Shu Shiraishi looked at him.
His gaze crossed the three-meter-long mahogany table, passing over the shattered teacup and the soaked tabletop, and struck Mitokado Homura's gaunt face.
There was no murderous roar of rage. No oppressive pressure from unleashed chakra.
It was simply the look one gave a dead man, as still as a frozen pool.
The finger Mitokado Homura had raised in midair froze.
Its tip trembled violently, like a dead branch in the autumn wind.
He met Shu's gaze, and the blood boiling in his chest was instantly doused with a bucket of ice water. A chill ran from the top of his head to the soles of his feet.
The courage that had driven him to shout his challenge moments ago vanished like a pricked soap bubble, without so much as a splash.
Thud.
Homura's legs gave way, and his kneecaps slammed against the wooden panel beneath the table's edge. The painful impact landed with a dull thud.
He fell back into the high-backed leather chair.
The impact made the chair give an ugly creak, and its four brass casters slid half an inch backward across the carpet.
The round glasses on his nose slipped all the way off and clattered onto the mahogany tabletop, leaving a conspicuous crack in the right lens.
Homura couldn't spare a thought for picking them up.
He clung to the smooth edge of the table with both hands, his nails scraping against it with a faint, grating sound. Only then did he barely manage to keep himself from sliding under the table.
He gasped for air, strange rattling sounds coming from his throat.
Lack of oxygen turned his face from deathly pale to a suffocated purple.
He couldn't get a word out.
Shu Shiraishi straightened up.
He walked around the head of the table and made his way, step by step, along its right side, treading on the thick wool carpet.
His military boots made no sound on the carpet.
But to Mitokado Homura, those soundless footsteps were more terrifying than the Nine-Tails' roar.
Shu reached Homura's side and stopped.
To his right, Utatane Koharu, embedded in the wall, spat out another mouthful of black blood in fits and starts. Bloody foam bubbled in the gaps between the bricks.
The strong stench of blood mixed with the earthy smell of lime dust and rushed straight into Homura's nostrils.
Homura drew his neck deep into his high collar, his whole body shaking in a huddle in the spacious chair. His teeth chattered with little clicking sounds.
"An adviser?"
Shu Shiraishi lowered his head slightly and looked at the trembling old man. His voice was icy cold.
"Konoha is now under wartime military rule. The Hokage building has no need for parasites who only know how to divide up the spoils and maintain a balance of power."
Shu Shiraishi raised his right hand.
Homura squeezed his eyes shut in fright.
His hands flew up to cover his bald head, and he shrank into the chair, terrified that the hand that had just shattered Koharu's cheekbone would land on him.
But the searing pain he expected never came.
Shu Shiraishi merely reached out with two fingers and pinched the Konoha armband on Homura's left lapel, the badge of his status as a senior adviser.
Rr rip.
A violent tearing sound rang out.
A large piece of the fine silk fabric came away with it.
Shu Shiraishi casually tossed the armband onto the table, into the pool of bloodstained tea.
The white fabric was instantly soaked through with dirty water.
"As of this very second, you are stripped of your title as adviser."
Shu Shiraishi dusted off his hands.
Homura's eyes snapped open.
Through his blurred vision, he saw the armband that had symbolized his power for most of his life soaking in the filthy water.
"What gives you the right?!" Homura's voice trembled, cracking like a broken gong. "I was personally appointed as an aide by the Second! Without the elders' approval, you have no authority to..."
"I already said it. In this room, my word is law."
Shu Shiraishi cut him off, with no interest in offering another word of explanation.
He turned his head toward the conference room doors.
"Anbu."
No sooner had he spoken than four black-clad figures in animal masks flashed in from outside.
"Lord Third." The Anbu squad leader dropped to one knee and bowed his head low.
Shu Shiraishi gestured with his chin at Mitokado Homura, slumped in the chair.
"Mitokado Homura openly shouted at a wartime meeting of the High Command, obstructing the village's development."
He paused, his gaze crossing the mahogany table and sweeping over the row of clan heads opposite him, none of whom dared breathe too loudly.
