"THAT BRAT KILLED THREE FULLY GROWN MEN WITH A PENCIL! A FUCKING PENCIL!!!"
The old man's voice boomed through the grand hall, echoing like a cannon blast as he jabbed his middle finger at the small child standing calmly at the center of the room like he was the eye of a storm.
His face was red with rage, veins bulging out of his forehead like angry worms. His name was Coc, and he clearly hadn't taken his blood pressure meds today.
"Sōke! YOU HAVE TO PUNISH HIM SEVERELY!" Coc kept yelling, not giving his lungs a single moment of peace. He spun on his heel and glared toward the largest chair in the room, a chair that was definitely trying not to look like a throne but failed miserably.
It was modest in design, sure. Plain wood, no jewels, no unnecessary carvings. But it sat about five feet higher than every other chair like it was saying, "I'm not royalty, but you're all peasants anyway."
Coc's rant only intensified as his eyes zeroed in on the man currently slouched in that chair like a tired king on his coffee break.
The man had long, flowing black hair that somehow looked combed even though he clearly hadn't touched a brush. His golden eyes were sharp and slightly bloodshot, the kind of eyes that said, "I haven't slept in three days and I blame everyone here."
His muscles looked carved out of stone, and for a man his age, he had no business being that swole.
He let out a deep, tragic sigh and rested his head on his palm, wearing an expression so tired it looked like it had filed for retirement.
He didn't even speak, but his face clearly screamed: "Why is this my life? Why am I the babysitter of war criminals and dramatic old men?"
This man was none other than Sōke, the clan leader. And right now, he looked like he wanted to run away and become a rice farmer.
He slowly raised his head and locked eyes with the child standing alone in the middle of the massive stone hall, which stretched a ridiculous 69 feet in every direction, just to make sure everyone felt unnecessarily small in it.
The child, barefoot, already five feet tall, and wearing a bloodstained shirt with a bunny who had ball cancer on it, just stared back at his older brother with the kind of calm that only sociopaths or Buddhist monks could pull off.
There wasn't even a flicker of fear or guilt in those eyes. Just boredom. Pure, seven-year-old boredom.
Sōke blinked slowly and muttered in a tone that sounded more like a prayer than a request,
"Fourth Consul... oh, Fourth Consul... Can I please talk with my brother?"
His voice barely made a sound, but the acoustics in the hall carried it like thunder, echoing against the stone walls as if the universe itself wanted to hear that man suffer.
The child didn't move. Didn't blink. Didn't speak. He just kept staring at his big brother like a tax auditor waiting for an explanation.
Coc, on the other hand, exploded again like a kettle left on too long."WHAT IS THERE TO TALK ABOUT?! THIS BRAT SHOULD BE PUNISHED! I SAY THROW HIM IN THE DI-DI CELL!"
The Clan Leader, Hikaru, flinched slightly at those words, not because of the sentence, but because he really didn't want to acknowledge that Coc had named the most feared prison dungeon in the Land of Tea something that sounded like a toddler's potty-training ritual.
The Di-Di Cell.God help him.
Then, suddenly, Hikaru stood up.
His hands gripped the sides of his chair, fingers digging in with such force that the stone itself cracked under the pressure. That's right—stone. Not wood, not metal. Stone. And he was breaking it like it was dry toast.
His once tired, annoyed expression was now gone, replaced by something sharp, cold, and serious.
"I don't like jokes," Hikaru said flatly, his golden eyes now glowing with a piercing edge as he stared straight into Coc's soul.
For a moment, the room froze.
At this moment, Hikaru didn't look like some overworked clan leader or stressed older brother. He looked like someone who could calmly walk into Hell, slap the devil across the face, and say, "Sit down. I'm in charge now."
If someone put a caption under his silhouette, it would've read:"I'm not the stepbrother. I'm the brother who stepped up."
Coc's eyes twitched uncontrollably. His lips trembled. His knees started to buckle like bad furniture. The once arrogant elder now looked like a cornered chicken realizing it had challenged a lion to a duel.
Then Hikaru spoke again. Calmly. Coldly.
"Since when do dogs have the authority to make decisions?"
And just like that, the last nail was hammered into the coffin of Coc's so-called dignity.
