Chapter 202: Bloodbath at the Daimyo's Palace
Northern Land of Waterfalls
In a valley near the Hidden Waterfall Village, a girl with short mint-green hair was working on her lunch.
She lit a fire with practiced ease, set her iron pot on a makeshift stone stove, dumped in the ingredients she'd just hunted, and sat down beside it hugging her knees, waiting for the food to cook.
As the Seven-Tails jinchūriki, her experience was no different from those of the Five Great Nations.
Shunned and feared from childhood. The occasional rampage during her early years had extinguished whatever compassion people might have felt. Even now that she'd grown up and could control the beast inside her, the cold stares never stopped.
So, like Han — the Five-Tails jinchūriki from the Hidden Stone — she'd taken to living alone near the village.
But she was cheerful by nature, and the isolation weighed on her.
Hm?
While waiting for her food, Fū's bright eyes flickered, and she instinctively looked up toward a nearby treetop.
Someone was coming.
Unfamiliar chakra.
"You're the Seven-Tails jinchūriki?"
A person Fū had never seen appeared on the branch above.
Sakura regarded the Seven-Tails jinchūriki from a short distance away.
With all four of them moving at full speed and Kushina's massive-range Blood Haze Mind's Eye sensory ability, finding Fū — whose chakra reserves were enormous — had been effortless. To Kushina, her chakra signature was as conspicuous as a lighthouse on a dark ocean.
Fū looked at the newcomer. Pink hair, green eyes. Fū wasn't exactly well-read, but she thought the stranger was very pretty.
As the woman spoke, three more figures appeared from three other directions, subtly forming a perimeter around Fū.
"Hm?"
But Fū didn't seem concerned in the slightest. Instead, she studied Sakura with open curiosity.
"Your eye color..."
"It's just like my hair!"
"Can we be friends?!"
A lifetime of loneliness combined with a naturally outgoing personality had made Fū desperately eager to befriend anyone — but nobody had ever been willing.
Sakura looked at the guileless green-haired girl, and something unreadable passed through her eyes.
"Of course. But I'll need you to do me a small favor first."
"REALLY?!!"
"YOU MEAN IT?!!"
"I'LL DO IT!!!"
Without even hearing what the favor was, Fū was already nodding furiously, as if terrified Sakura might take it back.
Wait — she's THIS easy to recruit?
Kushina stared, speechless.
"I need the Seven-Tails inside you."
Sakura's words brought the ecstatic Fū up short. Her expression turned troubled.
"That... might be a problem."
But Hikaru, standing to the side, was already losing patience.
"Why are you wasting time talking to her?"
"Just take her down!"
Blade drawn, she charged.
When hands could do the talking, Hikaru didn't waste breath.
A survivor of the Warring States era didn't do hesitation.
"I get it!"
"You're bad guys!"
With that declaration, two translucent, insect-like wings sprouted from Fū's back and she rocketed skyward.
Fū didn't like fighting. She just wanted to leave.
Hikaru watched her ascend and let a cold smirk cross her face. Fire erupted beneath her feet, and she blasted herself straight up after the airborne girl.
She was using Fire Release explosions to propel herself — not true flight, but a creative application of fire jutsu. One wrong move and she'd blow herself apart.
"Whoa!"
Fū was genuinely surprised that someone could chase her into the sky.
But now, willing or not, she had to fight back.
"Scale Powder!"
Fū opened her mouth and exhaled a cloud of pale yellow dust that billowed toward Hikaru.
This was one of the Seven-Tails' abilities — a unique powder that could blind and hallucinate enemies.
"Heh. Parlor tricks."
Hikaru scoffed. The blade in her hand blazed with roaring flames.
Uchiha-Style — Sword Leap Blaze!
She whipped the sword in a full circle. A disc of flaming sword-pressure erupted outward from her body, scattering the scale powder in every direction.
Fū dodged the incoming fire arc and began forming hand seals, preparing her next jutsu.
She might not enjoy combat, but she'd noticed something — her opponent wasn't actually flying. She was using explosive shockwaves to launch herself skyward.
