Konoha Notes

Chapter 5 The Choice Under the Moon

Shuji and Itachi disappeared along the trade route. One of the lurking eyes withdrew, and a figure quickly ran into the village, followed quietly by several others.

A boy dressed in dark green ninja attire leaned against the shade of a zelkova tree, with Itachi crouching quietly beside him. The two watched as the pursuers, following Shuuji's shadow clone, gradually disappeared in the direction leading to Koizumi Town.

Inside the village chief's courtyard, the oil lamps shone much brighter than usual. Several respected elders of the village were gathered there. A tense and restless atmosphere permeated the air.

"I told you to report it immediately! When those bastards sneaked back, I knew they'd get themselves into trouble sooner or later!" A rough, hoarse voice broke the silence, filled with barely suppressed anger.

Initially, the villagers had no idea what the young men who had left were doing. Then news arrived that the Kingdom of Rivers was hunting down bandits, and coincidentally, a dozen or so young men were missing from the village. When these men reappeared, the looting resumed. This coincidence was enough for the key figures of Shirakawa Village to piece together a disturbing truth.

Across from him, a middle-aged man wearing round-framed glasses pushed up his slipped glasses, the lenses reflecting the flickering lamplight: "When the pursuit team came to question us, we insisted we knew nothing. Now you're saying you did? What will the people of Daming Prefecture think?" His voice wasn't loud, but every word was clear. "Besides, life is tough these days, but we're managing. If the outside world knew that there were bandits in our village..."

"You've emptied your warehouse, so of course you can talk big without feeling the pain!" A burly man with a fierce face slammed his hand on the low table, making the teacups clatter. "I still have half a year's harvest piled up in my warehouse! If this continues, the whole village will have to tighten their belts and starve!" His eyes were bloodshot with anger.

“Those two ninjas…we already guessed it.” Shirakawa Kisuke, sitting in the main seat, spoke in a hoarse voice, as if he had used all his strength to squeeze out these words.

The room fell into a deathly silence.

"Bang!" An elderly man with white hair and beard, Shirakawa Sousuke, slammed his hand on the table, spilling water from his teacup. His hawk-like gaze swept over the crowd, his voice carrying a heavy, authoritative pressure: "We can't hesitate any longer, Kisuke! Those are ninjas who accepted the request!" His withered fingers gripped the edge of the table tightly. "Where are they now?"

Kisuke Shirakawa's lips trembled: "I...I'll send someone to inform Koichiro...to tell them..." The old man's calloused hands gripped the hem of his clothes tightly, "That child...that child was just blinded by outsiders...he was originally a good child..."

"Enough!" the burly man interrupted sharply, his voice like the grinding of gravel. "Koichiro's hands are already stained with blood! He's no longer a child! Village chief, if you keep protecting him, are you going to drag the whole village down with you?"

Shirakawa Sousuke slowly stood up, his hunched figure casting a huge, swaying shadow under the oil lamp, enveloping his younger brother: "Kisuke, this is no longer a simple matter of a few outsiders dying." His voice was as deep as muffled thunder rolling across the ground, "The ninjas have intervened, and there must be an end to this!"

“…We can’t hand them over.” The middle-aged man with glasses spoke after a long silence, his voice hoarse. “Even more importantly, we can’t let outsiders know that it was done by people from Shirakawa Village.”

"So what do you mean?!" The burly man suddenly turned his head, his eyes flashing with a fierce light.

Shirakawa Sousuke slowly closed his eyes, the wrinkles on his face etched as if by a knife under the light: "After the Warring States period ended, this trade route finally prospered, and we only had a few days of decent life." He opened his eyes again, and what he saw was a frozen lake. "The village's reputation is its lifeline; every household depends on the caravans for their livelihood."

"Kisuke, you must cooperate."

“Brother, but…”

"No buts!"

The faint attempts to explain were completely swallowed by the crackling of the oil lamp wick, eventually turning into a few heavy, suffocating sighs. When the villager responsible for keeping watch returned and confirmed that the two ninjas had indeed left the village, the air inside the house seemed to freeze instantly, then surge violently again. The crowd fell silent, quickly and quietly dispersing, disappearing into the village night.

