"Anyone else want to talk to me about the 'Will of Fire'?"
The conference room fell utterly silent.
A pin dropping on the floor would probably have been louder than everyone's breathing.
In the crack in the wall, a murky bubble of blood rose from Utatane Koharu's throat. It burst with a soft, wet pop.
Hiruzen Sarutobi sat in the first seat on the left.
He bit down hard on his lower lip. His teeth broke the skin, and the metallic, sweet blood dripped down his chin onto his collar.
He barely dared breathe, afraid that the slightest sound might draw that white-gloved hand his way.
The clan heads across from him looked like quails with their spines pulled out. One by one, they lowered their proud heads to the table.
Shu Shiraishi straightened up and took both hands off the mahogany table.
He took a step around the high-backed chair at the head of the table. His black military boots made no sound on the thick carpet.
"When Hashirama Senju founded the village, he left behind a saying."
Shu walked to the window and pushed it open.
Damp wind rushed in from outside, dispersing the heavy stench of blood in the room.
"Where the leaves dance, the fire burns on. Its light will illuminate the village and allow new leaves to sprout."
With his back to the long table, Shu looked out at Konoha.
"Hiruzen," he suddenly said.
Hiruzen shuddered, his shoulders jerking inward.
"How did you used to teach those brats at the Ninja Academy?"
Hiruzen's Adam's apple bobbed. His throat felt as though it were stuffed with dry sand. He dared not refuse to answer.
"It... it means self-sacrifice."
Hiruzen's voice was a pitifully weak squeak.
"The young are the hope of the future. The older generation must become fertile soil like fallen leaves, protecting the village and their comrades..."
"Bullshit."
Shu cut him off.
He turned around and waved a white cotton-gloved hand casually through the air.
"That's a fig leaf the weak use to cover their shame."
Shu returned to the long table and tapped the parchment scroll bearing the heavy industrialization plan.
"Today, I'll translate it for you again."
Shu swept his gaze over everyone.
"'Where the leaves dance.' What does that mean?"
"War."
"It means Konoha's armies will spread the flames of war across the entire Shinobi World, until blasted chunks of charred wood and dead leaves dance across the lands of the four great ninja villages."
The clan heads all sucked in a breath. Akimichi Chōza's fat face went deathly pale in an instant, and his flesh quivered twice.
"'The fire burns on,'" Shu continued.
"This isn't some love born of mutual understanding."
"It's the fire that melts iron in a blast furnace. It's the flash when a heavy Chakra cannon's rifled barrel bursts open."
"It's the black smoke pouring from chimneys and the red-hot molten iron produced as heavy industrial machinery runs around the clock!"
Apart from Shu's voice, the only sound in the room was the hiss of sharply indrawn breaths.
Shu did not speak quickly, but every word struck like a hammer on an iron plate.
"'Its light will illuminate the village.'"
He pointed at the building beneath their feet.
"It means we'll use steel and machinery to build fortresses hundreds of meters tall in Konoha and connect them to a high-voltage Chakra power grid."
"The village will never know night, and all the darkness outside will be kept beyond the machine-gun emplacements."
Cold sweat ran down Hyūga Tensō's forehead and along the bridge of his nose, dripping straight onto the mahogany table.
"As for 'new leaves to sprout'..."
Shu gave a cold laugh, full of undisguised disdain.
"It means that once we use a torrent of steel to grind those daimyo who lord it over ninja, along with the likes of the Kazekage and Mizukage, into meat paste..."
"We'll establish Konoha's absolute hegemony over the ruins of this scorched earth."
"That is what true rebirth means!"
Shu slammed both hands down on the table and leaned forward.
"That is the Will of Fire."
An immense pressure crashed over the long table like a tsunami.
That grand and terrifying vision struck like a sledgehammer, shattering the lukewarm thinking these people had held for decades.
Burn everything. Crush backwardness.
How was this a Hokage? He was plainly a tyrant who meant to devour the entire world.
Shu looked at the deathly pale faces around the table.
"Relying on Genin to find lost cats, and on Jonin to escort fat, overfed merchants..."
