The first bowl was measured at dawn, when mist still clung low to the hamlet and the air smelled faintly of wet earth and cold ash. A shallow wooden ladle dipped into the storehouse sack, leveled with a practiced thumb, then poured into a waiting bowl with a soft, almost apologetic sound that carried farther than anyone expected. People watched—not because they were hungry, though hunger gnawed at them constantly now, but because this was new. Yesterday, food had been guessed, negotiated by habit and quiet mercy. Today, it had weight, volume, and witnesses.
Akamatsu Masanori stood beside the storehouse door with his hands folded inside his sleeves, eyes following the ladle and nothing else. He had arrived before the sun and had not left his post since. He had not eaten yet. He had not spoken beyond what was necessary.
"Name," he said.
A woman stepped forward, shoulders tight, eyes flicking briefly toward the sacks before settling back on him. "Hana."
"Household?"
"Five."
Masanori nodded once. The ladle dipped again. Five bowls were filled—no more, no less—and the woman moved aside without being dismissed, as if instinct told her the exchange was complete. The line advanced, quiet and tense, not yet angry, but alert in the way people became when they sensed that the old rules had stopped applying.
Behind Shōryū's eyes, the system noted the shift without commentary.
"Ration protocol established.""Short-term morale variance: Stable."
Shōryū watched from the edge of the yard with Genma beside him, unease settling in his chest at the lack of resistance. No raised voices. No clenched fists.
Acceptance.
People argued with people. They rarely argued with measures.
A child stumbled as she carried her bowl away, grain scattering across the dirt. She froze, eyes wide, hands hovering uselessly as if the sight alone had stolen her breath. Her mother moved instinctively, already sinking toward her knees.
"Leave it," Masanori said.
The woman stopped.
Masanori crouched—not to help, but to look. He pinched a few grains between his fingers, held them up at the child's eye level.
"Count."
The child sniffed hard. "Seven."
He nodded. "Seven fewer breaths of hunger. Pick them up."
She did, carefully, one grain at a time. The line watched in silence.
"Authority enforcement observed.""Compliance likelihood increasing."
Genma exhaled through his nose. "He could have let her keep it."
"And tomorrow?" Shōryū asked quietly.
Genma didn't answer.
By midmorning, the storehouse had become the true center of the hamlet. Two men stood guard—not as sentries, but as witnesses. Bowls bore charcoal marks. A rough board was nailed to the watchtower's base, names scratched into it in uneven rows.
Names mattered now.
"Household accountability established.""Resource leakage probability reduced."
Masanori walked the fields with Shōryū soon after, boots sinking into mud that smelled of rot and iron. His eyes tracked slope and flow rather than faces.
"The drainage head needs three teams," he said. "Not five. You're exhausting them."
"We're racing the clock," Shōryū replied.
"And losing," Masanori said evenly, pointing. "That ditch will hold if finished by nightfall. That one won't. Abandon it."
The word struck hard.
"If we do," Shōryū said, "those rows die."
"Yes."
"And the families who work them?"
"Will live," Masanori replied. "Hungry. Angry. Alive."
The system surfaced the cost without judgment.
"Projected casualties: Reduced.""Projected resentment: Increased."
Shōryū stared at the slope, then nodded. "Do it."
Masanori inclined his head and gave the orders.
By noon, the abandoned ditch lay quiet. The active one flowed a little cleaner. It was not success.
It was time purchased with disappointment.
The first argument broke out soon after. Two households accused one another of hiding bowls. Hunger sharpened every word.
Masanori arrived before Shōryū.
He listened. Asked questions. Ignored the crowd.
"You," he said to the accuser, "will eat at the watchtower. Under witness."
The man flushed. "I didn't—"
"And you," Masanori continued, turning, "will do the same."
"Why me?"
"Because innocence does not require privacy," Masanori replied. "And guilt hides best in it."
"Dispute resolution applied: Exposure protocol.""Repeat offense probability: Reduced."
The crowd dispersed, unsatisfied and uneasy.
Shōryū felt it settle.
This was governance without spectacle.
Later, he found Masanori by the watchtower, chalk dust on his fingers, tallies climbing steadily.
"You're making enemies," Shōryū said.
"Yes."
"On purpose?"
"On schedule."
The system confirmed the truth of it.
"Host authority consolidating.""Emotional approval declining. Structural stability increasing."
"Hunger creates anger," Masanori continued. "Anger needs a shape."
"And that shape is you."
"It is the office."
By late afternoon, the first real change appeared—not in food, but in movement. Workers labored in shorter bursts. Fewer collapsed. The ditch flowed.
Saburō's wife passed Shōryū with her bowl held close. She did not bow. She nodded.
"Loyalty type shift detected: Pragmatic acceptance."
As lanterns bloomed near the storehouse, Masanori moved among them with quiet certainty. Genma followed at a distance, jaw tight, loyalty intact but strained.
The hamlet did not feel lighter.
But it felt steadier.
Shōryū stood at the field's edge and let his breath out slowly, realizing he had stopped thinking of the bowls as food and begun thinking of them as time.
"Domain collapse probability decreasing."
Tomorrow would be harder.
Because now the rules had names.
And people would test them.
Behind him, the watchtower creaked in the evening wind—still broken, still waiting.
But for the first time, it did not feel like it would fall tonight.