Arc 3 - An assassin's awakening

Ikarus sneaks around the camp, using the tents as cover.

He sees a bandit somewhat removed from the others.

He draws his dagger and sneaks up. Behind the bandit he stands up, with one hand he covers his mouth and with the other he cuts his throat. It all takes less than two seconds.

When the bandit dies Ikarus drags his corpse to one of the empty tents. He puts it inside. He looks at his face and his clothes, memorizing them.

When he comes out of the tent his appearance is completely different. Instead of the twelve year old boy, his appearance is that of a grown man in his twenties.

He moves through the camp with confidence.

`As much as I wanted to kill them now, I can't. This is not a video game, the other bandits will notice if most of the guards disappear. I'll have to wait until most of them are asleep. Now I'm going to explore the camp a bit to get a better idea of ​​how many bandits there are.`

Ikarus walks around the camp counting the number of bandits, only at the gate there are five.

`Eight, ten, fifteen...`

By the time he reached the center of the camp he already counted sixteen guards.

`It's a big camp`

The scene before him makes his blood boil.

In the center of the camp there are a dozen bandits around some fires, some are drinking and talking to each other but others...

Others are raping multiple women.

The women make no attempt to fight or oppose, their bodies covered in bruises, some a nearly healed yellow, others fresh blue. But their eyes, their eyes were empty. These women have been at the mercy of these monsters for a long time and have given up hope. They have resigned themselves to their fate.

Ikarus clenches his fists so tight that his fingernails pierce his skin.

He quickly enters an empty tent just as his henge vanishes.

`Damn monsters! I'm going to kill them all!`

His eyes darken with rage, his emerald green turning to a dark green almost black.

`I want to go out there and start a carnage but-` Ikarus takes a deep breath trying to calm down a bit `If I start a fight now the prisoners might become collateral damage`

To prevent the women from becoming collateral damage, Ikarus has to wait until they are put back in their cages.

***

A couple of hours later most of the bandits are asleep in their tents. Ikarus moves through the camp transformed into one of the guards.

He enters a tent and sees two bandits lying in their sleeping bags, snoring peacefully.

Ikarus pulls out his dagger, crouches next to the first bandit, places one hand over his mouth, and with the other plunges the dagger into his neck. The bandit opens his eyes, tries to scream but Ikarus's hand muffles the sound. Soon the bandit is dead.

Eyes devoid of emotion, Ikarus crouches next to the second bandit. As the light leaves the bandit's eyes Ikarus cleans his dagger of blood and exits the tent.

The shinobi repeats the same procedure in almost all the tents, leaving only the largest tent, the leader's.

`22 down, 17 more to finish`

Ikarus was able to stealthily kill the sleeping bandits but he knows that he won't be able to do the same with the guards. At the gate there is now a group of eight bandits. The other eight guards are scattered around the camp.

`Those furthest away first`

Ikarus approaches a bandit near the wall.

He turns and looks at him, smirks at him.

"Afraid of the dark Ron?"

Ikarus moves closer to the bandit, entering his personal space. He looks at him and raises an eyebrow. Before he can open his mouth the shinobi moves like a cobra. One of his hands covers his mouth and the other plunges his dagger straight into his heart.

`23 down, 16 left`

The shinobi takes the corpse and puts it in a tent, where he throws it on top of the corpse of another bandit.

He leaves the tent and approaches another bandit.

The next two kills are stealthy and easy but the 26th and 27th kills get a bit tricky.

Two guards are talking to each other.

"-and then the brat yelled his father's name. He was hoping a fucking farmer could take down Giantborn!" They both laugh out loud

Ikarus approaches from behind and sticks a sword through the back of one of the bandits, piercing his heart, when he falls to his knees he also cuts his throat with his dagger.

All this takes three seconds.

The other bandit is frozen in shock, one moment his friend was laughing and the next he's on the ground with his throat slit and a sword stuck in his back.

His hand moves to his waist, where his ax is.

But he can't even touch his weapon or open his mouth as the shinobi lunges at him fast as lightning.

One hand covered his mouth and the other held the dagger. The dagger that is stuck in the bandit's chest.

`27 down, 12 left`

He approaches bandit number 28.

He is a few steps away when he hears screams coming from the other side of the camp.

Bandit number 28 runs towards the place where the screams come from.

"They are dead!"

"They're all dead!"

"There's an assassin in the camp!"

"Ring the bell!"

"Draw your weapons brothers, we are going to destroy the bastard who did this!"

Ikarus sighs and drops the transformation.

In the center of the camp, near the cages there is a bell. A bandit runs towards it, his hand touches the rope-

A sword goes through his chest and a dagger through his neck.

He falls dead to the ground.

Ikarus is behind him, a sword in his right hand and a dagger in his left hand. Both weapons were covered in blood.

"28 down, 11 left" He murmurs, his voice indifferent to the slaughter.

`About two months ago I was reluctant to kill a rabbit with my bare hands and now... These bastards deserve it. I will save my mercy for those worthy of it`