The heavy doors creaked open.
The luxury within the bedchamber was enough to dazzle the greediest merchant. Golden and jeweled radiance intertwined, while the air reeked of incense, wine, and meat.
A man fat as a pig, dressed in finery befitting such extravagance, was kneeling on the floor in an exaggerated posture, his body quivering like wobbling fat in the wind.
"Spare me! Please spare me, my lord!" He did not even dare raise his head. His voice carried a sobbing tremor and nearly cracked. "All the treasures, the entire treasury of the Land of Hot Water, I'll offer it all to you! Just spare my life!"
Sasuke's brow twitched almost imperceptibly. His grip on the customized Bolter tightened, instinctively disgusted by such a pathetic display of servility. Neji remained vigilant. Under the Byakugan, the fat man's chakra flow was chaotic and weak. He was indeed in a state of extreme terror.
But Naruto merely stood there quietly, his cold gaze examining the clumsy farce before him.
He had seen true despair. On the Imperium's scorched battlefields, when facing the fiends of Chaos, the deathly stillness on soldiers' faces as though their souls had been drained, that silent shudder rising from the depths of their bones—that was the truest image of death.
The fear of this "daimyō," however, was too loud and too exaggerated, like a carefully rehearsed stage play.
"Raise your head." Naruto's voice was not loud, yet it carried an irresistible command.
The fat man shuddered all over and slowly lifted his greasy face, forcing out a smile uglier than crying.
Naruto walked up to him, looking down from above as he calmly asked, "How much of Minister Fujita's Moon Beauty Fund were you planning to take?"
"Moon... Moon Beauty?" The man's body abruptly stiffened. Pure confusion and