The Capital (3)

"Preposterous! How dare those cretins!?" The man threw away the message scroll and slammed his hand on a desk. "Declining to attend my party obviously means that they will be attending my brother's one instead! That is tantamount to showing support for his bid for the throne!"

"Your Highness, please calm down." An aide by his side pleaded, careful not to show even the slightest hint of disrespect given the prince's current mood and his well known temper.

The man, despite being dressed in the finest and dignified robes that screamed opulence, was now trembling in his rage. The veins on his forehead and neck bulged as his face reddened.

"Calm down? You ask me to calm down when our supporters are dwindling by the day! Those wretched nobles! I am the Crown Prince! I am the heir apparent! They should be the ones begging for my royal attention! Instead they lick the shoes of my brother like the pathetic dogs they are! Treason!"

The prince continued on his tirade, at times lambasting his pitiful aide for being useless while throwing around and breaking the ornate trinkets decorating the room, each of which cost more than a dozen peasants' entire annual income put together.

"If this goes on, that bastard will eventually petition father to be named the Crown Prince, usurping my rightful position! He means to snatch away my birth right? That son of a whore… I'll kill him! I'll kill his entire family!" The prince roared, not giving thought to the words he was screaming out and who might be listening to them.

"Your Highness please, quench your anger. The Second Prince is far from having accumulated enough influence to sway a majority of the royal court. We know that at least half of the nobles are traditionalists who advocate for the custom of having the eldest prince inherit the throne. You have their firm support. The rest are opportunists who are sitting on the fence, waiting for the best time to enter into the fray. As long as your Highness remains patient, sooner or later they will realize you are the best person to inherit the throne, my prince."

The Crown Prince breathed out slowly, trying to soothe his wrath, "Fine. I will be patient… Where is my mother?"

The aide flinched, "That is… It seems Lady Shijimi is visiting Konoha."

The anger that he had just barely pacified once again bubbled up, "That useless woman! Those whorish concubines are busy every day politicking trying to chip away my influence, and what has she been doing? Wasting her time at Konoha doing god knows what? Worthless!"

"Perhaps she is soliciting the Hokage for your Highness' sake? A man of his power and influence will surely contribute heavily to your campaign."

The prince glared at his servant with narrowed eyes, "Watch your words, dog. Everyone knows the one rule Father has set that we all, no matter Kizoku or Kazoku, must follow – and that is we are forbidden from trying to recruit Konoha and their shinobi for political purposes. My royal Father may have stopped caring about ruling the country or our political squabbles, but that is one thing he has made clear repeatedly and blatantly."

"Someone who overhears us might mistake those words as representative of my defiance of Father's decree. Are you trying to get this prince into trouble, you dog!"

With that, the prince landed a heavy smack on the aide's cheek. It was a slap filled with chakra; one that would have taken off the head of an untrained civilian. But the aide merely fell to the ground, unharmed except for a red mark across his face, and even then to an outside observer it would be apparent that the fall was exaggerated and done purely to appease the raging prince.

"Forgive this lowly servant, your Highness! I misspoke in a moment of foolishness!" The aide got to his knees and kowtowed, begging for mercy.

"Hmph, get out of my sight at once, dog!"

The servant got up and bowed deeply, "At once, your Highness. This lowly servant obeys!"

He turned and made to leave the room. And as his back faced the prince, the aide's face changed from one of subservience to a vicious sneer. 'And you wonder why your supporters are leaving you one by one? Ichirou, you are just trash who was lucky enough to be born as the eldest prince. Someone like you is not qualified to become the ruler of this country! Soon, you will be dragged into the mud that is obscurity and the truly worthy prince will ascend the Daimyo's throne. Then, I will step on you like the trash that you are!'

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After settling into Yoshiro's house, which was a moderately sized estate three stories high designed in a mix of both traditional and more modern aesthetics, Asuma brought us to the Konoha Branch Office to report our mission success. Although the standard protocol would be to report back at the Hokage tower, the benefit of having a branch office at the Capital meant we wouldn't have to repeat the same thing when we returned.

