Chapter 327: Execution, Three Years, a Wedding
Konoha's central plaza was packed. Nearly every shinobi of any standing in the village had gathered there, along with a massive crowd of ordinary villagers pressing in around the edges.
Every last one of them held their breath, silent, watching the scene unfold.
A space that could hold tens of thousands of people didn't have room left to set down a single foot — and yet, even so, the plaza was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop.
The sun blazed directly overhead. Darui and the others could tolerate it well enough, but the so-called daimyō — raised their entire lives in soft luxury — had never endured anything like this. Before long, they were trembling, drenched in sweat.
Up on the platform, the Hokage stood robed in red and white, one hand propped against her cheek, a lazy, indifferent look in her jade-green eyes as she surveyed the dozens of figures kneeling below her.
"Who stands before me?"
The Hokage barely opened her mouth to speak. Homura Mitokado stepped forward immediately at her side, his voice booming out like a great temple bell, not a trace of age in it, calling down to the assembled crowd:
"The Hokage asks — who stands before her?"
The words rang out across the entire square, and the nobles and daimyō kneeling below flinched visibly at the sound.
"Th— this humble criminal... this humble subject, Ryū Kasumiōji."
"Having offended the Hokage, I humbly offer up the Land of Water in a gesture of contrition. I beg Her Excellency the Hokage's mercy on us all."
The former Land of Water daimyō prostrated himself at the foot of the platform, hands raised high, holding aloft the heavy seal of state representing the Land of Water.
"We beg Her Excellency's mercy!"
At that, every remaining daimyō below dropped to their knees in unison, raising their own seals of office overhead.
The Hokage watched the scene unfold from her seat, a flicker of boredom in her languid green eyes, and spoke, quiet:
"Someone smash those rocks."
The words weren't loud — but they still drew a collective gasp of astonishment from everyone present, all eyes turning up to the platform.
Not that anyone needed to understand her reasoning. The crowd of onlookers immediately took up the chant regardless.
"Smash them!"
"Smash them!"
"SMASH THEM!"
This was the privilege of being powerful enough that no one could stand against you.
Whatever you did — even if no one understood why — there would always, without fail, be supporters cheering you on.
Especially now, with Konoha standing a single step away from swallowing the entire world whole.
And as Hokage, Sakura faced no defiance from anyone, anywhere.
A squad of shinobi appeared in the plaza, seized the seals from the daimyō's hands, and — right in front of them — smashed each one against the ground without ceremony.
The daimyō watched the seals they'd handled and cherished for who knew how many years shatter to pieces right before their eyes, a storm of conflicted emotion churning behind their faces.
But by now, no one cared in the slightest what any of them were feeling.
As the daimyō — commoners, now — were led away, Koharu Utatane lingered on the sight a moment longer than the rest.
These had been, until recently, the most powerful individuals in each of their respective nations — men who'd stood above ten thousand others.
Once the dust settled, their assets could be catalogued and put to use for the empire.
By now, only four figures remained kneeling in the square.
Darui. Kankurō. Kitsuchi. Genshi.
Each one a representative of one of the remaining four great villages.
"Darui of Kumogakure. I offer Kumogakure's submission."
The white-haired, dark-skinned man shuffled forward on his knees, raising the Raikage's seal overhead as he looked up at the Hokage on her platform.
"Iwagakure... Kitsuchi. I too... offer submission."
Kitsuchi glanced at the man beside him, let out a quiet sigh, and forced himself to raise the Tsuchikage's seal overhead as well.
As the son of the Third Tsuchikage — Ōnoki of the Two Scales — the Hokage standing above him was, by any measure, the woman who'd killed his own father.
But there was no other option.
For the sake of Iwagakure, to spare the village any further bloodshed, Kitsuchi had no choice but to kneel before her.
Behind him, Kankurō, trembling all over, offered up the seal of the Kazekage as well.
As Rasa's son, Temari's brother, and Gaara's brother, his entire family — save for Gaara alone — had died, one way or another, at the Hokage's own hand.
Being forced, at only sixteen, at the most reckless, hot-blooded age of his entire life, to kneel before the woman responsible for it all was, for him, worse by far than simply being killed outright.
But he had no choice either.
Genshi, already in his seventies or eighties, seemed entirely unbothered by comparison.
He'd long since made his peace with everything.
Kirigakure, at this point, couldn't even scrape together a suitable candidate for Mizukage. Its collapse was only a matter of time. Better to lay down arms and surrender to the Hokage outright.
And besides — during the earlier battle at the Land of Frost, among all the Edo Tensei revivals fielded that day, the Fourth Mizukage, Yagura Karatachi, had been the only one who'd deliberately held back and even quietly aided Konoha in the fight.
Surrender carried no real weight of shame for Genshi at all.
And besides — didn't Konoha already have Mei Terumi standing among its ranks?
No rush. Life was simply like this. There were plenty of things nobody particularly wanted to do, but someone, eventually, always had to.
"Elder Genshi's getting on in years. Someone bring the old man a chair."
Homura, taking note, gave the order without further prompting.