To apply something that dangerous to your own body, you were either a reckless idiot or an exceptionally skilled fighter.
Hikaru was clearly the latter.
"Wind Release—"
Instinctively, Fū glanced down at Hikaru, who had begun to fall.
Heh...
Gotcha.
Hikaru's smile was that of a predator. Both eyes blazed crimson in an instant.
Mangekyō Sharingan!
!!
I'm done for!
Fū had never encountered the Uchiha clan in person, but word of mouth among shinobi was more than enough to know about their terrifying ability to suppress jinchūriki.
And the fatal problem was—
Fū was not a perfect jinchūriki.
She couldn't use the Tailed Beast inside her to snap herself out of genjutsu!
In that instant, Fū's expression went blank. Her hands dropped from their seal. She began falling from the sky alongside Hikaru.
A crimson skeletal frame materialized around Hikaru. Two massive skull-arms extended outward.
One arm seized Fū mid-fall. The other slammed against the ground at the moment of impact, absorbing the shock as Hikaru landed cleanly.
As for Sakura's earlier directive of "three minutes to wrap this up" — Hikaru was unimpressed.
Three minutes?
One minute.
Two moves.
Sakura watched Hikaru with a contemplative expression.
Fire Release and kenjutsu as the primary offense, then looking for an opening to end it in one shot with Sharingan genjutsu?
A textbook Uchiha fighting style.
Textbook — but against an equally skilled opponent, it was virtually unbeatable.
Unless you could fight without making eye contact AND were immune to genjutsu.
Or you outnumbered them two or three to one.
"Sakura, the Waterfall shinobi have noticed us."
With the fight over so quickly, Kushina turned to Sakura.
"We're leaving."
Sakura didn't hesitate for a second.
They had nothing to fear from the Hidden Waterfall, but leaving a trail would complicate things.
The Land of Waterfalls was a small nation bordering Fire Country. It didn't take long for Sakura's group to cross back to the Fire Country border.
"Hey there. We meet again."
"You actually left the gate open for me, huh?"
Sakura waved at the border guard.
"..."
The guard was speechless.
"...Lady Sakura."
With a resigned expression, he gestured for Sakura's group to move along quickly — please, just go, don't make this harder than it needs to be. As far as he was concerned, he'd never seen any of them.
"Get ready to head back to Konoha in a couple of days."
Sakura left it at that and pressed on with Kushina and the others without stopping.
The guard watched them disappear, his eyes lingering on the burlap sack slung over Sasuke's shoulder.
That's... a person in there, right?
You know what — not my problem.
Nothing happened today.
Yep. That's my story.
Dawn
On a morning no different from any other, the Daimyo's palace received a very special "guest."
A girl with tanned skin and short mint-green hair appeared at the palace gates.
"No unauthorized entry."
"Leave."
The two samurai guarding the entrance frowned at the girl before them — blank-faced, body rigid.
Is she here to cause trouble?
What kind of lowborn trash thinks they can make a scene here?
Does she have any idea where she is?
The samurai were merely gatekeepers, but even so — even with a girl who clearly seemed unwell — they maintained decorum, firmly ordering her to leave without a single vulgar word.
But the girl didn't seem to hear them.
She simply climbed, one step at a time, up the staircase that common folk didn't even dare look at.
The samurai's expressions hardened instantly.
Something's wrong...
Hands moved to hilts. Steel gleamed.
"HALT!"
The samurai barked the command.
The girl didn't react. Her pace didn't change — not fast, not slow — like a machine under someone else's control.
The samurai's composure broke. His blade fell.
Just as the strike was about to paint the ground with this small, seemingly helpless girl's blood—
Her movements turned uncannily fast.
Ghost-like, she sidestepped the blade, seized the samurai's wrist with her backhand — her grip impossibly strong.
Pain shot through his arm. His fingers loosened. The sword tumbled toward the ground — and the girl caught it.
One backhand slash.
A very large head went spinning skyward.
It all happened in the space of a heartbeat. The second samurai finally reacted, roaring as he charged with his sword drawn.
Steel rang against steel.