Before long, on the threshing floor, more than forty young men gathered under the cold moonlight. In their hands were no longer farm tools, but weapons gleaming with a cold light—sharply honed sickles, serrated pitchforks, and the hunters' tightly gripped bows, their strings taut. Familiar faces, usually so, were now tense and strained.

Shirakawa Sousuke stood at the front of the procession, with Shirakawa Kisuke standing beside him. Behind them were several loads of wine and meat.

The moonlight, like water, cast long, twisted shadows of the silent team and their cold blades, winding their way into the depths of the forest. Only heavy breathing and the occasional clinking of weapons filled the air.

This was not a truly peaceful era. Only fifty-four years had passed since the end of the Warring States period, and in that era, it wasn't just ninjas who were conscripted to the battlefield. The white-haired Shirakawa Sousuke was a survivor who had crawled out of that mountain of corpses and sea of ​​blood; he knew how to command a massacre. The column, like a silent serpent, moved silently towards the mountains behind the village, led by the old man. "Did you foresee this, senpai?" Itachi's voice broke the silence from the shadows of the trees. His pupils reflected the moving column below the mountain.

Shuji leaned against the tree trunk, slowly shaking his head, his shadow casting a deep shadow on his face.

“I considered a few possibilities. They reached an internal agreement and confessed to us, requesting confidentiality.”

"Some of them chose to tip off others because of personal relationships."

"They started to panic on their own... but they didn't anticipate this possibility."

He gazed at the cold light shimmering in the moonlight below the mountain; those were his usually kind and honest neighbors and uncles. "For the sake of the village's reputation, and to keep their jobs, they chose to take matters into their own hands."

A complex, indescribable feeling welled up inside him. Were these villagers too reckless? Or did he simply lack a proper understanding of the true nature of this world?
"However, it was the right choice." Itachi's voice rang out, calm to the point of indifference, a stark contrast to his eight-year-old age.

He watched the procession disappear into the dark forest, "They ended the evil that had bred in their own village with their own hands, which was both an atonement and a way to preserve the foundation of the village to the greatest extent possible."

Shuji turned his head and looked at Itachi's still-childish face, which was completely expressionless.

Under the moonlight, those dark eyes were unfathomable.

It seems that his own understanding of the world was ultimately too naive. He shifted his gaze back to the mountain forest, its jagged outlines etched by the moonlight.

Halfway up the mountain, there was a secluded village enclosed by a natural cave and a simple wooden fence. At the entrance of the village, only two people were lazily guarding the fire. When they saw the village chief, Shirakawa Kisuke, leading six people carrying loads on their shoulders, they were not wary at all, but instead greeted them with familiar smiles.

"Village Chief! Why did you come up here in person? And with so many things!" One of them was Koichiro.

His face radiated the energy characteristic of youth, and he even seemed to affectionately reach out to take the carrying pole from the village chief's shoulder, as if he were simply welcoming an elder he hadn't seen in a long time.

Kisuke Shirakawa stopped heavily, a forced smile appearing on his deeply wrinkled face, making him look exceptionally old and weary in the flickering firelight: "Koichiro... Yamashita... Yamashita has another investigation, and it's quite a commotion. You... don't you really plan to leave and lay low for a while?"

"Hey, village chief! Didn't I already promise you that?" Koichiro waved his hand, looking completely unconcerned, even with a touch of youthful smugness.

“We’re very careful with our actions! We only rob those unscrupulous out-of-town merchants who are just passing through, and we’ll never touch our regular customers who have dealings with our village! Those heartless merchants deserve to be robbed! You can rest assured!”

Koichiro peeked into the basket and saw the wine jars and chunks of meat sticking out. His eyes lit up, and his smile widened. "You even brought so many good things to see us! Wait here, I'll go call Shinya-nii right now! He was just complaining that the wine wasn't strong enough!"

Kisuke Shirakawa's facial muscles twitched uncontrollably.

That outsider known as "Big Brother"! It was this guy named Shinya who, with sweet talk and the promise of "happy days," completely bewitched Koichiro, whom he had watched grow up and who was once the most sensible and hardworking boy!
A torrent of anger, sorrow, and despair instantly overwhelmed the last bit of support in his hunched body.

He knew that at this very moment, in this moonlit forest, some things had already been like arrows released from a bow, irreversible.

(End of this chapter)