The First Outsider to See the Truth

That night, not long after a battle had ended, the new Crown Prince was still enjoying the joy of victory inside the Daimyo Palace.

At the Guard Corps outpost by the capital's gates, Uchiha Feng arrived and began assembling his forces.

There were not many people: four Guard Corps units led by three captains, a little over two hundred men in total.

"Hidemasa, Keiichi, Kengo, each of you pick ten trusted men and come with me.

Arrange for the rest to guard the four city gates. Seal them completely tonight. No one is allowed to leave the capital."

Feng got straight to the point, issuing orders the moment he saw the three men.

"Yes, my lord! X3"

Sada Hidemasa, Shibata Keiichi, and Furukawa Kengo immediately accepted the order and set to work.

The three first turned to arrange guards for the city gates, then quickly returned to Feng's side.

"My lord, the gates have been assigned guards. Next, we..."

Sada Hidemasa asked in a low voice, a slight tremor in his tone.

He differed from Shibata Keiichi and Furukawa Kengo. Those two merely followed orders and rarely used their heads.

Hidemasa, however, might have looked like a burly samurai, but his mind was exceptionally quick and clever.

Thus, while arranging the guards at the gates, he had already formed certain guesses about his lord Uchiha Feng's actions.

However, the Ninja World had always been steeped in loyalty to one's lord, and there had never been a precedent for moving against a daimyo.

Hidemasa had guessed something, but it was too rebellious for him to dare dwell on it.

"Enough. Don't say anything. Come with me."

Feng regarded the perceptive Hidemasa in a new light, but did not answer. Instead, he directly gave the order to move.

Only one final step remained before he could control the Tea Country. He had no intention of celebrating before the game was won.

What he needed now was speed. He had to head to the Daimyo Palace and settle every remaining problem.

Under the cover of night, Feng led his men straight to the Daimyo Palace.

Upon arriving, he first had Shibata Keiichi and Furukawa Kengo lead men to seal off the gates. Once again, no one was permitted to enter or leave.

He also recalled Uchiha Mikio, who had been guarding the daimyo's side.

Tonight's operation would meet considerable resistance. Feng needed Mikio's formidable strength as insurance, lest delays breed complications.

Once Uchiha Mikio arrived, Feng immediately led him, Sada Hidemasa, and the others toward the place where the palace's Samurai Corps rested.

"All Samurai Corps personnel! By order of the Crown Prince, everyone is to go outside the palace and guard the main entrance."

Upon reaching the samurai's resting quarters, Feng issued an order as captain of the Samurai Corps.

"Uh, Captain, this late at night..."

"Did those ministers gather more men from somewhere again?"

The samurai assembled while talking over one another.

As for anyone disobeying, there were none.

When Feng had first taken over the Samurai Corps, he had used the deaths of several samurai to teach them what absolute obedience meant.

Combined with his status as captain of the Samurai Corps and the daimyo's son-in-law, no one questioned whether Feng's orders had the daimyo's approval.

"Now, go to the palace gates and relieve the Guard Corps. Hold the entrance.

But you, you, and you—come with me."

After leading everyone back to the palace gates, Feng had the samurai replace Shibata Keiichi and Furukawa Kengo in guarding the palace entrance.

At the same time, he singled out several squad leaders of considerable standing within the Samurai Corps.

What he was about to do was extremely treasonous and would very likely stir up some people's loyalty to the daimyo, leading them to oppose him.

Therefore, Feng intended to take away those most likely to lead the opposition and find a way to bind them to his own chariot.

That way, even if anyone truly opposed him later, they would be only a tiny minority and easily suppressed.

After selecting his men, Feng hurried toward the new Crown Prince's residence.

Along the way, he quietly instructed Uchiha Mikio:

"Senior Mikio, the moment we see that idiot Crown Prince, take control of him.

Make him give us the order to follow him and slaughter all of the daimyo's sons."

Before his words had even faded, his killing intent seemed to solidify and slice through the air.

Uchiha Mikio gave a slight nod, saying nothing more.

At the new Crown Prince's residence within the Daimyo Palace, Feng and his men stood outside his room as though awaiting orders.

"Your Highness the Crown Prince, we have come to await your instructions," Feng called loudly.

"??" Inside, the Crown Prince, who had not yet gone to sleep, was utterly confused. When did I give an order? What order did I give? But if I didn't give an order, what is going on outside?

Thinking this, the puzzled Crown Prince stepped outside, intending to see what was happening.

