Between life and death, the daimyo was no longer as arrogant as before. Even when faced with Furina's sarcastic tone, his face was full of forced smiles. He looked completely different from earlier.
"Provide help for us?"
"Yes, yes, yes. You know I'm the daimyo. There are many ways I can help you—whether financially, with manpower, or in other aspects. As long as you let me go, none of that is a problem."
Sensing the doubt in Furina's tone, the daimyo smiled even more broadly and kept demonstrating his usefulness. To survive, he was sparing no effort.
He understood the principle of "as long as the green hills remain, there will be firewood to burn." If he could live past today, he could secretly contact daimyo from other regions to deal with these two uppity rebels and avenge the humiliation he suffered today.
Thinking of this, the smile on the daimyo's face became even more obsequious.
"But unfortunately, we don't need your help. As for our organization, hm~ we need it even less. What we need right now is simply your death.
So could you trouble yourself to commit suicide now? If you do, I'm willing to let you go. How about it?"
"You're toying with me!"
Hearing this, the daimyo—who had been forcing smiles the whole time—immediately changed expression. Even an idiot could now realize that Furina had never intended to spare him at all. She was just playing with him.
"How can you call it toying with you? From the beginning, I never said anything about letting you go. You were just deluding yourself."
With that, Furina no longer paid attention to the daimyo, who had begun cursing loudly. She took a step forward and looked toward the last samurai currently shielding the daimyo.
Noticing Furina's gaze, that samurai visibly tensed up. This was not cowardice but pure instinct.
The several samurai who had just been instantly defeated were all roughly equal to him in strength. In other words, the other side could kill him—and the daimyo behind him—in the blink of an eye. If he were not tense in this situation, that would truly be strange.
"You seem quite nervous. No need to be. Although the daimyo must die, you are different. As long as you kill him, I'll let you go. How about it?"
"Don't joke around. You two uppity peasants—how could I possibly raise a hand against the daimyo? Peasants really do have rotten brains."
"That's truly a pity then."
Facing the samurai's harsh retort, Furina shrugged without saying anything more. She also knew that her earlier words were extremely rebellious in the eyes of both the daimyo and the samurai. The other's counter was perfectly normal.
But precisely because of that, it was interesting.
"Well said. You peasant really are amusing. To say such unrealistic things. Since you made me happy, I'll give you one more chance.
Stop here and I'll pretend none of this happened. Otherwise, even if you kill me, the samurai who come later will kill you to avenge me. In the end, it will just be a lose-lose situation."
The samurai's words clearly pleased the daimyo greatly. These peasants should all be like this samurai—respectful and deferential toward him.
"A lose-lose? Not necessarily. But seeing you still so confident puts my mind at ease."
As she spoke, Furina subtly glanced sideways at Uchiha Hikari beside her. Noticing Furina's gaze, the other lightly nodded in response.
"What?"
While the two were silently communicating, Furina's cryptic words made the daimyo instinctively feel something was wrong, though he could not pinpoint exactly what.
However, the daimyo's worry did not last long. Because in the next moment, a samurai sword suddenly plunged straight into his chest. He instinctively widened his eyes in utter disbelief.
"You... why."
The owner of the samurai sword embedded in the daimyo's chest was none other than the samurai who had just been expressing loyalty to him. This was what shocked the daimyo the most.
If it had been one of the two attackers, he would have accepted it—he knew he probably would not survive today anyway. But the key was that it was not them; it was the samurai he had been feeling relieved about just seconds ago.
"Could it be that he betrayed me? Was everything just now an act to make me lower my guard? Damn it.
In that case, it would have been better to die at the hands of those two peasants. At least then this traitor wouldn't get away with it either."
In his final moments, the daimyo saw the pure killing intent in the turned samurai's eyes—as if wanting to tear him apart.
Normally, even in betrayal, there should be some guilt. Even without guilt, it should not be this full of murderous intent. But he no longer had time to ponder why the other had become like this.
Carrying endless unwillingness, the daimyo met his end in regret. After dealing with the daimyo, the samurai made no further move. He simply stood there in a daze.
"Although I already knew in advance, seeing it with my own eyes still inevitably surprises me."
After watching this "betrayal drama," Furina turned around, looked into Uchiha Hikari's eyes, and could not help sighing with emotion.
At some point, Uchiha Hikari's Sharingan had changed into the Mangekyo. Its complex patterns were far beyond the previous three-tomoe, incomparably bewitching. One glance was enough to make anyone involuntarily sink into them.
[Yaegaki no Hoko]
Hm, now she understood why Orochimaru was so obsessed with the Sharingan, and why so many protagonists in fanfiction were Uchiha. Who wouldn't like this?
Anyway, Furina quite liked it. Fortunately, she had the system, which was no worse than the Sharingan or anything else.
Hm~ except for certain ridiculously overpowered Sharingan abilities. Furina had no idea how much the author must have been drinking to come up with such broken powers. Purely drunk writing.
Following the principle of not wasting, at Furina's suggestion, the samurai who had been knocked down earlier and were now defenseless were also branded by Uchiha Hikari for future use if needed.
After completing all this, dense footsteps suddenly came from outside the house. Who was coming to this place needed no explanation—it was naturally the other samurai from the daimyo's residence.
After learning the situation from the attendants who had scattered earlier, they immediately notified each other and rushed over as support. As for why Furina would make such a low-level mistake as letting news leak,
One reason was that, unless necessary, Furina did not want to harm attendants—or rather, ordinary people.
They were unlike samurai. Once samurai took up weapons, they should be prepared for battle and even death. So when Furina acted against them, she did not hesitate at all. At most, she held back a little to leave them alive.
But the attendants were different. They were just here making a living and were also part of the oppressed in this world. So unless absolutely necessary, Furina would not go out of her way to make things difficult for them.
The second—and more important—reason was that with their strength, those samurai wanted to stop them? What were they thinking? Did they really think her perfectly balanced six-sided stat hexagon was a joke?
Moreover, with the cheat-like ability of Yaegaki no Hoko in play, if no one with comparable strength restricted Uchiha Hikari, any number of people would just be sending themselves to die.
So human wave tactics? Better wash up and go to sleep. You can have everything in your dreams.
Within a few seconds after the footsteps appeared, massive flashes of blade light surged around the house. Under the countless sharp blades, the walls shattered. Without support, the roof collapsed directly, kicking up huge clouds of dust.
When the dust settled, Furina could clearly see the situation around them. Roughly several dozen samurai had surrounded the two of them, glaring furiously. More people continued to arrive from all sides and join the encirclement.
...
Back to the present
While Mifune was puzzled, one of the masked figures standing somewhat forward on the opposite side spoke up. The voice was neutral, making it impossible to tell the gender.
"Who we are is not important, because in the time to come, you will surely find out. As for why we killed him? Heh."
At this point, the masked figure paused, then kicked the daimyo's corpse beside them with a look of disdain and said contemptuously,
"Why kill him? Good question. Maybe it was on a whim, or maybe it was long premeditated. But is the reason important? If you insist on me giving one, I can.
Just say I didn't like the look of him, so I casually took him out. How's that reason? Acceptable?"