Orochimaru moved through the Capital's underbelly with the ease of a man who had spent decades navigating places where his presence was unwelcome. The hood of his cloak was pulled low, but he did not care about it. He simply walked, and the people he passed found reasons to look elsewhere.
The textile mill in the southern district was his third stop. He had visited a tea house that catered to merchants from the Land of Wind, a courier depot that processed sealed documents and now this. Each location had told him the same story with different details.
There were two factions. One from the Wind Daimyo and another from the brothers. Both were operating in the Capital, and both were watching the same target.
He leaned against a wall opposite the mill and watched the entrance. Men in civilian clothes entered and exited at irregular intervals. They carried nothing that would mark them as shinobi, but their movements were too deliberate. They checked the street before crossing and varied their routes, but they did not look at each other when they passed.
'Amateurs, but not complete amateurs.'
What interested Orochimaru more was the gap between the two groups. They occupied different districts. They used different couriers. They did not share information. The Wind Daimyo's people worked from within the mansion. The brothers' people worked from the streets.
'A big structural and stupid weakness.'
If one group moved without the other knowing, the reaction would be delayed. If that delay was exploited, the target could be extracted before either group could respond.
He pushed off the wall and walked east.
'Tsunade will want to know this.'
The evening audience chamber was smaller than the one used for formal ceremonies. The Fire Daimyo sat behind a low desk, a cup of tea cooling beside his hand. The light from the lamps softened the edges of the room but could not soften the tension that had settled into the space.
Tsunade stood across from him. She had not been offered a seat.
"You are asking for something I cannot give," the Fire Daimyo said.
"I am not asking."
The words landed like a stone in still water.
The Fire Daimyo's expression flickered. He was not accustomed to being addressed in this tone, especially not by a visiting 'medic'.
"You are in my territory, Tsunade. The girl is under my protection."
"Your protection is poison, isolation and a play with her father."
The silence that followed was sharp enough to cut.
The Fire Daimyo set his cup down. The motion was careful, controlled. "That is a serious accusation."
"It is not an accusation. It is a fact I have confirmed through multiple sources." Tsunade did not raise her voice. She did not need to. "There are too many things that make sense if I consider that a talk has happened between you two. Especially the people outside in the capital that can't exist without your permission."
The Fire Daimyo stared at her. For a moment, he seemed on the verge of summoning his guards. But he did not.
"If that were true," he said slowly, "I would let her go."
"You can't because there is something you gain from it."
"You know I am the Daimyo, right?"
"You can try whatever you want."
The threat was implicit, and it was not empty. Tsunade was not a politician. She was a shinobi who had trained under the Third Hokage, mastered a technique that could kill with a single touch and most importantly, her surname was Senju, even if there weren't many and she didn't use it much. The Fire Daimyo knew this, and that's why he couldn't take extreme measures.
He changed tactics.
"Even if what you say is true, you cannot simply remove her. She is a diplomatic guest. Her departure requires protocol, documentation and the approval of her father's representatives. If she disappears from my mansion, I am responsible."
"She will disappear anyway. The only question is whether you control the narrative or react to it."
The Fire Daimyo's jaw tightened.
"You are asking me to choose between my reputation and a girl I do not know."
"No. I am telling you that the choice has already been made. You have to decide whether your reputation is important or the play you have set yourself in."
Tsunade couldn't mention that she knew exactly what the bet was. The bet happened between two people, and everything was the result of their orders. Still, she had said what was needed, and now it was up to Fire Daimyo to control what should be said.
The door at the far end of the chamber opened.
Orochimaru stepped inside. He had shed his cloak. His presence filled the room in a way that was difficult to define but impossible to ignore.
The Fire Daimyo's head snapped toward him. "This is a private meeting."
"I am aware." Orochimaru walked to a position beside Tsunade and stopped. He did not look at her. His attention was fixed on the man behind the desk. "I have spent the day walking through your Capital. I have seen the Wind Daimyo's agents. I have seen the brothers' agents. I have seen how they do not coordinate, how they circle each other like dogs watching the same piece of meat."
The Fire Daimyo said nothing, but he understood he couldn't ask Orochimaru to leave now.
"The Wind Daimyo's people are waiting for her to die naturally. The brothers' people are waiting for an opening to accelerate the process. Neither group knows the other's full plan. If Tsunade extracts the girl tonight, neither group will have time to react before she is gone."
"And if I order my guards to stop you?"
"Then your guards will fail."
The Fire Daimyo's hands curled into fists on the desk. The lamps flickered in a draft that no one felt. He looked between the two of them, the medic who had healed half the known world and the snake who had terrorised it.
"You are both shinobi," he said. "You do not understand the weight of political consequences."
"I understand that if the Wind Daimyo's daughter dies in your care, he has justification for war." Orochimaru's voice was conversational, almost amused. "I also understand that if she disappears under circumstances that implicate your own staff, he has no such justification. He cannot declare war because a guest vanished. He can only demand explanations, and by the time explanations are demanded, the trail will be cold."
The Fire Daimyo's eyes narrowed.
