Land of Fire
Early winter had arrived.
The temperature had dropped sharply, and the snow had come even earlier than usual this year.
Inside the royal palace,
The daimyo, dressed in light clothes, walked to the window with the help of his attendants.
The moment the window opened, wind and snow rushed into the room all at once, making him shiver as large snowflakes landed on his face.
"What heavy snow..."
"That air conditioner the Leaf invented really is something else. Outside it's a frozen winter covered in snow, but inside the room it feels like spring."
"What a shame, though... the Leaf..."
He stopped halfway through the sentence and had the window shut again.
Lately, the daimyo had been miserable.
The memorials from his so-called loyal ministers, all demanding action against the Leaf, had piled up on his desk like snowfall.
Traitors, scourges upon the nation, disasters to the realm. Every possible accusation had been pinned on the Leaf. Those parasites who only knew how to line their pockets had lived in comfort for too long, long enough to forget that ninja carried blades.
Did they really think those ninja couldn't kill anymore?
There were even idiots suggesting that the Hokage of the Leaf be arrested and brought to the Land of Fire for questioning.
The current Third Hokage was an Uchiha.
Those greed-blinded pigs actually thought they could kick the Leaf while it was up.
The daimyo understood the relationship between the Land of Fire and the Leaf all too well.
On the surface, the Leaf needed the Land of Fire's funding to keep running.
In truth, it was the Land of Fire that couldn't live without the Leaf.
Without Leaf ninja suppressing rebellions for the nobles, the rabble would have stormed the palace already.
The Leaf's recent actions had indeed crossed some lines, but what exactly was he supposed to do about it?
Was he really going to accuse the Leaf and arrest Haru?
Dream on.
The daimyo let out a heavy sigh. Ever since the First Hokage, Hashirama, had reconciled the hatred between the clans, gathered the ninja clans into villages, and united those once-scattered families into a single force, his own father, the previous daimyo, had privately warned him of something.
One day, ninja would realize their true place and become the real masters of this world.
The fact that ordinary people had been able to command ninja, enjoy luxury, and live in splendor for a thousand years was already a blessing stolen from heaven.
It was foolish to think such days could last forever.
People had to face reality.
So when it came to the increasingly aggressive Leaf, which kept crossing the nobles' bottom line, the daimyo had always followed one principle.
Keep smoothing things over.
Just muddle through it.
If he could live another peaceful day, that was good enough. The daimyo still wanted to enjoy a few more years of life, so he had chosen to close one eye and let it pass.
Unfortunately, this time the Leaf had gone too far.
To acquire the iron mines of the Land of Fire, they had directly damaged the interests of a large number of powerful men in the country. This was no longer just stealing food from a tiger's mouth. It was carving flesh right off their bodies.
Even though the daimyo wanted to help the Leaf cover things up, memorials condemning the Leaf kept pouring in endlessly. The court was full of factions. There were bad actors everywhere.
The daimyo kept sighing to himself, wondering how to settle the matter. He had already sent people to negotiate with the Leaf, but there had still been no response.
"Lord Shikato of the Leaf has arrived."
An attendant walked in from outside.
The daimyo lit up with joy the moment he heard that and immediately ordered Shikato to be brought in.
"Daimyo-sama, I trust you've been well."
Shikato greeted him with a smiling face.
The daimyo, reclining in his chair, returned the smile and began chatting casually as if nothing were wrong.
"This year's snow is even heavier than usual."
"Yes, but what difference does that make here in the palace? It might as well be spring."
"That's all thanks to the Leaf..."
Shikato's smile widened.
The daimyo had placed another huge air conditioner order. It looked like he genuinely wanted to fit the entire palace with them.
He really was rich.
After a cup of tea, Shikato decided it was time to talk business.
Still wearing that easy smile, he said, "I heard there have been a few mosquitoes buzzing around Your Excellency's ears lately. Even Hokage-sama, busy as he is in the Leaf, has heard about it. Is that true?"
"They're nothing more than a few useless mosquitoes. If they only made noise, that would be one thing. But if one bites you when you're not paying attention, the itch can be unbearable."
"I wonder if Shikato-kun has any solution?"
The daimyo set down his teacup, the smile never leaving his face as he looked at Shikato expectantly.
In the daimyo's mind, the best possible outcome was simple.
The Leaf would submit a written apology. He would flare up in public and scold them harshly.
Raise the stick high, then bring it down lightly.
The Leaf would be fine, and he could still give the nobles and ministers making noise some kind of answer. The whole matter could be smoothed over that way.
"Your Excellency has always treated the Leaf generously. Naturally, the Leaf has no wish to make things difficult for you."
The daimyo's face brightened before Shikato had even finished speaking.
Shikato took out an envelope and handed it over.
The daimyo eagerly opened it and found exactly what he had been hoping for, a written apology.
It was several thousand words long, full of elaborate nonsense, but the core meaning was simple enough.
The Leaf admitted that what it had done had indeed been improper and asked the daimyo, in his great generosity, to give the Leaf another chance for the sake of all the years it had worked like an ox for the Land of Fire.
"Hahaha. The Leaf truly is the pillar of the Land of Fire. If not for the people below making such a fuss, I would never have wanted to trouble the Hokage with this."
The daimyo excitedly walked up to Shikato and took his hand in a show of closeness.
"Shikato-kun, stay in the palace tonight. I'll have a proper banquet prepared to entertain you..."
Shikato pulled his hand free and took out a sealing scroll from his robe.
"Your Excellency, the Leaf has given you face."
"But Hokage-sama also made it clear that the Leaf's face must be recovered as well."
The daimyo's smile froze.
He could not quite grasp what Shikato meant, but instinctively, he felt something had gone wrong.
"Daimyo-sama, perhaps you should take a look at what your loyal and worthy ministers have been doing all these years."
Shikato formed a hand seal, and a large stack of charges appeared in the daimyo's hands.
Selling offices.
Taking bribes.
Factional collusion.
Murder.
Usury.
Private courts.
Even involvement in the succession struggles among several of the daimyo's sons.
The Leaf had dug up every last filthy detail.
Every one of the people named in those charges were ministers and nobles who had spent the last several days denouncing the Leaf. Any one of several crimes listed there would have been enough to justify confiscation, exile, or extermination of an entire household.
"Th-this..."
The daimyo was so shocked he could barely speak.
On one side, he feared the Leaf's blatant overreach. This already crossed the line of non-interference between the Leaf and the Land of Fire.
On the other, he was stunned by the boldness of those vermin. For money, they really had dared to do everything.
The wealth and land they had gathered far exceeded even the daimyo's imagination.
If all those accusations were fully pursued, the entire court of the Land of Fire would face a complete purge. The number of people involved was so enormous that even the daimyo dared not move rashly.
"Daimyo-sama, how do you think these people should be handled?"
This was Shikato's first time seeing the full list of charges.
The wealth and land involved added up to well over a trillion ryo. It made Shikato's mouth water. Forget ninja missions. If they simply devoured these nation-rotting parasites cleanly, the Leaf could live in prosperity for twenty years.
Of course, that was all he could do, think about it.
The nobles of the Land of Fire had spent generations intermarrying and weaving tangled networks of kinship. Everyone was related to everyone. Could the daimyo truly wipe them all out?
If those charges were made public in full, then even the daimyo himself might quietly drop dead in his palace.
And a fractured Land of Fire was the last thing the Leaf wanted.
If the country split apart, all kinds of monsters would rise out of the cracks. The First Great Ninja War had only just ended. The turmoil from that kind of internal upheaval might rival another full-scale ninja war.
Harmony.
Stability.
That was what the Leaf wanted from the Land of Fire.
If the Leaf truly intended to arrest and try everyone on that list one by one, then the daimyo would be the first to oppose it. He would probably turn on the Leaf at once and denounce them as traitors.
Then the nobles would pour out their money and grain, paying the other four great villages to come wipe out the Leaf. Whoever fought hardest would replace the Leaf and get to move into the Land of Fire to enjoy the good life.
The Sand would probably jump first, desperate for money and food.
Then the Stone.
Then the Cloud.
That was why Haru had already set the tone.
Only the ringleaders would be executed.
The fattest pigs.
The loudest troublemakers.
The ones charging in front of the mob.
Kill the chicken to scare the monkeys.
The fact that the Leaf had set its eyes on their business and was still willing to discuss buying it with money instead of simply killing every member of their households with shuriken and taking everything by force was already generous.
Yet they had still failed to appreciate that.
Truly wicked people.
They had to be suppressed.
Destroyed.
After a long moment, the daimyo finally recovered enough to speak, though he still looked dazed.
Everything had happened too suddenly. He had not been given the slightest chance to prepare.
"Could there... perhaps be some mistake? I know these men well. Every one of them is an upright and incorruptible official."
The daimyo tried to cover things over with obvious lies.
He knew perfectly well what kind of people his ministers were. Some of the accusations on that list even surprised him.
In the past, if he had discovered they had dared go so far, he would certainly have exploded and killed some of them.
But things were different now.
The Leaf was threatening to flip the whole table.
All this over a few iron mines, a little forced acquisition, a handful of memorials denouncing the Leaf.
Couldn't everyone just muddle through it and move on?
Now the Leaf wanted to blow everything apart.
Was that really necessary?
Couldn't they just sit down and talk it out?
"Your Excellency is saying the Leaf fabricated charges against the nobles and ministers of the Land of Fire?"
"That's an accusation the Leaf cannot bear."
Shikato let out a cold laugh.
The sound made sweat break out across the daimyo's forehead. The air conditioner was still running warm, but the daimyo suddenly felt as though he were sitting in a freezing cellar.
"Of course not. I naturally trust the Leaf. It's just that... this... this involves so many people..."
The daimyo was now so agitated he could barely form sentences.
If either side got truly pushed too far, they could both have him killed.
What had started as a minor problem, something annoying but not truly serious in his eyes, had suddenly become something far larger.
Haru did not see it as minor at all.
If those parasites could make such a huge fuss over something so small, and the daimyo could still drag his feet and hedge, then what would happen when the Leaf did something even slightly more outrageous next time?
They would be back, denouncing the Leaf all over again.
Better to make the problem explode once and settle it completely.
As Lu Xun once said, if a room is too dark and you suggest opening a skylight, people will object. But if you say the roof should be torn off entirely, they'll come compromise and agree to the skylight.
These parasites were the same.
The problem had to be solved all at once.
No loose ends could be left behind.
Shikato looked at the flustered daimyo and decided the time was ripe.
"Please, Your Excellency, calm yourself. Hokage-sama already considered everything for you."
"These people truly are vile. But the matter is a grave one, and for now the Land of Fire cannot do without them entirely. This time, we can execute only the worst offenders, pulling out those fattest and most guilty pigs for judgment."
"As for the rest, handling them will be easy. Their crimes will still be there. We can slaughter pigs slowly. There's enough here to keep killing them for ten years or more."
The daimyo's heart finally settled somewhat.
He had really thought the Leaf meant to turn against the Land of Fire over this.
As long as there was no full break, everything was fine.
No break was enough.
As long as the luxurious, easy life could continue, that was enough.
"That's good. That's good."
The daimyo wiped the sweat from his forehead.
Only now did he realize that the back of his inner robe was already soaked through.
That had been far too intense.
He had almost been scared to death.
"Daimyo-sama, the Leaf believes these people should die."
"They committed the worst corruption, and the wealth they seized is..."
A greedy smile spread across Shikato's face.
The property of just these few great nobles came to more than sixty billion ryo. This was the accumulated wealth of over ten generations of their houses.
What fat pigs they were.
The daimyo, who had been terrified just a moment ago, now showed the same greedy look in his eyes.
Those vermin had done all sorts of filthy things behind his back and nearly caused a rupture between the Leaf and the Land of Fire.
They absolutely had to be severely punished.
After all, the money they had stolen was his money.
"Hokage-sama truly has thought this through."
"Then let's settle it that way."
"Your Excellency truly is wise and heroic. Then we split it thirty-seventy?"
"No problem."
The daimyo nodded, agreeing to the division.
Only a few months earlier, over a hundred billion ryo had already flowed in. Now several tens of billions more were on the table. Recently, fortune really had been smiling on him.
"Since Your Excellency agrees, then please don't forget the Leaf's seventy percent share."
"What?!"
"The Leaf gets seventy percent?"
"Your Excellency, the Leaf is the victim here. It was slandered by these corrupt officials. We've already stepped back once. Surely you're not going to deny the Leaf even a little emotional compensation, are you..."
Shikato's face instantly darkened.
The daimyo opened his mouth to argue, but the icy look in Shikato's eyes made the words die in his throat.
If he kept fighting over this, he truly feared the Leaf might fall out with the Land of Fire.
Three tenths, then.
Fine.
There would still be plenty of pigs to slaughter over the years to come.
"Then let it be as the Hokage wishes."
The daimyo forced a smile and wiped the sweat from his forehead again.
At last, Shikato smiled in satisfaction.
The Leaf had struck it rich again.
(End of Chapter)
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