Chapter 192: Who Told You to Kneel?
"Scene three — the villain's entrance!"
"Action!"
The crew had the lighting, cameras, and props ready. The director channeled decades of restless energy into the announcement, and filming began.
On the other side of the iceberg, Sasuke caught something at the mountain's highest peak, glanced at Sakura once, said nothing, and walked off alone with his hands in his pockets.
Kushina stationed herself beside the director, ready to move if anyone needed covering.
Shino's gaze, behind the dark lenses, was fixed on a stretch of snow some distance off.
His insects had told him. Someone was hiding there.
The hiding technique was terrible.
Sakura pulled her cloak tighter and yawned.
No one in Snow Country could hold a candle to anyone in her group, let alone pose a real threat. Calling this a mission was generous — it was closer to a paid vacation.
She was watching the crew work when Kushina's expression shifted.
Company.
And that chakra signature—
"Sakura."
Kushina moved to her side without drawing attention, voice low.
"Hm?"
There it is.
A ship. On approach.
Iwagakure's ship.
Hiruzen's strategic read on this was clear enough. Snow Country sat between Earth Country and Wind Country, making it a perfect monitoring post and a perpetual thorn in both sides' territory. Wind Country had just lost badly and had no realistic options beyond watching from a distance. And Iwagakure, nominally Konoha's ally, had every excuse to "happen across" a friendly and helpfully insert itself.
Because Konoha had been growing too powerful, and any rational Iwagakure calculation now pointed toward a quiet post-war alignment with the other defeated nations. Wind, Water, Lightning, Earth — four nations creating a mutual defense arrangement against a Konoha that kept producing people like the one currently standing on this iceberg.
"Interesting."
Sakura stood, watching the ship approach.
"Let's see what our dear allies have in mind."
She didn't lower her voice. Sandayū, nearby, went noticeably rigid.
He hadn't been entirely idle during his weeks waiting in Konoha. He'd reached out to the connections he still had from the previous Daimyo's era — and Iwagakure had been receptive, because an invitation to involve itself in Snow Country's succession was exactly the kind of opening it had been waiting for.
Hiruzen had noted this and said nothing. The Four-Nation Compact was coming regardless — Konoha's own strength was guaranteeing that outcome. You couldn't stop the other nations from seeking safety in numbers. What you could do was ensure the price of that alignment was higher than the reward, and make sure any arrangement with Snow Country still served Fire Country's interests.
Hence Sasuke's presence on this mission. The Sharingan was a fallback for controlling Koyuki's cooperation if persuasion wasn't enough — a quiet insurance policy on the outcome.
Sakura let Sandayū's discomfort sit and focused on the approaching figures.
Kushina's expression, watching Sandayū, had gone distinctly cool.
Shino continued watching his snowfield.
"Hey!"
"Haruno! Long time!"
Voice before person, as always.
Of course it's that one.
A sharp-featured young woman with close-cut dark hair came into view — and beside her, a solid, round-faced young man, an unremarkable-looking man in his mid-twenties, and a large, powerfully built figure behind them all.
Sakura let her eyes pass over Kurotsuchi and the others and land on the last one.
Ōnoki sent him personally. Big heart on that old man.
The large figure was Han. The Five-Tails jinchūriki.
"Hm. You."
"What brings you all the way out here?"
Sakura regarded the four of them as they approached.
"Don't read into it." Han spoke first, producing a scroll from inside his coat and tossing it over.
Sakura opened it.
Mission rank: A.
Mission: Protect Princess Koyuki of Snow Country for one month, or until she assumes the title of Daimyo.
Assigned: Han, Kurotsuchi, Akatsuchi, Kokuyō.
Client: Ishigakawa.
She tossed it back, glanced once at the thoroughly stiff Sandayū, and said, entirely neutrally:
"Find a spot. Stay out of the way."
The Iwa group didn't argue with the dismissal.
The broader situation was obvious to everyone present. Konoha was the dominant force in the ninja world right now. Iwagakure was carefully noncommittal, calibrating its distance. Akatsuki was lurking at the edges. Wind, Water, and Lightning were all licking wounds.
Ironically, Akatsuki's existence had probably helped Konoha — it was the one factor that had kept Iwa from formally breaking with Konoha mid-war. Having something that dangerous operating in the shadows made joining a coalition against Konoha look considerably less attractive.
"Come on, we haven't seen each other in forever. Don't be so cold."