"That game of playing house is over."
He patted the parchment scroll on the table twice with his white glove.
"Now."
Shu straightened up.
"Who's in favor, and who's opposed?"
In the crack in the wall, Koharu's leg twitched again, dislodging two broken bricks.
Oppose him?
Mitokado Homura's wooden sandal, flung off his foot, was still lying in the middle of the table. The old man was probably already on his way to an illegal coal mine.
Who the fuck would dare object?!
Hyūga Tensō was the first to bow.
His forehead struck the mahogany tabletop with a heavy thud.
"The Hyuga Clan... swears to follow Lord Hokage's... Will of Fire unto death." Tensō's voice was thick with tears.
Once someone had taken the lead, the remaining clan heads scrambled to pledge their loyalty.
Yamanaka Fūshin shot to his feet. He rose so abruptly that his thigh struck the edge of the table. Ignoring the pain, he bent into a deep ninety-degree bow.
Akimichi Chōza's belly was too big for him to bow that far, so he could only pound his chest with a palm as broad as a fan, making it thump loudly.
Uchiha Retsu kept his head lowered.
He clenched his fists so hard that his nails dug into his flesh. Following the crowd, he gave a perfunctory nod.
Hiruzen was the last to raise his head.
He looked at Shu, his eyes filled with shattered despair and profound helplessness.
He could not even find the words to argue.
"The Sarutobi Clan... has no objections." Hiruzen slumped in his chair, utterly resigned to his fate.
Amid extreme fear and absolute obedience, the meeting's outcome was forcibly settled.
There was no vote and no wrangling.
"Meeting adjourned."
Shu turned and headed for his desk.
There was no need for further words.
The clan heads looked as though they had been granted a pardon.
Chairs scraped against the carpet in a chaotic chorus.
Hyūga Tensō's legs went weak. As he stood, his right foot caught on his left, and he stumbled, nearly falling over the wooden sandal Mitokado Homura had left behind.
Yamanaka Fūshin hurried to steady him by the arm. Neither dared let out so much as a fart as they headed out with their tails between their legs.
The conference room doors stood open.
The dark brown wooden corridor was long. Sunlight streamed through the windows, casting squares of light across the floor.
The clan heads walked down the corridor. No one spoke; there was only the sound of hurried, jumbled footsteps.
They were like a group of rabbits that had just escaped a wolf's den.
Hiruzen walked at the back, his back hunched as though he had aged ten years in an instant.
Uchiha Retsu walked at the front.
He strode briskly, his face livid, the wind stirring in his wake.
He was the Uchiha Clan's grand elder, the head of a prestigious clan who possessed the Three-Tomoe Sharingan.
Yet today, alongside a bunch of cringing cowards, he had been lectured like a dog by some wild brat of common birth who had pointed a finger in his face.
Did they even have to hand over their clan's secret Fire Style techniques for steelmaking?
Make those of noble Uchiha blood work as furnace hands?
What a joke.
He reached the corner at the end of the corridor.
Around it was a shadowed area untouched by sunlight, some distance from the conference room.
It was quiet, and there were no other Anbu around.
Uchiha Retsu stopped.
The fire burning in his chest made his insides ache.
He suddenly clenched his right fist and slammed it into the wall.
There was a dull thud, and a fine layer of white plaster dust shook loose from the wall.
Three black Tomoe appeared of their own accord in his eyes, spinning rapidly twice before vanishing back into the depths of his black pupils.
He gritted his teeth, grinding them with a grating creak.
He lowered his voice and forced a furious curse from the depths of his throat.
"Arrogant commoner. He really thinks he's somebody."
Retsu glared fiercely at the grain of the wooden floor.
"The Uchiha Clan will never submit to him!"
His voice was very low, circling through the shadows of the corridor.
But he had forgotten.
The long corridor of the Hokage's building carried echoes surprisingly well.
At the other end of the corridor, outside the conference room.
Shu had just stepped out.
He stopped and tilted his head slightly.
That low, furious curse, every word of it...
Crawled through the cracks in the wooden floor and into Shu's ears.