"Since you're so fond of clinging to the old ways and don't want to see Konoha's new era, I'll find you somewhere quiet."
"Isn't there a Black Rock Coal Mine on the northwestern border of the Land of Fire?" Shu Shiraishi turned to ask the Anbu.
The Anbu Captain stiffened and immediately answered, "Yes. It's in a poisonous miasma zone, and the conditions are terrible. It's normally reserved for exiling serious criminals sentenced to death."
"Very good." Shu Shiraishi nodded in satisfaction. "The village is going to pursue heavy industrialization, and the steelworks will need plenty of high-quality fuel. Since this former adviser keeps saying he's doing everything for the village's foundations, he can go underground and put what little he has left to use."
He looked at Homura's utterly terrified face and spoke slowly, emphasizing every word.
"Take him there. Strip him of his chakra and confiscate all his property. He'll mine coal for the rest of his life."
"If he dares take so much as half a step toward escape, kill him on the spot."
The sentence had been passed.
In just a few words, a lofty member of Konoha's decision-making circle had been trampled straight into the mud at the very bottom.
Beside the long table, Uchiha Retsu swallowed with difficulty. The sound of his throat bobbing was exceptionally clear in the deathly silent room.
Hyūga Tensō drew both hands into the wide sleeves of his kimono and pinched his thigh hard, using the pain to maintain an outward appearance of calm.
Mitokado Homura sat stunned for a full two seconds.
Mine coal?
He, a dignified member of the Konoha High Command, an important man who had taken tea with the daimyō, was supposed to swing a pick in a black coal pit on the northwestern border?
The place was full of desperadoes who might not live to see tomorrow, breathing coal dust and poison gas every day.
With his chakra sealed, these old bones of his wouldn't last three months in a place like that!
"N-no... you can't!"
Homura completely broke down. He shot to his feet, only for his legs to buckle and send him crashing back into the chair.
No longer caring about dignity or decorum, he waved both hands wildly in the air.
"Shu! Shu Shiraishi! You're using public office to settle a personal grudge! You're persecuting someone who rendered great service to Konoha!"
Two Anbu Ninja had already moved silently behind him.
Each seized one of his arms and hauled it sharply upward.
Like an old duck seized by the back of the neck, Homura was forcibly hauled out of the leather chair.
"Let me go! I'm an adviser! I'm the head of the Mitokado Clan!"
Homura kicked desperately in midair.
The wooden sandal on his right foot flew off, arcing through the air before smashing into the middle of the conference table.
It landed with a dull thud.
His hair disheveled, he turned to Hiruzen Sarutobi, who sat in the first seat on the left.
Like a drowning man clutching at the last straw.
"Hiruzen! Hiruzen Sarutobi! Say something!"
Homura howled himself hoarse, spittle spraying without restraint onto the fox mask of an Anbu Ninja.
"He chopped your father's head off in the square! Now he wants to wipe out all of us old-timers! What are you waiting for?!"
Hiruzen Sarutobi sat there.
Like a weathered stone statue.
His head hung extremely low, his chin almost pressed tight against his collarbone.
His hands lay flat on his thighs, clutching the dark fabric of his trousers so tightly that it was horribly rumpled.
Hiruzen ground his back teeth with a crunching sound, two hard lumps bulging in his cheeks.
But he didn't raise his head. He didn't even glance in Mitokado Homura's direction.
He didn't say a word.
He was afraid.
Truly and deeply afraid, down to his very bones.
Utatane Koharu was still embedded in the cracks in the wall, her fate unknown. Now Homura had been stripped of everything and was being dragged off to mine coal.
Shu Shiraishi was a complete lunatic. He didn't care about political balance or the prestige of the great clans, much less any so-called merit.
Whoever dared step forward now, this tyrant would crush them without a moment's hesitation.
Seeing Hiruzen play dead to the bitter end,
the last glimmer of hope in Homura's eyes went out completely.
"You... you cowards!" Homura struggled feebly in the Anbu's iron grip, his voice breaking into a desperate sob.
"Konoha is finished! Generations of hard work, all destroyed by this tyrant!"
The Anbu Ninja gave him no chance to keep howling.