A reputation once built on fake seniority and louder-than-average vocal cords was now laid to rest, buried with full honors in the graveyard of 'Never Had Real Power To Begin With.'
But Hikaru wasn't done.
His sharp, commanding gaze finally moved away from the shaking elder and landed on the real reason he stood up.
His little brother.
"Hajun... Why did you do it?"His voice was no longer laced with authority or exhaustion. It was calm. Warm. Even... gentle?
There was no anger in it. No judgment. Just the genuine curiosity of an older brother trying to understand his sibling.
And truth be told, Hikaru would still love Hajun even if he burned down every village in the Land of Tea, hell, especially if it meant wiping out the kind of "insignificant femboys" Coc had been grooming for his own shady purposes.
Let's not pretend here. You thought a crusty old hypocrite like Coc actually cared about innocent lives?
Ha. Junior, your dao is still shallow. Go train inside your spiritual mountain or something.
You'll understand when your soul gets old and crusty too.
"Brother, those gay-looking chiggas said..."
Hajun spoke at last, calm as ever, staring straight into Hikaru's golden eyes like nothing about this situation was strange. His tone was almost bored, as if he were discussing the weather instead of three murders.
For a second, his gaze drifted to Coc, just a blink of eye contact, and in that single moment, Hajun's lips curled into a faint smirk. Barely a centimeter wide. So quick and subtle that most wouldn't even notice.
But Coc saw it.
Oh, Coc saw it.
He had raised enough brats, lied to enough elders, and survived enough clan drama over the last eighty years to recognize that smirk. That was the smirk of a little monster who knew exactly what he was doing.
Too bad Hikaru didn't.
Hikaru was a beast, sure. A genius on the battlefield, a legend in muscle and power. But reading manipulative seven-year-olds? Not his skillset.
"Brother, they said... after their master takes over the clan army, they'll turn me into a..." Hajun paused, squinting slightly as if trying to remember the exact term."A fum-finb-feum-boy."He scowled."Darn it, the women-looking men!"
The silence that followed could suffocate a grown man.
Hikaru's eyes widened slightly. A vein twitched across his forehead. Blood roared in his ears. His nails dug into his palms with quiet fury.
In that instant, his mind connected the dots.
Who had a private group of "recruits" that looked suspiciously like backup dancers at a kabuki drag show?Coc.
Who had been trying to "restructure" the clan army with mystery backers from outside the Land of Tea?Coc.
Who was the only creep here with both the motive and the ego to make Hajun's story believable?
Coc.
"FUCKING LIAR!!"
Coc screamed, panicking like a rat cornered in its own kitchen. He lunged at Hajun, finger shaking, mouth foaming in rage and fear.
But he didn't get far.
A single hand reached out and grabbed him by the throat mid-charge. His feet lifted clean off the ground. His eyes bulged.
Hikaru had caught him like one might catch a fly.
"What is the meaning of this...?"
The clan leader's voice wasn't raised, but it didn't need to be. The weight of it alone was enough to make bones rattle. His tone was cold, deeper than usual, like the voice of someone deciding whether or not you still deserved to exist.
He leaned in, golden eyes narrowing to thin slits as he glared into Coc's face. And for Coc, that was the exact moment he realized, he fucked up.
Why would Hajun lie?
Why would his little brother, the one person who could burn a city down and still get a hug from him, make something like that up?
Exactly. He wouldn't.
If Hajun said it happened, then it happened. Period.
"......."
Hajun didn't say anything more. He just watched the chaos with the innocent smile of a child watching ants fight over sugar.
Then, under his breath, barely audible, he whispered:
"Just as planned."
So quietly, in fact, that not even the vast, echo-heavy chamber could catch it.
Everything, everything, that happened in this hall had gone exactly how he wanted.
From killing the femboys, to baiting Coc into losing his mind, to standing there like a poor little cinnamon roll while his brother turned into a one-man tribunal.
He had played them all. The cold-blooded killer and the pookie little brother, both flawlessly.
But why?
Why go through all this?
Then, suddenly:
{Ding~ Host has destroyed the reputation of the ugly Baku from Konoha's plan! The Host has passed the tutorial!}
{The Last Immortal Template Has Activated!}