Resolve and Circumstances

Then the conversation turned to business.

Izuna takes on the role of Diplomat and engages in dialogue with Jōtarō.

Izuna inquired about the movements of the Land of Bears to the south of the Land of Whirlpools, and also asked whether there was a maritime alliance between the Land of Lightning and the Land of Hot Water.

Jōtarō answered their questions one by one, mentioning some of their predicaments in the process, trying to elicit sympathy from the young man in front of him by playing the victim.

However, when he mentioned that the sea route was blocked and fishermen dared not leave the port, Izuna did not show much emotion. He just nodded and occasionally asked a few questions about the details, his tone indifferent.

Jōtarō knew that this kind of thing wouldn't move him, so he stopped trying to embarrass himself.

When it came to trade routes, Izuna didn't mince words and directly stated Land of Fire 'Konoha plans.

They wish to maintain long-term trade relations with the Land of Whirlpools and continue the ties between the two countries, hoping for friendly talks between them.

He then brought up the Exchange Student system, mentioning the exchange of young Ninjas between Konoha and Land of Whirlpools for further training. He discussed how to select Exchange Students, how the exchange would take place every few years, and the location to be negotiated by both sides, with the Land of Hot Water as a temporary transit point.

He spoke slowly, but each word was clear, and he could answer any question Jōtarō asked, clearly having prepared a prepared answer.

"We will draft formal terms for this matter later, and then we will ask Mr. Jōtarō to convey them to the lord of the Land of Land of Whirlpools so that the Land of Whirlpools has a clear understanding," Izuna said. "If the Land of Whirlpools' Ruler is interested, we can go to the Land of Whirlpools to discuss the details after we have dealt with the affairs of the Land of Hot Water."

After a conversation, Jōtarō was completely convinced.

He had thought that Izuna would use last night's events to make demands on the Land of Whirlpools, or at least hint at it, but to his surprise, the other party didn't mention Tsuchigumo at all, nor did he seem arrogant. He only talked about bilateral matters, and every word he spoke was for the long term.

Despite being a strong person, he showed no intention of bullying the weak, and although he looked young, he was very experienced in discussing matters.

But Izuna's childish demeanor earlier couldn't be faked; Jōtarō could tell that Izuna hadn't thought things through at all and had just blurted out those words.

He really wanted to go to the Shrine.

However, when it comes to serious matters, he is neither arrogant nor servile, and shows no signs of acting impulsively.

Was this young man truly intentional, or was he simply hiding his true intentions?

Jōtarō glanced at Enma beside him.

Enma, sitting in the back, was clearly taken aback by Izuna's behavior.

Regardless, he Enma, and perhaps he could help Enma befriend Izuna and use that opportunity to probe the Diplomat's background.

Understanding the other person's personality and behavior is essential for giving gifts and getting things done, isn't it?

So Jōtarō decided to leave. "Lord Izuna's thoughts are profound; I will certainly convey them truthfully upon my return. In the meantime, if you all would like, my nephew Enma can act as your guide and show you around the Land of Land of Hot Water..."

Izuna raised his hand, stopping him from continuing.

"This isn't urgent," Izuna said. "There's one more thing I need to confirm with Mr. Jōtarō first."

Jōtarō paused slightly, then sat up straight. "Please speak."

Izuna did not speak immediately.

He sat there, his posture as upright as when they were discussing bilateral affairs.

Almost simultaneously, those present sensed that something about him had changed.

A cloud drifted by slowly, blocking the sunlight, and the shadows spread across the entire main hall like water.

"Mr. Jōtarō, everything we've discussed so far has one premise," Izuna said slowly, "That is, the Land of Whirlpools can hold out until everything takes effect. That's why I'm asking you."

He raised his eyes and looked directly into Jōtarō's eyes. "Do you have the resolve to perish together with the enemy?"

Meanwhile, in the villa where the Tsuchigumo Clan was temporarily residing, the atmosphere was as oppressive as the sea before a storm.

They had taken a bath and changed into clean clothes. The food that Haruto had arranged for the servants to bring them was barely touched, and the dishes on the table gradually went cold.

The anger and resentment that Izuna had suppressed so intensely last night are now rising again, like a receding tide.

Several young clansmen gathered in a corner of the side room; some cursed in hushed tones, while others stood silently with their arms crossed. The oldest female ninja sat by the door, her face also grim.

"We shouldn't have hesitated." A tall, thin male ninja suddenly spoke, his voice not loud, but sharp as a dagger. "We should have left right there at the docks! Could those bastards from the Land of Water and the Land of Lightning possibly chase us down and kill us? They're all talk and no action. If we really left, could they possibly chase us all the way to the Land of Fire? Now look what's happened! We've been made a laughingstock by some unknown Yakuza and a bunch of boatmen, and we've even signed some damned marriage agreement!"

"You think you could have escaped back then?" The female ninja looked up at him, her voice turning cold. "Lord Shin was being held at a distance with Kunai. If our people had made a move, those lunatics from the Land of Water would have dared to actually cut him off."

