"Where's the new Hokage? Is he dead yet?"
The shrill, rasping voice shot up the stairwell.
It echoed through the empty wooden corridor.
"Tell him to get his ass down here and see me!"
In the third-floor office,
Shu Shiraishi loosened his fingers.
The half-used charcoal pencil fell onto the parchment, rolled twice, and stopped beside the Four Symbols Seal pattern he had just drawn.
The cursing downstairs grew louder, accompanied by the clatter of armor plates.
Mito Uzumaki tightened her grip on her wooden cane.
Her brow furrowed deeply.
Shu Shiraishi stood up.
His chair slid half a foot backward.
Without a word, he turned and headed for the door.
He pulled open the solid wood door and stepped over the threshold.
In the first-floor hall,
the atmosphere was tense.
Four or five iron-armored samurai had two Anbu Ninja in cat masks pinned against the wall.
The samurai hadn't drawn their swords.
Instead, they were pressing their copper-cornered scabbards hard against the Anbu's breastplates.
The Anbu had their hands on the hilts of their Ninja Blades, their knuckles white.
But neither dared draw.
Under Konoha's ironclad law, ninja were the Land of Fire's military force, and the daimyo was its supreme ruler.
Drawing a blade on the daimyo's envoy was tantamount to treason.
"The daimyo's guard dogs."
A fat man dressed in purple silk stood in the middle of the hall.
The white powder on his face was caked on so thick that his sweat had formed it into blotches.
His lips were painted bright red, as though he had just drunk raw pig's blood.
The fat man waved a gold-trimmed folding fan.
Its ribs were carved from ivory, and he tapped them against the wooden stair rail.
"Thud. Thud. Thud."
"Move it! Go fetch the new man in charge." The fat man raised his chin. "I'm here on business for the Land of Fire's daimyo. Can Konoha afford to hold me up?"
The Anbu squad leader clenched his back teeth.
The samurai's scabbard was pressing painfully against his breastplate.
"My lord envoy, Lord Hokage is upstairs discussing business..."
"Discussing business?" The fat man sneered.
He closed his gold fan and slapped its ribs against his left hand.
"A nobody who hasn't even received the daimyo's decree of appointment. What business does he have to discuss?"
The hall fell silent for a moment.
Unhurried footsteps came from above the stairs.
"Thud. Thud. Thud."
The heavy tread of military boots sounded on the wooden stairs.
Everyone in the first-floor hall looked up at once.
Shu Shiraishi walked down the stairs.
He wore a black short-sleeved shirt, military trousers, and a pair of black military boots caked with dried mud.
He wore neither the Hokage's ceremonial robe, the symbol of his authority, nor did he have guards with him.
He came down alone.
The fat man narrowed his eyes.
He looked Shu Shiraishi up and down.
"You're the new Hokage?"
The fat man snorted.
"You don't even have a decent set of clothes. You Konoha lackeys get worse with every generation."
At the foot of the stairs,
the two Anbu Ninja pinned against the wall
gritted their teeth and forced their way half a step forward against the samurai's scabbards.
They dropped to one knee on the stone floor.
"Lord Hokage!"
Their voices were thick with humiliation.
Shu Shiraishi descended the last step.
He glanced at the scratches on the Anbu's breastplates.
Then he turned his gaze to the fat man's face.
"Who are you?" Shu Shiraishi asked.
His voice was level, without the slightest inflection.
The fat man snapped open his gold fan and waved it twice in front of his chest.
A strong smell of cheap face powder filled the air.
"Chief financial officer of the Land of Fire's daimyo."
The fat man stretched his neck upward.
"On the daimyo's orders, I'm here to collect this year's military funding tax from Konoha."
Shu Shiraishi stopped.
He slipped both hands into his trouser pockets.
"Tax?"
"Don't play dumb."
The fat man rolled his eyes, his red lips flapping.
"According to the rules, Konoha pays the daimyo twenty percent of its mission earnings every year."
"This year, that's changed."
The fat man held up four short, fat fingers.
"Forty percent. Double."
"The First Shinobi World War is over. The Land of Fire has a great deal to rebuild, and the daimyo wants to build a new castle keep in the capital."
"It's time you fighting brutes bled a little too."
The hall became so quiet a pin could have been heard dropping.
The Anbu squad leader, still on one knee, jerked his head up.
Double?
The village had just come out of a war. It couldn't even pay compensation, and the wounded who had returned from the front couldn't afford medicine.
Pay double? They meant to bleed Konoha dry.
"My lord envoy." The squad leader grew anxious, his voice hoarse. "The village can't come up with that much money right now..."
"I didn't ask you, dog."
The fat man turned his wrist and pointed the gold fan at Shu Shiraishi's nose.
"You're the Hokage. Give me a straight answer."
"Are you paying or not?"
Shu Shiraishi looked at the fake gold leaf inlaid on the fan's ribs.
He didn't dodge the fan.
"What if I say no?"
The fat man looked as though he had heard the greatest joke in the world.
The white powder on his face cracked as he laughed.
"No?"
He took a large step forward, his fat belly almost pressing against Shu Shiraishi.
More than thirty armored samurai advanced in unison.
Their iron boots struck the stone floor with an intimidating roar.
"Whose territory do you think Konoha is?"
The fat man pointed his folding fan at the stone beneath his feet.