The branch office was staffed with mostly administrative staff, though there were also several high ranking shinobi who were posted there more for symbolic purposes rather than in any sort of a managerial capacity.

It was also there that we were able to receive our mission payment. Asuma had added that since we were in the Capital and the costs of living here were undoubtedly more expensive than back in the village, we would need some spending money if we wanted to buy anything. It was a vacation after all, we weren't going to just do some window shopping and leave.

Yoshiro had accompanied us to the Konoha Branch Office as well, to put in application for a mission request. He was undoubtedly still worried about his wellbeing, with the threat of an assassin hanging over his head. Even if his safety was guaranteed in the Capital city, which it really wasn't since there were plenty of ways to kill someone even in the Capital, especially if the other party did not care about the consequences of offending the entire royal family; he was a merchant who had to travel to different parts of the continent to conduct business.

Being forced to stay in the Capital for fear of his life would only slowly but surely lead to the downfall of his business. Which was why he also saw requesting for a mission, even if it was going to be an expensive B-rank, as an investment for the future for his business. For a merchant like Yoshiro, it was all about costs and benefits. If spending a bit of money would ensure the safety of his life, and by extension his money, it was a worthwhile expenditure in his books.

The mission could not be processed so quickly, however. The process of applying for a mission could at times be lengthy, depending on how much background research and intelligence gathering needed to be conducted by the mission assignment staff. Of course, as with all bureaucratic red tape, the process could also be hastened depending on how much money the client was willing to spend to expedite the process.

But since Yoshiro could be somewhat safe while he remained in the city, he himself was not in that much of a hurry to get his mission request approved either.

Regarding the situation of Yoshiro and his attempted assassination, it wasn't really our problem anymore. As Asuma had put it, we are professionals. And being professionals meant not digging into things more than we needed to. It also meant not doing work we were not being paid for nor assigned to.

We already went above and beyond what was required for our previous C-rank, and according to the mission parameters, the job was done and dusted. If we were assigned another mission to investigate the source of the assassins, then we would do our best to complete it to the utmost satisfaction of our client. Until then, it wasn't our problem to deal with.

Not that we would even be assigned the mission of course. A B-rank was a B-rank, not something a fresh-out-the-academy genin team had the qualifications to participate in. They were usually reserved for veteran genin teams with an elite jounin squad leader as backup or an average chuunin squad. Asuma had told us not to get our hopes up since C-rank missions were the most that we could take part in for some time.

If the system had generated a quest for me, however, the answer might not be as certain. Well, it would definitely depend on the mission reward and failure penalty. If the risk to reward ratio was too high, I don't think I could accept it. After all, right now I was just a small fry in the Land of Fire's Capital city that had hidden masters around every corner. Overestimating myself would only lead to an undesirable outcome.

With some money in our pockets (and in my inventory), Asuma brought us around the city to see the sights so to speak.

As expected of the more traditional lifestyle of the Capital's residents, there were quite a few Shinto style shrines and temples located within the city itself, each of which was dedicated to a different deity. The largest temple of them all worshipped the goddess of the sun, Amaterasu, while the rest were much smaller in comparison. I even spotted a tiniest little shrine that worshipped a certain rabbit goddess – that I avoided like a plague.

Asuma had shared that in the Land of Fire, Amaterasu is considered to be the principle deity. This was in part due to the goddess' relationship with the ruling royalty. It was said that the Land of Fire's Daimyo's divine mandate, that is their god given right to rule, was because the Daimyo and his family was rumoured to be descendants of Amaterasu. Making them literal demi-gods of sorts who were intrinsically superior to mere mortals.

I thought it to be nonsense of course. But all of these stories and myths served only to legitimize the Daimyo's right to sit on the throne. The Daimyo and his imperial family could be considered to have both symbolic and actual power. Their symbolic power was the result of an engagement in a continual dance of public relations. But underneath it all was the vulnerability and fragility of their political authority.