Kurotsuchi draped an arm over Sakura's shoulder without ceremony.
Are we close?
Sakura gave her a look and started to peel the arm off — then something from the peak above interrupted everything.
"HAHAHAHA!"
A voice, ringing with theatrical self-confidence, came from the summit.
A figure in full armor stood at the top, clearly having waited for maximum dramatic effect.
"Princess Koyuki! Do you have the Hexagonal Crystal ready?"
"Did you really think a few hired ninja would—"
Sasuke stepped out of empty air behind him and kicked him cleanly off the mountain.
The armored figure tumbled down the face of the iceberg with a prolonged howl, gaining snow as he went, arriving at the base as something approximately spherical.
Sasuke looked down from the summit with his hands in his pockets.
"Noisy."
"Boss!"
A large armored figure burst out of the snow in response.
Then discovered, within the next two seconds, that he was coated in insects.
"What—?!"
How were insects surviving in this climate?
"Secret Technique — Insect Sphere."
Shino raised one finger and snapped it.
The insects converged, wrapping the man completely inside a dense black shell.
The sound was a continuous drone.
Accompanied by screaming.
The insects ate through chakra and flesh alike — even the chakra-enhancing armor couldn't compensate at this saturation level.
The production crew, some of whom had been managing fairly well until this moment, edged away from Shino in a collective body.
"Hm. A little like the water stream clan's bee techniques," Kurotsuchi said, watching the armored man collapse, genuinely curious.
Shino didn't acknowledge this. He simply watched the man reach his last moments with complete serenity.
"Against me, your defeat was inevitable."
"To explain why — your concealment technique was far too obvious."
Kurotsuchi leaned toward Sakura.
"Is your teammate... okay? He's talking to a dying man."
Sakura looked at her.
The person talking to a dying man, or the person critiquing the person talking to a dying man, in front of the dying man's teammate.
"Kurotsuchi. Drop it," Han said, pulling her back by the shoulder before she could continue.
He was considerably more focused on Sakura than on anyone else present.
The Five-Tails had told him. Three-Tails, jinchūriki, Fourth Mizukage — dead, three days ago, at this girl's hand.
That was why Han had taken this assignment personally. Part courtesy gesture to Konoha. Part: he wanted a direct read on her.
She was young. She was apparently something the intel reports couldn't fully capture.
"Screw all of you!"
"Who hit me?!"
The armored man from the mountain had clawed himself back out of the snow. The chakra armor had absorbed most of the landing.
Sakura looked at the armor and filed a thought.
Interesting construction. There might be applications.
Especially with a chakra cannon sitting somewhere in Kumogakure.
"You're supposed to be protecting Snow Country's princess," Sakura said to Han, gesturing at the man. "Handle it."
"Boss!"
A woman burst into the air on mechanical wings, streaking toward the armored man, shouting.
Another pink-haired one.
Sakura noted this absently.
"Kurotsuchi."
"On it!"
Kurotsuchi launched skyward without any visible propulsion mechanism — no wings, nothing — and closed on the winged woman fast.
"How are you flying without—"
"Dissolution Release — Limestone Technique!"
Concrete poured from Kurotsuchi's mouth before the question finished.
"Ice Release — Swallow Snow Storm!"
The winged woman tried to counter — water from her mouth, flash-freezing into shuriken, cutting into the incoming concrete.
The shuriken vanished inside it.
The concrete caught her, knocked her from the air, and hardened around her on the way down, encasing her completely.
The armored man — Nadare Rōga — had started forming seals, building something large, trying to create chaos and escape under cover of it.
"Ice Release — One-Horn White Whale!"
A massive creature, enormous, a single spiral horn extending from its forehead, erupted skyward with a sound that shook the ice beneath everyone's feet.
The director, unhindered by the concept of self-preservation, was already pointing a camera operator at it.
Han stepped forward. The ice fractured under his foot.
He went up.
Heat radiated off him in visible waves.
"Boiling Release — Supernatural Might!"
Different from Mei's technique — where Mei used Boiling Release as area denial, Han channeled it entirely into his body, producing force and speed simultaneously. It was, in practice, a physical augmentation technique — a body technique using boiling chakra as the enhancement mechanism.
He and Sakura were, in this regard, structurally the same type of fighter.
Red armor glowing, Han rose to meet a creature many times his size, the heat around his hands visible as distortion in the air.
