Naruto: Tango with Death

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It has been a week since I arrived in Sendai, and as I promised, it was time for Hirahisa to be judged.

I moved things around a lot in the past week, but I could see that I still needed that little push to earn the respect and fear of those I was dealing with.

For now, I was either seen as a bother or an ideological revolutionist, because while I may have done quite a few things, I still needed to prove my determination.

And Hirahisa was exactly that opportunity.

His judgement was more of a formality than anything, since I was Judge, Jury and Executioner. So I did not go for the usual courtroom, and instead decided to make it public.

I had a platform installed within the center of Sendai, and allowed anyone who wished so to come to the judgement, no matter their social status.

As a result, as I stood on the platform, with Hirahisa in shackles at my feet, the eyes of the entire capital looked at him. Behind me, higher up, was the Daimyo and his family. The three were looking at the giant crowd with a mix of emotions.

The Daimyo looked tired, his wife looked angry, and Takashi was awed.

And giant this crowd was. Sendai had more than several hundred thousand inhabitants, it was the capital of the country after all. And no one wanted to miss this. Even some people from nearby towns, villages and cities had come, making the place cramped.

But it was exactly what I wanted.

Raising my hand, the chattering crowd gradually turned silence, and so I spoke with chakra enhancing my voice, "People of Sendai!"

For the few who still hadn't gotten in the mood and whispered to each other, I now had all of their attention.

"Kneeling before you is the one previously known as Lord Hirahisa, ex de facto leader of the unlawful Council!"

The booing that followed was probably deafening for Hirahisa, who looked like he was finally starting to realize I was being serious. Like most, he had kept his arrogance through the course of the week because he believed his influence to be strong enough to make him invulnerable.

And while his incarceration had affected the city, the very corruption that kept him up brought the negative impacts of his reprisal down.

After all, he could shut down factories, businesses and institutions, it didn't hurt the people in the slightest since he and the Council had already taken everything from them.

The only issue that could have been raised would have been a lack of food, but I had seen that coming and used the army to force the nobles with the largest fields to continue supplying food to the capital.

As for those who refused even with the army and tried to use the law to protect themselves, Anbu came into work. Thing about politicians, is that there's always something to dig up. And even if there isn't, it can always be created. All you need is the right contacts, and luckily, I have the best.

So despite Hirahisa's retaliation, things had only turned hard for the privileged, who thus were forced to fight against those effects for their own survival.

And that is another problem of widespread corruption. Because it is a chaotic endeavour, it isn't unusual for them to shoot one another, willingly or not, and this time, Hirahisa's fall had troubled all the other nobles of the capital.

Anyway, I did not show any emotion to the booing, and waited for a few seconds to raise my hand, shushing them, and continuing, "Through the past week, among the changes that I brought to the city," at that a wave of cheers appeared, but I amplified my voice to overpower them, "I investigated Hirahisa."

I waited for silence to come back, and finally revealed, "Evidence of corruption was found in your mansion. Letters that proved a correspondence with confirmed members of the rebellion were also found in a hidden compartment within your room. What do you have to say for your defence?"

Hirahisa, who a week ago looked full of fight, now looked desperate. He looked at me for several seconds in silence, before turning to the booing crowd.

And I could see on his face the precise moment when he understood, he was dead. Fool or not, he had been in politics for most of his life, and he knew that I had to kill him to get credibility. As for the people, they now held a power they never had before, and they weren't his friends.

The thing with common people is that it is very dangerous to give them power, because they will seek to turn around the local order to go along with their own interest.

It wasn't something to blame, that was what anyone would do after all. Everyone wanted to be at the top, and if there was someone on the way, then they would get removed.

This was even more the case in case of extreme differences of power. When everyone next to you is poor, and a few are so far above all of you, a sentiment of kinship will start developing among the folks in a similar situation.

As for those far above, they can be good, they can be bad, in the end, it doesn't really matter. They either are in the way or not, and unfortunately for Hirahisa, he was in the way, and I was paving that way.

With no one left to defend Hirahisa, he finally ended up by sighing, and asking, "May I speak?"

I squinted my eyes, thinking of what he could say, and after a moment I nodded.

Hirahisa raised his chained hands and said, "May I go with at least some honour?"

I looked at him in surprise. I didn't expect this of him. I expected him to fight tooth and nail, to the bitter end to save his own skin, but he turned out to be strangely accepting of his own mortal condition.

Unexpected, but inconsequential.

Understanding what he meant by going out with honour, I approached him, and broke his chains by gripping his chains hard.

I heard a small sigh come from Hirahisa as I took out my sword, and handed it to him. The crowd remained completely silent, watching on with various emotions.

"For your crimes towards the country and its people, you have been condemned to death. You may go with honour by Seppuku."

His hands trembled as he held my katana, but he still placed it before his chest. Then, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and slid the sword through his body.

A barely audible gasp left his body, the last breath forcefully pushed out of his lungs as the blade pierced through his intestines.

Hirahisa remained on his knees as the immense pain assaulted his senses, yet he remained mute. Nodding to myself, I unsheathed my blade, and beheaded the man, putting an end to his misery.

The crowd cheered.

Author's Note: So, quite different chapter from usual. Until now, my depiction of the internal conflict within the capital between the two classes of people had been quite manichean, with the rich and influential being the corrupted ones and the poor being the good ones.

What I tried to do in this chapter was to show them in a somewhat different light. As you saw, Hirahisa wasn't actually a bad guy/coward, his only sin was his low exposure as only one side of him was shown. But hidden behind his character were values and morals that you unfortunately won't be able to see.

On the other end of the spectrum is the common people. They are inspired by the French Revolutionists. They aren't necessarily the good guys either. Of course they have nothing, but while Sukaina killed Hirahisa for her own motives, they only wanted to see blood, which in itself is a bad thing.

Of course, I firmly believe that the notion of good and evil is meaningless here. As Sukaina said, it's not about the heart, it's about the stomach.

PS: I really liked how I finished this chapter, with a simple yet meaningful comment on the common people. Anyway, I just wanted to sound intelligent, thanks for reading.