"Then leave her here, let's go!" a voice rang out from the corner, filled with resentment.

He spoke extremely quickly, as if the words had been stuck under his tongue for too long and couldn't be taken back once they came out.

The people around were taken aback at first, then turned to look.

The female ninja swept her gaze sharply, "You want to abandon Shin? She's the Clan Head's daughter!"

The man shrank back, but still stubbornly insisted, "She's not the heir! Besides, we've been dragged into this situation because of her."

"If she hadn't confessed her feelings to everyone at the dock, how could we have been caught red-handed by that Uchiha? A young lady of high birth, proposing to a man in public, has completely disgraced our clan! And now we can't even say anything against her?"

"Exactly, if she hadn't gotten involved with that ugly freak, why would they have targeted us?" another female ninja muttered. "And what a joke, talking about pursuing someone. She's completely disgraced the Tsuchigumo Clan."

They spoke louder and louder, as if they wanted to unleash all the pent-up resentment from the previous night on this person they could bully.

The female ninja frowned, wanting to stop her, but then she heard a voice coming from under the corridor.

"I'm right here." Someone had somehow emerged from the room and was standing on the veranda.

She was wearing a plain white nightgown, her hair loose over her shoulders. Her face was still a little puffy from waking up in the morning, but her eyes were firm, looking at them without flinching.

"I heard everything you said."

The male ninjas shut their mouths, their faces showing displeasure, while the female ninja, who was muttering complaints, made no attempt to hide her feelings and quietly cursed her as a little bitch.

He took a step forward, his foot landing on the wooden floor with a very soft sound, and suddenly released his Chakra aura.

At only fifteen years old, she was able to seal the Fury Technique within her body, and her Chakra reserves were comparable to those of an adult.

The subtle pressure silenced everyone.

"You all think I'm a burden to the entire clan," Zhen said. "You all believe that as long as I don't confess, you can escape unscathed and Land of Fire in glory, living as if nothing ever happened."

"Isn't that right?" the male ninja sneered. "If you hadn't insisted on provoking that ugly debt collector, we wouldn't be in this mess now—"

"If our Tsuchigumo Clan hadn't tried to steal the Sealing Jutsu from the Land of Whirlpools first, we wouldn't have come to the Land of Hot Water at all!"

The young girl glared at them angrily. "You wanted to steal someone else's techniques, and you wanted to use the Land of Lightning and the Land of Water to destroy them. You failed, and now you want to blame everything on me. It's ridiculous! Didn't you think you were so powerful? Didn't you say you wanted to make the Tsuchigumo Clan stronger? Now how come it's all my fault?"

Her gaze swept across the faces of those people one by one.

Some avoided it, some gritted their teeth, and some lowered their heads.

"I did pursue Mr. Tamaro to propose marriage because he saved me. I know you look down on him, think he's ugly, and think he's unworthy. But at least he didn't think of abandoning me when I was in danger; instead, he saved me."

"Then, she didn't hesitate to belittle herself and even said hurtful things against her will to force me to leave. Such a virtuous person is far superior to you rats who only dare to whisper and slander your own family members in your rooms!"

The man who had just been shouting suddenly stood up, "Who are you calling a rat!"

"I'm talking about you!" Zhen shouted sternly. "Before, I could still fool myself into believing it was Father's decision. The Tsuchigumo Clan is indeed declining. Fewer and fewer clansmen have mastered the word techniques, and even fewer can unleash large-scale secret techniques. Seizing the things from the Land of Whirlpools was the right thing to do, and it was urgent. Now I understand why the Tsuchigumo Clan is declining."

"It's all because of you unambitious, lazy people who only think about getting something for nothing, who don't use your spare time to cultivate but love to gossip behind people's backs that our clan has declined!"

A deep hatred welled up within her, but she couldn't find the right words to utter. She could only grit her teeth and squeeze out, "You people are truly pathetic!"

"You're the pathetic one! You're a woman about to get married, pointing fingers at us!" The man scoffed. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. You actually like that ugly guy and talk a good game about him. It's disgusting."

His face turned pale instantly.

The whispers resumed after the man finished speaking.

At first, it was just a few low, snickering sounds.

Then the sounds increased, faint and fragmented, coming from every corner of the room, like a swarm of cockroaches rustling and crawling behind the paper door.

Some people turned their heads to whisper in the ear of the person next to them, while others covered their mouths with their sleeves, revealing only half of their mocking faces.

Zhen stood under the eaves, her back ramrod straight, her hands slowly tightening at her sides.

She looked at the people of her tribe before her, and those once familiar faces all seemed strange to her.

She suddenly understood.

It's not that she didn't explain herself clearly, nor that her reasoning was wrong.

Simply because she was a woman, and she had publicly proposed to a man from another ethnic group.

Based on these two points alone, whatever she says will be taken as a shameless excuse and will not be taken seriously.

Reasoning from her mouth only becomes noise to others. The more earnest she is, the more ridiculous they find her.

