[Chapter Size: 1900 Words.]
Third Person POV
Northern kingdoms.
...
...
A week had passed since the fall of the Chip family in the city, which led to evidence against the family at the main property, and although they expected some support from Angren, the other kingdom had simply stopped contacting them for some reason, leaving the patriarch of the Chip family with his neck on the line.
A few days later, they managed to invade his castle and took the family into custody to the capital, and a public trial began. What the Chip family hoped would secure their heir's release ended up being their downfall. While he tried everything to get out of this situation, without the support from Angren and with the other nobles simply not wanting to associate with a traitor to the kingdom, even if they had previously received favors from the Chip family.
The queen was quite ruthless and had most of the family executed in the public square along with their heir after declaring their crimes publicly, with the population demanding their death.
"Death to the traitors!!"
"Death to the traitors!!"
"Death to the traitors!!"
"Death to the traitors!!"
"Death to the traitors!!"
The sound of the crowd filled the main square in the center of the city, as the heir, father, uncle, and a few more members who were behind the treacherous actions were lined up with executioner soldiers preparing to remove their heads.
"If you want to say anything in your last moments, this is the time," Calanthe, leading the execution, said.
The patriarch looked at her with hatred. "Listen, Queen Calanthe, I may die here, but I will still find you on the other side to laugh at you. Your arrogance will bring this kingdom down. So enjoy these last moments of peace because Angren will dominate all of Cintra!" he shouted furiously, these being his last moments, while the crowd, hearing this, began to murmur and feel some fear.
"Cintra will never be defeated, as I trust the men who will defend this kingdom. There is nothing to worry about with Angren; we will win this war, no matter what. But it's a shame that the kingdom that made a deal with you suddenly stopped helping you. You must have been a great disposable ally to them..." She mocked him in the end, while he clenched his teeth.
Little did they know that Angren's absence with the Chip family was caused by Madara, who sent that fire-breathing dragon through the portal, but that no longer mattered because, in the next moment, the soldiers moved their swords and beheaded all the members in the square while the crowd shouted approving the execution.
The Chip family was destroyed from that day on; the members who were not killed had their titles and assets confiscated, becoming commoners without any support, with no one wanting to help the traitorous family.
Madara was on top of one of the houses, watching it all calmly. He only saw the end and decided to leave, returning to his home. Landing in the courtyard, he saw someone skipping stones in his pond, none other than Cirilla.
"You know you shouldn't be here..." he spoke calmly.
"Did you go to see the execution? Mousesack made me a portal. I told him he had two choices: either I would go see the execution, or he would bring me here," she said with a smile like a child doing something mischievous.
"..."
Madara sighed at that old man doing it on purpose.
"Well, if you want to stay here, just don't get in the way," he said while picking up one of the illusion magic books, sitting by the pond with Ciri pouting.
He didn't mind while Cirilla continued skipping stones and he was reading. For a while, everything seemed like that until Cirilla was having difficulty making the stone skip three times, until a stone passed hers and skipped 20 times until it went out the other side of the pond.
"How did you do that?!" she exclaimed, looking at him surprised, and Madara had to smile.
"Move the stone like this..." he showed her while doing it slowly before launching another stone into the pond, making it skip more than 20 times before going out the other side.
"Yes..." she murmured and tried but only skipped it twice before it fell.
"Like this..." he showed her, taking her hand and showing her how to do it.
She tried and made five skips before it sank in the pond. "I did it!" she exclaimed, and Madara nodded while returning to his book.
After a while, a portal appeared behind them, with Mousesack stepping out of it. "I've come to fetch the princess," he said with a small smile to Ciri.
"Ah..." she murmured but got up to leave.
"You can go ahead, I want to talk to Madara," he requested, and she nodded.
"Goodbye, Madara!" she said goodbye with him nodding before she disappeared and the portal also vanished.
Madara raised an eyebrow at the wizard, wondering what he wanted to talk to him about alone.
"We need to discuss something more urgent..." he began. "A letter from Angren arrived this afternoon with a declaration of war... And there were some rather strange things in this letter. Besides accusing us of killing a noble on a diplomatic mission and falsely imprisoning others, they are declaring that there was an attack on the palace with a fire spell appearing and killing the Angren wizard, burning him alive and severely injuring the king, with part of his face burned due to the attack." Mousesack spoke with a hawk-like gaze at Madara.
'So I don't get any more points for killing a wizard...' Madara commented, looking at the ground but with a tone of internal disappointment.