"He wouldn't—"
Nadare's stomach dropped.
One punch.
The whale shattered, its cry cutting short, exploding into ice fragments that rained across the field.
"Magnificent!"
"Did you get that? Did you get all of that?"
The camera operator had gotten all of it. He gave the director a thumbs up, entirely composed.
Sakura appeared in front of Nadare while he was still staring at the pieces of his technique falling around him.
"So — can I surrender at this point, or..."
He looked at her with the expression of a man who had peaked too early in the encounter.
"I don't think you're joking, but yes."
She tilted her head, extended one finger, and placed it against his chest.
Nadare looked down at the finger.
This slight, soft-looking person isn't about to—
She can't possibly match what that giant just did—
This armor is the best Snow Country produces—
Flick.
The force that arrived was absolute, unhurried, and total.
The chakra armor's energy field didn't negotiate with it. The field cracked, overwhelmed itself, and failed.
The core mechanism beneath it shattered from the feedback.
Nadare went flying backward, crashed through an ice formation, and disappeared into the snow.
Han's eyes narrowed slightly, watching.
That's what broke through the Three-Tails' defenses.
He could have broken Nadare's armor too. But not like that. Not that effortlessly.
Sasuke, appearing from somewhere adjacent to the scene, efficiently bound Nadare with wire before the man could register where he was.
Unremarkable opponent. In the source material, he'd barely managed against Kakashi without the Sharingan. With his armor cracked and this lineup surrounding him, he'd lasted about as long as expected.
"Haruno Sakura of Konoha," Han said, turning to her. "I think we should talk about how this mission is going to proceed."
Sakura looked at him.
He's sensible, at least.
Han had done his own math. His Five-Tails had been clear: this girl was beyond him, perfect jinchūriki transformation included. Confrontation was not a viable path. Negotiation was.
Nearby, Koyuki had been watching all of this without speaking.
She understood her situation. She'd had no real choices from the beginning, and she had no more now.
Small nations didn't get a seat at the table when major powers were dividing things up. She was a piece on the board, not a player.
The only thing keeping her personally alive was the fact that she held a title — and titles had currency in a world where shinobi still technically served nobility. Even this had its limits, but for now it was something.
Sandayū, watching her, exhaled quietly.
The loss of Snow Country's independence. The diminishment of the nation's autonomy. These things mattered to him.
But less than one other thing.
His Daimyo's daughter, placed where she was meant to stand.
The production crew was sent back to the ship.
The two groups worked out the operational details.
The final arrangement: joint support for Koyuki's ascension, followed by joint military presence in Snow Country. A compromise that left everyone with something and no one with everything.
Iwa lost the clean strategic win it wanted. But it gained proximity to a country it shared no border with — which, from where it sat relative to Konoha, was an argument for equivalence it couldn't otherwise make.
Konoha didn't get unilateral control. But it got the Daimyo's backing, which was the actual goal.
Snow Country was the clearest loser. The current Daimyo, Doto, hadn't known the meeting was happening, and the outcome had already been decided without him.
The only clear winner was Sandayū, who had done what he set out to do.
The only true loser was Koyuki, who was being installed against her preferences as a permanent figurehead between two nations' competing interests.
"Well then. Good working with you."
Han extended his hand, visibly relieved the whole thing had resolved without incident.
"Likewise."
Sakura shook it without particular warmth.
She hadn't wanted to be here in the first place.
Then Han turned toward Koyuki, and his expression shifted into something formal.
"In that case — we present ourselves before Koyuki, Daimyo of Snow Country."
And Han — Five-Tails jinchūriki, complete perfect jinchūriki, Kage-tier fighter, one of the strongest people currently alive in the ninja world — went down on one knee.
Kurotsuchi, Akatsuchi, and the others knelt behind him.
Beside Sakura, Kushina, Sasuke, and Shino began to do the same—
Sakura didn't move.
Her expression had gone flat.
She watched.
A Kage-tier jinchūriki kneeling before a girl who had been a puppet for ten years and would be a puppet for the rest of her life.
Every shinobi in view bending at the knee.
Not for power. For a title.
Sakura didn't kneel.
She met Koyuki's eyes directly, cold and unhurried.
Call yourself Daimyo. Fire Country's Daimyo could stand in front of me, and I would not do this.
She let the silence hold for a moment.
"Sasuke."
"Stand up."
"Who told you to kneel?"
☆☆☆
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