At dawn the next day, Shinra sat on the floor of his house, his sword quietly placed in front of him.
The pale morning light slipped through the window, illuminating the room faintly, yet despite the calm atmosphere, his thoughts remained unusually restless.
'I wasn't able to sleep much yesterday.'
Kurosawa's words continued echoing inside his mind no matter how much he tried to focus elsewhere.
"A broken path."
"Hesitation will get you and those around you killed."
"As long as you remain true to your own ninja way…"
Shinra stared silently at the blade resting before him.
For the last few months, his life had fallen into a repetitive rhythm.
Train.
Study fuinjutsu.
Spar.
D-rank missions.
Repeat.
Yet today was different.
Today would be his first C-rank mission.
For the first time since arriving in this world, Shinra found himself standing directly before the reality he had spent years subconsciously avoiding.
Shinra slowly reached toward the sword and pulled it from its sheath slightly.
The polished steel reflected his own eyes back toward him.
Cold.
Unsettlingly calm.
'Will I hesitate?'
That was the question that had kept him awake throughout most of the night.
Not because he feared battle itself.
Not even because he feared death.
Rather—
He feared what would happen if taking a life became easy, would he remain the same after such an act?
Ever since he had arrived in Naruto's world he knew that such a day would come if he decided to be a ninja, yet his desire for the supernatural powers overshadowed those concerns and now he was merely experiencing the other side of being a ninja.
Shinra quietly pushed the blade back into its sheath before standing up.
A few moments later, he arrived at Training Ground Nineteen.
Yogi was already waiting there with his usual relaxed posture while Hyori and Inumaki stood nearby. Yoshimaru rested quietly beside his owner.
The atmosphere felt noticeably different from normal training days. Even Yoshimaru seemed more serious than usual.
Yogi glanced toward the group before speaking, "Our mission assignment has already been approved. A merchant caravan traveling toward the southern outskirts of the Land of Fire requested shinobi protection after several reports of bandit attacks along the route."
C-rank.
The moment the word settled in the air, the atmosphere around the group shifted slightly.
Yogi's eyes swept calmly across the expressions of his students before continuing, "Ordinarily, bandits tend to scatter the moment they see shinobi. However, desperation can make people dangerous, especially those with nothing left to lose."
His gaze lingered briefly on Shinra.
"And one more thing." Yogi's voice lost some of its usual casualness. "Once combat begins, hesitation can get your teammates killed."
For a brief moment, Kurosawa's words overlapped almost perfectly with Yogi's.
"No, hesitation will get you and those around you killed."
Shinra silently lowered his eyes.
Not long afterward, Team Eight departed from Konoha alongside the merchant caravan they were assigned to escort.
The caravan itself was relatively small, consisting of only three wagons guarded by several nervous-looking workers. The merchant leading the group appeared to be a middle-aged man constantly wiping sweat from his forehead despite the cool morning weather.
Shinra quietly observed the surrounding forest while walking near the side of the caravan.
The deeper they traveled away from Konoha, the quieter the atmosphere gradually became.
At some point, even the sound of birds seemed to disappear completely.
"Fourteen chakra signatures arriving rapidly from 2 o'clock and are trying to encircle us, prepare for combat." Shinra who was using his sensory jutsu informed his teammates.
Almost simultaneously Hyori activated her Byakugan and Inumaki moved closer to the caravan whose faces turned pale.
Yogi raised a hand and signalled the caravan to stop.
"Follow the protocol." Yogi's eyes narrowed slightly towards the forest. "Stay alert."
Several figures suddenly rushed out from the trees holding crude blades and rusted weapons, their eyes full of malice.
They were clearly ill-equipped to fight shinobi and their movements lacked the finesse of trained bandits, yet the killing intent in their eyes was disturbingly obvious.
One of the bandits immediately charged toward the nearest wagon while another rushed directly towards the merchants.
"Protect the clients," Yogi ordered calmly as he cut down one of the bandits using a short blade.
Everything afterwards happened extremely quickly.
Hyori intercepted one of the attackers almost instantly and struck his body's vital points in rapid succession with the Gentle Fist, the man didn't even have the time to scream before he was down.
