Chapter 186 - 184: Where Are We Sleeping Tonight?

Azula looked at Danzō's body, then at the space where his right arm had been. 'Wait. Edo Tensei reanimated the dead in the exact state they'd died, missing arm and hole in the chest. Would I be getting a one-armed immortal worker?'

She'd been planning to resurrect him for years of useful service. This complicated things.

She'd invested too much in this plan to let a missing arm ruin it.

'Oh well.' She'd improve the Edo Tensei, she'd been meaning to anyway.

Azula wasn't the only one lost in thought. The difference was that she was calculating labor efficiency, and everyone else was calculating how close they'd come to sharing Danzo's fate

Hiruzen stared at Danzō's corpse and felt grief. He'd carried guilt before, since the day Tobirama named him Hokage instead of Kagami or even Danzō, since the day Tobirama died for them and left Hiruzen with a village he wasn't ready to lead.

That guilt, he could bear it but this one was heavier. That guilt had been about a choice someone else made, this guilt was about every choice Hiruzen hadn't.

'If only I had been more understanding. If only I had known about his plan. If only—'

The thoughts just circled, each one leading back to the same dead end.

"Hiruzen." Hōmura's hand found Hiruzen's shoulder, but Hiruzen whose mind was somewhere entirely didn't respond.

Beside him, Koharu was silent. She'd never liked Danzō and had spent years arguing with him, blocking his proposals, warning Hiruzen not to trust him. She'd been right, but she felt no satisfaction in it.

Hōmura was glad Hiruzen had stepped down. Glad, too, that he and Koharu had never acted on their worst impulses. They'd talked about supervising the new Hokage. Controlling her, if necessary. They'd never taken the final step. If they had, Danzo's fate might have been theirs as well.

Tobirama watched from the shadows of the ANBU formation and wanted, more than anything, to sigh.

Danzō, Hiruzen, Hōmura and Koharu. Four students, one dead, one broken and two barely holding themselves together. He'd trained them for war but apparently not for this.

He'd trained them for war. They'd survived war but peace, apparently, was what broke them. He noted the irony without dwelling on it.

He'd designed his team with roles in mind. Hiruzen was the leader, the face, the one who inspired, Danzō was the shadow, the one who did what needed to be done regardless of the cost.

Kagami had been the one who got the balance right. Strong, loyal, not ambitious enough to be a threat, the best weapon Hiruzen could have.

Torifu was the shield. Reliable and unbreakable, the kind you put between your enemies and your team when everything went wrong.

Koharu and Hōmura were administration. Paperwork and logistics, the unglamorous backbone of a functioning village. They'd done their work adequately.

But they'd also, somewhere along the way, started thinking they should have a say in things beyond their function. That was Hiruzen's fault, not theirs.

He'd assigned each of them a function, and the functions had worked, for a time.

What he hadn't accounted for was what happened when the war ended and the functions no longer fit. Peace had eroded them in ways combat never had, he'd designed a team for wartime, but during peace time, they knew of nothing apart from creating internal conflict.

'I've done enough.' The thought arrived without ceremony. His students had either died or adapted, the village had a Hokage who didn't need him, his continued presence was redundant.

He'd request release from the Edo Tensei and return to the Pure Land. Azula would probably refuse, he'd deal with that when it happened.

"It's done." Tsunade broke the silence. The black lines of the Strength of a Hundred Seal receded, pulling back into the diamond on her forehead as she walked toward Azula.

"Good job." Azula looked her over, eyes lingering on the diamond on her forehead. "But did you have to use the Strength of a Hundred Seal? It was a minor matter."

Azula's expression shifted. Something else had occurred to her. 'Should I create Jujutsu Kaisen? Megumi could have her face.'

For a moment, Tsunade thought Azula was being sincere, it was before she saw the smile. It was the smile Azula got when she was thinking about something that would make other people deeply uncomfortable. Tsunade knew that smile.

It never preceded anything good.

"How is that a minor matter?" Tsunade's smile was thin. "Danzō was my granduncle's student. If I didn't give my all, wouldn't that be disrespectful?"

She didn't believe a word of it herself.

Tobirama, still trapped in his mid-lif—death crisis, rolled his eyes. 'Thank you very much.'

His grandniece had just claimed she'd killed his student out of respect for him.

"If you say so." Azula had already moved on. Tsunade's excuses didn't interest her, the lifespan drain from the Strength of a Hundred Seal, on the other hand, did.

She'd need to find a workaround. She added it to her mental list.

"Hokage-sama." Hisashi's voice cracked. He'd been standing there since Danzō fell, waiting for his turn, watching the Hokage and her friend banter like they hadn't just executed a man. He couldn't take it anymore. "I, Hisashi Hyūga, accept whatever punishment you deem fit. I ask only for leniency."

He didn't kneel, barely. His back was bent, his head bowed, his hands trembling at his sides. Everything about him was already on the ground. His knees just hadn't caught up yet.

