The grief froze on Yashiro's face.
He rubbed his eyes, then pinched his thigh hard.
The searing pain told him this was no dream.
Chikage wasn't dead.
There wasn't even a speck of mud on him.
The head that should have been rolling through the muddy water was now firmly attached to his neck.
Even the sesame dipping sauce at the corner of his mouth had been wiped clean.
Yashiro gaped, his face full of disbelief.
"D-Deputy Captain?"
"Didn't Danzo behead you?"
"Your head was rolling around at my feet just now!"
Chikage swallowed his lamb and looked at Yashiro as though he were an idiot.
"Captain Yashiro, did you eat so much lamb that you fried your brain?"
"What beheading?"
"You were sitting in the carriage, convulsing all over, then suddenly unleashed so much chakra that you tore the carriage apart."
"Do you have any idea how much effort it took me to save this pot of lamb?"
Yashiro stood rooted to the spot, his mind in turmoil.
"That's not right!"
"South Street burned down, and my wife and child had their eyes gouged out!"
"I saw it myself!"
Chikage sighed and set down his large porcelain bowl.
He walked over to Yashiro and patted his shoulder.
"Yashiro, my friend, that was the clan leader's Mangekyo genjutsu."
"He planted it in you in the meeting room before we left."
"Everything you saw in your head was fake."
Yashiro looked as though he had been struck by lightning.
"F-Fake?"
"It was all genjutsu?"
Chikage pointed at the bodies littering the ground around them.
"That stuff was fake, but these are real."
"These Root bastards really did come to kill us."
"The clan leader had your best interests at heart. Without a drastic push, would you ever have awakened those eyes?"