Chapter 2: The First Lesson in Executing [Justice]
Uchiha Ikeizumi turned around and saw a girl with long, black hair standing hesitantly behind him.
"Senior Ikeizumi, I… I…"
Izumi suddenly stammered, the sharp gaze from Senior Uchiha Ikeizumi making her instinctively nervous.
She could usually muster the courage to speak to other seniors, and even to Clan Head Fugaku.
But in front of Senior Uchiha Ikeizumi, she was so tense she didn't know what to say!
"Speak."
Uchiha Ikeizumi prompted.
Izumi jolted, quickly introducing herself, "My name is Uchiha Izumi! I'm here for this year's Police Force recruitment assessment, and when Clan Head Fugaku told me to pick an examiner, I… I chose you, Senior Ikeizumi, to be mine."
However, facing the sharp, scrutinizing gaze of the Police Force senior, her voice grew progressively smaller.
By the end, she didn't even dare to look Uchiha Ikeizumi in the eye.
"Examiner? You chose me?"
Uchiha Ikeizumi looked at the girl, evaluating her with a poker face. "While you appear frail, at least your courage is commendable."
Uchiha Ikeizumi forced out a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Passing my assessment is simple. For one month, just don't make me want to kill you, and you'll pass."
"Oh, wait a moment, a rat is trying to escape."
Izumi: "???"
Huh?
As Izumi stood bewildered, she watched in shock as Uchiha Ikeizumi suddenly drew the ninja sword from his waist.
The blade arced a silver flash through the air, and a splash of crimson blood entered Izumi's vision.
The next second.
She watched, wide-eyed, as a short man suddenly collapsed to the ground.
—The man's left leg had been severed!
"Ahhhhhh!!!"
The short man's agonizing screams and the scent of blood permeating the air assaulted Izumi's psychological endurance.
She instinctively took half a step back.
Sweat beaded on her forehead from the tension.
"Uchiha Izumi." Uchiha Ikeizumi flicked the blood from his blade.
"Huh?" Izumi, who had been worried the man on the ground might bleed to death, hastily looked up in alarm.
Uchiha Ikeizumi frowned. "When I call your name, you are to respond with 'Here!'"
"Oh… ah, here!"
Izumi stumbled over her words.
"So quiet, and you want to join the Police Force?" Uchiha Ikeizumi said coldly. "I can't even hear what you're saying. Is this your resolve for joining the Police Force? Can someone like you uphold the word [Justice]? You might as well go home and be a good little girl!"
Clan Head Fugaku was right; Senior Ikeizumi was truly strict. She'd been thoroughly chewed out on their very first meeting.
Izumi could only grit her teeth.
Her face flushed crimson from the effort.
"HERE!!!!"
Seeing the coldness in the senior's eyes soften slightly, Izumi let out a small sigh of relief.
"Um…" Izumi hesitated.
"Speak."
She quickly warned, "Senior, if the man on the ground isn't treated quickly, he might bleed to death."
"How much longer will he live?" Uchiha Ikeizumi asked a question that Izumi hadn't expected.
She answered quickly, "He might go into shock within 10 minutes."
"Plenty of time," Uchiha Ikeizumi told Izumi. "New recruit, I have a task for you."
Izumi swallowed hard. "Senior, I haven't learned medical ninjutsu. How about… we take him to the Konoha Hospital instead?"
Uchiha Ikeizumi glanced at her. "Who said anything about taking him for treatment?"
"Huh?" Izumi had lost count of how many times she'd been dumbfounded today.
She stammered, "Senior, do you mean…"
Uchiha Ikeizumi handed over his ninja sword, and Izumi instinctively reached out and took it.
Uchiha Ikeizumi said with a completely placid expression, "Prove to me your resolve to join the Police Force. Take this sword and interrogate this guy. Ask him—where is the child's body? You have ten minutes. If you can't get an answer, then you can go back home. You don't need to come find me tomorrow."
Inter…
Interrogate?
Izumi was stunned. She couldn't help but look around; this was one of Konoha Village's most bustling streets. Scanning her surroundings, she couldn't count how many people were on this street!
Interrogate a civilian with a severed leg openly here?
And why did he ask about "the child's body"?
Was this standard procedure for the Uchiha Police Force? Or was this just Senior Uchiha Ikeizumi's personal style?
She tried to sneak a glance at Uchiha Ikeizumi's eyes.
She saw that the senior's gaze was growing colder.
Izumi was suddenly startled.
The warnings from Clan Head Fugaku and the female Police Force senior flashed through her mind.
—"Do not defy his orders, if you wish to survive."
—"Good luck to you, sometimes just surviving is a form of luck."
Izumi was terrified.
She gripped the still-warm hilt of the ninja sword in her hand, cold sweat continuously breaking out on her smooth, pale forehead.
A powerful survival instinct made her take a few steps forward and interrogate the short man, who was clutching his severed leg and wailing. "You… you hid that child's body… where… where did you hide it?!"
A flicker of panic crossed the short man's painful, despairing eyes.
"Quick… quick, send me to Konoha Hospital, ahhh!"
He didn't answer Izumi's hesitant interrogation, but instead shouted in terror, "My head's getting dizzier, and I'm bleeding more and more! Am I going to die?! Please, save me, I don't want to die! Quick… quick, save me!!!"
I don't want to die either—that was Izumi's inner scream.
"Where did you hide the child's body?!"
Izumi tried to calm herself. She believed Senior Ikeizumi wouldn't ask this question without reason. She quickly said, "You only need to answer this question, and then I can send you to Konoha Hospital. You won't last much longer!"
The short man continued to shout in terror, "I don't know anything about a child, I don't know anything! Please, save me!"
"Senior…"
Izumi tried to cast a pleading look at Uchiha Ikeizumi, but she found that the senior was standing with his arms crossed, watching with cold indifference.
She couldn't read a single trace of emotion in those cold eyes.
She suddenly felt a suffocating sensation.
This feeling…
Izumi knew it well.
Years ago, during the Nine-Tails Attack, when she encountered that massive Nine-Tails monster, she had experienced the same feeling—the desperate, suffocating sensation of her life about to vanish!
Izumi's survival instinct once again overtook her sympathy. With a hardened heart, she gripped the ninja sword, pressed it against the short man's neck, and gritted her teeth. "Last chance! Where is the child's body?!"
The sharp blade already scraped a faint line of blood on the short man's neck.
The short man's eyes widened in terror. The subtle pain in his neck made him panic. "I… I didn't mean to… I didn't mean to kill her. You have to believe me! You really have to believe me! She… she's my daughter, after all…"
"I was just playing with her at the time. I… I didn't think she would die… I threw her into the dry well in the yard."
Izumi was stunned.
The short man's halting words revealed information that shook her to her core—the man Senior Ikeizumi had asked her to interrogate in public had actually killed his own daughter! And he had thrown his daughter's body into a dry well!
This was a murderer!
"New recruit. This is your first lesson in executing [Justice] as a member of the Uchiha Police Force." Uchiha Ikeizumi's voice slowly sounded behind Izumi. "—Always carry out my orders."
"No questions."
"No resistance."
"No mistakes."