The girl blocked the strike instantly, then materialized behind him like a phantom. The stolen blade severed his neck in one clean motion.
Blood splattered across her body.
Then the blood-soaked girl resumed her mechanical stride toward the noble, exalted, revered Daimyo's palace.
And in a shadowy corner of a distant street, a commoner in a crude straw hat who'd been silently gnawing on dried rations rose to his feet. Beneath the hat's shadow, a flash of crimson flickered.
"Who are you?!"
"Who sent you?!"
"You're a shinobi!"
"Damn you!"
"Do you have ANY idea what the punishment is for a shinobi storming the Daimyo's palace?!"
"Surrender immediately!"
Hundreds of samurai surrounded the blood-drenched girl in an airtight ring, shouting furiously.
But—
None of them dared strike.
The gap between shinobi and ordinary people couldn't be described as a chasm — even "chasm" fell short.
Samurai were no different from civilians in a shinobi's eyes.
With the sole exception of the samurai from the Land of Iron.
The girl took a step forward. The samurai took a step back.
In the vast courtyard of the most prestigious palace in the nation, nearly a thousand samurai stood with naked blades raised against a single small girl.
And not one of them dared to move.
A hundred samurai. A thousand samurai.
None would engage a lone shinobi.
Shinobi weren't gods. If these thousand samurai rushed her all at once, accepting casualties, they could win.
But the losses would be catastrophic.
Every ninja academy taught its students the Three Basic Body Techniques.
Transformation, Clone, and Substitution.
These weren't designed for fighting other shinobi. They were designed for fighting ordinary people.
Civilians couldn't detect the chakra fluctuations in Transformation or Clone techniques. Substitution was something ordinary humans simply couldn't comprehend.
The elemental attack jutsu — those were for fighting shinobi.
The girl advanced step by step. The samurai retreated step by step.
One shinobi, forcing nearly a thousand samurai to cower.
Finally — no more room to retreat.
Just as the samurai steeled themselves for a suicidal charge, burning with shame and fury — three figures appeared in the courtyard.
Shinobi.
The shinobi who guarded the Daimyo.
The so-called Guardian Shinobi Twelve.
An organization composed of twelve jōnin.
At least, that was the official claim.
In reality, at least half of the Guardian Twelve were chūnin-level at best.
A textbook case of reputation wildly exceeding ability.
When Sarutobi Asuma had come from Konoha to serve among them, the Daimyo had been overjoyed — he knew perfectly well what caliber of fighters he actually had. No examination needed. Instant appointment.
"Stop."
The man in the lead regarded the girl coldly.
Clatter...
The blood-stained sword slipped from the girl's fingers and clattered against the stone. The man's lips twitched into a smirk.
At least she knows when she's beaten.
But the next instant, a wave of sinister chakra flooded the entire palace compound.
And the source — was the girl.
"RRRAAAAGGHH!!!"
A bizarre, ear-splitting, massive roar tore from the girl's throat.
The man's eyes flew wide.
This feeling—
He'd never seen a Tailed Beast in person, but this colossal, malevolent chakra made his blood run cold.
The next instant—
Six translucent, insect-like wings burst from the girl's back. A massive, powerful tail erupted from her lower back.
A single casual sweep shattered the pristine white marble flagstones beneath her.
Six wings. One tail.
The Seven-Tails.
THE SEVEN-TAILS!!!
The three Guardian shinobi stared at the girl — now engulfed in chakra so dense it was suffocating — and trembled from head to toe. Their feet might as well have been set in concrete.
But the girl wasn't going to wait for them to collect themselves.
As the beast within her was unleashed, she rose slowly into the air.
And her body, step by step, ceased to look human.
"S-Seven... Seven-Tails..."
"IT'S THE SEVEN-TAILS!"
Finally, the Guardian shinobi screamed the warning.
But an enormous shadow had already swallowed them whole.
It blotted out the sun.
Backlit against the sky, the colossal Tailed Beast hovered in silence. The entire Daimyo's palace lay beneath its shadow.
The world seemed to fall still. The only sound was the ceaseless, droning hum — the vibration of the creature's wings far above.
The noble palace descended into chaos.
