The squad's first mission was classified as Rank-A due to the brutality of the attacks along the border, but the reality was more decayed than that. The target was a bandit camp that had been raiding Konoha's supply caravans.
As the team leapt through the branches toward the objective, Captain Nara, either trying to break the ice or probe the rookie's mindset, broke the silence.
— Hey, Shorty — Nara said, his voice muffled behind the Boar mask. — Ever taken a life before? The file says you're a genius, but paper doesn't bleed.
Shin kept moving, his gaze fixed ahead.
— No. This will be the first.
Eagle and Nara exchanged a quick glance beneath their masks. They expected hesitation. They expected that, at the critical moment, the six-year-old would need cover—or that his eyes would falter.
When they reached the camp, the scene was miserable. They weren't rogue ninja with slashed headbands. They were villagers who had lost everything in the war—men and women with calloused hands from the soil, now gripping rusted axes and kitchen knives, stealing just to survive.
— They're just armed civilians — Eagle whispered, preparing a containment approach. — We'll immobilize them and—
Shin didn't wait for the command.
He dropped from the branch like a heavy shadow. To Nara and Eagle's shock, he didn't enter meditation. He didn't use Latent Induction. He drew his kunai and advanced with purely physical ferocity.
What followed wasn't a fight—it was a systematic execution.
Shin moved through the bandits with biomechanical precision. He didn't just seek the killing blow; he sought total interruption. The first man was struck in the jugular, hot blood spraying across Shin's gray uniform. Without stopping, the boy pivoted, using the corpse as a shield to close in on another. He brutalized each of them. The sound of breaking bones and the metallic scent of blood filled the camp in seconds.
There was no chakra use. Only the dry sound of steel cutting flesh and the impact of Taijutsu strikes aimed at destroying joints before ending lives.
When the last "bandit" fell, the silence that remained was sickening. Shin stood at the center of the massacre, his cat mask stained red, his clothes soaked. He didn't look like a child—he looked like a cutting instrument that had forgotten how to stop.
Nara and Eagle descended from the trees, their feet touching the blood-soaked ground with hesitation. The chill they had felt in the locker room was nothing compared to the visceral discomfort they felt now.
— You… — Nara began, his voice faltering for a moment. — They were just desperate villagers, Shin. You butchered them. Didn't you feel… any pity?
Shin sheathed his tantō with a metallic click. The sound seemed to slice through the air.
— I don't pity the weak — he replied, his voice as cold as the steel he had just put away. — In the ninja world, desperation is not an excuse for weakness. Those who threaten the village's order must be eliminated.
He turned his back on the bodies and began walking out of the camp. As he adjusted the strap of his equipment bag, a slight tremor in his right hand didn't go unnoticed by the trained eyes of Eagle and Nara.
But it wasn't shock or guilt.
It was excess adrenaline—and the residual strain of forcing a small body to output that level of physical power against adults. The tremor wasn't a sign of emotional weakness, but the byproduct of an engine too powerful for the frame that housed it.
— Look at his hand, Nara — Eagle whispered. — That's not fear. It's like his body is vibrating to keep killing.
Nara didn't answer. He realized that "Shorty" wasn't just protecting Konoha—he was becoming something the village itself might one day struggle to contain.