Check out advanced chapters on P@treon: [email protected]/CosmicKaminari
----------
The morning mist had not yet cleared when a carriage without any insignia, protected by over a dozen Shadow Guard, departed from the Fire capital.
Inside the carriage, Mei Terumi's once captivating face was empty of any expression.
She leaned quietly against the carriage wall, her slender hand touching her stomach.
Through her clothes, she felt the life growing within her, her thoughts a tangled mess.
The daimyo's wife.
From now on, she was no longer the Kirigakure rogue shinobi who led the resistance forces, but the woman of the Land of Fire daimyo.
The child in her womb would also benefit from this status.
The carriage eventually stopped in front of a heavily guarded military camp outside the capital.
This was the garrison of the daimyo's direct guard unit.
It was entirely made up of samurai, with only one mission: to keep stability.
Her companions were currently inside.
Holding back all her chaotic thoughts, a cool, detached expression returned to her face.
She lifted the curtain.
Mei Terumi stepped out of the carriage, the black cloak embroidered with the daimyo's family crest wrapped tightly around her.
On the parade ground, more than twenty figures were already standing in formation.
Their clothes were torn, blood-stained bandages wrapped around their bodies, and their faces were marked with tiredness.
But the numbness and hopelessness they had felt while drifting at sea were gone.
The young man at the head was Keisuke.
When he saw the familiar figure stepping out of the carriage, wild joy and excitement surged in his heart.
"Mei Terumi-sam!"
He quickly stepped forward, intending to bow, but his feet were stuck to the spot when he saw her attire.
He opened his mouth, but that familiar address, Senior, seemed unable to be said.
The remaining Kirigakure survivors were the same.
The leader who had once fought alongside them and led them in resistance against the Blood Mist tyranny now seemed very strange.
She was already the woman of the Land of Fire daimyo.
This realization made everyone's feelings incredibly complex.
Mei Terumi took in everyone's reactions, a bitter taste in her mouth, offering no explanation.
She slowly walked forward, her gaze sweeping over each of the survivors, her voice slightly shaking. "You're all still alive, that's good."
"From today onwards, this will be your new home."
Mei Terumi pointed to the neat barracks behind her and the mess hall in the distance, where cooking smoke was rising, and announced calmly.
"You are no longer homeless rogue shinobi."
"Here, you will receive plenty of food, clean clothes, and the best medical treatment."
Mei Terumi's words shocked all the resistance forces.
They had thought that interrogation, questioning, or even imprisonment waited for them.
After all, they were shinobi from an enemy country.
But now, what did they hear?
Home?
A child who had lost his father, smelling the smell of meat drifting from the mess hall, couldn't help but swallow and quietly asked Keisuke. "Brother Keisuke, can we... really eat our fill?"
Keisuke didn't answer, looking at Mei Terumi with a complex expression.
"Of course." Mei Terumi looked at the child, her cool expression naturally softening.
She gestured to one of the Shadow Guard behind her.
The Shadow Guard immediately stepped forward and handed a scroll to Keisuke.
Keisuke hesitated as he took it, then slowly unrolled it.
On the scroll was a detailed training and organizational plan.
All survivors, regardless of gender, age, or youth, would be reorganized.
Young adult shinobi would receive training from the Land of Fire's most elite instructors, learning new tactics and coordination.
The wounded would receive systematic treatment from Konoha medical shinobi.
And the children would be sent to school to learn knowledge.
Those who could refine chakra would also learn ninjutsu.
At the end of the plan, a line of text was written in vivid red ink.
Special Operations Unit.
Size: Five hundred people.
Directly under: Land of Fire daimyo, Shin Kurogane.
Keisuke's hand shook hard.
This was recruitment!
That man wanted to forge them, these Kirigakure rebels, into a blade to be stabbed into the Land of Water!
Although he had prepared himself on the way here.
But when the matter was truly laid before him, his heart couldn't help but hesitate.
He suddenly looked up at Mei Terumi, his expression showing both struggle and questioning.
Mei Terumi did not avoid his gaze. "Keisuke."
"I know what you're thinking."
"But tell me, do we have any other choice?"
At these words, Keisuke lowered his head.
Yes.
Was there any other choice?
There was none.
From the moment they set foot on the Land of Fire's soil, their lives no longer belonged to them.
Either accept this gift.
Or take these last two dozen people and roll back into that cold ocean, then wait for death in hopelessness.
"I..." Keisuke's lips shook, his throat seemingly choked by something.
"Keisuke!" Mei Terumi's voice suddenly rose. "Look up!"
"Look at your companions behind you! Look at those children!"
"They need a future!"
"And this future, only the Land of Fire can provide now!"
Keisuke's body shook hard.
He slowly turned his head, his gaze met with confused faces.
He remembered Nagano's dying roar.
He remembered the words of his senior on the raft before his death.
Live!
Yes!
They must live!
Hatred for Yagura Karatachi and knowledge of Kirigakure were the reasons that kept them alive.
Even if they offered themselves as a promise to an enemy country, they had to live.
Thump.
Keisuke knelt on one knee, holding the scroll high above his head with both hands, his head bowed deeply.
"Keisuke is willing to die for the daimyo!"
The remaining survivors, after a brief hesitation, also knelt down one after another.
"Willing to die for the daimyo!"
Their voices were not at all uniform, but they meant that from this moment on, there would be no more Kirigakure resistance army.
Mei Terumi watched this scene quietly, tightening the cloak around her.
The wind blew, bringing a hint of coolness.
She knew that from this moment on, she and her companions were completely cut off from Kirigakure.
They were now people of the Land of Fire, and would fight for the Land of Fire, and die for the Land of Fire.
But at least, they were alive now!
...Meanwhile, in the mountains bordering the Land of Earth and the Land of Lightning, the atmosphere was tense.
Sunagakure's troops had been trapped here for seven full days.
"Still no news?"
Rasa stood on a barren hill, dry, cracked earth beneath his feet, his brow wrinkled into a knot.
"No." Maki shook his head, his voice holding back anger. "They're still giving the same excuse, telling us to stand by."
Rasa sneered, then said nothing more.
Everyone knew this was the Land of Earth's excuse.
They just wanted to tie Sunagakure up here and make them watch without doing anything!
Just then, a violent chakra wave came from afar.
Rasa's face changed dramatically, and he looked up sharply.
He saw fire and lightning twisting together in the distant sky, and faint sounds of explosions.
"They're fighting!"
"It's those madmen from Kumogakure!"
The Sunagakure shinobi stirred.
They had seen such scenes more than once in the past few days.
The Kumogakure shinobi, like a pack of desperate mad dogs, constantly launched suicidal attacks against Iwagakure and Kirigakure.
Now it had even spread to the border.
And Iwagakure and Kirigakure, while dealing with Kumogakure's sneak attacks, were also fighting fiercely, openly and secretly, to seize territory and resources.
The entire western part of the Land of Lightning had become a meat grinder.
"Order the troops to retreat 5 five kilometers and set up camp!" Rasa firmly ordered.
"Retreat?"
"That's right, retreat!" A cold glint flashed in Rasa's eyes. "Since they're blocking us, let them deal with Kumogakure themselves!"
"We'll just stay here and watch!"
They had already delayed for so long that the meat had long been eaten, leaving nothing but scraps.
Since that was the case, they might as well wait until the Land of Earth and the Land of Water were so stuck that they couldn't take it anymore.
Then they would naturally let them pass.