However, he had barely glanced at the crowd and had yet to speak when Uchiha Mikio, his entire body concealed beneath a long robe behind Feng, let his eyes flash red. His eyes instantly shifted into the Three-Tomoe Sharingan, and the Crown Prince was brought under control.

Then, after several vacant seconds, once he had been completely controlled by the genjutsu, the Crown Prince slowly spoke.

"Yes. Follow me." With that, he stepped ahead of Feng and the others, leading them through the palace.

Feng followed without a word. The others had all been brought by Feng, so seeing him follow the Crown Prince, they naturally followed as well.

Before long, they reached the Second Prince's residence.

"Break down the door. Drag out the second brother and his entire family."

The controlled Crown Prince spoke calmly.

"Hmm!!??"

Everyone except Uchiha Feng and Uchiha Mikio was shocked beyond belief.

But there was one exception: Sada Hidemasa.

Incomparably clever, he thought of a certain possibility and blurted out, "Heav..."

But he immediately covered his mouth.

Disbelief first filled his eyes, followed by terror and utter incomprehension.

But in the end, they turned fervent and blazing.

Previously, he had only guessed that his lord intended to do something unimaginable.

Yet after witnessing everything along the way and finally understanding the truth, he realized that the great undertaking his lord planned was far greater than he had imagined.

In his original estimation, at most, his lord would seize control of all military forces in the capital, imprison the daimyo's family within the palace, and become the powerful minister of the Tea Country.

Many had done such things throughout history, and to the natives of the Ninja World, this was already the most lawless deed they could imagine.

As for rebels who had overthrown daimyo rule in the Ninja World's past, they had either been of the daimyo's bloodline or descended from the daimyo's ancestors.

Never had someone without the daimyo's blood rebelled and then become the daimyo. Never.

Yet now, from his lord's actions, Sada Hidemasa saw that his lord seemed intent on becoming that unprecedented first person.

The reason he could only say "seemed" and could not be completely certain was that one blood relative of the daimyo still remained outside this palace.

That person was his lord's wife, Lady Aiko. If all of the daimyo's descendants were gone, Lady Aiko would also be qualified to inherit the daimyo's position.

What Sada Hidemasa could not determine was how his lord intended to deal with his own wife.

However, no matter how she was handled, it would not affect his lord becoming the Tea Country's actual ruler.

Given Lady Aiko's personality, even if she inherited the daimyo's position, she would most likely be nothing more than a puppet obedient to every word of her husband.

And after thinking it through carefully, one would discover that it seemed his lord had been making arrangements from the moment he first appeared.

It was precisely because Sada Hidemasa had figured this out that he found it unimaginable.

But it was also why his expression became so excited and fervent.

As a commoner of ordinary family background and average cultivation talent,

the extremely intelligent Sada Hidemasa had known from childhood exactly what he wanted and how to obtain it.

Thus, he had trained diligently from a young age, climbing with all his might to the pinnacle an ordinary person could reach: becoming a guard for the daimyo.

Then, according to his plans, he would use his intelligence to earn the daimyo's appreciation and render services to him.

Then the daimyo would grant him land and title, allowing him to cross the class divide and become a noble.

This was the normal path for commoners of the Ninja World to rise above their station, and the direction Sada Hidemasa had planned to strive toward.

But before his plan could succeed, the new lord he had reluctantly joined because of the daimyo's orders had shown him, in an unprecedented way, that crossing the class divide did not need to be so troublesome.

As long as one had strength, one could simply take whatever one wanted from the daimyo with one's own hands.

Of course, Sada Hidemasa had a clear understanding of himself. In terms of intelligence, he was confident he was inferior to no one.

But in terms of strength, the ninja who occasionally came to the Tea Country for missions had long taught him to face reality.

Being able to reach strength comparable to a chunin in this lifetime would already be a blessing from heaven. Anything stronger was beyond what he dared hope for.

Thus, he also understood that even though he now knew this truth, he lacked the strength to carry it out.

But his current lord could!

Moreover, the method his lord used was unprecedented, something no one had ever considered.

Therefore, before this method was fully exposed to the world, no one would be able to trouble his lord, who would become either the daimyo or the daimyo's husband.

So before it was exposed, his lord could use the same method to control other countries, eventually becoming a ruler equal to the Five Great Nations—or even surpassing them.

By then, as the first person to pledge loyalty to his lord, Sada Hidemasa's status would be beyond imagination.

How could such a future not leave Sada Hidemasa excited and his heart burning hot?

Thus, while everyone else was still frozen by the Crown Prince's order, Sada Hidemasa took the lead and rushed into the Second Prince's residence with his men.