They met the Fire Daimyō’s envoy in one of the Hokage Building’s side chambers.

He was the only true noble among the group, sent by Fire Daimyo as the chief diplomat to show his sincerity, a tall man in formal robes with an expression that balanced authority and calculation.

The rest of his team were not nobles at all, but carefully chosen attendants, scribes, and guards.

Every move they made seemed rehearsed, as if the Daimyō himself had handpicked them to ensure no cracks in appearances.

Outside, a small convoy of carriages and horses waited.

The envoy rode in the largest one, draped in Fire Country colors, while his attendants moved in smaller wagons carrying scrolls, tribute, and gifts meant for the Hot Water court.

The shinobi were the real shield, three Jōnin-led teams forming an escort on all sides.

The column rolled slowly through the village gates, then onto the trade road leading north.

The pace was steady but deliberate, with nobles kept in comfort and the shinobi rotating to keep the perimeter tight.

Okabe, who was trailing the convoy from the rear, wore a thoughtful expression that none of his subordinates would mistake for absentmindedness.

This mission could be one of the defining moments of his life.

After six long months leading this little squad, it was finally time to fulfill his true ANBU assignment: to send the young Senju to the underworld himself.

The last attempt had been messy, handled by Root without his direct hand.

This time would be different.

This time, he had been summoned personally the night before by the ANBU Commander and his captain.

The briefing had been thorough, the instructions precise, and the praise unusually generous.

Okabe had even felt flattered.

Success, he was promised, would mean a personal reward, the offensive B-rank Earth Release technique he had been hinting at for months, straight from the Hokage’s private archive.

But that was only the beginning.

More importantly, he had been told that completing this mission would secure him a place in the Hokage’s true hidden Anbu personal guard, not the figureheads, guarding doors, from the official forces, but the circle run by the ANBU Commander himself, Lord Shinsuke Sarutobi, the Hokage’s own son, that not many people knew about.

If he made it in, he would have pierced through the ceiling that every ambitious civilian-born shinobi feared.

To Okabe, it was everything.

ANBU weren’t just a “protection unit” anymore; they were the Hokage’s privatized force, the real power in Konoha.

Plenty of them didn’t even bother with regular missions.

They were a super-shinobi organization that stayed inside the village, ready to silence anyone who threatened Hiruzen’s authority.

They were nominally “protecting order” and being “the last line of defense,” but in reality, they had made the Uchiha Police Force irrelevant, even humiliating them.

ANBU could arrest a police officer on the spot, under Hiruzen’s decree, while the Uchiha policemen couldn’t touch an ANBU without the Hokage’s permission. What an irony.

That alone had caused years of tension. But to Okabe? That was the peak status.

From there, few in the village would ever dare look down on him again.

Of course, not every ANBU lived inside the village in decadence, guarding nothing but Hiruzen’s throne.

That was reserved only for the select few, the ones most loyal to the Hokage and his son.

The majority of ANBU were drawn from the ordinary ranks, men and women who still went on missions like any other shinobi.

They were just dispatched on those specialized operations periodically, rotating in and out of the mask.

Without them, the system itself would collapse, and the village would be swallowed whole by its rivals.

Danzo’s Root couldn’t run things alone.

So, in truth, only a smaller portion had been reshaped into the Hokage’s personal guard.

The rest remained just shinobi who did their ANBU duties when ordered, many not even aware of how monstrous Hiruzen’s unofficial private force had quietly grown over the years.

However, their status in the village was far lower than that of the ANBU tied directly to the Hokage, the ones erased from official registers and serving only him.

And that was why this job mattered so much. He was just a civilian-born shinobi, late twenties now, already aware that most men plateaued by thirty-five.

His window for growth was closing fast.

Without bloodlines, without special connections, most civilians like him would never touch the rank of Elite Jōnin.

At best, they’d scrape the middle ranks of Jōnin and then fade into irrelevance. Okabe refused to accept that.

He needed the push, and Sarutobi father and son, the absolute rulers of this village, were the only ones who could give it.

He was cunning, ruthless, and loyal to the core.

He had no morals left, and he wore his disdain for clans and bloodlines like armor.

To him, Ryusei, last heir of a dying clan, blessed with Senju blood, was the perfect offering.

