"Welcome to the Land of Night, Clan Head Orochi. I originally intended to greet you in person, but matters here have truly kept me too busy. I hope you will forgive me."
Yayoi received Orochi with a slight warmth, then brought him aside so they could sit face-to-face.
On the desk between them lay a map of the Land of Night, covered with many markings.
Irori brewed tea and placed it beside Yayoi and Orochi. Then she stood behind Yayoi like a loyal guard.
"I will skip the pleasantries. After all, we will have time to become familiar with each other later. Let us talk about the matter you are most concerned with right now, Clan Head Orochi."
Yayoi went straight to the point.
Orochi took a sip of tea and nodded.
Just as Kakuzu had said, Yayoi was someone who liked getting directly to the heart of things and disliked dragging matters out when something important was involved.
That was good.
Orochi also preferred this kind of superior. The clearer the orders and divisions of authority were, the better. That would avoid hidden problems later and prevent unnecessary disputes.
"This is Blacksteel Forest."
Yayoi pressed his finger against a stretch of land in the western part of the Land of Night on the map.
This area was where Blacksteel Forest was located. Its land area was comparable to that of some remote countries.
The forest contained many raw material resources, as well as several newly discovered insect species. And that was only what had already been explored. There were still many unknown sections within.
After all, this kind of uninhabited region, if not for the arrival of the Aburame clan, might not have become one of Yayoi's key development targets for the next ten years.
At most, he would have stationed a unit there and left its development for the distant future.
"This is an untouched primeval forest. As the clan head of the Aburame clan, I believe you understand its value. The Aburame clan's main forces will need to be stationed in Yomi Castle and accept management. They cannot act freely without permission. However, you may establish a second base in this forest. Whether you use it to cultivate new insects or for something else, the Aburame clan may decide for itself."
At this point, Yayoi paused, then continued.
"However, I will say this in advance. In the future, the nation will also develop this forest. Otherwise, the resources inside will be wasted. Before that happens, it would be best for the Aburame clan to mark out a core territory to serve as your foundation."
"That is acceptable."
Orochi nodded in satisfaction.
Just as they had agreed at the beginning, Blacksteel Forest would be led by the Aburame clan for the foreseeable future.
In truth, that was already enough.
This vast forest was more than twenty times larger than the territory the Aburame clan had previously occupied in the Land of Fire.
It was impossible for a single clan to occupy all of it, and the Aburame clan was not that powerful.
Not to mention, aside from Blacksteel Forest, the Land of Night still had many other primeval mountains and forests suitable for cultivating insects.
For the Aburame clan, this would be a new starting point.
Although abandoning their ancestral land was painful, leaving it also meant a broader sky and a wider sea, did it not?
"In addition, I also hope you can serve as the head of the Intelligence Division, Clan Head Orochi. The Aburame clan's secret techniques are very suited to infiltration, investigation, espionage, and related work. If I remember correctly, you yourself are also a rare sensory-type ninja."
"I understand."
Orochi answered concisely and agreed without hesitation.
After all, gathering intelligence and tracking targets were things the Aburame clan excelled at.
Then, at Yayoi's glance, Irori took out a sealed document.
"These are the ninja I intend to assign to the Intelligence Division later. Take it back and review it. Decide which ones are needed and which ones are not."
Professional matters should be left to professionals. Yayoi was not worried that delegating power would create an uncontrollable subordinate.
Because a single Aburame clan was not worth fearing.
Irori's Ice Style, which could fight even a tailed beast head-on, greatly countered the Aburame clan's insects.
Moreover, he had already formed ideas for his next autonomous puppet.
As long as the Seven-Tails' chakra recovered, he would only need to make it suffer a little more, and the puppet could be completed.
At that time, his power would increase sharply again, and his rule would become even more stable.
Orochi silently accepted the document. His face revealed nothing.
After that, Yayoi discussed some details with him, including the yearly funding ratio that would be allocated to the Aburame clan.
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"Is there anything else, Clan Head Orochi?"
After Yayoi finished speaking, he took a sip of tea to moisten his throat.
"No. There is nothing else. I am very satisfied with this outcome, Shogun-sama."
Orochi shook his head and spoke.
By leaving the Land of Fire, the Aburame clan had lost many things. However, what Yayoi had offered far exceeded the Aburame clan's losses in the Land of Fire.
"That is good. Then the Aburame clan can slowly integrate into the Military Department through the Intelligence Division. Everything needs a process of integration. On your side, simply prepare properly and arrange your personnel."
Yayoi's words stabilized Orochi's heart, which had still been somewhat unsettled.
Yayoi had already arranged everything for the Aburame clan in detail. Whether for the present or the future, he had prepared preventive plans in advance.
Next, the Aburame clan only needed to send out personnel and integrate into this new country.
Once the discussion was settled, Orochi chatted briefly before hurriedly leaving.
