The square held its breath.
A senior guard in dark armor stepped forward to the edge of the platform. He formed a brief series of seals, then spoke.
Chakra amplified his voice until it rolled across the entire northern district like thunder, clear and inescapable even at the farthest edges of the crowd.
"As you all know, we have gathered here today for the execution of the tyrant—the man who brought severe and lasting damage upon this country of ours. Today he will die by the hand of his own daughter, the daughter he claimed to love and dote upon since her childhood."
The reaction was immediate.
A wave of murmurs surged through the packed square, rising in volume until it became a low, restless roar. People turned to one another, faces tight with disbelief and unease.
"They're actually making her do it…"
"His own blood. In front of everyone."
"I can't believe they're forcing this on her."
Near the front, a woman covered her mouth with both hands. "She was his favorite. Everyone said so. And now look at her—trembling, crying. This is cruelty, pure and simple."
Not everyone shared the pity.
Scattered throughout the crowd were men and women who had lost family in the recent upheaval—houses burned, relatives cut down during Minato's takeover of the capital.
Their faces were harder, eyes colder. One grizzled man spat on the ground and muttered to his companion, "I don't care whose hand holds the blade. That bastard dies today. One tyrant or another—they're all the same trash wearing different cloaks."
Anger and sympathy lived side by side in the square, feeding on each other.
The senior guard raised one hand.
"Bring him."
Two subordinates moved at once. From a low, iron-barred holding cage that had been deliberately placed near the refuse carts at the edge of the platform—close enough for the smell of waste to cling to the prisoner—they dragged out a bound figure.
The former Daimyo's once-fine robes were filthy and torn. A thick cloth gag had been forced between his teeth. His wrists and ankles were tightly bound with heavy rope that had already rubbed the skin raw.
He stumbled as they hauled him up the wooden steps, nearly falling twice before the guards forced him onto his knees in front of the execution block.
The moment he was in place, the senior guard reached down and yanked the gag free.
The former Daimyo's voice exploded across the square the instant the cloth left his mouth.
"You worthless, crawling insects!" he roared, face contorted with rage and spittle flying from his lips.
"Do you have any idea who I am? I am the Daimyo! I have ruled this land since before most of you were born, you sniveling commoners! You think you can put me on my knees like some street dog? Untie me at once! I will have every last one of you flayed and hung from the walls of the capital!"
He twisted against the ropes, veins standing out on his neck. His eyes swept the crowd with pure, undiluted contempt.
"Look at you—filthy merchants, dirt-fingered farmers, guttersnipe wives clutching your brats. You exist because I allowed you to exist! Your lives, your food, your miserable little homes—all of it came from my hand! And now you stand there gawking while these traitors parade my own daughter like a trained animal? You should be on your faces in the dirt thanking me for every breath I ever permitted you to take!"
The insults kept coming, each one more venomous than the last. He cursed the guards as honorless dogs. He called the citizens cattle and vermin. He spat threats of mass executions, of burning entire districts, of hunting down every person present and making examples of their children.
Even kneeling, bound, and covered in the grime of the holding cage, he radiated the same arrogant cruelty that had defined his rule.
The effect on the crowd was immediate and absolute.
Whatever fragile sympathy had existed for him vanished like smoke. Faces that had been uncertain hardened into open hatred. The earlier pity for Fubuki remained, but it was now joined by a cold, collective certainty.
"He truly is a monster…"
"Even now—even about to die—he still looks down on us."
"He deserves this. He deserves worse."
On the platform, Fubuki stood frozen. Tears continued to slip down her cheeks. Her hands trembled visibly at her sides.
The white mourning robes clung to the full curves of her body with every shallow, shaky breath she took, but no one was looking at her beauty now.
Every eye was locked on the bound man who had just finished cursing them all as less than human.
The senior guard turned to her. In his hands he held the long, unadorned execution sword, its polished edge catching the morning light. He extended it toward her with both hands, the formal gesture of presentation.
"Lady Fubuki," he said, voice still amplified so that every person in the square could hear. "Take this sword… and swing it at your father."
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