They stepped off the road and into the village, boots and sandals sinking slightly where the dirt had been torn up.
A gate hung open on one hinge near the first house, wood split at the latch. A broken fence leaned inward a few feet ahead, one post half-pulled from the ground.
Roen's eyes stayed low doorways, drag marks in the dirt, scattered grain near a wall where a sack had burst and been left.
Itachi watched higher. Roof edges. Alley mouths. The dark under a raised awning.
Genryu slowed just enough for both of them to take it in without stopping.
The village had the shape of ordinary life and none of its movement. A cooking pot lay on its side near a doorstep with dried residue blackened along the rim. One curtain shifted lightly in an open window, but there was no one behind it. Roen stepped around a broken board and saw where something heavy had been dragged through the center lane, not once, several times, cutting two parallel grooves before vanishing into packed ground near the square. Genryu took them left instead of straight through, using the wall line and keeping the open street off-center.
Roen's foot stopped just short of a patch of disturbed dirt near a doorway. Not old. The top layer had been scuffed over badly, like someone had stepped there after the first tracks had settled and tried not to leave more.
He didn't crouch. Didn't point.
His gaze passed over it and kept moving.
Someone's still here.
Genryu's hand lowered slightly at his side.
Their pace shifted.
More careful.
Itachi edged in slightly as the path narrowed. A broken wall on one side. A low shed on the other.
Genryu stepped through first.
Something dropped from the left.
A blade came down with it.
Roen moved before the shadow fully cleared the edge. His shoulder turned, hand rising, forearm catching the attacker's wrist just above the cut. The man's weight was still coming down when Roen stepped through the landing and turned him hard into the wall. Bone hit wood with a dull crack. The blade dropped. Roen let him fall and was already moving again.
Another rushed Itachi from the right side of the alley, shorter weapon, fast feet, trying to close before the boy's age finished registering.
Itachi stepped out of the first line instead of back, his kunai catching the strike near the hilt and sliding it off his body. Itachi's free hand hit the elbow, turned it, and his next step took the side angle clean. The counter came short and efficient. The man folded into the dirt without a shout.
A third came from behind the shed and tried to flank through the gap Genryu had left.
Genryu barely shifted.
His hand caught the man's face, not even a punch just a flat impact that stopped him. The body stumbled forward and Genryu's knee drove once into the midsection hard enough to empty it. The man collapsed on both hands, coughing at the ground.
The alley cleared as fast as it had tightened.
Roen didn't waste time checking the first one. He stepped over the dropped blade, eyes already on the square beyond the choke point. A fourth figure stood there now one hand on a short sword, the other low at his side. Older than the others. Cleaner stance. He'd watched the first three go down and still chosen to hold the center instead of flee.
That told Roen enough.
The man moved first.
Straight through the gap, sword cutting in at the neck to force the guard high before the real attack followed. Roen's eyes stayed on the blade as it came down the center, his foot already pushing to move
then it clicked.
Observation Haki.
The man's front foot pressed into the dirt
Roen moved.
The cut hadn't reached him yet. He was already outside it, shoulder turning past the line before the blade finished. The return started
he was already inside it.
His kunai touched the steel and pushed it off just enough that it never found him, his other hand already driving in at the wrist. The grip broke for a fraction.
He stepped through him.
Shoulder hit chest. Hard. The man's body folded back before his feet caught it. Roen didn't stop there. His leg hooked behind the knee and he turned straight through the weight, dragging him down and slamming him into the dirt with the sword trapped under him.
Roen went down with him.
Knee into the back. Weight settled.
The man tried to push up
nothing moved.
Roen's hand pressed over the wrist and peeled the fingers open until the sword dropped.
Roen lifted his head.
Across the square, someone was already running.
Itachi turned before anyone else spoke.
"They're trying to split."
He didn't chase directly. His eyes took the lane, the fence break, the stack of barrels near the corner, then he cut across diagonally and met the man where the path had to narrow again. The bandit saw him too late, changed direction, and lost the step. Itachi's kunai line came in tight, enough to stop the escape without drawing it into a messy fight. The man hit the fence, rebounded once, and went down with his hands over his head.
One body groaned near the wall. Another lay still in the square, breathing shallow through broken rhythm. Genryu stepped over the first attacker's blade and crouched near a dropped satchel that had spilled half-open when the ambush started. Roen dragged the leader upright by the collar just enough to pat him down quickly, then let him fall again when his fingers found folded paper tucked inside the vest.
He opened it once.
A route sketch.
Rough hand, but deliberate. Roads marked. Supply points notated with short symbols. One of the outer lines had a familiar pattern beside it Konoha route marks, badly copied.
Roen's thumb held the paper flat against the crease.
Genryu was already beside him by the time his thought finished. He took the page, scanned it once, then turned it toward the light without changing expression. Itachi stepped in on the other side, sharingan gone now, eyes on the ink instead of the bodies.
There were more marks deeper in the route than there should have been. Not hit-and-run looting. Selection. Pattern.
Genryu folded the paper once and looked toward the far side of the village where the road bent out behind the grain sheds.
"This isn't a C-rank mission."
The village around them stayed too quiet for what had just happened. Roen looked past the square and saw another set of tracks pressed into the dirt behind the main lane, newer than the drag marks, heading away from the houses instead of through them. The fence at the far end had been cut, not smashed. A choice had been made there.
Genryu straightened.
"They were hitting the roads," he said.
His gaze moved once between Roen and Itachi, then past both of them toward the trail leading out.
"Move."
They left the square together, stepping deeper into the village as the bodies and the broken lane fell behind them, and whatever this really was waited further in.