One Anbu raised an armored hand and brought it down hard in a knife-hand strike against a pressure point on the back of Homura's neck.
Thump.
Homura's eyes rolled all the way back, and his body went limp.
His desperate howling cut off abruptly.
"Take him away." Shu Shiraishi looked at the dust on the carpet without so much as raising an eyelid.
The two Anbu hauled the unconscious Mitokado Homura out of the conference room at a brisk pace, as if dragging a sack of garbage.
Their soles scuffed rapidly against the wooden floor of the corridor.
The sound grew fainter and soon vanished around the bend in the stairs.
The room once again fell into a suffocating silence.
Only the wall clock continued ticking at its unhurried pace. Tick. Tock.
The clock showed forty-two minutes past the hour.
The meeting had been underway for less than fifteen minutes.
Konoha's innermost circle of senior decision-makers had been completely broken apart by a simple, brutal purge.
Shimura Danzō was eating dirt in the square and would spend the rest of his life hauling night soil.
Mitokado Homura's property had been confiscated, and he would mine coal for life.
Utatane Koharu was embedded in the brickwork of a load-bearing wall, the black blood flowing from her spreading along the baseboard and collecting in a small, dark red puddle on the floor.
Of the once-lofty council of elders, only Hiruzen Sarutobi remained, and he didn't even dare raise his head.
The heads of the great clans across the long table now sat straighter than Genin being reprimanded at the Ninja Academy.
Akimichi Chōza held his breath, pressing his massive body as far back against his chair as he could, afraid that taking up too much space would draw attention.
Uchiha Retsu had put away the arrogance his Sharingan had brought him in the past and looked meekly at the wood grain along the edge of the table.
Yamanaka Fūshin's forehead was covered in cold sweat, yet he didn't even dare raise a hand to wipe it away.
With the most extreme force and utterly unreasonable displays of power, Shu Shiraishi had smashed the dignity these great clans had held for hundreds and thousands of years into a scatter of glass shards that no one cared to pick up.
Shu Shiraishi turned around.
He walked back to the head of the table at an unhurried pace, treading on the soft wool carpet.
His military boots stepped past the wooden sandal Mitokado Homura had flung onto the table, and he paid it no attention.
He reached the high-backed leather chair.
Shu Shiraishi turned and sat down again.
Leaning against the backrest, he stretched his shoulders slightly and settled into a comfortable position.
He reached into his trouser pocket.
He took out a brand-new pair of white gloves. They were standard issue for Anbu carrying out purge missions.
Shu Shiraishi laid the gloves flat on the mahogany tabletop.
He picked up the left one first and slowly pulled it onto his left hand.
He slid his fingers in one by one, smoothing out the wrinkles in the cotton over the back of his hand.
Then he picked up the right one.
Everyone watched his right hand intently from the corners of their eyes.
The right hand that had shattered Koharu's cheekbone with a single slap.
The specks of foundation and traces of blood on his knuckles gleamed a glaring red beneath the dim yellow ceiling light.
Shu Shiraishi slid his right hand into the white glove.
The pure white cotton slid up over his fingers, covering his skin and completely concealing the bloodstains.
He folded his hands.
He placed them on the parchment scroll in front of him, which bore the words "Heavy Industrialization Reform Plan."
The dust from the wall had settled completely.
Apart from Koharu's faint, wheezing gasps, the conference room was as silent as a vast morgue.
The surface of the unfinished glass of cool water on the table was smooth as a mirror, without a single ripple.
Shu Shiraishi raised his head.
His gaze swept around the room.
From the back of Hiruzen's bowed head, it passed over Uchiha Retsu's taut jaw and Hyūga Tensō's temples, soaked with cold sweat.
The hairs on the back of every person his gaze passed over stood on end.
Shu Shiraishi leaned forward slightly.
He looked at the powerful figures who had once held Konoha's lifeblood in their hands, but were now walking on thin ice.
"Now."
Shu Shiraishi's voice was calm.
As calm as if he were discussing tomorrow's breakfast.
"Does anyone else want to talk to me about the 'Will of Fire'?"