Arc 3 - Blood of the innocent

NOTE: I have a question for you guys. There are 2 reviews to this story that dont show up. I have recived an email about them, I can see them in my email but they dont show in webnovel. Someone knows why?

***

Ikarus's furious yell catches the attention of several people. They look at him but soon ignore him and go back to their business.

Ikarus approaches a man and grabs his shoulder.

"What happened here? Why are the corpses of that woman and those children there?"

The man tries to walk away without answering but the shinobi won't let him, he tightens his hold on him and the man lets out a groan.

"T-they're criminals." He stutters.

Ikarus's expression darkens even more. His eyes glitter dangerously.

"Criminals you say. Do you take me for a fool? That girl has no more than five namedays!"

The man pales even more and lets out a groan of pain. Ikarus had tightened his grip on him in his anger. Hearing the sound of the shoulder beginning to break, Ikarus lets go of the man. He tries to get away from the shinobi quickly and trips over his own feet falling on his ass to the ground. He crawls on the ground away from Ikarus and runs as soon as he can get up.

Ikarus looks around him and sees dozens of eyes on him. He thinks about asking other people but sees the hostility and mistrust in their eyes.

He knows he's not going to get answers, trying to figure out what happened is useless. No villager will give him any answer, at least not asking nicely.

'Damn bastards!' He clenches his fists and approaches the merchant selling flour. He wants to get his shopping done quickly and get away from this damned village as soon as possible.

"Two sacks of flour." His voice is dead serious and his eyes have a dangerous bright.

He does his shopping quickly and leaves the village.

On the way back he whinnies his teeth, the scene still fresh in his mind.

"No one is going to bury that family..."

Family, that's what those three poor souls are. All three had the same hair color and shared various facial features. A murdered family. Butchered.

"And no one is going to do anything-"

An idea blossoms in his mind.

***

A couple of hours later Ikarus returns to the village.

His cart is empty, he has left his purchases hidden in the woods.

He returns to the market and approaches a merchant, buys three cloaks and asks for the names of the deceased. At first the merchant doesn't want to say a word about the corpses but a small tip loosens his tongue.

The woman was called Mina, she was a laundress, and the children were Lucan and Alys. The husband of the deceased had died in the Rebellion, they have no living relatives.

Ikarus brings the cart closer to the posts, there he gets out of the cart and approaches the corpse of his mother. He makes a face at the smell.

He carefully unties Mina's corpse and wraps it in a cloak, then places it on the cart.

"What are you doing boy?!"

His actions attract a lot of attention, several people yell at him to stop- Some men try to force him to stop.

The shinobi is not in the mood and punches a man knocking him to the ground, pushing another man hard making him fall on his ass. He draws his sword from his baldric and looks menacingly around him.

"Does anyone want to test the edge of my sword?" The smile on his face is vicious and bloodthirsty. Combined with the fire in his eyes it scares the crowd.

Ikarus unties the other two corpses, wraps them in cloaks and places them next to their mother's corpse in the cart.

With the three corpses in his cart, Ikarus leaves the village.

***

After reaching the forest the shinobi walks down a narrow path through the trees to a small clearing. There are three holes in the ground, each in front of a beautiful tree.

He places each corpse in a grave, the little girl in the middle grave, the mother on the left and the boy on the right.

After covering the bodies with earth he makes an inscription on each tree.

Mina - Beloved mother and wife. R.I.P.

Lucan - Beloved son and brother. R.I.P.

Alys - Beloved daughter and sister. R.I.P.

"I've never seen myself in this kind of situation before. The only funeral I've attended in my adult life was that of a giant cat. I don't know what I'm supposed to say. But I'll say this: I wish you a peaceful rest, I hope you may find peace in the afterlife. Mina, Lucan, and Alys. I never met you, but I truly mourn your deaths from the bottom of my heart. All I can promise you is to find your killers and make them pay for their crimes. I'll give you my word."

***

`First I'll go back to the farm to drop off supplies and then I'll come back here to investigate the murder of this family. I'll tell the siblings I'm going on a hunting trip for several days. I don't think it will take more than five or six days to find the killer or killers.`

With a plan in mind and eyes shining with determination, Ikarus heads back to the farm. If it were up to him, he would do the whole trip without wasting time resting, but the horse needs to sleep and eat.

At dusk Ikarus sets up camp in a clearing in the forest a couple of hundred meters from the road.

He's barely hungry so he skips dinner and goes into his tent to sleep. The sooner he falls asleep, the sooner morning will come and he can continue his journey.

***

"I see smoke over there."

"Bastard won't know what hit him."

"That lil cunt thinks he can defy the Bloodbrothers?! He will pay with his blood!"

"Shut your mouth you ass. You will wake him."

"He Is just a boy, we are many- What can he do against us?"

"That boy broke a man's jaw in one punch. Boss told us to be careful"

"Bah, boss is here with us. That lil cunt cant do anything against Frosteye."

"Shut your mouths you bastards."

"Aye boss."

***

It is night, the moon is high in the sky, barely lighting the forest.

A group of armed men move stealthily through the trees. Their target is a couple of meters away: a small camp.

Three men surround the sleeping tent. A fourth opens the tent and looks at the sleeping child. The boy is young, no more than thirteen namedays, and handsome, his features are unlike any man or boy he has ever seen- he is a foreigner.

When the man bends down to grab the boy, one of his companions scares the horse. It neighs and stamps hard on the ground, making a lot of noise.

The boy's eyes snap open and he looks at the man crouching over him.

He kicks the man in the chest sending him flying out of the tent, draws his sword from his baldric and steps out ready for action.

Outside the tent he is overwhelmed by the number of armed men, there are more than a dozen of them. Three surrounding his tent, two next to the horse, four looking at the things he has in his cart and several more among the trees. All of them are armed with different weapons: swords, axes, spears, slingshots and maces.

Before he can process what's going on one of them lunges at him with an ax raised.

***

NOTE: He has the body of a shinobi but not his memories. I am not nerfing him, he is still inexperienced. He still has the 21st century civilian mentality.