After two weeks of traveling, Ren, Ino, and Hinata finally reached the bandit camp they were supposed to wipe out. They hid in the nearby treeline as they observed their targets.

The camp was located on the topmost north-western side of the Land of Fire, where their country bordered the Land of Grass. It was also conveniently placed in the very opposite direction from the Land of Waves.

In fact, it was the furthest place in the Land of Fire from the Land of Waves. It was pretty much impossible to get any further from that damned place and still stay within the Land of Fire.

That was deliberate on Ren’s part.

There was just no way he would go anywhere close to the Land of Waves. Missions in that direction always went fwucky-wucky for him. Always!

It’s not paranoia when they are out to get you!

He had his students with him so he didn’t need any… unscheduled excitement.

Looking at the girls, Ren couldn’t help but chuckle at the looks of utter happiness when they saw the bandit camp. They were pretty jittery about killing despite the years of desensitization the academy put them through but after their two-week-long camping trip across the Lands of Fire, the girls just wanted to get it over with and go home.

Ren would call them pussies. If he wasn’t pretty much the same. He was far less inconvenienced than them thanks to his many ‘Quality of Life’ techniques and seals. But he absolutely hated camping in the wilderness too.

Honestly, they could have gotten to the camp within two days after leaving Konoha, something the girls were definitely going to notice on their way back and Ren couldn’t wait to see their expressions.

They were not focused enough to notice they headed south instead of north after leaving the village.

Ren took them on a ‘joy run’ through the Land of Fire first, going south, then heading west, and leading them north from there, while showing them the land. He pointed out the location of important cities. The locations of bounty-collection houses. And he showed them the ninja outposts Konoha had all over the country.

Of course, they never entered any of them. Ren mainly focused on teaching them essential things they needed to know when camping but showing them where they could hide, find accommodations, or get help if something went wrong in case they found themselves on a mission in these parts of their country was just common sense.

And anyway, it was their fault they did not notice they were being led in a completely opposite direction from where their mission target was.

Ren was going to chew their heads for it after they came back to Konoha. He kinda expected better awareness from them but he wasn’t going to be too hard on them because of it. He had his own idiot moments where he missed the obvious.

These things happen.

He was just glad to notice that the girls had a massive hole in their education when it came to general knowledge so he was going to need to focus on that in the future too. It was such a massive drag.

The academy was great at training future ninjas. The kids were taught a lot of essential basics of ninja life. But they were not taught much else.

“Ino,” Ren put his hand on the blonde’s shoulder, getting her attention. “I know you could probably take control of all of them with your self-made clan jutsu bullshit before making them commit suicide.” He gave the blonde a pointed look, “But don’t.”

And just like that, the glad looks of his students dimmed and their nervosity was back in full force as they realized that this was it. Their first kill.

Ino opened her mouth to argue. Ren could see the indignation in her eyes. But then she just deflated and sullenly nodded as she summoned her sword from the storage seal on her wrist.

Ren gave her a reassuring smile before he relocated his hand from her shoulder to her head and gently ruffled her hair, making her give him an embarrassed scowl with just the barest hints of a happy smile behind it.

“You want us to kill them in close-range combat.” Hinata put what Ino understood into words, her tone gaining an undertone of silent dread.

“Yes.” Ren admitted and noticed that Hinata was clutching her hands so tightly that her knuckles became white. He took her right hand and tried to comfortingly squeeze it. And it did help to calm Hinata down a bit but she was still slightly shaking.

“These people should be no problem for you. They are ordinary civilian bandits.” He glanced at Hinata who activated her Byagukan and nodded at him. Good. There was no ninja hidden among them. “I also made sure that people in that camp are scum who revel in murder and rape. They destroyed and looted several nearby villages, torturing men and boys to death while raping the women and girls before killing them.”

Ren really did not need Ino and Hinata’s first kill to be some misguided unfortunate kids who stole to feed their younger siblings. Shit like that could cause a lifetime of trauma.

He put a damn good effort into ensuring his girls would go against the scum they could easily justify killing to themselves. This needed to be done if they were to become kunoichi. But there was no need to be a dick about it and have them kill innocent kids to blood them.

Look at Danzo and see how that was working out for him. Making children live together for years, enough to become best friends, and then tell them they need to kill the other for their first kill because only one of them will be allowed to live?

