"Alright, everyone, line up in order. No need to rush, no need to fight. Everyone gets a free slap."
Orochi spread his arms wide, waving around like he was conducting a crowd.
Under Orochi's direction, a group of samurai moved the petrified rebels and civilians to the town square, arranging them in two long rows. Then Orochi spat into his hands, clapped them together, and nodded toward Ryosuke.
"Please, take a look, sir."
Orochi started running.
A string of sharp smack smack smack sounds echoed like firecrackers during the New Year. Wherever he ran past, discs popped out one after another.
The samurai following behind quickly caught them, sealed them inside black bags, and labeled each one carefully so they could be returned to their owners later.
The samurai stored all the sealed memory bags in a large safe. Behind them, a special memory-analysis bureau had already been established, staffed with fifty legal experts who would read through the memories and write corresponding recommendations for judgment.
To ensure fairness, Ryosuke wrote a "command" into the minds of those fifty legal experts,
They must uphold justice, and once their reviews were complete, they would automatically forget everything they had seen.
At the same time, the Land of the Wind's investigation team was formed to look into the backgrounds of those killed by the rebel army, to determine whether they were truly guilty of heinous crimes or innocent victims.
Once the memories and the intelligence of the deceased were confirmed, there would likely be further discussion and sentencing, a process that could take a long time.
After all, it concerned the lives of tens of thousands of people, and their families behind them. One could never be too careful.
In this entire process, Ryosuke's job was to extract the memories and lift the petrification. The rest would be left to the specialists from the Water and Land of the Winds.
For ordinary civilians, the petrification wasn't that severe. With Ryosuke's control over natural energy, he managed to restore everyone within a single morning.
Countless medical staff were already on-site, checking people one by one.
Ryosuke left the space for the doctors and walked out from a temporary tent set up on the street.
Because of the chaos in the city, the signing of the agreement between Ryosuke and the Land of the Wind's daimyo had been postponed until the afternoon, still a couple of hours away.
Standing at a street corner, Ryosuke looked left and right at the chaotic city and sighed softly.
Rasa was using gold dust to lift a collapsed house. Gaara stood nearby, wanting to help with sand but was scolded by Rasa for making trouble.
Granny Chiyo was controlling her puppets, Kakashi had summoned his ninja dogs, and both were searching for civilians still trapped in the ruins.
Everyone was busy, except for Kohaku, who didn't know how to help.
In his whole life, he'd only been good at two things,
Fishing and killing.
But in this desert city, neither of those skills were of any use. So Kohaku could only wander aimlessly, stopping from time to time to see if anyone needed help.
As he passed through a small alley, he saw a little girl dragging a sack.
She looked about seven or eight, her hair tied into two horn-like braids, wearing a dirty dress. The sack she was dragging was almost as big as she was. She was squatting, picking up bits of meat from the ground and stuffing them into the sack.
Kohaku walked over, picked up a few scraps of meat, and saw that they shimmered with a rainbow sheen. Then he noticed gasoline spilled on the ground and a discarded Molotov cocktail. He shook his head and tossed the meat far away.
"Girl, that meat's soaked in gasoline. You can't eat that."
The girl slowly raised her head, her eyes empty. She looked at Kohaku's smile, then at the meat he'd thrown into the filthy ditch. Her small, childish voice carried almost no emotion.
"That was my mom."
Kohaku froze on the spot, his smile stiffening. He wished he could slap himself right then and there.
"I… I..."
The little girl lowered her head again, picking up more scraps as she said softly, as if to comfort him,
"Uncle, it's okay. Mom broke into lots of pieces."
"I just need to find them all."
Kohaku clutched his chest. 'I… I deserve to die for this!'
Just then, a purple vine extended out, wrapping around the meat that had fallen into the ditch. Using that as an anchor, faint purple causal energy spread outward, pulling in bones, flesh, and skin from a radius of over ten meters.
Before long, a broken body took form.
Half of the woman's face was destroyed, but from the remaining half, one could still see the gentle kindness in her features.
The little girl, who had been staring blankly all along, her eyelashes began to tremble. From deep within her eyes, grief surged forth like a bursting dam.
She threw herself onto her mother's body and cried loudly.
Of course she did, she was just a six-year-old child. How could she possibly understand what it meant to suppress her sorrow?
She hadn't really processed "death" yet. Up until now, she'd only seen scattered bits of flesh.
Ryosuke walked to the roadside and waved. A patrolling samurai quickly ran over and bowed deeply.
Ryosuke pointed at the crying girl and sighed softly. "Take care of her."
"Yes, sir."
Once the girl was being looked after, Ryosuke and Kohaku left the alley. Along the way, Kohaku's fists stayed clenched tight. After a long silence, he finally asked, "Lord Ryosuke, can we really… not go kill the one behind all this?"
Ryosuke paused for half a second, then smiled. "Who told you we can't?"
