Chapter 2: The First Lesson In Executing Justice
Uchiha Ikeizumi turned around and glanced back, immediately seeing a black long straight-haired girl standing hesitantly behind him.
“Senior Ikeizumi, I…… I……”
Izumi suddenly faltered, the intense gaze from Senior Uchiha Ikeizumi making her unconsciously tense up.
Clearly, she could muster the courage to communicate with other seniors, even with Clan Head Fugaku.
But in front of this “Uchiha Ikeizumi” senior, she was actually so nervous that she didn’t know what to say!
“Speak.”
Uchiha Ikeizumi said.
Izumi jolted and quickly introduced herself: “My name is Uchiha Izumi! I participated in this year’s Police Force rookie assessment, and when Clan Head Fugaku told me to select an assessor, I…… I chose you, Senior Ikeizumi, as my assessor.”
However, facing the sharp scrutinizing gaze of this Police Force senior right in front of her, her voice grew smaller and smaller.
In the end, she didn’t even dare to look up and meet Uchiha Ikeizumi’s eyes.
“Assessor? You chose me?”
Uchiha Ikeizumi looked at the girl, expressionlessly evaluating: “Though you look quite frail, at least your courage is commendable.”
Uchiha Ikeizumi forced a smile that didn’t reach his eyes: “Wanting to pass my assessment is simple too. Within a month, don’t give me any thought of killing you, and you’ll pass.”
“Oh, hold on, there’s a rat trying to escape.”
Izumi: “???”
Huh?
While Izumi was dumbfounded, she was shocked to see Uchiha Ikeizumi suddenly draw the ninja sword from his waist.
The ninja sword flashed a silver arc in midair, a streak of scarlet blood reflecting into Izumi’s sight.
The next second.
She watched wide-eyed as a short man suddenly pitched forward onto the ground.
—His left leg had been severed!
“Aaaahhh!!!”
The short man’s shrill screams of agony, along with the pervasive bloody smell in the air, were all stimulating Izumi’s psychological limits.
She instinctively stepped back half a pace.
So nervous that sweat beaded on her forehead.
“Uchiha Izumi.” Uchiha Ikeizumi flicked the blood off his blade.
“Huh?” Izumi, who had been worrying if the man on the ground would bleed out and die, hurriedly looked up in panic.
Uchiha Ikeizumi frowned: “When I call your name, you say ‘Here.’”
“Oh…… ah, here!”
Izumi hastily corrected herself.
“That quiet and you want to join the Police Force?” Uchiha Ikeizumi said coldly: “I can’t hear a thing you’re saying. Is this your resolve to join the Police Force? Can someone like you protect「 justice」? Why don’t you just go home and be a good girl!”
Clan Head Fugaku was right, Senior Ikeizumi really is so strict. Their first meeting, and she’d already been chewed out thoroughly.
Izumi could only steel herself.
Her little face turning red from the effort.
“HERE!!!!”
Seeing the senior’s cold expression soften slightly, Izumi finally breathed a little easier.
“Um……” Izumi hesitated.
“Speak.”
She hurriedly reminded him: “Senior, if this guy on the ground isn’t treated soon, he might bleed out and die.”
“How much longer can he live?” Uchiha Ikeizumi asked faintly, posing a question Izumi hadn’t expected.
She answered rapidly: “He might go into shock within 10 minutes.”
“Plenty of time.” Uchiha Ikeizumi said to Izumi: “Rookie, I have a task for you.”
Izumi swallowed nervously: “Senior, I haven’t learned medical ninjutsu. How about…… we take him to Konoha Hospital?”
Uchiha Ikeizumi glanced at her: “Who said anything about taking him to get treated?”
“Huh?” Izumi lost track of how many times she’d been dumbfounded today.
She stammered: “What the senior means is……”
Uchiha Ikeizumi handed over the ninja sword, and Izumi instinctively reached out to take it.
Uchiha Ikeizumi said impassively: “Prove to me your resolve to join the Police Force. Take this blade and interrogate this guy. Ask him—where is the child’s corpse. You have ten minutes. If you can’t get it out of him, then get lost. Don’t come find me tomorrow.”
Inter……
Interrogate?
Izumi was stunned. She couldn’t help looking around. This was one of Konoha Village’s busiest streets. Her gaze swept the surroundings—she couldn’t even count how many people were on this street!
Interrogate a commoner whose leg had been chopped off, right out in the open here?
And why ask specifically about the “child’s corpse”?
Is this the standard style of the Uchiha Police Force? Or is it just Senior Uchiha Ikeizumi’s personal way of doing things?
She tried to sneak a peek at Uchiha Ikeizumi’s expression.
She found this senior’s gaze gradually turning colder.
Izumi jolted in shock.
Reminders from Clan Head Fugaku and that female Police Force senior flashed through her mind.
——“Don’t defy his orders if you want to live.”
——“Good luck. Sometimes surviving is luck itself.”
Izumi was afraid.
She gripped the still-warm ninja sword by its hilt, cold sweat continuously beading on her smooth pale forehead.
Her strong survival instinct made her step forward a few paces, interrogating the short man clutching his severed leg and wailing: “You…… where did you hide that child’s corpse?!”
A flash of panic appeared in the short man’s eyes filled with pain and despair.
“Quick…… quick, take me to Konoha Hospital aaaah!”
He didn’t answer Izumi’s utterly unconfident interrogation, instead shouting in terror: “My head’s getting dizzier, the blood’s flowing more, am I gonna die?! Hurry and save me, I don’t want to die! Quick…… save me!!!”
I don’t want to die either—this was the cry in Izumi’s heart.
“Where exactly did you hide the child’s corpse?”
Izumi forced herself to stay calm. She believed Senior Ikeizumi wouldn’t have her ask this for no reason, and said urgently: “You have to answer my question quick, then I can take you to Konoha Hospital. You won’t last much longer!”
The short man kept shouting in terror: “I don’t know any child, I don’t know anything! Please, save me!”
“Senior……”
Izumi wanted to cast a pleading look at Uchiha Ikeizumi, but found this senior standing with arms crossed, watching coldly from the sidelines.
She couldn’t read the slightest emotion from those indifferent eyes.
She suddenly felt a suffocating illusion.
This feeling……
Izumi was very familiar with it.
On the Night of the Nine-Tails years ago, when she encountered that massive Nine-Tails monster, she had felt the exact same sensation—the despairing suffocation of her life about to end!
Izumi’s survival instinct overrode her sympathy. She steeled herself, grabbed the ninja sword, and pressed it to the short man’s neck, gritting her teeth: “Last chance! Where is the child’s corpse!”
The sharp blade had already chafed a thin bloodline on the short man’s neck.
The short man’s eyes widened in terror, the faint pain in his neck panicking him: “I…… I didn’t mean to…… I didn’t mean to kill her. You have to believe me! Really believe me! She…… she was my daughter after all……”
“I was just playing around with her then. I…… I didn’t think she’d die…… I threw her in the dry well in the courtyard.”
Izumi was utterly stunned.
The short man’s halting words revealed shocking information that shook her to her core— the man Senior Ikeizumi had her interrogate in public had killed his own daughter! And dumped her corpse in a dry well!
This was a murderer!
“Rookie. This is your first lesson in upholding「 justice」 with the Uchiha Police Force.” Uchiha Ikeizumi’s voice slowly sounded behind Izumi: “—Always carry out the orders I give you.”
“No questioning.”
“No resistance.”
“No mistakes.”
……
……
