The man immediately got up and walked towards the caravan. However, he was limping. The group noticed a deep cut just above his left knee.
The man walked to them with tears running down his face and hurriedly begged, "Please help me! I am a trader just like you but my caravan was attacked by desert bandits. All of us were captured. I luckily managed to escape but they are still hunting for me. Please hel…!"
However, before he could finish speaking, a kick landed on his chest and sent him flying backwards. A look of shock appeared on the face of the man. He looked at them in disbelief.
The four ninjas were wearing headbands that didn't belong to any ninja village. The caravan had a flag of the Land of Bird country.
The man still begged, "Please help us and save my friends. If not, at least take me with you. I don't want to die here."
One of the ninjas looked at him and asked, "What do we do with him, Captain?"
The captain shook his head and said, "It's better to kill him. If he is planted by a bandit group, then we might get in trouble."
Behind him, the leader of the traders, Hiroshi said, "Just kill him and get moving. I don't want to delay my first trade."
The injured man heard the words carefully. Fear showed on his face. One of the ninjas grinned and walked forward, "You heard him. You can say goodbye to your pathetic life."
He grabbed a kunai and walked towards the man. The man looked at him with terror in his eyes. He raised the kunai and was about to attack when his head was sent flying into the air.
The traders and the ninjas, who were looking at the spectacle with ridicule in their eyes, were suddenly shocked. Before they could even react, the heads of the remaining three ninjas were also sent flying.
Terror flooded into the minds of each of the twelve traders as they saw the injured man behead the ninjas they hired for their safety.
The injured man said in a cold tone, "You'd have died either way but your actions avoid any feeling of guilt that I might have felt."
He suddenly disappeared. Hiroshi saw as every trader began falling down to the ground one by one. Only he was left standing. The injured man, who was now a shinigami in his eyes, stood in front of him and looked into his eyes. He couldn't move as the man's hand squeezed his neck. Suddenly, the entire world became pitch black. He couldn't even see the arm that was holding his neck.
He heard Fujin speaking, "If you want to live, tell me every detail about yourself and your trading caravan."
Hiroshi was completely terrified. He screamed, "I will speak. Please don't kill me!"
Hiroshi immediately gave him all the details that he wanted. He also took all the documents from Hiroshi. An electric current passed through Hiroshi's body and knocked him out. Fujin walked towards one of the knocked-out traders and lifted him. A current passed through his body and woke him up. Fujin interrogated him to cross-check the information. He repeated the process with all 12 traders.
After collecting all the data, Fujin analyzed, 'I was lucky. This is a perfect group for me to impersonate. It is their first mission, so they shouldn't have any contacts in the Wind Capital. Not to mention, they come from the Land of Bird instead of the Land of Earth. So their backing will be much weaker. In addition, the ninjas they hired don't work for any village. Instead, they work for the mercenary group Kurogane no Sensen.
Though this mercenary group is quite influential, it mostly operates in the countries between the Lands of Wind and Earth. It shouldn't have much sway here. And even if they do, they will be much slower than a ninja village to investigate their missing ninjas.'
Fujin observed everyone around him and thought, 'It'd be a huge waste to just hide their bodies.'
He walked towards one of the detached heads and extended his right hand towards it while thinking, 'It should work against detached heads too. Though I am not sure if using them for my first try is a good thing.'
Yin chakra appeared on his palm and poured into the detached head. Fujin controlled the chakra to gently enter the brain. He closed his eyes to properly control the chakra. As chakra surged unhindered, a profound strain befell the brain. The delicate neural pathways, unaccustomed to such a surge, begin to falter and distort under immense pressure.
Fujin frowned. He stopped pouring the chakra into his mind and wondered, 'How the fuck do the Yamanakas train? Despite my chakra control, the brain was destroyed so easily. And, I didn't even see a single memory. Do the Yamanaka have secret methods of learning? Or do they test on test subjects before being allowed to use it on alive people?'
Fujin fell in a thought, 'As I expected, this is very complicated. Though I know that it requires Yin chakra, just that isn't enough to learn this jutsu. If I am right, several generations of Yamanaka clan ninjas probably worked on this to create this secret technique.
So I am basically trying to replicate a decades-long process without much information. Right now, I have only two pieces of knowledge. The first is that the chakra has to be pure Yin and the chakra control has to be very good. The second is that memories aren't stored in just one single part of the brain. They are distributed across multiple brain regions and involve intricate neural networks and connections rather than being confined to a single location.
Unfortunately, I have no idea which those regions are. The library didn't have any information regarding this. I am sure my previous world had better information about this. Unfortunately, I hadn't studied biology for years. I simply don't have any memories regarding this.'
Fujin analyzed for a few minutes before sighing, 'Leave it. I can't think of anything good. I will just experiment on them.'
Fujin experimented on the 3 detached heads. The first two had their brains destroyed. On the last one, his chakra control with the Yin chakra became much better. He managed to continue invading his brain with Yin chakra without turning it into mush. However, he didn't get any memories from it.
Fujin wondered, 'Do I need to make more modifications to my Yin chakra or move it in a certain way to read memories?'
He couldn't say for sure. He looked towards the 12 unconscious traders and muttered, "I hope I have luck with living test subjects."
He walked towards one trader, tied his limbs and woke him up. The trader woke up terrified. He shouted and begged, but Fujin didn't pay any attention to him. He placed a hand on his head and began inserting Yin chakra into his head. He delicately controlled his chakra to enter his brain and access the neural networks in his cerebral cortex.
However, the man suddenly yelled. Soon, his expression changed. He spoke gibberish and he began making weird faces. Fujin looked at him with a solemn expression, 'He has become intellectually impaired! Another reason why I should never let anyone try to read my memories. If they wish to harm me, I won't even be able to resist!'
Fujin continued trying to read his memories until his brain was destroyed and he stopped moving and dropped dead. Fujin experimented on the remaining 11 traders and all faced the same result.
Fujin sighed and began storing everyone's dead bodies in scrolls. He stored the four dead ninjas in one scroll and the 12 dead traders in another. He placed the scroll of the dead ninjas in the underground room he had created and completely sealed it up.
He analyzed, 'If the mercenary group had any means of tracking them, they would be led here. Even if they find the blood where I killed them, they will only find the blood of these 4 ninjas.'
Fujin walked back to the caravan and created shadow clones. They transformed into the eleven traders while Fujjn transformed into Hiroshi. They buried the sand dyed in blood a few meters below the surface and began their journey to the Wind Capital.
Mid-route, Fujin made another Shadow clone who travelled a few kilometers and buried the scroll with the dead bodies of the traders deep within the sand. In these vast deserts, the chances of it being found were negligible.