"Eh?"
This time, it was Kohaku's turn to be dumbfounded.
Kurosaki, Hyakuzo, and the monk Fayi, none of them were particularly weak, but neither were they that strong. In every aspect, power, intelligence, cunning, they lacked the capability to create a catastrophe that devastated an entire city like Warsaw.
Everyone knew a syndicate was backing them.
But since Tokugawa Shingen had surrendered, they'd have to keep bleeding that syndicate dry. Kohaku had assumed they would spare the real culprits for now, waiting for a better chance to strike later.
"The reason we couldn't punish the syndicate before," Ryosuke said, "was because they were like cockroaches, hiding in dark corners. Finding them would take too much time and effort. But now..."
He looked up at the daimyo's mansion halfway up the hill.
"Since he's offering to surrender, he should at least give us a token of sincerity, shouldn't he?"
With Tokugawa Shingen's deep grasp of the Land of the Wind's structure, finding the real masterminds wouldn't be difficult.
"Besides…" Ryosuke thought of the little girl clutching that sack, searching for her mother's body.
"We can afford to wait. But grief can't."
Time doesn't make sorrow and anger fade away, it only cools them, hardens them, until they become a dark, rotting knot in the soul, forever taking up a corner of one's heart.
After lunch, the negotiations began.
Ryosuke, Rasa, Granny Chiyo, and others sat on one side of the long table. Tokugawa Shingen and the Grand Minister sat opposite, carefully reviewing the agreement drafted by Oda Ieyasu.
The agreement had four main points.
1. Recognition of Gorin City's independence.
2. War reparations for the Sky Ninja Army's invasion.
3. Reduction of bilateral tariffs.
4. Introduction of Awakening Ideology courses in Land of the Wind schools.
Those were the main terms. Beyond that were smaller clauses, leased zones for nearby cities, consular jurisdiction, exclusive resource mining rights, financial and currency regulations, and more.
And, of course, the clause demanding that the masterminds behind the Gorin and Warsaw disasters be found and publicly tried.
Even Ryosuke had to admit, it did feel like they were being a bit too harsh.
The old Grand Minister's face flushed red, his blood pressure spiking. His hands trembled as he held the document, he looked ready to cosplay a lunch lady with a ladle in the cafeteria.
Quivering, he turned to Tokugawa Shingen, his voice choked. "My lord, we can't… at least we must amend, "
"I agree to all of it," Tokugawa Shingen said calmly.
"But I'd like to add one more clause."
"And what's that?"
"I'll give you another city, Warsaw City, three hundred seventy miles from Gorin."
The Grand Minister nearly jumped out of his seat. "My lord, no! You mustn't!"
Tokugawa ignored him and smiled faintly at Ryosuke.
"This city is quite wealthy. Lord Ryosuke, you've come from afar, how could I let you go without some starting capital?"
Rasa leaned over and whispered, "Warsaw City is the Land of the Wind's largest gambling city, full of casinos, brothels, and entertainment halls. Tens of thousands of tourists visit daily to chase fortune, and every one of them leaves broke. But yes… it's definitely rich."
Tokugawa Shingen picked up his pen. "So, Lord Ryosuke, do you dare accept a city like that?"
Ryosuke also picked up his pen. "Why wouldn't I?"
The two exchanged a smile, each harboring their own thoughts, and signed their names on the agreement.
Ryosuke pushed the signed document forward. The Grand Minister accepted it with a pale, bloodless face.
Ryosuke looked toward Tokugawa Shingen. The man didn't push the paper back. Instead, he stood up slowly, the smile fading from his face, replaced by a grave, solemn expression.
He bowed deeply, lifting the agreement high above his head, and handed it across the table with the utmost humility.
Ryosuke silently accepted it. In that moment, a long-familiar system chime rang in his ears, [World divergence triggered. Gained 1000 soul fragments. Gained 1 Ascension Star Core.]
So it had come at last.
Ryosuke had thought he'd get the Ascension Star Core when he captured Gorin City, but even after stabilizing it, the system had stayed silent.
Now he understood, this agreement was the true turning point of the worldline.
Thirty minutes later, Tokugawa Shingen stood by the window. The Grand Minister, holding an ice pack to his forehead, asked weakly, "My lord, I understand your view, stall for time, wait for a new opportunity. But Warsaw City… that's one of our biggest sources of tax revenue!"
Tokugawa watched Ryosuke's group walking away in the distance.
"I'm investing."
"Investing?"
"Warsaw City runs only on gambling, s*x, and entertainment. Other than that, that barren land has no other industries to develop."
"
Which means, if Ryosuke wants to maximize the city's value, he has to keep it just the way it is."
Tokugawa chuckled softly.
"A white shirt stains first at the collar and cuffs."
"The desert sun is harsh, and the beauties of Warsaw are soft. Let's see if Ryosuke turns dark."
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