"How embarrassing." Someone whispered, but no one knew who it was. The voice was like a fine thorn, piercing her ear precisely.

She didn't go looking for the owner of the voice, because it was pointless.

The female ninja stood up, walked to Makoto's side, reached out, and gently took Makoto's arm.

"Young Miss, why don't you go back to your room and rest?" the female ninja said softly.

Nothing was moved.

She continued to stare at the people scattered in the side rooms, her expression sorrowful.

The female ninja gently tugged at her arm again. "Let's go."

Zhen then slowly turned around and walked along the corridor towards her room.

The female ninja walked beside her, using her body to block the gazes of those following them from the corridor.

The paper door closed behind them.

The whispers didn't stop; instead, they seemed to have received some kind of tacit approval and grew even louder.

"What?" Tamamo-no-Mae frowned as she listened to the servant's report, a chill slowly creeping into her meticulously drawn eyebrows. "Someone actually said such things to my future sister-in-law right under my nose?"

Tamaro sat on the veranda, wiping an old sickle in his hand.

Upon hearing this, he raised his head, his already somewhat fierce face now appearing even more menacing, the dark spots on his face becoming even more terrifying in the morning light.

He spoke in a low voice, "Aren't those people her clansmen? And given her noble status, how dare they speak like that?"

Tamamo-no-Mae tilted her head, tapped her chin lightly with her fan, and looked at him with a half-smile, "Oh? So you're already concerned about your future wife?"

"What wife!" Tamaro's face darkened, he slammed his sickle on the ground, and his voice rose several decibels, "I just can't stand seeing people doing such despicable things right under my nose! A bunch of men gossiping about a little girl behind her back, have they no shame!"

Tamamo-no-Mae unfolded her fan, covering half her face, revealing only her smiling, crescent-shaped eyes. "Yes, yes, our Tamaro can't stand this kind of thing. But she's not a little girl, she's the young lady of the Tsuchigumo Clan. When you tell me this, I think you actually believe it."

Tamaro turned her face away, ignoring her words.

Tamamo-no-Mae wasn't in a hurry to press him, and slowly continued, "But don't be too surprised. So what if she's a young lady, even if she's from a wealthy family? An unfavored girl might not even be as useful as a servant in front of her own family."

"But she's the young lady."

"The title 'young lady' is just a nice-sounding empty phrase in some families."

"If her father truly loved her that much, how could he have let her follow a group of people who lived on the edge of death to the Land of Hot Water to steal their Sealing Jutsu? And how could he have left her alone among these clansmen who didn't even dare to protect her in person?"

Tamamo-no-Mae gently closed her fan. "You saw it too. Last night, not one of those people dared to rush up and fight the Land of Water Ninjas. With just that many people, how much respect do you expect them to have for her?"

Tamaro was silent for a moment, then lowered his voice. "So... that's why she said those things in public?"

"Which sentence? The one about wanting to marry you?" Tamamo-no-Mae looked at him with a smile.

Tamaro got angry again. "Can't you speak properly!"

"Alright, alright, I won't tease you anymore." Tamamo-no-Mae's smile faded, and her expression turned serious. "You shouldn't underestimate that child. Her proposal in front of so many people was less about love at first sight and more about desperately trying to grab onto a piece of driftwood in a desperate situation."

"Perhaps she does have some feelings for you, but the main thing is that if she doesn't do that, she'll just be taken back to her clan and continue being that pampered young lady with no one to protect her. She might even be used as Chips by her father for a political marriage, and who knows which family she'll be sold to."

"This kind of thing is not uncommon in Pleasure Quarter, is it? You've seen it too. Those glamorous courtesans, after being redeemed, are abandoned by their husbands because they've lost their beauty and come back here."

"That's how women are. The child's privileged status can only protect her from ending up in this brothel, but it can't guarantee her a good life."

The anger on Tamaro's face slowly faded, and he fell silent.

Tamamo-no-Mae sighed softly, turning to look at the hydrangea bush rustling in the wind in the corner of the yard. "You're a man, and you wield a knife. No matter how ugly you are, you can still use a knife to carve a path."

"But in this world, a woman who is only beautiful, capable, and intelligent cannot truly secure her place. She must possess all three, and also have a bit of luck, to barely stand on her own two feet."

"That child hasn't fully grown yet, but I have a feeling she'll grow into a great beauty. However, she often looks down, which suggests she's a bit timid. If we don't lend her a hand now, she won't have an easy time back with that group."

Tamaro remained silent for a long while before asking in a hoarse voice, "Then what do you want to do?"

"What?" Tamamo-no-Mae raised an eyebrow at him.

"Since you consider her your future sister-in-law, you can't just stand by and watch her be bullied like this, can you?"

Tamamo-no-Mae stood up with a smile, patting off the invisible wrinkles on her kimono, and said in a light tone, "Since you've said so, brother, I can't just stand by and watch. Let's go see my poor little sister-in-law. And while we're at it, let those people know something."

"The consequences of gossiping in this Hot Spring Street."