Hisoto watched his father crumble and felt nothing but exhaustion. He remembered a different man, the one who had stood between the Hyūga and the Senju, between the Hyūga and the Uchiha, and refused to bend.

The one who had faced Madara and Hashirama without bowing his head. That man was gone. In his place was this: A trembling old fool who had bet everything on the wrong ally and lost.

'Sometimes,' Hisoto thought, 'dead isn't so bad.'

The thought arrived cold and unbidden, he didn't push it away as he was still waiting for Azula's verdict, same as his father. Whatever mercy she showed or didn't, it was hers to give.

Execute him? No, too quick. Slap a Caged Bird Seal on him? Let him feel what his branch family feels? That had a certain poetic appeal. But honestly, Hisashi was a sidekick. A supporting actor in his own conspiracy. He wasn't worth much thought.

"Hmm." She looked at him thoughtfully, as if considering what to do with a piece of furniture that didn't quite fit the room. "You'll be publicly tried in front of the village. Whatever punishment follows, you'll accept."

For one moment, Hisoto felt relief. Despite his indifference, he could still see his father live. Then the rest of the sentence caught up with him.

Public trial. Whole village. The Caged Bird Seal exposed. He realized she wasn't sparing his father. She was sparing the execution to destroy the clan's reputation instead.

A public trial means his father's crimes laid bare. The Caged Bird Seal exposed to every civilian, every merchant, every rival clan. The Hyūga name dragged through the mud for the next decade or longer.

Hisashi didn't celebrate because he'd never expected much mercy. The moment the word "trial" left Azula's mouth, he understood she wasn't killing him. She was killing the Hyūga name.

Death would have been cleaner and private, at least he wouldn't have to trade his life for his clan's reputation.

'My life,' he thought. 'Or the reputation of the Hyūga clan.'

Azula was already moving on.

"Tie him." She gestured toward Hisashi, then toward Danzo's body. "And collect that. Preserve it. It'll be handy later."

The ANBU moved before she finished speaking because they'd been trained for this. One team secured Hisashi while another knelt beside Danzo's body, working with the practiced efficiency of professionals who'd long since stopped being surprised by anything the Hokage asked them to do.

Hiruzen watched them take Danzo's body apart. Head separated, memories to be extracted later, picked clean by whatever technique Azula deemed appropriate.

Danzō had spent his life hoarding secrets. In death, his secrets would be stolen from him one by one. Hiruzen couldn't even object. What would he say? That his friend deserved better? After tonight, no one in that room would believe it.

'There must be seals on the body,' Hiruzen told himself. 'Danzō had always been paranoid and prepared, he would have planned for this and protect his secrets.'

Hiruzen needed that to be true.

If those seals failed, Azula would find everything. The discussions, contingency plans, and debates about whether she was another Madara, whether she needed to be controlled, whether she needed to be removed. They'd never acted on it, but Hiruzen wasn't sure that would matter.

•••

•••

The council dispersed in silence. Danzo's body was gone, carried off to whatever fate Azula had planned for it. Hisashi was dragged to a cell, his head bowed, the clan heads filed out one by one, each wearing the same look: the quiet realization that every complaint they'd ever filed, every petty obstruction they'd ever raised, had just become significantly more dangerous.

Azula looked towards Tsunade. "Coming?"

"You know the tower's wrecked," Tsunade said. "Where are we sleeping?"

"Your grandmother's."

Tsunade stopped mid-step. "You want me to show up at my grandmother's house at midnight covered in blood and explain that we need a place to sleep because we destroyed the Hokage mansion?"

"You killed a man with your bare hands. I think you can handle your grandmother."

"She's your teacher. You explain."

"I'm the Hokage. I don't explain things. I delegate."

"You're delegating explaining this to my grandmother?"

"I'm delegating everything to you. You're my girlfriend, that's your role."

"That's not how relationships work."

"It's how ours works. You handle the emotional confrontations, I handle the political ones."

"You just made your girlfriend punch a man to death in front of the entire council, that was political and emotional. Who handled that?"

Azula paused. "We both did. It was a joint operation."

"A joint operation."

"You provided the fists, I provided the justification, isn't that a great teamwork?"

Tsunade stared at her for a long moment, the kind of stare that had made grown shinobi reconsider their career choices. Azula met it with the serene calm of someone who had never once reconsidered anything.

"Fine," Tsunade said. "But you're carrying the luggage."

"We don't have luggage."

"Then you're carrying me."

"You're heavier than luggage."

"I just killed a man for you."

"You killed a man for yourself. I just pointed you in the right direction."

"And now you're going to carry me."

Azula looked at her, Tsunade looked back. The night was cold with the tower in rubble. They were both covered in a thin layer of dust with Tsunade having Danzo's blood that sprayed.

"I'll carry you as far as the gate," Azula said.

"The compound gate or the mansion gate?"

"The compound gate."

"Fine, deal."