Still, there was the matter of style. Earth Release, his specialty, was sturdy, reliable, but defensive.

That suited him well enough so far, but he had always hated how it kept him pigeonholed as a supporting shinobi.

He wanted something with flash, something that let him stand alone as a powerhouse.

Earth had its offensive techniques, of course, but those were pretty rare and jealously guarded, impossible to reach without Hokage’s favor.

So yes, give him a new B-rank offensive Earth Release now, and he’d finally have the balance he craved.

Then, when he hit his peak years, another A-rank — or maybe even an S-rank, who knew? He could dream.

After all, hadn’t Minato Namikaze and Dan Katō both started as nobodies, only to rocket into legend once Hiruzen noticed them?

The thought made Okabe’s lips twitch in something dangerously close to a smile as he eyed the convoy ahead.

Maybe he, too, would become that man, the loyal hound of the Sarutobi, armed with some conceptual, high-level jutsu that shattered his low-born ceiling, as Dan Kato and Minato Namikaze.

Maybe one day he’d be remembered as one of those rare civilian shinobi who clawed their way up to Elite Jōnin, a true village powerhouse, untouchable, respected, feared.

He imagined it now, the whispers in Konoha’s streets: “That’s Okabe. Lord Hokage’s right hand. Don’t cross him.”

Yes. All of that was within reach.

He only had to make sure Ryusei Nishida Senju didn’t survive this mission in one piece.

***

A few days later, the convoy crossed the final stretch of trade road and arrived at the Daimyō’s palace in the Land of Hot Water.

The structure rose above the capital like a monument to fragile splendor.

Even before they crossed the gates, Ryusei’s brows narrowed.

His sensory field stretched out automatically, as it always did, and stopped cold.

He couldn’t feel anything inside the palace grounds. The chakra of guards, servants, and attendants, all blank. It was like trying to peer into a void.

White stone walls, tiled roofs curved upward in a foreign style, banners in red and gold fluttering in the breeze, everything was polished to look regal, yet Ryusei could already tell it was nowhere near as fortified as Fire’s Daimyō palace.

Inside the gates, servants rushed forward to receive the envoy.

Musicians played soft notes on stringed instruments, and a ceremonial host lined the approach to the grand hall.

Attendants in layered robes bowed low as the Fire Country delegation passed, leading them into the main reception hall where the Hot Water Daimyō’s representatives waited.

On the surface, it was a welcoming ceremony filled with courtesy, polished floors, incense burning faintly, and silk tapestries depicting waves and steam.

But Ryusei’s expression tightened the moment he stepped past the threshold. His sensory net went dark.

It was as if the entire place had been sealed, cut off cleanly from the world outside, impossible to peer in from beyond, and impossible to sense outward once inside.

His frown was slight, but his thoughts ran sharp.

‘This isn’t right. No small country’s Daimyo should be able to afford this kind of setup…’

He didn’t need to be a genius to see the implications.

A barrier that nullified chakra sensing was the perfect way to cut him off and prevent him from noticing anything strange on time to defend himself with his sensing. Too convenient. Too precise. It could easily be part of a setup against him. A cage.

It seemed they had done their homework. They already understood the kind of problem his sensing posed now, for their intentions, and had gone out of their way to find a method to cut it off. Still, he kept his face calm, a narrow-eyed mask unchanged.

Outwardly, he followed the envoy into the palace like nothing had happened, playing the part of the obedient shinobi while his mind turned over every detail.

The nobles were welcomed with formal bows, speeches about friendship, and the promise of a banquet to come.

Ryusei, meanwhile, remained silent, eyes sliding over the grand chamber, committing every entrance, every servant, and every flicker of chakra he could still faintly feel from around.

Ryusei was curious what kind of game they had prepared for him here, whether it would be another borrowed knife or something more direct this time.

But he reminded himself that the only way to survive was to stay calm. If he panicked too much at any point and let his mind fog over, his chances would drop to zero. There was still time to think of countermeasures, even now.

He forced his breathing steady and reasoned it out. If they wanted him dead in a direct strike, why wait until now? The timing itself suggested layers. It would be challenging, but not impossible.

It was better to stay healthily paranoid, to always consider every possibility, so nothing exploded in his face without warning.

But letting that paranoia overwhelm him would be just as dangerous. Balance was the only path forward.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep