The entire mansion fell into silence, as if someone had pressed a pause button. The samurai, retainers, and servants—isolated by the wall of magma and too terrified to approach—stared pale-faced at the shocking scene before them.
Even the Daimyō's children stood frozen on the spot, each face a mask of disbelief and stupefaction, as though doubting the reality of what they had just witnessed.
Behind Uchiha Keizumi, even Mitarashi Anko couldn't help herself. With trembling hands, she pinched her own flesh hard.
Pain…
So much pain…
The patch of skin she grabbed was already swelling and bruising.
That proved this wasn't a dream. Nor did it seem like an illusion.
The Fire Daimyō… the man who stood at the very peak of power in the Land of Fire, above countless others, had just been killed by Uchiha Keizumi—as easily as slaughtering a pig.
Too simple. Too careless. Too abrupt.
Shouldn't the death of someone so important have been accompanied by a grand, elaborate scene?
No—wait!
What was she even thinking? Shouldn't she be thinking—someone of his stature shouldn't have been killed at all?
Anko's thoughts were a tangled mess.
Her head even felt faint, like it might spin.
"D… Daimyō-sama!!!"
No one knew how long the eerie silence lasted, until at last a voice broke the stillness. A wailing cry of grief erupted, and suddenly the retainers and servants within the mansion were weeping and shouting in despair.
"Father!!!"
The Daimyō's eldest son staggered forward, as if his soul had been ripped away. Even though he had anticipated this possibility, when it unfolded before his very eyes, the shock crushed him all the same.
His steps faltered as he stumbled toward the body of the Fire Daimyō. He collapsed to his knees, hurriedly reaching to lift his fallen father.
But the moment his hands touched the corpse, the eldest son cried out in pain.
Too hot!!!
The skin of his palms turned instantly crimson.
He was burned!
This wasn't a corpse that had just died—it was more like a body forged from red-hot iron, radiating searing heat all over. The Daimyō's eldest son didn't even know where he could touch without scalding himself.
Although panicked and at a loss, there was one thing he could be certain of—his father was truly dead.
That Konoha shinobi named Uchiha Keizumi.
He had no concept of "lord and subject" at all!
If he said he would kill, then he truly killed!
Wait…
Wait…
Suddenly, a warning bell rang in the eldest son's heart. His entire body stiffened as he mechanically lifted his head, his terrified eyes colliding with Uchiha Keizumi's cold, indifferent gaze.
His mind exploded with a thunderous roar. What surged through him was not anger, but fear!
Cold sweat instantly drenched the back of his robes.
"I… I… I…" He wanted to speak, but his voice stuttered and broke, unable to form a single complete sentence. Anxiety twisted his expression, his face pale, sweat dripping down his forehead.
"Once a person commits evil," Uchiha Keizumi's detached voice slowly echoed within the Daimyō's residence, "regardless of status, age, or gender, they must pay the price. Commit small evils, and you must repent in prison. Commit great evils, and you must use your life to atone for the sins you have wrought."
"You think I should not have killed him, don't you? Because you believe his identity is special, that he is not like ordinary people. You think the moral standards of justice that apply to common men do not apply to the Daimyō of the Land of Fire. Am I right?"
Each cold, piercing question fell upon the eldest son's ears like a death sentence.
Perhaps Keizumi did not mean it that way, but to the eldest son, it felt certain—if he answered incorrectly, he would die!
He would end up just like his father!
The word "Daimyō" might carry great weight in others' eyes.
But before Uchiha Keizumi…
It had become nothing more than his own death warrant.
"N-no… that's not right…" The eldest son struggled desperately to string together a smooth sentence, but the words stuck in his throat. "The Daimyō… the Daimyō is also human. My father… perhaps he was too used to standing above, perhaps he had long forgotten how to lower his gaze to those beneath. He… gulp… everything he did… perhaps he thought nothing of it, but to others it was different."
"It's like that saying, that phrase…"
"Uh!" His mind stalled, his whole body itching with frustration, but he dared not lift a hand to scratch.
"A speck of dust in the age becomes a mountain upon the commoner." Keizumi coolly supplied the words he could not recall.
"Yes! That's it! My father ignored the common people. He thought only of the privileges he held as Daimyō. That's why he indulged Kyosuke, that's why he established so many rules that exploited the commoners, stripping them to the bone…"
"He never once considered what kind of consequences his actions would create, because it was never he, the Daimyō, who paid the price. It was always the countless commoners of the Land of Fire who bore the burden."
"So then…"
The Daimyō's eldest son knew very well that if the words he had just spoken spread, he would surely bear the reputation of "unfilial" and "cowardly."
But—
Even that reputation was better than being killed here and now.