Sure, it created stone-cold killers but Danzo had decades to set up his ROOT and it was still a pretty shit organization all things considered.

There were reasons why the other villages never quite sunk that low. Or why the only village that did, the Kirigakure, was pretty much widely known as the weakest and was always having civil unrest. Even Suna was in a better position despite their huge problems and literally being located in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere in the desert.

“Don’t worry about us. We can do this.” Ino smirked, giving Hinata a taunting look. “Right, bitch?”

It served well to make Hinata tear her gaze from the bandit camp as she turned her eyes to Ino with a small frown, “… Yes. The bimbo is correct.” She released a slow sigh and the tension left her as her shoulders slightly sagged while she squeezed Ren’s hand back. “We can do this.”

With that, Ren let the girls be. The stage was theirs.

It took them ten more minutes to gather their nerves. No matter how much Ino boasted, Ren saw that she had to wipe her sweaty palms on her skirt a few times during these ten minutes.

Hinata tried to do some breathing exercises to keep herself calm while chewing on her lower lip.

Ren almost thought the girls would chicken out, but then, they suddenly shared a glance, released the gravity seals on them, and sprang forward from the tree, almost blurring toward the bandit camp.

Ruefully chuckling to himself, Ren felt melancholic, looking at the sky. If possible, he would have preferred if his students stayed the innocent wide-eyed naive girls they were when he met them for the first time.

This world… was really rotten.

It put a sour taste in his mouth that he was now a cog in the brutal system they had over here.

Three minutes later, the girls were done. All thirty bandits were dead. Just as Ren predicted, it wasn’t even a struggle. The girls were simply too fast as Hinata used her gentle fist and Ino used her sword to decimate the bandits. Ren was just glad they stayed focused during the fight and had their breakdown only after the threat was neutralized.

Ren walked into the silent camp, noticing that Ino was looking at her bloodied sword with a frown as slashed bodies surrounded her and a puddle of blood was forming under her feet.

Hinata sat in a W-sitting position a bit further away, silently crying as undamaged bodies surrounded her, the bandits looking as if they were sleeping instead of deceased.

With a sigh, Ren came closer to the Hyuga girl and kneeled next to her before hugging her. She instantly pressed her head into his shoulder and started sobbing, making Ren feel even worse as he put his hand on Hinata’s head and tried to comfort her by soothingly caressing her head.

He gave Ino a questioning look, but the blonde just continued giving her blade a forlorn look.

Seeing that she wasn’t paying attention, he spoke, “Ino?”

The blonde girl slightly flinched and abruptly turned toward him, only to blink several times before she slightly shook her head.

“I am fine. I just…”

“Yes?”

“I expected to feel bad, ya know?” Ino said, sounding somewhat upset. “Does that make me a bad person?” She frowned, looking a bit bothered at that question.

“Come here.” Ren invitingly spread his left arm. Hinata took his right side but there was enough space for one more to join their hug.

Ino just huffed at him, an amused glint entering her blue eyes but she didn’t argue and just put her sword back into her storage seal before leaping toward Ren and tightly cuddling to his left side and nuzzling her face into his neck with happy, satisfied voices and silent squeal while completely ignoring the bodies around them.

It was so out there for their current situation and surroundings that even Hinata released a few giggles through her sobs and Ren smiled as he put his left arm around Ino’s shoulders, pulling her closer to him.

Now, if only the kneeling position he was in was not so damn uncomfortable.

Well, he could bear it for a few minutes more but after that… Ren’s eyes looked at the camp around him. It was in pristine condition if he didn’t take into account all the corpses and puddles of blood.

But it wasn’t going to loot and destroy itself. Nor were the corpses going to bury themselves unless Ino somehow pulls necromancy out of her ass next.

Ren wouldn’t be that surprised. But he wasn’t that lucky.

A few minutes passed and Ren decided it was time to continue in their task. Peeking down at his girls fully relaxed in his arms, a smirk involuntarily appeared on his face.

“You do realize the cleaning duty is still waiting for you, right?”

Both girls froze in his embrace and he couldn’t help but laugh. Yup. Being a ninja was not all about flashy and cool battles while saving princesses.

Sucks to suck.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep