บท 12: EVERY KING HAS SECRETS.
In Trozani, nothing seemed artificial or forced. It was a place of peace, spirituality and beauty. The government was dedicated to preserving this tranquility and protecting itself from any external threat.
Any storm, disaster or conflict would not reach this backwater. Although some scholars suggested that the barrier had vulnerabilities, these remained hidden from outsiders.
Trozani was home to those affected by the war and rejection. Initially conceived for renegade and fugitive ninjas, the place was transformed by the founder, a man who fled Konoha, to welcome only those who deserved peace.
With the establishment of the barrier, safety was guaranteed. No one would enter or leave freely. Training was encouraged, allowing only the most talented to protect the barrier and ensure the lives of its inhabitants.
Crimes were few and of little importance. Mostly, they were limited to property damage or minor conflicts between neighbors. They never escalated to worrying situations.
A week ago, disappearances began in the Trozani Republic. The ninjas, considered to be the few vestiges of the outside world, disappeared one after another. At first, it was thought that they were individual escapes, but it soon became clear that something more sinister was going on.
Although some rebelled against the government, their attempts were easily suppressed, usually through concessions or increases. False rebellions became so common that the king never acted harshly against those who asked for more. The need to chase fugitives abroad was never felt.
However, on the second day, the situation spiraled out of control when the number of missing ninjas increased dramatically. The surprise was great and the evidence overwhelming.
How could ninjas, loyal for generations, betray them? It seemed impossible, especially considering that the missing were specialists in dark skills, even for the king.
An unpleasant premonition came over him when one of his informants showed up with his head bowed. The decision to ask for help was extremely delicate.
No one outside Trozani knew of the existence of his republic.
At least, that's what he thought. The generations that lived in the outside world were a thing of the past, most of them already deceased. Who would dare to help suspiciously powerful people? They would risk being betrayed.
He had a whole day to reflect on this dilemma. From old friendships to past enmities abroad. By the age of sixty-six, he had experienced numerous battles and betrayals. He did not wish to expose the lives of his people or his ninja to unnecessary danger.
Just five days ago, he sent a letter to a village seeking help. He longed for an answer, but he also understood the need to stand firm. As much as he wanted to be supported, he couldn't afford to show weakness to those he hadn't seen in years.
He vividly remembered the first time he heard the surname "Sarutobi." In his youth, being from another village, he did not attach great importance to it. It was during his search for the founder of Trozani, when he had the opportunity to learn more about that surname and its meaning.
"If anything were to happen, mention the Third Hokage. Despite our differences, we always had mutual respect for our decisions."
"Honor..." He thought to himself with some irony.
He sighed, regretting that he was forced to make so little use of the information available about them abroad. But he had no choice if he wanted to protect his people. Their ninjas were mysteriously disappearing, and only the elders of a distant village knew the truth.
Those people could trigger a war with just a gesture. At Trozani, training was rigorous and the most talented served the king with an oath of allegiance. However, several generations had passed since anyone in the place had truly experienced the horror of war.
Although his anxiety was latent, he hid it behind the wrinkles that spoke of a wisdom gained over the years.
King Saturo of Trozani, one of the founders and its only remaining monarch. A man whose power and respect in the city were immense, but who in his early days was nothing more than a spoiled child who ascended the throne when his beard still brushed the ground.
He constantly questioned the purpose of his position. Maintaining order as king in a peaceful place might be noble, but was it the right thing to do? However, his interests and will went unnoticed by most, except for those of his own generation, scattered throughout the city.
From mountain peaks to underground caves that fed streams of water, according to popular belief, every corner was inhabited by old and young who continued the legacy of those who were no longer there.
Although their perspectives differed, they all seemed to prefer to live in a carefully constructed reality, where riches were guaranteed from time immemorial.
Who would heed his words after being stripped of his position in the palace? Not even a passerby would deign to look at him if his former companions tarnished his reputation. In this way, Saturo would be completely incommunicado, unable to transmit even a message.
And surely, he would not survive long abroad. He had never dared to challenge the others to find out, but he knew that they would make sure everyone knew about this place or make up some lie to make sure that Saturus paid the price.
They knew exactly how to beat him to leave him defenseless. It has been that way since the day he assumed the crown at the age of forty.
The people of this place, as ignorant as they were beautiful, were the only thing left to him at this moment. At this moment and always.
The steam that had previously emanated from his cup of coffee had now completely dissipated. Its reflection on the surface became clearer. The coffee, of the highest quality in the entire city, was cooling before his eyes.
The coffee seemed to lose its color rich in wisdom and status. Saturo no longer felt the desire to drink it, which caused him to sigh in resignation. Once again, he was alone in the vast dining room. And to add more discouragement to his mood, he had grown tired of high-quality coffee.
It was nothing new. When he assumed the crown at the behest of his former companions, it was thought that surrounding him with such luxury and status would silence him from the follies committed by others.
But what they did not know was that this coffee, imported with great wealth thanks to relations secretly established during the years of the foundation of these lands, had passed through the hands of Saturo in the form of coffee beans when he was barely thirteen years old.
Remembering that time was painful. A time when he had been happy serving a person, his future king, who was not much older than him.
An older brother who had taken him out of the clutches of a filthy wealthy family, who were ready to get rid of him as soon as the rival family with whom Saturus had been forging ties ceded some of their import goods to Saturo's family, as part of a marriage deal between Saturus's half-sister and the only son of the wealthy rival family.
The late king, though they did not share the same blood, would always be his brother. An example of human wisdom and intelligence.
Saturo, a tall man for his advanced age, easily reached 1.72 meters. Its imposing presence used to intimidate beginners with a piercing gaze.
With white skin and dark eyes, she furrowed her eyebrows forming a perfectly defined frown that expressed serenity and determination. His thick white eyebrows added an air of wisdom and authority to his countenance.
He never carried the crown with him. Unlike other crowns, ostentatious and majestic, hers was smaller, more modest and simpler. However, its significance was invaluable to the inhabitants of Trozani.
Saturus deeply valued his brother and considered him to be the true owner of that crown. It was an irony of fate that others believed he could easily be bribed, and he managed to assume the office of king for the purpose of protecting the memory of his brother and the citizens he had sworn to defend.
He placed his hands behind his back, a gesture he used to repeat to instill confidence in himself. Although he was an anxious man by nature, he compensated for this restlessness with wisdom that he had inherited from his older brother.
He always worried too much, but he preferred to take the long and obstacle road to move forward safely. He was often unaware of the traps hatched by his former companions, who underestimated his cunning to protect his people.
They were more powerful than him, and if they failed to maintain control over the people, they would surely eliminate him after killing those who defended him.
That was something he wanted to avoid at all costs.
He let his mind wander as he gazed at the beauty through the wide window. The great dining room, with its muted red hues, always seemed somber and drab to him. Even the curtains followed the same color palette, as if the palace were the refuge of someone whose essence was fire.
Saturo wore a tunic of exquisite and fine fabric, an almost exclusive silk from the pottery village. In that place, only a few artisans specialized in creating fabrics as beautiful as their own ceramics.
That place was no longer part of his world, it had been so long since he had last heard of them. Would they have been ambushed? Had they fled from danger? There were too many inescapable destinies that stalked the villages that did not follow their lifestyle.
"There's nothing we can do." He muttered with his serene gaze fixed on the distant mountains, like frozen images of the past. "The fate of the villages that are believed to be hidden is inevitable. They care more about fighting each other than anything else."
Birds of almost tiny size nested in the tree closest to his window. Contemplating that view was the only thing that made his meals happy each day.
For the first few years, he was tempted to open the curtains during meals, but he didn't do so until three years later, when he decided that it was enough to act ignorant to others.