No shinobi had ever attacked the Daimyo's seat of power — let alone a Tailed Beast.
And then — the beast in the sky moved.
Countless particles of scale powder rained down with every wingbeat, blanketing the entire palace compound.
The palace was large, but also small.
By remarkable coincidence, it was precisely the right size for the Seven-Tails' powder to cover completely.
Everyone was blinded. The entire palace became a hive of headless flies.
The Guardian Shinobi deployed in full force. Even those who managed to force their eyes open and look skyward at the Seven-Tails could only feel despair.
Helpless. Utterly helpless.
This was not something human strength could oppose.
In this world of drifting powder, the Seven-Tails hung motionless against the light, high above — doing nothing but beating its wings.
It looked like a god.
They no longer had the luxury of wondering why the Seven-Tails had appeared at the Daimyo's palace.
The immediate priority was getting the Daimyo out of here.
"I see. So that's how it is."
In the deepest reaches of the palace, sheltered beneath the eaves, a man gently tapped a folding fan against his palm as he gazed up at the Tailed Beast in the sky.
His face was heavily powdered, his robes magnificent.
This was clearly the current Daimyo. Being under the roof, the scale powder hadn't reached him.
But compared to his usual affected, almost effeminate manner of speaking, his voice now was deep and steady.
And moreover — he showed not a shred of panic.
As if he'd been expecting this all along.
"You don't seem surprised at all."
An unfamiliar voice spoke from behind him. The man turned.
A silhouette stood in the shadows — and even this man, who'd grown numb to feminine beauty, couldn't help but be struck.
"Haruno... Sakura?"
The Daimyo had met Sakura once before. Seven years ago.
Back then, during the economic sanctions affair, Sakura had appeared before him briefly.
He hadn't expected that after seven years, he would still remember her.
Sakura looked at the man before her. Her expression was flat. She didn't respond.
Once upon a time, the Daimyo would have charged Sakura with lèse-majesté for that alone.
But now...
"What good would being surprised do?"
The man looked out at the cherry blossoms drifting beyond the eaves and smiled — a helpless, resigned smile.
"This world... doesn't it belong to you shinobi anyway?"
The man had been his father's only son.
So he'd inherited the mantle of Daimyo as a matter of course.
Unlike his incompetent father, the man had hoped to truly govern his nation.
But then he'd learned what shinobi were.
And he'd given up.
He'd surrendered to a life of wine, women, and willful ignorance — ignoring governance, ignoring statecraft. Even when some desperate commoners tried to stage an uprising.
A thousand-strong rebel army. By the next morning, their leader's head was hanging from their own war banner.
The work of one chūnin and three genin.
And a squad like that was considered cannon fodder among shinobi.
The man had never understood why shinobi were willing to take orders from a Daimyo — a mere civilian.
Eventually, he'd figured it out.
It turned out that the mighty shinobi lords were no different from the noble lords — they depended on commoners for their sustenance and didn't want to do the dirty, degrading work themselves.
So to keep the shinobi content as obedient dogs, the Daimyo had begun — sometimes consciously, sometimes not — promoting awareness of shinobi lethality among the civilian population. Even a single lowly genin required a hundred ordinary people to defeat.
Under that overwhelming disparity in force, civilians had begun — consciously or not — to distance themselves from shinobi.
They feared them. Dreaded them.
And so they turned instead to the nobility — the people who could give shinobi orders.
This wasn't just him. Every noble family in every nation was doing the same thing.
But these brutes whose heads were full of nothing but fists didn't seem to notice at all.
Wasn't it laughable?
But now, it seemed a shinobi had finally grown restless with the status quo.
And that person was—
Shimura Danzō!
The Daimyo recalled the man who'd come to him three years ago, uninvited.
Danzō had cast some kind of technique on him.
The Daimyo didn't understand what it was, but it was a jutsu designed to activate automatically the moment he laid eyes on a specific document.
Hokage — Haruno Sakura — nomination.
If those keywords appeared on any document from Hiruzen, the technique would trigger on its own.
Write "Denied." Stamp the seal.
