lifted her restrictions on him leaving the village. In the years since, he'd built up quite a reputation across the Shinobi World. Between his Hamon Ninjutsu, the Heavenly Magnetism Sky Flight Technique, and his Fuinjutsu, his mission completion rate over those three years sat at nearly a hundred percent. He'd crossed blades with shinobi from other villages more than a few times in that span too — he still had no idea which uncultured wag had saddled him with this particular nickname.

Whether he liked the cringe-worthy title or not didn't matter — in the Shinobi World, once a name got pinned on you, there was no refusing it. Take Konoha's 'Sannin' title: it originated when Hanzo of the Salamander spared Jiraiya, Tsunade, and their teammate, forcing that humiliating name on them as the price. But once word got out, even the Sannin themselves had no choice but to accept it.

Meanwhile, the daimyo's younger brother, Yuan Zonglian, was still running his mouth.

"Uzumaki — now that's a surname I remember. You must be kin to Lady Uzumaki Mito, yes? That red hair is the spitting image. I actually met Lady Mito myself as a boy! Such a shame, though — that clan's all but died out these days."

The hell is wrong with your mouth? All that blubber and not two ounces of brain to go with it?

Genshin wanted to curse the man out, but this was work — for a paycheck, sometimes you had to swallow your pride. He put on his professional client-service smile, humored Yuan Zonglian's nonsense, and gently hinted that it was about time they got moving.

After rambling on for a good while, Yuan Zonglian wiped his mouth, looking like he still had plenty more to say, and finally fell quiet. He climbed into his lavishly decorated main carriage, and the whole procession set off in grand fashion toward the daimyo's residence.

At the head of the procession rode armored samurai clearing the way. Yuan Zonglian's opulent main carriage traveled at the very center of the column, with Genshin stationed alongside it as close-guard escort. Bringing up the rear were several wagons loaded down with Yuan Zonglian's personal supplies — food, clothing, everyday necessities, and more.

The whole procession stretched out long, banners fluttering, reeking of ugly aristocratic privilege. Genshin curled his lip, more than a little annoyed.

The Hokage's world was a strange one, honestly. Technology had advanced far enough to produce cell phones, televisions, refrigerators — all sorts of appliances — yet somehow it seemed to have skipped the Industrial Revolution entirely. The political system, meanwhile, remained a Japanese-style feudal fiefdom, every nation ruled by a hereditary daimyo passed down generation after generation, propped up by a whole tier of hereditary local nobility.

A commoner's life was one you could see the whole shape of at a glance — grind away honestly at labor your whole life, and pray you didn't end up like Nagato's parents, your entire family suddenly ganked and slaughtered by some shinobi.

For an ordinary person, becoming a shinobi was the only shot at defying fate and rewriting their destiny.

Except that, in most cases, a shinobi's son stayed a shinobi, and a commoner's son stayed a commoner. Nagato was proof enough of that — people like Jiraiya, willing to pass shinobi knowledge on to outsiders, were vanishingly rare.

The procession kept crawling along at its own unhurried pace. With Genshin's own leg speed, half a day would've been plenty to reach the daimyo's residence — and flying there directly would be even faster. But dragging along this noble caravan, there was no picking up the pace no matter what.

By now they'd entered the mountains. Days of steady rain had turned the mountain road into a mire, and the carriages rolled slowly through pothole after muddy pothole. Worried about bandits, the samurai guard squads had spread out along both sides of the column to keep watch.

Suddenly, Genshin sensed people up ahead. He raised a hand, signaling the procession to halt at once.

A rustling stirred through the trees, and figures emerged one after another.

Dozens of them blocked the road — bandits, or so it seemed at first. No, refugees was closer to the truth. Men, women, young and old, packed together in a huddled mass, clutching broken sticks and chipped sickles, silently barring the way forward.

"Give us food, and we'll go."

The man who spoke stood at the front of the crowd, middle-aged, his eyes utterly lifeless. Caked mud clung to his trouser legs, and something about him gave off the numb impression of a man who wasn't quite living anymore, just going through the motions.

Beside him stood a handful of young, able-bodied refugees, their hands trembling faintly around their sticks.

Behind them were half-grown children, women cradling toddlers, white-haired elders — people who looked less like robbers and more like a crowd padding out the numbers for courage.

There was no way this looked remotely threatening. These were just people down on their luck. Genshin figured he'd toss them some money and send them on their way.

But the samurai moved faster than he could. They bellowed and cursed at the "bandits," ordering them to clear off. Meanwhile, an attendant knocked lightly on the carriage door, reporting the situation outside to Yuan Zonglian.

The moment the report finished, almost instantly, a voice drifted out from inside the palanquin.

"No need to hesitate. Cut them all down! If I let this slide even once, every filthy commoner along the road will come begging next."

The instant reply made it plain the man inside had barely paused to think before making his decision. To him, human lives seemed like nothing more than clutter blocking his path — obstacles to be swept aside.

Cut them all down?

Genshin's pupils contracted sharply at the words, and the professional smile slowly drained from his face.

The samurai beside him let out an angry shout and lunged forward, drawing his blade in a horizontal sweep, ready to take the head off the middle-aged man at the front.

Shing!

The blade froze mid-air, pinched between two fingers.

It was Genshin's fingers. He'd caught the blade clean, and no matter how hard the samurai strained, it wouldn't budge an inch further.

"Allow me to handle this. Protecting Lord Zonglian is my job, after all."

Genshin flashed the samurai a smile — one that never once touched his eyes.

How strange, he thought. A noble could issue a kill order without a flicker of hesitation. A samurai could carry it out without a flicker of hesitation. The attendants wore faces of practiced indifference, clearly no strangers to this. In the entire procession, he seemed to be the only one out of step.

Right now, Genshin felt an odd, mounting urge to kill the fat pig in the palanquin — and everyone else in the procession along with him.

The samurai opened his mouth to say something, but the voice from the palanquin cut in again.

"Let Uzumaki Genshin do it. I'd like to see for myself just how the 'Red-Haired,' the one the Shinobi World says has never once failed a job, actually kills."

The samurai scoffed and pulled his sword back, only to find it wouldn't slide into its sheath no matter what he tried. He lifted the blade up to eye level, and his breath caught.

The once-smooth, polished blade now bore two deep fingerprint dents, warping the entire sword out of true — proof enough of just how much force those fingers had carried.

Fat beads of cold sweat crept slowly down the samurai's forehead.

Genshin paid the man's expression no mind at all.

Killing, refugees — none of it was new to Genshin.

But on every mission before this, the people he'd killed had always been enemies, weapons in hand. Afterward, he could tell himself they'd been enemies — that he'd had to do it for Konoha's sake.

But today was different. These people in front of him were just ordinary folk who couldn't scrape together a living. Was he really supposed to kill every one of them, just for this braindead excuse of a mission?

A line suddenly surfaced in Genshin's mind — something he'd joked with Karin about at the breakfast table that morning: 'you are what you eat.' Heh... how right that turned out to be. So eating bitterness doesn't make you a cut above the rest — only eating people does, is that it?