Someone hurried forward at once and set up a chair for the man, well into his eighties by now.
"My thanks, Elder Homura."
Genshi rubbed at his aching lower back and offered Homura a small bow of gratitude.
Sakura paid the exchange no mind, her gaze instead settling on Mei Terumi and Yuki, both hanging back near the edge of the crowd, visibly anxious and hesitant.
"The Five Great Villages have never known peace between themselves. Now that you've all submitted to Konoha—"
"I trust there won't be any voices of dissent inside your own villages?"
At that, Darui and the others flinched visibly.
Just as the Hokage had implied — dissent within their own villages ran nearly half the population deep!
"Her Excellency need not worry."
"This old man has already handled it."
"Every traitor is right here, before you."
While Darui and Kankurō stood frozen in place, Genshi calmly produced a sealing scroll from within his robes and handed it off to a nearby shinobi.
The shinobi glanced up at the Hokage, and once granted a small nod of approval, walked out to a clear stretch of the plaza and unsealed the scroll.
The instant it opened, countless dark shapes came pouring out.
The reek of blood immediately filled the entire square.
There, unmistakably, were over a thousand blood-soaked corpses.
Crimson blood stained the white paving stones of the plaza, and more than a few faint-hearted onlookers in the crowd went pale at the sight.
Even hardened shinobi felt a chill run down their spines.
Mei Terumi's beautiful eyes went wide in shock at the sight.
"These people showed disrespect to the Hokage and plotted rebellion. This old man has already dealt with them. I humbly ask Her Excellency's mercy for Kirigakure."
Genshi's voice remained as calm and even as ever, his clouded eyes fixed on the Hokage above.
Even the Hokage found herself pausing for a moment at the sight, something like genuine admiration stirring as she looked down at the deeply wrinkled old man before her.
Age truly does sharpen the blade. Every one of those corpses had, until very recently, been loyal Kirigakure shinobi. In barely three days, without hesitation, Genshi had eliminated them all — and the ruthless efficiency of it might well have outmatched even Homura himself.
"Elder Genshi is too modest."
The Hokage gave a small nod of approval, then turned her attention to the remaining three.
"I— I— Kumogakure will present the ringleaders of the rebellion, along with their heads, before Her Excellency within seven days!"
Darui gritted his teeth and spoke.
With Genshi setting the standard, he had no real choice but to follow suit.
Genshi's gesture hadn't just earned the Hokage's favor — it had, incidentally, set an example the other three villages now had no way of avoiding.
"Iwagakure will do the same."
Kitsuchi let out a heavy sigh.
"Su— Sunagakure... will... will do the same too."
Kankurō ground his teeth so hard they nearly cracked.
Once the four were dismissed, two more figures were dragged into the square.
Obito Uchiha, and Orochimaru.
Both men were in terrible condition.
Not only had they gone three full days without a single drop of water, they'd also been dosed with sedatives every three hours, kept in a state of near-total mental fog to prevent any chance of escape.
Only now, in this moment, were they gradually regaining full consciousness.
"The criminal Obito Uchiha — guilty of unforgivable crimes!"
"Eighteen years ago, despite past service to Konoha, he was led astray by Madara Uchiha's manipulation, abandoned all sense of right and wrong, betrayed the debt owed to those who raised him, and in the forty-eighth year of Konoha attacked the village and unleashed the Nine-Tails upon it — resulting in the death of his own teacher, the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze. He later stood against Konoha throughout the Fourth Great Ninja War, causing countless deaths."
"He further attempted to trap the entire world within an illusion, seeking humanity's total annihilation!"
"His crimes are too numerous to record in full. The sentence is... death by dismemberment!"
"The criminal Orochimaru!"
"Once a disciple of the Third Hokage, fellow student to the current Fifth Hokage, raised by Konoha itself, personally taught without reservation by Lord Hiruzen!"
"A man of utter ingratitude, who defected from Konoha. The Third Hokage, in his mercy, could not bring himself to have him killed."
"And yet, in the sixtieth year of Konoha, this man conspired with Sunagakure to attack the village and attempted to assassinate Lord Hiruzen himself. During both the Fourth and Fifth Great Ninja Wars, he stood openly against Konoha."
"He further attempted to assassinate the Fifth Hokage, placing her in grave danger!"
"Beyond that, he conspired with Danzō Shimura to conduct forbidden research, experimenting on children under the age of ten — even newborn infants. His crimes are beyond measure, and public outrage demands nothing less than his death."
"The sentence is... death by a thousand cuts!"
Orochimaru stared out at the sea of furious faces around him, every one of them looking at him as though they might devour him whole, and felt, for the first time, the full weight of how strange fate could be.
Was my choice, back then, really the wrong one?
Orochimaru turned the question over in his own mind.
No... I wasn't wrong.
That was still how he felt, even as the first blade touched his skin.
A hundred cuts.
Two hundred.
Five hundred.
A thousand.
Fifteen hundred.
"I... was wrong."
By now, there was barely anything left of Orochimaru that still resembled a human being — mangled, bloodied, a pool of red spreading beneath him.