He was only in his thirties!
Still so young!
As his nerves left his mouth dry, he heard Uchiha Keizumi ask him a single question: "So?"
The Daimyō's eldest son clenched his teeth hard. In the end, his will to survive triumphed over his shame. His weakness smothered what little dignity he had left. Bowing his head, he hurriedly said: "So my father met such a fate only because he brought it upon himself. He sowed the seed, and he reaped the fruit. This was nothing more than the destiny he was bound to face."
When those words fell, the retainers, samurai, servants, and even the other children of the Daimyō all stared at him in shock.
The Daimyō had been killed. As the eldest son, he was supposed to inherit his father's title and become the next Daimyō of the Land of Fire.
Yet in front of so many people—and even before the very man who had slain his father—he had spoken such words.
Wasn't this the same as giving a final verdict on the Daimyō's death?
Even if he wanted revenge in the future, what excuse would he have left?
The Daimyō's heir had nearly said aloud, "You were right to kill him," such a cowardly, treasonous remark!
Could it be…
That at this moment, the Daimyō's eldest son did not even dare harbor the faintest thought of revenge?
Everyone's gaze turned toward Uchiha Keizumi.
Silence fell.
Any urge to condemn the Daimyō's son vanished from their hearts.
Because they didn't dare, either.
Under the weight of Keizumi's gaze, the eldest son kept his head bowed, staring at his father's corpse sprawled on the floor. His fear and panic left his head spinning.
And in that moment, even without Keizumi pressing him further, he spoke of his own accord: "From… from now on, the laws of the Land of Fire must undergo a far more serious and careful reform. The new laws cannot only protect the nobility and the upper class, but must also take into account the lives of ordinary commoners. They must… they must also…"
He cautiously lifted his eyes to steal a glance at Uchiha Keizumi.
"They must, in the name of justice, be carried out with more decisiveness than before—more thorough, more absolute national policies."
Expressionless, Keizumi supplemented his words: "The current Land of Fire—and indeed, the entire shinobi world—has become grotesquely twisted because of its lack of justice. Countless sins fester unchecked, like a plague that cannot be wiped out."
"Only through the harshest and most absolute means of justice, eradicating evil at its very root, can this vast shinobi world be set straight again."
"Isn't that right, Mitoin Yasuhiro?"
The Daimyō's eldest son: "!!"
His cautious gaze instantly turned into sheer horror.
How did this man know his name? No—he was the Daimyō's heir. Of course it made sense that the other knew his name.
"…Yes!"
His hesitation lasted less than half a heartbeat before he nodded furiously, like a chicken pecking grain.
He quickly added on his own: "And also… in recent years, the funding the Daimyō's estate has given to Konohagakure has been a little insufficient. And the funding is far too general—it ought to be divided in detail."
"For example… the Uchiha Clan, as the Konoha Police Force, should receive their own dedicated share from the Daimyō's treasury. Perhaps… 200 million ryō a year? Or… even 500 million ryō a year?"
Uchiha Keizumi's gaze grew visibly colder.
The temperature in the air climbed rapidly.
A terrifying aura of slaughter pressed down on everyone present.
The Daimyō's eldest son: "!!"
Wait—wasn't he an Uchiha? Shouldn't he belong to the Uchiha Clan?
If he offered the clan its own separate funding, shouldn't that have…
Hold on!
Could it be that Uchiha Keizumi was actually serious about advising him on how to amend the laws of the Land of Fire?
The eldest son suddenly remembered why his younger brother, Mitoin Kyosuke, had died at Keizumi's hands.
According to what his father had relayed from Sarutobi Asuma, Uchiha Keizumi upheld [Absolute Justice].
A justice that was thorough, absolute—and extreme.
A justice with no impurities whatsoever.
But its greatest flaw was also its extremity—so much so that he had dared to kill the Daimyō's second son, and now, even the Daimyō himself!
Which meant…
In Keizumi's eyes, his attempt to grant the Uchiha Clan funding on his own might actually be seen as bribery.
Just when the eldest son thought he had finally managed to catch a breath and salvage his life, sweat once again streamed down his back.
He forced a strained smile, racking his brain to keep up with Uchiha Keizumi's line of thought. His lips trembled as he stammered: "F-forget what I just said. Perhaps… perhaps what should be done first is to purge all the complicated staff of the police force in the Fire Capital, leaving only those with true ambition for justice."
"Perhaps… all the nobles and dignitaries of the Land of Fire must be investigated thoroughly, letting not a single pawn slip through, nor sparing a single big fish. Perhaps… even the old unsolved cases, buried for years, must be reopened, to restore justice to the innocent victims."
"Perhaps… we must also…"
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