And if anyone else recommended Sakura for Hokage, reject them furiously.
Had Sakura known, she would have identified it immediately — a Sharingan transcription seal.
Uchiha Shisui's Kotoamatsukami.
After the fact, even once the Daimyo regained his senses, Danzō's ascent to the Hokage seat would already be a fait accompli.
At that point, Danzō could use his authority to systematically suppress Sakura's entire faction.
Of course — that was only how Danzō imagined things would play out.
He was always like this.
Convinced that no one but himself was fit to be Hokage.
It had become his obsession.
After the transcription seal had triggered and the Daimyo's mind cleared, he'd been waiting for this very moment.
Danzō had been the first to break the unspoken pact between nobility and shinobi — using ninjutsu to control the Daimyo directly.
And so the one who came after him would naturally follow suit.
Now, that "one who came after" had arrived.
The Daimyo just hadn't expected her to be this brazen — this spectacularly brazen.
And behind all that audacity, only he himself knew the full story.
"Can you grant me one last request?"
The Daimyo looked at Sakura.
"Speak."
"Kill Danzō."
"Done."
Sakura nodded. That was something she'd never refuse.
"Then grant me something in return."
At Sakura's words, the Daimyo looked curious — not at all like a man about to die.
"Write a will. Choose one of your sons as the next Daimyo."
The Daimyo considered this for a moment, then nodded thoughtfully.
This Haruno Sakura is rather interesting.
He walked to his desk, drew a blank decree from the stack beside it, wrote rapidly, and pressed his seal.
The will was done.
Sakura looked at the name on the document — Minamoto Musashi — and asked:
"Is this Musashi any good?"
The Daimyo gave a bitter smile and shook his head.
"Among my sons, he's the most mediocre."
Sakura raised an eyebrow.
A clever man. I really did misjudge him before.
"Do you want a Hokage decree as well?"
"I can write you one."
The Daimyo looked at Sakura.
"Are you trying to curry favor with me?"
"You could put it that way."
"Even though you're about to die?"
"If I don't write it, do you think Musashi won't?"
"You're a clever man."
Since this Daimyo was being so cooperative, Sakura saw no reason to make things more complicated than necessary.
As the Daimyo put brush to paper once more, a brand-new Hokage appointment decree emerged from his hand.
It didn't merely appoint Sakura as Hokage. It also contained a scathing denunciation of Shimura Danzō — for treason, for insubordination, for contempt of the sovereign — with orders for the entire village of Konoha to execute him on sight.
The Daimyo looked at the decree in his hand, his expression tinged with regret.
From this moment forward, the scales between shinobi and nobility were shattered beyond repair.
A thousand years of noble rule had begun to crumble.
"Let Musashi live a good life."
He placed the decree into Sakura's hands, and for the first time, something like pleading crossed his face.
Sakura took the document, scanned its contents, and let a trace of mockery touch her eyes.
"If he behaves himself."
In that moment, the Daimyo's composure stiffened.
This pink-haired woman...
She and Shimura Danzō are the same kind of person.
Even though he'd suspected as much, having it confirmed in this moment filled the Daimyo with a quiet sorrow.
"What do you want?"
"Supreme, unrivaled power? Boundless wealth?"
"If you were to marry Musashi once he becomes Daimyo — like Hashirama Senju's daughter once did—"
The Daimyo looked at Sakura and slowly closed his mouth.
Sakura took the Hokage decree, gave the Daimyo one final look, and vanished.
With her departure, the Daimyo seemed to lose all his strength, collapsing to the floor.
His chest heaved violently.
This Haruno Sakura...
In the final moments of his life, the Daimyo raised his eyes to the Seven-Tails hovering above.
Boundless energy gathered in its maw, condensing into a sphere that made his scalp prickle — a Tailed Beast Bomb.
And its target was the Daimyo himself.
White light — the light of annihilation — consumed him. In that last instant before death, a single tear traced down the man's cheek, cutting a line through the heavy powder on his face before falling to the ground.
The nobility...
It's over.
They'll be swept into history's garbage heap like refuse — by that pink-haired kunoichi.
☆☆☆
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