Naruto: IHCS Ch. 125

The atmosphere on the central plaza of Aomine was electric.

Refugees stood in line to register their names and identification information.

Shiratori assigned the registration task to Nagato and Konan.

The two of them were more careful by nature.

[Faith detected]
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His gaze swept the surroundings.

After what had happened last night, some shops in Aomine kept their doors tightly shut today.

He knew those shopkeepers would usually have opened their doors before dawn.

Those merchants valued their lives more than anyone.

"Dad, will we… will we have to sleep on the street again from now on…?"

A scrawny child, clutching his father's hand, asked curiously.

The man looked at least ten years older than his actual age. When he heard his son speak, his eyes stung suddenly.

He shook his head. "No. We'll have a home from now on."

"And not only a home to sleep in, we'll be able to eat our fill, like today."

An old man with a white-streaked beard said this.

His weathered face held hope.

A young man standing beside the old man flashed a worried look. "Can we really do it?"

Hearing him, the old man patted his arm. "Ae you braver than an old man like me? Sometimes you have to be full of confidence in the future! Otherwise you'll never change your life."

The young man was stunned for a moment, he stared at the old man and slowly nodded.

"You're right. Our lives can't get any worse, why not take a chance?"

The old man nodded with satisfaction. "That's the right attitude!"

He looked up at Shiratori, who stood on the high platform, and sighed. "I've lived so many years, I've tasted more hardships than you've eaten meals. I know people well. These people are trustworthy! They're willing to work for us, how can we let them down?"

The young man beside him and the others who heard these words were momentarily stunned.

That's right!

People with no connection to them were willing to fight to change their lives, what right did they have to shrink back?

How many people like that would they meet in a lifetime?

Gradually, everyone's eyes hardened with determination.

The refugees discussed the new life ahead and the speech Shiratori had just given.

They had never talked about such things before, because there had been no future to speak of.

But now that future existed.

The refugees brimmed with beautiful hopes for the life to come.

They chatted animatedly while standing in line.

No one noticed the dark shapes that had silently appeared on the rooftops around the square.

Except Shiratori.

"Hey, what are you looking at?"

Yahiko spoke to him, but saw that his eyes were fixed on the distance.

Curious, he followed Shiratori's gaze.

A few black dots floated into view.

His pupils constricted.

Everything seemed to slow down.

A black dot fell from the sky, so fast it was unbelievable.

Then a second, a third… the fourth.

Several black silhouettes leapt down from the tall buildings. They wore dark ninja garb and masks that concealed their faces, leaving only narrow slits at the eyes.

The ninjas adjusted their postures in midair like falcons locking onto prey, with a sweep of their arms, countless shuriken whistled toward the crowd.

The sound of air splitting rang out repeatedly.

The refugees slowly looked up. A storm of shuriken descended on them.

Their bodies stiffened in place. Their eyes widened as death closed in. Like a frozen frame, the scene came alive in an instant.

They scattered like startled birds but had nowhere to go.

The ninjas landed lightly, the long blades in their hands flashed in the sunlight.

They moved with terrifying silence and charged toward the refugees.

"Defend!" cried Kojiro, Genraku, and Muramasa in unison.

Shadows darted from around them as wave after wave of allies planted their weapons to block the slashes aimed at the refugees.

The shuriken's shadows in the refugees' pupils grew larger and larger.

They could feel the approaching edge of death.

A mother dropped to her knees and shielded her small, innocent daughter with her own body, tears fell onto the child's hair.

The daughter gazed around, bewildered.

Pain didn't come.

The refugees opened their eyes and were stunned by what they saw.

Countless shuriken froze overhead, lingering there as if held by invisible threads.

Then, in the next second, those dense, raindrop-like shuriken vanished from over their heads.

Clink, clink, clink…

From afar came the sound of shuriken embedding into walls and floors.

Those shuriken had inexplicably appeared on the roofs of the shops opposite them.

