Yamato stood quietly to one side without saying a word. That was the kind of professional instinct years in ANBU had carved into him.
He had served in both Root and ANBU, and he knew better than most when to play deaf and mute during power struggles among the village's higher-ups.
Sure enough, Akira's bad-luck predictions came true again. Shizune hurried in and pushed open the door.
"Tsunade-hime, the two advisors are asking to see you."
Tsunade let out a sigh, then turned a sharp look on Shizune.
"You were the one who tipped them off, weren't you?"
Shizune's heart skipped a beat. She really had been the one who let it slip.
In her mind, the matter had simply been too serious. Naruto was one of the village's ultimate strategic assets. Sunagakure had just lost its own living weapon, and now they were going to let Naruto roam outside the village? What if the Akatsuki got their hands on him?
Shizune lowered her head, her voice trembling.
"I'm sorry, Tsunade-hime. This was too important, so I..."
Tsunade stared at her for a few seconds before speaking in a stern voice.
"Don't let it happen again."
Only then did Shizune finally breathe again.
In truth, she had not really done anything wrong.
A jinchuriki leaving the village should have gone through collective approval at the highest level.
If something had gone wrong, the blame would have landed on Tsunade's shoulders in the end. Shizune had only been looking out for her.
At that point, Akira stood up and straightened his clothes.
"Hokage-hime, I'll come with you."
Tsunade nodded.
Bringing Akira along at a time like this was, by itself, a form of pressure. Just having him stand there would greatly increase the odds that the two old advisors would choose to keep their mouths shut. Of course, even if they objected, all they could do now was object with words.
The real power was no longer in their hands.
At this point, all they still possessed was the right to give advice.
Tsunade's hold over the village was far firmer than the Third Hokage's had ever been.
The difference was that Tsunade wasn't a tyrant. She was still willing to hear the old pair out from time to time, which was why she let them keep talking at all.
Akira understood perfectly well that Tsunade's political instincts were excellent.
She looked bold and straightforward on the surface, but in truth, she had locked Konoha's real power down tightly.
If she gave the order, the village's ninja would move for her.
As her guard, Akira had learned quite a lot simply by standing beside her and watching how she handled people.
In a sense, Tsunade had been teaching him on purpose all along. Otherwise, why would she have kept him at her side every day whenever he wasn't on a mission, practically attached like an ornament?
Part of it, of course, was that she liked having a handsome young man around to look at.
But more than that, she wanted Akira to learn what it meant to be a proper Hokage.
Tsunade strode toward the advisors' chamber without hesitation.
Behind her followed a nervous Shizune, the calm-faced Akira, and Yamato.
It was an intimidating lineup.
A Hokage.
A bodyguard infamous across the ninja world as a one-man killing force.
The head of ANBU.
And the Hokage's secretary.
The minimum standard in that group was jonin, and their actual strength included two Kage-level fighters, one elite jonin, and one veteran jonin.
That kind of team would have been enough to storm another major hidden village.
When they reached the advisors' room, Homura Mitokado and Koharu Utatane were already seated upright, clearly waiting.
Tsunade walked in with her people, didn't bother with formalities, dropped into a sofa, crossed one leg over the other, and radiated authority without even trying.
Akira knew she wasn't doing it for show. That was just who she was. She had never cared for stiff decorum.
Looking at the two wrinkled elders in front of her, Tsunade got straight to the point.
"Go on. What are your terms?"
The two old advisors could only sigh helplessly at the sight of her.
Within a few months of becoming Hokage, Tsunade had effectively hollowed out their authority. Their titles still remained, but in practice they had become little more than ceremonial advisers.
And even so, neither of them had seriously considered replacing her.
For all their private ambitions, they still understood something very clearly: in the current state of Konoha, only Tsunade could truly keep the village steady.
As for Danzō, they had never thought much of him.
At the root of it, their outlook had never truly aligned with his.
For those two, preserving Konoha's stability was the line that mattered most.
They might have looked powerless now, but they still had informants spread through plenty of channels.
Danzō had Root. These two had placed people within ANBU and other departments too.
Anyone who thought these two were just old people who sat around sipping tea and reading reports was a fool.
The reason the Third Hokage had respected them so much in the first place was because they had deep roots and connections all throughout the village's systems.
Tsunade, however, had come in with a strong hand, refused to indulge them, and pulled power back into the center, leaving them with only the right to advise.
Of course, she had only been able to do that because Jiraiya and Akira stood behind her, and because her own prestige was immense.
Most importantly, the major clans accepted her leadership.
Tsunade becoming Hokage had been the will of the whole village. Compared with the Third, she was tougher. Compared with Danzō, she was gentler. She was also the granddaughter of the First Hokage, flawless in pedigree, and undeniably powerful.
So when she centralized authority, the two old advisors had not resisted too hard.
Resistance would have been useless anyway. She was the legitimate Hokage. If she truly wanted something done, no one could stop her.
Back in the Third Hokage's era, he had granted these two old classmates so much power partly out of old loyalty and partly because their ideals aligned.
Now, looking at Tsunade's posture and then at Akira standing behind her, the two old advisors actually felt some measure of relief.
Akira's strength was terrifying, yes.
But as far as the way he lived and worked, he was still someone they could trust.