I was reminded of the folktale from my old life, The Emperor's New Clothes. The monarch, who once you see that the emperor is naked underneath, you realize that his power is all imaginary. Once those robes were stripped away, what stands before you is just a naked monarch and you will recognize that the power they possess exists only in the collective belief that they have power. Ultimately, at the most basic building blocks of humanity, they are no different from the vast majority of people.

And to keep that simple truth from being recognized by the people required pageantry, mythology, belief and faith. The Daimyo's divine mandate to rule is no different from the titular emperor's invisible clothes. So the mythos of the Daimyo's divine ancestry was crafted, rooted in traditional folklore and legends, all to tell the tale of the goddess Amaterasu having chosen this particular man and his particular children to lead and rule the Land of Fire.

Perhaps other nations and their respective Daimyos had similar stories of their origins and background that served to legitimize their political authority, or perhaps it was unique to the Land of Fire, this I could not know. What I did know was that old wives' tales like these were insufficient to fool someone like me who was born and bred in a contemporary society where myths and legends no longer justified someone to lead.

Aside from the more popular tourist attractions, there wasn't much else in the Capital to draw our interest. It wasn't like the city thrived via income from tourists like the Land of Hot Water, so there was little effort put by the state government into developing the nation's tourism industry. The city was largely a commercial powerhouse, serving as a trading hub and nexus of international commerce, which explained it's prosperity. But conversely, there weren't much to sightsee because of that fact.

Of course, as shinobi there was only one thing we were interested in – cold hard steel. The weapons district was unexpectedly not as vibrant as I was expecting. I supposed it made sense since the Capital was not an armament manufacturing city. Most of the residents here were civilians, not shinobi. I had to assume that most of the arms provided to the city's garrisons were privately manufactured by the state or bulk purchased from another nation.

As such, the supply of weapons and its associated products were lacklustre as compared to what was available for purchase back home.

Looking around and window shopping with my [Observe] showed me that the weapons sold here were mostly made for decoration – patterned steel attached to shiny, gold plated and gem encrusted hilts. They were accessories rather than tools crafted to kill. The highest grade weapon I saw was merely at Uncommon, and even then the stat bonuses they gave were rather lacking when compared to the price tag attached to these metal trinkets.

Asuma sensed our dissatisfaction when we looked around and laughed, "Disappointing isn't it? The weapons made here care catered for the Kizoku or nouveau riche merchants who are looking for swords as ornaments or apparel. It's not likely to find anything surpassing what we can get back home and at a cheaper price to boot."

"Kind of… I was expecting to find more in the center of commerce if the Land of Fire." I confessed.

Shino and Hinata quietly agreed.

The jounin smirked and leaned in closer, "If you guys want to get something good, I've got somewhere I would recommend. Top quality stuff."

Our eyes sparkled and we nodded excitedly like a bunch of baby chicks.

"Alright, calm down, I'll bring you there. But… one thing you need to know. The owner, she hates shinobi." Asuma shared.

"Eh? She hates shinobi? Why, sensei?" Hinata asked, taken aback.

"Don't know. I tried going there once but she chased me out the moment she saw my forehead protector, she's a cranky granny that one. But there's no denying the mastery in her craftsmanship. Her products are as good as those legendary grandmaster smiths in the Land of Iron." Asuma explained.

"I can bring you guys there, but I can't go in with you. And you have to take off your forehead protectors before you go in or she will chase you out with a hammer." He shuddered as if remembering a horrible memory.

Hinata fidgeted with her fingers, "I don't know about lying to an old lady…"

"I'm satisfied with what I have now." Shino calmly adjusted his shades and added.

I looked at them both and shrugged, "I guess it's just me then."

The Hyuuga perked up, "Ah I could go with Shinji-kun, i-if you want."

"Nah, I'm good. You can go enjoy the rest of the day with Shino."

She looked crestfallen for some reason, but I ignored it as I went off with Asuma to the legendary granny's weapons shop.