He looked at the wizard while he continued. "So... as much as this seems a bit absurd, I have the impression that you did something..." he said.
"I might have seen a portal and used a fire attack on it..." Madara commented calmly, not caring that it caused a king's death.
"..." Mousesack just sighed and continued speaking. "Anyway, we are going to war. But some things are happening, can you come to the castle tomorrow? I need you to investigate something for me that has been happening all week." he said, and Madara nodded.
The next day, Madara was at the castle. The place was quite busy, the fear of war was present on people's faces as they continued walking around, and the royal guards commenting among themselves.
He approached the audience chamber and was greeted with a sight of all the main members of the court debating among themselves about the possible war in the east.
"You're here," Mousesack greeted him as Madara nodded.
"Settle this with him quickly, Mousesack, I need you at the council," Calanthe demanded without even greeting Madara, given the urgency she was in, not that he cared much about it.
"Come with me." Mousesack requested, and Madara and he went to his laboratory.
They arrived there, and Madara saw a body on a stretcher in the middle of the place, with its belly opened.
"..." He looked at Mousesack confused.
"We found it outside the city, at least one of the 15 soldiers who went after a series of murders happening in the eastern area," he began. "We started noticing entire patrols disappearing in that area... We sent more to investigate, but as you can see the result... we had no luck and everyone is dead," he said.
Madara approached the body and analyzed it. "This is a Ghoul..." He analyzed the cuts, but with his sharingan, he could perceive the details. "He was already dead before being devoured... he was killed by a blade..." he commented at the end.
"Yes, I also noticed that studying the corpse for a few hours..." he said, not being as quick as a Witcher to analyze a body, but it took him a few hours and he had a result as well.
"Any idea who is doing this?" Madara asked.
"No... 3 patrols are dead and a convoy of merchants too... No one survived..." he said with a serious tone.
"This... if he uses weapons... and has the ability to commit a massacre... could it be a Witcher?" Madara murmured, after all, there was no other creature in his mind that could do this.
"I fear that it is..." Mousesack said with a very serious tone.
"Why is a Witcher attacking these people, it seems he's... trying to lure someone..." Madara commented with a dark tone.
"I know what you're thinking, and even though we are at the beginning of a war, we will prepare a squad to hunt him down," Mousesack said, but Madara shook his head.
"He wants me for some reason, and I will find out why before killing him," Madara concluded and simply walked from the center of the room to the window.
"Madara, wait!" Mousesack called, but Madara simply jumped from the spot and moved swiftly down the tower before heading to the city.
He quickly reached his mansion and went to the place where he had stored all the equipment he had bought from the blacksmith, preparing for the fight he would have with this guy.
He prepared a special outfit, which had iron bracers and was completely dark; it was like an ANBU uniform. He didn't yet have knowledge of storage fuuinjutsu, so he placed a dozen kunais on the belts around his legs and arms, many shuriken in his pocket at his waist, and two small swords on his back at the waist position, which he could draw quickly from opposite sides. He also placed two shuriken on his back. Finally, he put a hood over his head, and as his eyes glowed with two sharingans, he donned a mask that represented a dragon.
A shadow left the house that night, landing on a rooftop with the moon behind him. Madara was not an aggressive person, but hearing that someone was hunting him awakened a feeling in him, a feeling that he didn't want to be the hunted, but the hunter.
His eyes shone that night like never before. He simply vanished, jumping 30 meters high with chakra reinforcing his physical body. He jumped again as soon as he touched another rooftop, continuing to advance from rooftop to rooftop, until he reached the wall without any guard noticing the shadow passing by them on this full moon night. He fell with the pull of gravity and advanced to the forest as soon as he hit the ground.
His eyes still emitted the same glow, the hesitation to kill the one who had challenged him. Madara didn't know what was happening to him; maybe it was his pride or even his Uchiha blood boiling, but he was certainly driven by his emotions to go after this Witcher.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the forest, a man was sitting in front of a campfire, looking at it calmly, his green serpent-like eyes reflecting through the flames. The Witcher was standing, finishing cooking a piece of meat. As soon as he did so, he tossed it into the darkness, with shadows starting to leap onto the meat, revealing that they were six ghouls, who remained with the Witcher, just smiling at it.
He was more focused on his hunt but didn't know that his target was also so willingly wanting to find him. Witcher or Ninja, who would come out alive from this hunt, as both were openly wanting to kill each other?