The Aburame clan had just settled in a new nation. Many matters within the clan required him, the clan head, to personally handle and oversee, lest chaos arise.
Yayoi did not keep him. He simply watched him leave.
"Father, Clan Head Orochi is a soft-hearted person inside, though he is not good at expressing it."
After Orochi left, Irori smiled and gave her evaluation.
Although she was an artificial being, Irori possessed her own independent personality and intelligence. She had her own judgments, preferences, and feelings toward people and things.
"Mm. After all, when the Aburame clan faced a crisis before, he was the first to stand at the front and resist."
Yayoi had collected quite a bit of information about Orochi.
After their contact just now, he could roughly sense what sort of person Orochi was.
Subconsciously, he thought of Aburame Shino from the original story. He seemed to be much the same type.
The people of the Aburame clan were generally delicate-hearted, but poor at expressing themselves through words. They would only silently protect everything they treasured.
Getting along with such a ninja clan would save him a lot of trouble in the future.
If it were someone like the Uchiha, acting as though heaven ranked first and earth second, constantly hanging the Sharingan from their lips, that would be a mess.
After that, Yayoi did not continue handling official business. Instead, he returned to the inner court to rest.
The wedding would be held soon. It was impossible to say he was not nervous.
Across two lives, this would be his first marriage. Although it was not born from love, and although he had never met the woman before, he still carried an indescribable sense of expectation.
What kind of person would his future wife be?
Virtuous?
Lively?
Rigid and serious?
Or perhaps fragile inside, the type to cry at every little thing?
Standing in the corridor of a courtyard, he stared at the lonely moon in the night sky and fell into a daze.
Yayoi could not sleep.
◎
He is probably someone very old-fashioned, rigid, and meticulous in everything he does, right?
Inside a clean guest room at the State Guest House, Hyūga Kichō, the daughter of the Hyūga main family who would be married over as the shogun's wife, stood beside the window. She looked up at the moon hanging in the night sky, slightly lost in thought.
Like Yayoi, Hyūga Kichō, his future wife, was also unable to fall asleep.
She had been born into an ancient noble clan, the Hyūga clan, and carried the bloodline power known as a kekkei genkai. Among ninja, she was practically nobility.
In recent years, although the clan had not produced a powerful ninja like Senju Hashirama or Uchiha Madara, it remained one of the few strong clans just beneath those two.
The power of the Byakugan also allowed them to ignore all enemy schemes, traps, and ambushes on the battlefield.
Yet in Kichō's eyes, this ancient and long-standing clan was filled with suffocating oppression and rigidity.
And even within such a rigid ninja clan, her family could be considered the most rigid and the most lacking in human warmth.
There had originally been seven children in the family. As the eldest daughter, and one with excellent talent, she had naturally been assigned to the main family.
All of her remaining younger brothers and sisters had been branded with the Caged Bird Seal and made into branch family members, required to shed their last drop of blood for the main family.
Two of her younger brothers and one younger sister had died protecting her in battle.
She had been eleven at the time.
The younger siblings who died for her had only been seven and five years old.
Her father, Hidejin, divided these children into different grades of tools according to their talent.
Those with high talent were heavily trained and forged into excellent weapons of battle.
Those with poor talent were looked at without the slightest emotion in his eyes, as though they were something else entirely. He treated his own flesh and blood as bait to draw enemy fire, set traps, and attack the enemy in order to win on the battlefield.
Three had died for her.
Two had become Hidejin's cannon fodder, sent out to draw enemy fire until not even their bodies remained.
The youngest of them had only been four.
She had been born into such a family.
Radical clansmen.
Younger brothers and sisters who constantly died.
Her father had several women in the household, but in Hidejin's eyes, they were not women he should carefully protect. They were merely tools for producing weapons.
When she left, two of the women in the house had become pregnant again.
It was easy to predict that if the war did not end, the children of those two women would either become weapons forged by Hidejin, or cannon fodder used to push the front line, vanishing without even bones left behind.
So, leaving her old family and heading toward a new one.
Would her future change?
She knew.
This marriage alliance should originally have involved another daughter of the main family. But it was her father who had firmly proposed that she be chosen as the one to marry the shogun of the Land of Night.
So this time, she would once again serve as her father's weapon to attack an enemy, traveling to this unfamiliar nation and marrying a completely unfamiliar man.
Then, she would look for an opportunity.
Once the other party lost his value...
She would kill him, seizing more benefits for the Hyūga clan.
"Looking closely, the moonlight tonight is truly beautiful. I hope I will still be able to admire it in the days to come..."
Her slender, pale fingertips gently stroked the windowsill.
A pure and moving smile spread across the Byakugan girl's face.
As she gazed at the moonlight outside the window, she silently tightened her grip around the hilt of the sword in her hand.
She held it tightly.
As if it were the only thing in both her present and future that could bring her any sense of safety.