"You have it backwards," he said. "If she disappears, I lose control of the situation entirely. The Wind Daimyo will claim I am hiding her or that I failed to protect her. Both outcomes weaken me."
Tsunade was about to speak, but she received a memory from a shadow clone she had left for an emergency. She inwardly grinned as she had found what was needed in the situation and thanked Wind Daimyo's people.
"Unless the narrative shifts blame to a third party."
Tsunade spoke before the Fire Daimyo could respond. "Your guards escorted a hooded figure out of the mansion tonight. The figure was not Himari. The figure was an agent of the brothers who infiltrated your security. The Wind Daimyo's faction will report that she was poisoned beforehand. But because she disappeared rather than died, you can deny everything."
"But aren't you healing her?" Fire Daimyo injected, and Tsunade replied instantly, "She isn't healed completely. Even a trace of poison can kill later, but I could say that she was healed as medicines had been taken."
"Hence, he cannot claim she died," Orochimaru added, "because there is no body. He cannot claim that she would definitely die because of poisoning. It would mean he knew someone here was poisoning her, but he didn't do anything. If he tries to create a narrative that implicates you, you have the confession to counter it."
The Fire Daimyo was silent for a long moment.
"You have already set this in motion."
"I have set the trap," Tsunade said. "Whether it succeeds depends on whether you hold your position when the reports arrive."
Sometime after Tsunade left her office to meet the Fire Daimyo.
As soon as Tsunade had left her office, Akemi had been informed about it by someone.
Akemi stood at the end of the corridor that led to Himari's room. Her hands were steady. Her breathing was controlled. She had been waiting for this moment.
The door was unlocked.
She stepped inside. The room was dim, lit only by a single lamp beside the bed. Himari lay beneath the covers, her face turned toward the wall. Her breathing was slow and even.
Akemi crossed to the bedside table. Her fingers found the small vial hidden in her sleeve. Fast-acting and unnoticeable in liquid. She had done this before.
She uncorked the vial and reached for the cup on the table.
The world did not change. There was no flash of light, no audible trigger. But in the space between one heartbeat and the next, something had changed. Akemi didn't notice anything strange, except the fact that Tsunade was standing beside her.
She poured the poison into the cup and lifted it to Himari's lips. Having her drink the whole poison, she let her lie. With a cloth, she cleaned all the places she touched and traced back her steps to outside the room, cleaning even the steps.
Tsunade looked at the scene with no expression. The Genjutsu formation had done what was needed, and she looked at the vial in her hand.
"So this is what they planned when they noticed slow versions wouldn't work." A glint flashed in the clone's eyes, and she hid the vial. The room was the same as before, and Himari slept comfortably in the room. The only thing that had changed was the fact that the Wind Daimyo would think they won, but without a body, they can't do anything.
The Fire Daimyo's hands were flat on the desk now. The conversation had circled back to the same point three times, and each time, he had found no answer that let him keep control.
"If I agree," he said finally, "what happens to my reputation?"
"You host a delegation that turns hostile. You are good enough to treat a different Land's daughter. An assassination event happens, and the victim is taken away. Your security forces are blamed for the lapse, but not you personally." Tsunade's voice was matter-of-fact. "You are the victim of overzealous subordinates. You discipline them publicly. You offer compensation to the Wind Daimyo. The matter is closed."
"And the bet?" Fire Daimyo spoke, but then he understood what he had done.
"Leave the bet aside; what about you two? Even in your presence, it happened? What about Konoha's reputation?"
"The bet, huh," Tsunade spoke, her voice cold. She wanted to flip everything, but she knew she couldn't. "Let's answer your first question. The Wind Daimyo will claim she died. You will claim she disappeared. Neither claim can be proven. The bet becomes unenforceable, but,"
"But?"
"Himari will be brought back, so it means you will win it."
The Fire Daimyo almost smiled at the words, but he controlled himself. The silence for a moment was enough to let him understand that there was something else they were going to ask.
"Now let's talk about Konoha's reputation. We will be with you at the time the assassination event happens. Those criminals in the underground, some of them will die, and we will protect you."
"Your guards will capture the Brother's agent and escort him away. How the agent will come is something we will decide. In those moments, Himari will disappear, and then you will ask us to look for her."
Fire Daimyo looked at Tsunade, who had everything planned. He was a man who understood leverage, who had built his career on understanding it. What Tsunade was offering was not an escape from consequences. It was a redirection of them.
"If I do this," he said, "I am indebted to you."
"No. This is not for you. This is to prevent war. That is not a debt."
He met her eyes. For a moment, something that might have been respect passed through his expression.
"But it will cost you a lot," Orochimaru spoke before they could wave his work away. Tsunade didn't say anything at his words, and the Fire Daimyo understood what he meant.
"Hence, I will take her away," Tsunade said, "but it will not be me who takes her. We will showcase a third party. Your guards will take the blame."
The Fire Daimyo understood.
He nodded.
---
Chapter 84 and Original Novel on Ptreon
Link: https://[email protected]/c/Kaoski