From beginning to end, these red-eyed people had never intended to leave the Land of Rivers.
Gen’nosuke had underestimated the suspicion that could exist between different groups. Trust was much like love—not something that would necessarily be returned simply because one offered it sincerely.
Having gained strength that surpassed even the daimyō’s soldiers, the red-eyed people believed they could survive on their own through their own power. They had no need for anyone else’s help.
But there was one condition: they had to drive away the people who were running amok on the land where they lived.
The Sand Shinobi and Gen’nosuke’s group were all the same in their eyes. Before these outsiders arrived, the red-eyed people had been living perfectly well. They were poor, but at least their lives had not been this chaotic.
Even the seemingly friendly Gen’nosuke was merely the easiest one to deceive among the bastards who had thrown their country into turmoil.
Compared to the four or five thousand Sand Shinobi, Gen’nosuke’s group of only a few dozen seemed much easier to bully.
And Gen’nosuke himself was also more approachable.
The elderly and the weak continued to surround Gen’nosuke, shouting loudly.
"For Lord Gen’nosuke!"
They hoped to use this to confuse the situation and make the dozens of people who had been teaching them how to fight as shinobi hesitate.
In the eyes of the red-eyed people, Gen’nosuke was an extraordinarily important person. Surely these people would be afraid of harming such a distinguished figure?
Meanwhile, the young and able-bodied men who had surrounded them had already torn away their hypocritical masks. They no longer bothered hiding their intentions.
Using farming implements as weapons, they charged toward Shishirō.
"Kill them all! Take everything that can be carried away!"
At least their momentum was intimidating.
Shishirō and the others also became tense.
They were outside the protection of their homeland, and they had yet to undergo the strengthening granted by the yokai. They did not have the support of the Fear Armor, either.
But that did not mean they lacked the strength to kill a group of farmers who had not even put down their hoes.
The problem was that killing more than a thousand people was still physically exhausting. If they were careless, they could easily suffer injuries.
If Kei were here, this scene would probably remind him of a certain saying:
The heroic soldiers of Imperial Japan, brandishing bayonets and sabers, launched a Banzai charge against the Bear’s tanks.
A raging tide of murderous force surged forward.
Before the two sides had even truly made contact, a gentle breeze swept across the battlefield, carrying cherry blossoms through the air.
A flash of cold light.
The cherry blossoms scattered.
A line of poetry seemed to drift through the air:
"By morning, a beauty may boast of her place in this world;
by dusk, she may become a white bone rotting in the wilderness."
The delicate petals had now become deadly weapons.
Large numbers of the red-eyed people fell to the ground as though they had been thrown into a meat grinder.
The cherry blossoms gathered together, and a blind man appeared in the middle of the crowd.
"Lord Hyōma!" Shishirō shouted while confronting the red-eyed people.
At that moment, several of the red-eyed men who had been shouting the loudest could no longer make a sound.
Their minds could not comprehend why their heads were suddenly so far away from their bodies.
The battlefield fell silent because of the arrival of a single person.
Yes.
Uchiha Hyōma had arrived.
Those villagers who had never once set foot on a battlefield had made a grave mistake in estimating their own strength.
The red-eyed people had underestimated combat between shinobi.
The monopoly on ninjutsu existed precisely to prevent people who should never have possessed such techniques from harming true shinobi.
The daimyō’s soldiers who had once bullied the red-eyed people had been utterly helpless before them.
That had given the red-eyed people a dangerous illusion.
They believed they had finally gained the capital necessary to survive in the brutal shinobi world.
And so this rebellion had happened.
What they did not understand was that the daimyō’s soldiers were to them what ordinary red-eyed warriors were to true shinobi.
They might appear powerful, but in reality, they were completely outmatched.
The outbreak of this turmoil was therefore easy to understand.
From beginning to end, these red-eyed people had never intended to leave their homeland.
And so the wealthy and foolish Gen’nosuke became their first target.
However, their strength was nowhere near sufficient to support a successful rebellion.
From the rear of the battlefield, the short-statured Azusa Sai appeared with his hands behind his back.
The Fear Armor condensed around the old man’s body.
Behind him, twenty elite warriors who had likewise earned the recognition of the yokai drew their weapons.
Ever since Lord Kei had uttered those words—
"Bloom, Amatsu Tachibana."
—the Uchiha seemed to have found a standard to follow.
Whenever they used their abilities, they would loudly call out the names of their yokai.
"Bankai—Yukihime Walk!"
"Bankai—Hannya Paramita!"
The names of various yokai rang out across the battlefield.
Fear spread across the land.
Terror took root in the hearts of the people.
The red-eyed people had been caught completely off guard. They had not yet realized how drastically the battlefield had changed.
Or rather, the situation was completely different from what they had anticipated.
They simply had no idea what to do.
The little old man who had followed close behind Hyōma, however, had no intention of sparing them merely because they were at a loss.
He lightly raised one finger.
His attitude was unmistakable:
The thousand-plus of you are already surrounded by the twenty of us.
"Kill them all!"
Shishirō and the others, surrounded in the center, formed a defensive formation and prepared to resist.
The more than twenty newly arrived shinobi, however, had no reservations whatsoever.
With their Fear Armor activated, they charged straight into the crowd.
Since these people had rejected Lord Kei’s goodwill and had developed intentions they should never have had, hatred had naturally been born between them.
And once hatred existed, the only way to end it was to kill every adult who possessed memories of this incident.
Azusa Sai felt that the children under three years old, who were too young to retain memories, could be spared.
This was not mercy toward the red-eyed people.
It was simply a way to give Lord Kei an answer.
At the same time, it would also allow them to undermine the Kōga Group a little.
Wasn’t it only natural for the Iga Group to target the Kōga Group?
That useless Gen’nosuke was the representative of the Kōga Group. He was not worthy of Lord Kei’s attention.
The Iga Group was clearly more reliable.
Azusa Sai could not understand it.
Who knows what that Gen’nosuke brat was thinking? He spent so much money and got nothing in return. Does he really think he’s Lord Kei’s illegitimate son?
Just because Lord Kei called him "Young Master," the boy really started treating himself like a young lord.
Azusa Sai found this naive little master of the Kōga Group both irritating and amusing.
On the battlefield, the one-sided nature of the battle had become painfully obvious.
The red-eyed people knew no ninjutsu and had absolutely no means of attacking the Uchiha once they activated their Fear Armor.
Twenty men charged into a crowd of more than a thousand as though they were cutting through an army single-handedly.
The power of fear was so overwhelming that even the more cowardly red-eyed people dared not fight back.
They could only watch helplessly as they were slaughtered.
More than a thousand people were divided apart by twenty men.
There was nowhere to run.
There was no way to fight.
Even those who dropped to their knees and surrendered were not spared by these newly arrived warriors.
Hong Malu, who had been excitedly clinging to Gen’nosuke only moments earlier, finally broke down.
Looking at the stunned Gen’nosuke, Hong Malu once again fell to his knees and begged.
He grabbed Gen’nosuke’s sleeve, tears streaming down his face.
"Lord Gen’nosuke, please tell them to stop! We meant no harm. This was all a misunderstanding!"
Gen’nosuke merely stood there dumbfounded, saying nothing.
He still could not understand why things had turned out this way.
Wasn’t I good to the red-eyed people?
Every second of delay meant dozens, or even hundreds, more red-eyed people died.
Seeing that Gen’nosuke remained unmoved, another red-eyed man finally lost control.
He drew his blade and seized Gen’nosuke, holding him hostage.
"Stop! Otherwise, I’ll kill your young master!"
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