Cursed World.

Naginaga walked towards Tachibana with the other bandits still confused as to why their leader was acting the way he was, but they all unsheathed their blades.

Naginaga rushed towards Tachibana alone with his sword drawn, but instead of running away or buying time, Tachibana rushed back into the fight.

Naginaga's swing was well telegraphed and slow because of his injury so Tachibana was able to dodge the first one and get up close to Naginaga.

And before Naginaga could react, Tachibana kicked the kunai that was stuck in his body to drill it even deeper. Using Naginaga's body as footing Tachibana jumped back once again.

Naginaga *growled* in pain and was about to pull out the kunai embedded into his body but almost on instinct Tachibana threw a bunch of shuriken in his direction to distract him.

Naginaga easily blocked them with his sword and it was at this point that they all realised that Tachibana was a shinobi.

One of the guards even shouted, "The children are missing! Catch him!!! Don't let him go!"

Naginaga rushed towards Tachibana once again to swing his sword, this time even taking care not to telegraph his attack so much since Tachibana was stronger than he appeared to be.

Except as soon as Naginaga arrived in slashing distance, Tachibana pulled on a wire that he was holding.

'Wire?' Naginaga thought with confusion. Except he didn't get the time to process what he saw since he felt an unholy amount of pain on the left side of his body.

Tachibana had pulled out the kunai from Naginaga's body because it was attached to the wire.

Naginaga swung his sword at Tachibana but he just caught it between his fingers and thumb since there was no strength behind the swing.

With a simple tug, Tachibana pulled away the sword from Naginaga's hands as the man lay on the ground bleeding out.

All the other bandits froze in place. Becoming stunned at how easily their captain had died, in seconds.

Even Tachibana was a little stunned. His stomach quenched due to disgust as he saw Naginaga's dying gaze, he could see the betrayl in them, until they turned hollow since he'd died.

'Such fragile life is…'

Tachibana did his best to keep a smile on his face as he spoke calmly, but his voice quivered "When'll you help me? After I die? Or when you'll join me in pure land?"

The bandits snapped out of their confusion and immediately rushed towards Tachibana "KILL HIMM!!!!!!!!"

The death of their captain had confused the heck out of them and enraged them like nothing else could have. They all rushed towards Tachibana who looked at it all with a smile on his face, even though it was twitching as he looked at them and bowed.

"Thank you for attending my show."

Almost immediately, everyone heard kunai's flying through the air. The kunai pierced into the heads of a few bandits before they realised what was happening and ducked away.

But it was too late.

"EXPLOSION TAG-"

*BOOOOOOMMMMMM* *BOOOOOOMMMMMM* *BOOOOOOMMMMMM* *BOOOOOOMMMMMM*

Multiple explosion tags went off, taking down nearby bandits with them as Tachibana got up from his bow and nearly wretched at the disgusting scene of bodyless parts and partless bodies in front of him.

But he worked hard to keep his smile, even though his gaze held boundless sorrow.

'A cursed world.'

'That's what this is.'

'I'd a nice life before all this.'

'Why'd I get reincarnated here?'

Tachibana saw a few people crawling because they'd lost their limbs in the explosion. Before he could act and put them out of their misery, Maruboshi jumped down from a tree and tossed a kunai which pierced the man's head, killing him instantly.

Tachibana felt burdened by all the lives he'd just helped take. He didn't want to stay in this place anymore when only a few minutes ago he was laughing, smiling, singing and dancing with all the bandits here.

'Cursed world…'

Maruboshi walked up to Tachibana, looked at the dead Naginaga and nodded after patting his back, "Good job. I was going to help you fight him but you worked efficiently. Hold onto this, I found them in the camp."

Maruboshi said giving Tachibana a scroll and sending him out of the camp, "Just outside the camp, on the cliff, I left the children who you saved there. The rest were already sold. But those documents list out the sellers and the next sale. Look through them. You were right, they were Samurais."

Tachibana gave one last look at the carnage in front of him before turning around and leaving.

As he walked he cursed himself several times but then shook his head and suppressed it all.

He took out the scroll that Maruboshi had given him and read through it.

The scroll was the record journal of some random bandit.

'It seems they really were from the Land of Iron after all. Although they'd gone rouge and had bounties placed on their heads.'

'They were unhappy with the Land of Iron submitting to the Shinobi Nations so easily and wanted to break the deal by killing the messengers between the two villages.'

'It was also why they got into the business of selling kids in the Land of Fire. They wanted to kill the shinobi team that would be sent to investigate them so that they could sour the relationship between the nations further.'

'It was also why they were so obvious with their tracks.'

'They never intended not to be found at all.'

'They wanted to kill one team and then leave to another spot and repeat the same thing until the deal fell through.'

'I guess each village has its own Danzo.'

'No. These guys are still slightly better than Danzo.'

'They don't kill the shinobi of their own village. They only killed the shinobi of other villages.'

'*sigh* this is just depressing.'

Tachibana stuffed the scroll back into his dress. That was when he noticed he'd been dragging along the Kunai that he had pierced and pulled out of Naginaga's chest.

Tachibana looked at it for a few minutes and then examined himself. Several drops of blood had gotten on his dress. 

He pulled out a scroll and stored away the kunai along with the wire attached to it.

'Fucked up world…'

When Tachibana finally scaled the cliff and saw the children who were huddled around a fire he felt his burden ease slightly. Not all of it was taken away, but it felt more manageable somehow.

*CRACK*

A twig under his feet cracked and the children finally noticed him.

The dark night, combined with the red glow from the campfire that cast long shadows on Tachibana's painted face caused a shiver to run through their spine. A brave one quickly picked up a stick which he pointed at Tachibana and shouted, "Go away! We're under the protection of a shinobi–san!"

Tachibana found it amusing as a well-meaning smile showed up on his face automatically as a plan graced his mind.

And then shocking the five children, Tachibana used the body flicker jutsu to appear behind the boy and grab his stick and neck in a lock.

"Hahahaha~ Now that I'm here no one can stop me anymore!!!!!"

The kids immediately gathered tears in their eyes. Their once bright eyes fell dull. Many even imagined their deaths but Tachibana's next actions surprised them.

"You shall be punished for threatening the almighty fool!!! Your punishment isssssss!!!!"

"FACING THE TICKLEE MONSTERRRRRRR!!!!!!"

Soon the cliff was a mess of children rolling on the ground, getting dirt in their hair and dress as they laughed. Some nearly laughed to death at how much Tachibana 'tortured' them.

'Yes. This. This is the life I'd like to live.'

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A/N : What next?