"The land was granted to you by the daimyo."
"The grain allotted to you each year comes from the capital."
"Even the fees for the missions you take ultimately come from merchants in the Land of Fire."
The fat man lifted his chin even higher.
"Don't pay, and tomorrow the capital will cut off all grain subsidies to Konoha and freeze every major flow of funds."
"In half a month at most, the tens of thousands of you thugs who know nothing but killing"
"will all starve to death in the streets."
The fat man withdrew his fan and tapped it twice against his palm.
"Understood? Then hurry up and pack the money into boxes. I need to get back to the capital and report."
He spoke with absolute confidence.
For decades, this was how the daimyo had kept every Hokage under his thumb.
They had troops and commanders, but their economic lifeline was firmly in someone else's hands. If the daimyo didn't feed them, the ninja could only eat dirt.
Shu Shiraishi looked at the fat man's smug face.
Suddenly, he laughed.
Not a loud laugh, just a brief, cold snort through his nose.
"What are you laughing at?" The fat man frowned.
"I'm laughing at you stupid pigs. You've had it good for too long."
Shu Shiraishi took his left hand out of his trouser pocket.
"You don't know how easily the head on your neck can fall off."
The fat man's expression changed.
The samurai immediately drew their swords, steel ringing out all around.
Shu Shiraishi ignored the blades.
He took a step forward.
He was only half an arm's length from the fat man.
"You just said the land was granted by the daimyo."
Shu Shiraishi looked at him.
"Hashirama Senju and his clansmen carved out that territory through the chaos of war, blade by blade and spear thrust by spear thrust."
"Your daimyo merely took a fancy to his military strength and came running to attach his name to it."
"How dare you!" the fat man shrieked.
"Grain. Funds." Shu Shiraishi didn't stop.
"Konoha's ninja earned those by risking their lives as guards and shedding blood to wipe out missing-nin."
"You useless lot couldn't even kill a chicken."
Shu Shiraishi's words came down like hammer blows.
"You hide in your castle keep, squandering Konoha's blood money on pleasure, and now you want to collect double?"
The air in the hall froze.
The Anbu Ninja lay prostrate on the floor, cold sweat streaming down.
He had gone too far. He had ripped away the Land of Fire's fig leaf of rule.
The fat man trembled all over with rage, powder falling from his face.
"Rebellion... Konoha is rebelling!"
He pointed at Shu Shiraishi, his finger shaking.
"Fine! Fine! You ignorant brat."
"Just you wait. Tomorrow, the daimyo will cut off all your supplies. Let's see how you survive!"
The fat man turned to leave.
"Have you misunderstood something?"
Shu Shiraishi's voice came from behind him.
The fat man stopped and turned around.
Shu Shiraishi stood where he was.
"I'm not finished."
Shu Shiraishi looked around the hall.
His gaze swept over the kneeling Anbu, then over the samurai holding their swords.
Finally, it settled on the fat man's face.
"From this very second onward."
Shu Shiraishi spoke each word distinctly.
Each one struck the hard walls with perfect clarity.
"Konoha is severing its ties with the Land of Fire's daimyo's office."
Dead silence.
Even the sound of breathing stopped in the hall.
An Anbu Ninja braced both hands on the ground. His fingers suddenly slipped, and his nails scraped across the stone floor with a piercing screech.
His eyes widened behind his mask.
Severing ties?
What did that mean?
The major ninja villages were autonomous, but all were nominally affiliated with their respective nations.
The Land of Lightning, the Land of Water, the Land of Wind. There were no exceptions.
It had been an iron law of politics for centuries.
Shu Shiraishi ignored the others' shock.
He looked at the fat man, who stood frozen in a daze.
"Konoha's heavy industrialization doesn't need parasites like you taking a cut."
"We won't pay taxes, and we don't want a single penny of the daimyo's filthy money."
Shu Shiraishi's voice echoed through the corridor.
"Konoha is independent."
Those words
shattered the order that had prevailed in the Shinobi World for decades.
The fat man froze where he stood.
A full five seconds passed.
The flesh on his face suddenly twitched.
Then-
"Hahahaha!"
The fat man burst into exaggerated laughter.
The flesh on his face quivered as he laughed, and the golden folding fan trembled in his hand.
He thought it was an absurd joke.
A sixteen-year-old brat. He had gone mad.
Did he really think he could found a nation just because his fists were strong?
The fat man laughed his fill.
He turned and walked up to Shu Shiraishi.
His greasy face was full of derision.
He raised his right hand.
He extended the heavy golden folding fan.
"Smack."
The ribs of the fan struck Shu Shiraishi's left shoulder without the slightest courtesy.
"Independent?"
The fat man tapped Shu Shiraishi's shoulder twice with the fan.
"Without the daimyo's financial support, without trade routes, without preferential access to resources."
He lowered his voice.
"You ninjas who only know how to play with mud and breathe fire. You're only fit to eat dirt in the mountains!"
The fat man gritted his teeth, his eyes venomous.
"I'd like to see, here on the land of the Land of Fire,"
"what you dare do to me, the daimyo's envoy."
Shu Shiraishi said nothing.
He lowered his head slightly.
He looked at the golden fan resting on his shoulder.
The warmth in his eyes fell to freezing, utterly transforming into the god of death.