(The 100th chapter ðŸ˜ðŸ˜)
...
...
...
"Akiko-sama, the moment has come," Hikuto announced, his voice doing an impressive impersonation of someone who hadn't just choked on his own dread. "We have assembled over seven thousand shinobi. We are ready to take back control of the village."
He stood as straight as a kunai, trying to project a confidence he'd buried about three existential crises ago.
Seven thousand sounded like a lot, and it was.
It was also, his brain helpfully supplied, potentially seven thousand very elaborate funeral arrangements because they weren't marching against a normal enemy.
They were marching against more dangerous than natural disasters—the kind of monsters who had killed the Mizukage along with ten thousand ninja and had redecorated Kiri's streets with the previous regime.
Akiko, perched on a weathered stump that served as her makeshift command throne, didn't blink.
The mantle of leadership, she was discovering, was 10% strategy and 90% pretending you couldn't hear the terrified squeaking of your subordinates.
"Good," she said, her voice cool and clear. "Today, the village will enter a new era, and no matter what, we will clear the blood debt."
Blood debt. The words made Hikuto's jaw clench hard enough to break steel. As Akiko's most devoted—and currently most nauseated—subordinate, his loyalty was absolute.
He was a Hozuki, a clan with a legacy of Second Mizukages, not a Yuki.
He'd aligned himself with Akiko because a) she was terrifyingly competent, b) she had the kind of glacial, unshakeable poise that made you believe in miracles, and c) his one (1) braincell devoted to political strategy had taken one look at her and bet the entire farm.
It was the best and worst decision of his life.
But politics didn't erase family. Intelligence from the few who had slipped past the invaders' strangely permissive blockade painted a grim picture.
The Kaguya clan was basically an archaeological site now, with very few left alive.
The jonin of his own Hozuki clan were gone, completely wiped out.
Only the kids, the non-combatants, and the unlucky few who'd been out fishing for glory remained.
His little brother, an elite chunin with more enthusiasm than sense, had been right in the thick of it.
The math was brutally simple, and it added up to a gaping hole in Hikuto's chest.
It had been exactly twenty-one days since the Three-Tails had been unceremoniously crammed into Akiko's body.
Twenty days since the sky over Kirigakure had cracked with unfamiliar fire and the screams had begun.
For the last two weeks, while Hikuto rallied remnants and tried not to vomit from stress, Akiko had been engaged in a different kind of war: a domestic dispute with a living tsunami of chakra residing in her.
Her progress, by any sane standard, was horrifyingly fast.
But she knew it wasn't enough, and unfortunately, she didn't have a choice. There were so many of them, and their supplies were basically gone.
And there was also the fact that the longer they waited, the more likely troops from Konoha would come to completely take control of the village, which was not good.
•••
It was in such a complicated state that Akiko stood atop a hill, a lone silhouette against a bruised twilight sky, looking down at a sea of restless shinobi that churned like the ocean below the island cliffs.
Thousands of them, which gave her a very particular feeling.
Sure, most sported the familiar slash of the Kirigakure headband.
But to Akiko's expert eye—honed by a lifetime of Kiri's brand of backstabbing—at least thirty percent were undercover ninjas.
She spotted a Suna nin trying too hard to slouch; an Iwa guy whose glare was pure boredom...
The fact that the tri-clan alliance of Uchiha, Senju, and Uzumaki had collectively attacked Kiri on its own island was the worst-kept secret in the Five Nations.
These 'allies' weren't here for charity; they were here to make sure the fire they'd quietly fueled kept Konoha's toes in pain.
They'd provided the supplies, the weapons (through, of course, indirect 'neutral' merchants), and now they'd come for the show.
Akiko smoothed the front of her flak jacket, a familiar, cold mask settling over her features. For the performance of a lifetime, she had to look the part.
She drew in a breath, and when her voice rang out, it wasn't her usual dry, cold tone.
It was raw, thunderous, and vibrated with a fury that was, ironically, one hundred percent genuine.
"Shinobi of Kirigakure!" she spoke straight to them. "It has been twenty days since the village our ancestors carved from the mist and the rock was desecrated. Not by honorable conflict, but by the treachery of the Uchiha, the Senju, and the Uzumaki!"
She let the names spit from her mouth like poison. "They did not come as warriors. They came as butchers. They showed mercy to none—sparing not a single clan, cutting down every elite who stood in their path. They have plunged Kirigakure into the single most humiliating chapter of its long history!"
Her fist clenched at her side. The anger was real because she knew her clan had lost most of its younger generation.
Her gaze swept over the crowd, connecting with each pair of eyes—grieving Kiri natives, and calculating foreign agents alike. "We stand at the precipice! They have left us with only two paths: to fight with everything we have, to the very bitter end… or to become wandering ghosts, hunted and despised across the entire ninja world! Is that the legacy you choose?!"
"But we…" she declared, her voice somehow carrying to the very back, "are shinobi of the Bloody Mist. We have never, ever feared death. But we fear disgrace! We fear irrelevance! And we despise hypocrites who preach peace while bathing in our blood!"
She threw her arm out, pointing vaguely in the direction of the mainland, where Konoha undoubtedly sat feeling very pleased with itself. "So I ask you now, with the very spirit of our ancestors screaming in our ears… are you ready? Ready to give your all? To seize back your stolen honor…"
She let the silence hang for one beat, two, her eyes gleaming with a dark, knowing light.
"…and reclaim our GLORY?"
There it was, the magic word. In any other village, 'glory' might mean valor, legacy, or protecting the precious leaves or some such nonsense.
In Kiri? It translated directly to reputation and cold, hard ryo. It was the language of every true Kiri-nin, from the lowest hunter-nin to the former Mizukage, understood better than their own heartbeat.
The effect was instant and volcanic. The genuine Kiri-nin, inflamed by rage and the promise of profitable plunder, roared.
The foreign shinobi, thrilled at the prospect of Kiri and the three strongest clans grinding each other down to the nub, roared even louder, cheering for a 'glory' that would bleed their rival dry.
(Akiko's picture)
(END OF THE CHAPTER)
Well well, this is the 100th chapter, yeah.