They pelted the shops' roofs, doorways, and walls like rain.

The refugees watched, dumbfounded.

Shiratori lowered the hand he'd been using to manipulate space.

That had been Takako's Sky Manipulation.

"Amazing!"

Yahiko was so shocked his face went blank. He stared at the direction of the shops for a long while before coming to his senses.

At that moment he felt a hand land on his shoulder.

"Yahiko, go fight! Use your hands to protect those you want to protect!" Shiratori shouted.

Yahiko's pupils widened, he flashed forward and without hesitation dove into the fight against the ambushing ninjas.

The refugees steadily retreated under Kojiro and the others' protection, shaken, they watched the ninjas and samurai standing between them and death.

"Muramasa, why? Why did you betray Tomita? Why did you join these people? Don't you think what you're doing is foolish?"

A ninja fighting Muramasa raised his blade without mercy, leaving a long gash on his arm.

"Ugh!"

Pain struck, Muramasa sucked in a breath as blood quickly soaked his sleeve. He gripped his sword and did not flinch.

The ninja he faced was, like him, a ninja who had been maintained by Tomita's patronage.

But the opponent's skill far surpassed his.

"Because I want to find the soul I lost," Muramasa said, staring at the ninja and speaking each word slowly.

"What's so important about something like that?"

The ninja kept slashing at him.

Muramasa struggled to fend off the attacks, his wounds multiplied, but he never lowered his sword.

"It is! This is what matters most! If you lose your own soul, what's the point of living?"

"Just scraping by?"

"Humans need meaning and value to live!"

"That's you, not me."

"Don't replace us with your own beliefs."

"Ninjas only need to survive and complete missions."

The ninja standing before Muramasa showed no emotion at all. His eyes were cold, and the attacks from his blade grew fiercer with every strike.

Muramasa's body was almost entirely drenched in blood.

Fresh cuts covered his arms, chest, and legs.

"In your so-called pursuit of regaining your soul, does it end in dying here?"

"How pathetic."

"To die for a group of complete strangers?"

The ninja raised his blade and advanced toward Muramasa.

Muramasa was half-kneeling on the ground. If not for the sword in his hand barely supporting his body, he might have already collapsed.

"The one who's truly pathetic is you."

"I die for my own choices, for my own ideals. And you?"

"You die for someone else's orders."

A faint smile surfaced on Muramasa's pale face.

There was no fear of death upon it.

He was already content.

Behind Muramasa were the refugees, retreating step by step.

They stared at his back, their eyes filled with disbelief.

These ninjas, were they truly protecting them with their lives?

In the minds of the refugees, the words of Shiratori's speech from earlier resurfaced.

From the very moment they declared their allegiance, there were no longer distinctions between ninja, samurai, or refugee.

They were all comrades.

Kindred spirits, fighting side by side.

An old man held his grandson tightly in his arms, whispering softly: "Don't look. Close your eyes. Don't be afraid."

But the boy in his arms opened his eyes wide, watching as the ninja advanced toward Muramasa, blade raised high.

Blood dripped from the weapon.

The boy's eyes fixed on Muramasa's back.

It looked just like Father… Before he died, Father too had stood in front of him like this.

Suddenly, the boy broke free from his grandfather's embrace and, without hesitation, ran toward Muramasa.

"Don't kill my father!"

"Don't…"

The boy stretched out his arms, standing in front of Muramasa just as his father once had.

Muramasa's pupils shrank sharply.

For the first time, the man who had shown no fear in the face of death revealed sheer terror.

No!

His hand reached out desperately toward the boy.

The long blade fell.

But at that very instant, the air suddenly grew heavy and sticky.

A suffocating pressure surged from all directions.

Time itself seemed to slow down. Even the ninjas' movements faltered for a brief moment. The long blade stopped, an inch from the boy's neck.

The wind across the plaza ceased.

A deep unease seized the hearts of everyone present. The sky abruptly darkened.