As for Obito, he had already died some time earlier.
Only Orochimaru remained, still enduring what seemed like an endless procession of torment.
But even now, knowing his own error, what good did it do him?
Three thousand six hundred cuts total. Two thousand one hundred still remained.
...
For a time, the entire shinobi world was thrown into upheaval, nation after nation laying down arms and pledging themselves to Konoha in turn.
And Konoha moved with staggering efficiency, sweeping away every remaining voice of dissent in remarkably short order.
Leading that effort was none other than Itachi Uchiha, now fitted with an entirely ordinary three-tomoe Sharingan once more.
Blade in hand, overseeing a special unit composed entirely of chakra-armored soldiers, Itachi watched the carnage unfold before him, his expression perfectly still, unreadable.
He had no desire to do any of this. But he told himself, again and again, that it was all in the name of peace.
He was atoning.
Spending his entire life in atonement.
Cutting down head after head with his own hands, Itachi felt nothing at all anymore. Simple numbness.
And under the relentless, efficient work of Konoha's chakra-armored forces, every last voice of resistance was swept away entirely.
An empire unlike anything ever seen before rose up out of a land that had known nothing but a thousand years of chaos.
Its name...
Amanogawa.
Meaning: the brilliant, blazing River of Stars.
The empire's course was set for the stars themselves, and the sea beyond them.
—Three Years Later—
"Come on!"
"Smile for the camera, you two!"
Three years had passed. Under the rule of Sakura, Founding Sovereign Emperor, life across the empire had gradually stabilized.
The improved crop-strain program that Yamato had once helped pioneer had reached completion, its results proving remarkable, and cultivation had already begun spreading across the entire empire.
Hashirama, meanwhile, had spent his days wandering the empire's untamed regions alongside Yamato, using Wood Release to plant forests wherever they went.
At the same time, the former Land of Wind — now renamed the Grand Wind Protectorate — had begun sprouting oases across its desert two years prior, spreading at a startling pace.
In just two years, those oases had already swallowed up half the desert.
Konoha itself no longer resembled its old form at all. Under the design of the empire's chief architect, An Lushan, it had become a thoroughly modern city.
Every so often, one of Tobirama's airships — built using the same sky-fortress technology from before — could be seen drifting slowly between the skyscrapers overhead.
And in one of Konoha's lush, green public parks, a wedding was underway.
"Senior Kakashi, give us a smile!"
"Why's your face still stiff as a board?"
Ino, her sandy-blonde ponytail bouncing, camera in hand, glared at Kakashi, who stood as rigid as a plank of wood.
"Ri— right. Sorry."
Kakashi answered, visibly flustered.
"Sister Mei, hold onto Senior Kakashi's arm."
Ino waved the bride over.
"Mm-hmm~~~"
Mei Terumi, dressed in a pure white wedding gown, flashed a captivating smile as she looped her arm through Kakashi's, leaning her whole body against him.
"Perfect!"
"That's the shot!"
With a crisp click, the moment froze forever on film.
"Man!"
"Senior Kakashi's such a lost cause!"
A tall, close-cropped blond young man wandered over, grinning, eager to check out the photo.
"It's his first time getting married."
"You weren't exactly smooth about it either, Naruto."
Ino waved the camera at the blond, teasing. Naruto looked visibly embarrassed, opening his mouth to argue back, only to realize he had absolutely no leg to stand on when it came to criticizing Kakashi.
"Wow, who knew — turns out you're actually kind of a shy guy underneath it all."
"Never seen you like this before."
"Dar~ling~"
In her wedding dress, Mei was breathtaking, her jade-green eyes fixed unblinkingly on Kakashi, who'd finally lowered his mask for the occasion.
"Mei, everyone's watching..."
Kakashi looked faintly overwhelmed under the full weight of her gaze.
He couldn't shake the feeling she was about to devour him whole, right there.
Mei followed his glance out over the crowd.
Kitsuchi. Kurotsuchi. Darui. Sai. Shikamaru Nara. Might Guy. Asuma. Sasuke. Hikaru. Karin...
Familiar faces, more or less, all around.
"I don't mind. Why should you?"
Mei said, and without a shred of concern for how it looked, hiked up her wedding dress and leapt onto Kakashi's back, wrapping her arms tight around his neck — a moment Ino, quick with the shutter, caught perfectly on film.
"Woo, got it!"
Ino admired her handiwork with visible satisfaction.
"Let me see, let me see!"
Naruto lunged for the camera in her hands.
"Idiot Naruto!"
"Behave yourself!"
Before he could get very far, Karin — nineteen now — landed a solid punch square on his arm.
"Heh heh."
Naruto caught his wife's fist mid-swing and held onto it, which sent a flush of color rising in Karin's cheeks.
This idiot, honestly...
And with everyone watching, too...
(End of Chapter)
☆☆☆
-> 20 Advanced chapters Now Available on Patreon!!
-> https://www.pat-reon.co-m/c/Hollowborn
(Just remove the hyphen (-) to access patreon normally)
If you like this novel please consider leaving a review that's help the story a lot Thank you