At noon the next day, the sun beat down mercilessly.
The flagstones in Konoha's central plaza had grown scorching hot. There wasn't a breath of wind.
Cicadas shrilled from the distant trees, their cries harsh and dry.
The plaza, normally bustling, was packed with more than ten thousand people today.
A dense sea of heads stretched across it.
No one spoke.
Even the children who usually cried and fussed the most had their mouths firmly covered by the adults.
The air was stifling as a steamer, thick with the mingled smells of sweat and dust.
A wooden execution platform two meters high had been erected overnight in the center of the plaza.
The rough log platform gave off the sharp smell of fresh sawdust.
Sarutobi Sasuke knelt on the platform.
More precisely, he lay sprawled on it.
All four of his limbs had been broken the day before. Jagged bone had pierced his brown combat uniform, and the blood around his wounds had long since congealed into hard black clots.
Two Uchiha ninja dressed in black stood on either side of him.
They held his shoulders down, their soles pressing hard against the broken bones in his lower legs.
Sasuke's head hung against his chest.
Sweat and blood had plastered his tangled hair to his scalp. Dried foam clung to the corners of his mouth.
Directly in front of the platform.
Hiruzen Sarutobi knelt on the scorching flagstones.
"Bang!"
Hiruzen slammed his head against the ground.
"Bang!" He struck it again.
The skin on his forehead had long since been torn to shreds. A large smear of dark red blood stained the flagstones.
He straightened up, his forehead covered in dust and bits of gravel.
His lips were deathly pale, cracked and peeling.
"Lord Hokage..."
Hiruzen's voice was completely hoarse, like two rough stones grinding hard against each other.
"I'm begging you..."
The crowd parted of its own accord.
A passage three meters wide opened up.
Shu Shiraishi walked down the passage.
He wasn't wearing the Hokage's ceremonial robes, only the same black, short-sleeved, high-collared shirt.
A white Hokage hat sat on his head, and both hands were tucked into his pants pockets.
His military boots struck the flagstones.
Each step pounded against Hiruzen's heart.
Hiruzen crawled toward him like a dog.
His hands scrabbled across the ground as he tried to grab Shu Shiraishi's boots.
An Uchiha ninja beside him stepped forward.
He kicked Hiruzen in the shoulder.
Hiruzen rolled over, then scrambled back to where he had been.
"Shu... no, Lord Hokage."
Hiruzen raised his face. Tears mixed with dust, carving two muddy tracks down his cheeks.
Blood streaming from his forehead blurred his vision. He blinked hard, his eyelashes sticking together.
"My father's crippled. You took all the Sarutobi Clan's money and food."
Hiruzen was incoherent, both hands gesturing wildly in the air.
"He's over sixty! He fought in the First Shinobi World War! For the sake of the older generation, spare his life."
"I'll take him and get out. We'll leave the village!"
Shu Shiraishi stopped.
He looked down at Hiruzen at his feet.
"The older generation?"
Shu Shiraishi spoke quietly, but his voice carried far across the silent plaza.
"In the First Shinobi World War, 2,800 civilian ninja died on the Land of Lightning front."
Shu Shiraishi walked around Hiruzen and stepped onto the wooden stairs leading to the execution platform.
"Creak."
The boards gave a dull groan.
"Only half the compensation owed to those civilians was paid out."
Shu Shiraishi climbed onto the platform.
"The other half went straight into the pockets of you Sarutobi and the Shimura."
Shu Shiraishi walked behind Sarutobi Sasuke and stopped.
Below the platform, Hiruzen's mouth hung open.
His Adam's apple bobbed frantically, but he couldn't utter a word in rebuttal.
The heads of the major clans stood at the very front of the crowd.
Sweat streamed down Akimichi Chōza's fat face like a waterfall. He didn't dare wipe it away, letting it run into his eyes, where it stung fiercely.
Hyūga Tensō tucked his hands into the sleeves of his tattered gray undershirt. His legs trembled so badly he could barely stand.
Shu Shiraishi looked down from above, sweeping his gaze over the ten thousand people.
"You usually live on bran and vegetables, risking your lives on missions."
"Those lofty great clans sit in their spacious mansions, dividing up the money you earn with your lives."
A faint stir rippled through the crowd.
"When wartime supplies were running short, what were they doing?"
Shu Shiraishi pointed at Sarutobi Sasuke, who lay at his feet like a lump of rotting flesh.
"They locked up the granaries and raised the price of Military Rations Pills fivefold."
"They made it so that you, the people going to risk your lives on the front lines, couldn't afford even a bite of provisions."
The civilians and lower-ranking ninja in the plaza began to breathe heavily.
The fear of killing they had felt moments ago gave way to resentment buried in their hearts for decades, stirred up by those words.