All those gathered in the plaza instinctively raised their heads. Above them, black mist gathered, blotting out the sky.

Like storm clouds, it swallowed the earth in shadow.

A massive claw suddenly thrust out from the fog.

It was large enough to crush a human into pulp with ease, its talons sharper and longer than any samurai blade.

Then, a colossal figure tore its way out of the black mist.

Rika roared at the attacking ninjas, a deafening bellow that revealed rows of jagged fangs.

The refugees were so terrified they couldn't even scream.

Even the ninjas were shaken by the monster before them.

What lay before their eyes was something completely beyond the bounds of their understanding.

How could such a monster even exist in this world?

This creature was hundreds of times more terrifying than any intelligence report had described!

Their bodies felt as though they were freezing stiff.

On the high platform in the plaza, Shiratori's gaze was cold and sharp: "I told you, we are comrades! Friends bound by shared ideals! I will protect every single one of you!"

The attacking ninjas instinctively began to retreat. At the same time, they quickly reacted, launching shuriken and kunai at Rika.

But to Rika, these attacks were nothing more than a tickle.

With a single sweep of her massive hand, she swatted down every shuriken and kunai midair.

Rika had never been known for her patience.

This provocation only enraged her further.

Her enormous body moved with a speed that was almost impossible to follow, appearing directly above the ninjas' heads.

Her colossal arm swung down.

A fierce gust of wind erupted across the plaza.

The ninjas saw the giant claw rushing toward them, recoiling in terror, trying desperately to dodge. But Rika was far too close, her speed far too great. Their minds could register the threat, but their bodies couldn't keep up.

Too late.

Her massive hand swept across them.

The ninjas were swatted away like flies, slammed into the surrounding buildings of the plaza with sickening cracks of breaking bones, before sliding limply to the ground, motionless.

The boy stood frozen in place, staring at the ninjas that had been hurled away.

Slowly, he lifted his head and looked up at Rika.

It was she who had saved him, and his father!

The boy's eyes sparkled with admiration.

The remaining ninjas regrouped and launched a joint assault on Rika. They attacked from multiple directions at once. Explosive-tagged kunai were hurled toward her.

She swept her arm, batting the kunai away.

The tags detonated violently beside her, the blasts thunderous, filling the air with thick smoke.

When the smoke cleared, a massive, unscathed claw reached toward the ninjas.

"What… what's going on?"

"How can it not be injured?"

"Even with its size, those explosive tags should have blown its arm clean off!"

"…"

Shiratori just observed the attackers, who were now drowning in their own disbelief.

As if Rika could be defeated so easily.

She was a cursed spirit. Only wounds inflicted by cursed energy could harm her.

Her massive arm swung out again, this time seizing the remaining ninjas with precision.

"No!"

"Don't kill us!"

"…"

In her grasp, the ninjas were like toys.

They could only watch helplessly as her cavernous jaws drew closer and closer.

Cold sweat drenched their clothes as if they had been caught in a downpour. Their faces turned deathly pale, teeth chattering, pupils contracting with raw terror.

But Rika did not crush them into blood mist, not without Shiratori's command.

Still, the psychological torment of being held in her grasp nearly drove them insane.

With the ambush neutralized, an eerie silence descended upon the plaza.

Shiratori stepped down from the platform. The refugees instinctively parted, forming a path for him.

He knelt before Muramasa, placing both hands upon the wounded man's chest. A green glow radiated from his palms, and Muramasa's wounds began to close at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Smiling warmly, he said with heartfelt sincerity: "Muramasa, through your actions, you've proven that our ideals will one day be realized!"

Tears glimmered in Muramasa's eyes.

He looked up at the bright blue sky as tears slid down his cheeks.

The feeling of fighting shoulder to shoulder with comrades, it was still so beautiful.

This was the life he had always truly desired.

For a long moment, the refugees could not speak, could not move.

They gazed at Shiratori, and at the ninjas and samurai before them.

Their eyes were filled with gratitude and deep emotion.