Inumaki slammed both of his hands against the ground and raised a wall of earth to block the bandit who was attempting to reach the caravan.
Shinra moved without consciously thinking. One of the bandits suddenly emerged from his side with a short blade held tightly in his trembling hands. The man looked terrified and desperate. Yet despite the fear visible across his face, his weapon still lunged forward towards Shinra's throat.
Shinra didn't sidestep the attack, he stared the man straight into his eyes and in one clean motion, the sword resting at his waist was unsheathed and slashed through the man's neck decapitating him.
For a brief second, the world in Shinra's eyes seemed to freeze and in the next moment, blood gushed like a fountain splattering across the dirt and Shinra's face.
The bandit's body collapsed onto the ground.
Shinra stood still, but before he could process his first kill another two bandits rushed at him from opposite sides causing him to snap out of his stupor.
As the first bandit approached from behind, Shinra sidestepped him and kicked him towards the other approaching bandit causing them to collide, and yet before they could separate a sword stabbed through both of their chests and immediately continued slashing downwards exiting from their lower part.
Around him, the battle continued normally.
Hyori was restraining another attacker. Inumaki and Yoshimaru were protecting the caravan together. Yogi calmly stood amidst a pile of six corpses and observed the battlefield silently.
After confirming that there were no more enemies, Shinra's attention locked onto the corpses before him.
'…That's it.'
His hand tightly wrapped around the hilt of his sword, but he unexpectedly did not feel the sense of repulsion that Kurosawa had experienced, all he felt was pity towards these bandits.
This realization disturbed him more than the killing itself.
Eventually, the sound of fighting had ceased and silence slowly returned to the road afterward.
Several merchants shakily thanked Team Eight repeatedly while trying to calm themselves down.
Yogi slowly walked toward Shinra before stopping beside him.
"You alright?" he asked calmly.
Shinra's eyes remained fixed on the decapitated head lying nearby. The man's eyes were still open. Even in death, his eyes showed fear and confusion.
'Attacking even after knowing that they stand no chance, is this their conviction?'
Yogi's hand landed on Shinra's head, "We will reach the campsite shortly, go take a wash by the river downstream, and then come meet us near the hills east of here."
Shinra turned his blue eyes towards him and nodded briefly.
By now Yogi had been Shinra's team instructor for more than half a year, and he had clearly noticed the change in Shinra's gaze just now, but unfortunately, this is a step that every shinobi will eventually take.
Shinra walked past the corpses scattered across the road and eventually reached the river flowing quietly a short distance away from the battlefield.
The sound of running water mixed strangely with the lingering smell of blood in the air.
For a moment, Shinra simply stood there silently.
Then he slowly crouched beside the riverbank and looked down toward the reflection staring back at him from the surface of the water.
Blood covered parts of his face and hair, yet his eyes remained steady.
Shinra stared at his own reflection for several long seconds before finally lowering one hand into the cold river.
The moment the water touched his skin, faint ripples distorted the image staring back at him.
He quietly splashed water across his face.
The blood slowly began dissolving into the river, turning the clear water crimson for a brief moment before being carried away by the current.
Shinra watched silently as the red color gradually disappeared downstream.
'…That's all it takes.'
Killing those bandits was very easy. one sword swing and they were dead. The most uncomfortable part, however was not the corpse nor the blood, it wasn't even the sensation of cutting through flesh and bone.
It was the fact his mentality had adapted almost instantly.
The moment the battle resumed after his first kill, hesitation had completely disappeared from his movements.
His sword moved naturally throughout the battle as though he had already accepted such massacres long before today.
Shinra lowered his eyes slightly toward his hands.
Kurosawa had said he felt repulsed after his first kill.
Yet Shinra found himself unable to fully understand that feeling.
What he felt instead was pity.
Pity toward those bandits who knowingly rushed towards death despite understanding they stood no chance against shinobi.
'Is this what it means to become a ninja?
To gradually grow accustomed to death until it simply became another part of daily life.'
Shinra quietly clenched his hand beneath the water. Yet the river continued flowing quietly afterward, carrying the last traces of blood further downstream.