That was right. Why should they stand for it?
While everyone lost arms and legs on the front lines, those powerful clans feasted on the blood of others in the rear.
"You call that the will of fire? You call them comrades?"
Shu Shiraishi let out a cold laugh.
His right hand reached behind his waist and gripped his sword hilt.
"I said it yesterday. Sarutobi Sasuke attempted to rebel. He would be beheaded in public."
Shu Shiraishi drew his sword an inch.
"That's the rule I, Shu Shiraishi, set. If I say I'll kill the whole family, then the whole family dies."
"Today, I'll start by killing a clan head for you to see."
The long sword left its sheath.
"Shing-"
Metal scraped with a piercing sound.
The blade reflected the blazing noon sun, a flash of cold light dazzling the eyes of the people before it.
Sasuke, sprawled on the platform, heard the sword being drawn.
A wheezing, rasping sound escaped his throat.
He strained to lift his head.
His bloodstained old face twisted as he stared fixedly at Shu Shiraishi's chin.
"You... you'll die a horrible death..."
Sasuke gritted his teeth, saliva running down his chin.
"The daimyō... the daimyō of the Land of Fire won't let you get away with this!"
"The daimyō?"
Shu Shiraishi flicked the blade with his gloved left hand.
It rang with a soft "ting."
"Once I've dealt with the trash in the village, I'll go twist his head off next."
Sasuke froze.
His two cloudy eyes bulged almost out of their sockets.
He looked at the young man before him as though he were a monster.
He didn't even care about the daimyō. He was no Hokage; he was a complete lunatic.
Below the platform, Hiruzen completely broke down.
"No! No!"
Hiruzen scrambled toward the steps.
"Shu! You can't kill him! I'm begging you!"
Hiruzen roared like a wild dog.
"I'll be your dog! The Sarutobi Clan will be your dogs!"
He clutched the bottom wooden step with both hands, his fingernails digging into the gaps in the wood and his knuckles turning white.
Shu Shiraishi didn't even raise an eyelid.
He gripped the long sword's hilt with both hands and raised it high.
Sunlight shone on the silver-white back of the blade.
"Execute him."
Shu Shiraishi turned his wrists.
The blade chopped down hard, trailing a fierce rush of air.
There were no wasted movements, no dazzling displays of Chakra and light.
Only violence in its purest form, severing everything.
"Squelch."
The sharp blade cut through the flesh at the back of the neck and severed the vertebrae.
The dull sound of a blade chopping flesh burst across the silent plaza.
Sarutobi Sasuke's head separated cleanly from his neck.
The blood pressure pent up in his body was released completely in that instant.
A glaring jet of blood shot more than two meters into the air.
It was like a torrential rain of red.
Blood splattered down all over the log execution platform, leaving broad patches of vivid crimson.
The headless torso swayed twice.
Then it pitched forward with its remaining momentum and slammed onto the boards.
The head, with its full beard, rolled down along the edge of the steps.
"Thump. Thump."
The head bounced twice on the wooden steps.
Trailing sticky blood, it fell toward the ground.
It finally landed in front of Hiruzen.
Only half a foot from the tip of his nose.
"Drip."
A drop of warm blood fell from the tip of Sasuke's nose, beneath his unclosed eyes, and struck the flagstones.
The blood spraying from the execution platform splashed all over Hiruzen's head and face, carried by the wind.
His dust-caked face was instantly dyed a horrifying scarlet.
Hiruzen's hands were still clawed tightly into the step.
He froze.
His breathing stopped. His heart felt as though a huge, icy hand had crushed it.
He looked at the severed head on the ground.
Sasuke's eyes were still open, staring fixedly at his own son.
His eyes were filled with terror and despair in the face of overwhelming power.
Hiruzen opened his mouth wide.
Not the slightest sound came from his throat.
Even the strength to wail had been drained from him.
A warm, acrid-smelling wetness seeped out of his pant leg.
It flowed across the flagstones toward the severed head.
The Sarutobi Clan's genius young clan heir had been so frightened that he wet himself on the spot.
Shu Shiraishi stood in the pool of blood.
He flicked his wrist, flinging the droplets of blood from the blade.
"Swish."
The straight blade slid into its sheath.
He took out a clean piece of white cotton cloth and slowly wiped the specks of blood from the edge of his glove.
This was the first patriarch of a wealthy clan to be killed in the book.
It was like chopping a piece of rotten meat to bits on a cutting board.
The sound of the severed head rolling away still echoed across the square.
All the village's tens of thousands of villagers and ninjas.
They looked at Shu Shiraishi on the execution platform, as cold and merciless as a god or demon.
All fell silent, too frightened even to breathe loudly.