The nesting of the birds was an event that was never missed. Few birds made it there, and many of them, thanks to the protection of the barrier, enjoyed a longevity that embellished their wings. That is why, on the flag of his kingdom, the wings of a golden bird were visible.
As he enjoyed the spectacle that nature gave him, he felt a slight tingle in his ears. It was a familiar feeling, and he didn't hesitate to close the unpleasant curtains.
It pained him that he could not properly say goodbye to the children of nature, and he was angry at having to cover up the beauty outside to preserve the ugliness of the great dining hall.
Even as a king, he couldn't change decorations. He didn't feel like his stay was getting any better, knowing that everything around him was a farce.
With the tingling increasing, he turned to the door and crossed his arms. Her long sleeves hid her arms, while the golden ribbons of her robe echoed with the red birds with golden wings.
Unlike the flag, white with golden wings in honor of the previous king's love of daisies, his attire reflected a sadness hidden beneath the elegance.
"Outrageous... What impudence." He murmured in a voice full of resentment.
He didn't need to turn around to recognize the intruder. When he heard the authoritarian and affectingly cultured voice, Saturo lowered his head and closed his eyes, seeking the necessary calm to properly confront someone who did not respect his position.
The door to the great dining room swung open, shaking the air with its final knock. Saturo sensed the force behind the door without even turning around. Wisely, he chose to ignore it, with no intention of confronting the woman who so brazenly broke into the palace, despite being aware of the trust she took in the place.
That woman was Tara, a cunning and scheming old woman who had more than once complicated Saturo's life. As mentioned before, the elders who shared in the uprising of these lands had two different ways of controlling the situation.
The first was the one that everyone knew: public affairs, such as civil rights, territorial expansion, the maintenance and administration of important village institutions, were aspects that were under public scrutiny.
However, Saturo was aware of the machinations that occurred behind the curtains, handled by people like Tara. She discreetly supervised the village's external control, regulating who entered and who left, as well as gathering information from the outside for various reasons.
Nonetheless, with her small eyes and surprisingly smooth skin for her advanced age, Tara radiated the power she had accumulated over the years, overcoming Saturo's feigned ignorance. He spent more time fixing his hair than ordering his men to go outside and take advantage of smaller villages.
Since for those outside Trozani this place did not exist, there was no political power or third parties to implicate them in these incidents. Tara often sent her men to gather information to bring to her doorstep.
In this way, she made a profit by selling the information under different names or tricks, and was even willing to order assassinations in order to obtain some document that would make Trozani shine more.
The city was divided into four smaller palaces: Clover and Pike to the east, and Heart and Diamond to the west. The king's main palace was located at the end of the lands, with the fictional mountains as a backdrop.
The King's Palace was known as "The Moon Palace". Saturo enjoyed spending hours gazing at the sky from his balcony, especially when the moon bathed him in blue and white hues, hiding the characteristic red of his residence.
Only in those moments did he feel complete, as if he were a nocturnal being, awake while the world slept. Even though his body was active during the day, his heart always longed for the night.
"What happens now, Tara-dono?" Saturo asked, resigning himself to wasting his precious time with that woman.
Tara, more concerned with her appearance than with the documents to back her up, closed her eyes as if her status was on par with the King in front of her.
"Eating at this hour, Saturo-sama?" Tara's tone suddenly changed to a formal, almost robotic one. "Do you have any idea what time it is?"
"Uh... I think it's about six o'clock." Saturus replied while stroking his beard, downplaying the matter.
The detail almost caused Tara to lose her performance, something that Saturo noticed by the slight tic between her eyebrows.
Although he found it amusing and even pleasant to behave like this, he knew that in the eyes of the villagers he was considered a wise man. The other elders had chosen him as king, and they had no choice but to obey him in order to keep their ill-gotten riches.
"I see." The old woman pretended to cough distinctly. "If he has taken this liberty, then there will be nothing wrong with me daring to interrupt him right now with a newly arrived report, will there?"
"Oh, not at all."
Saturo kept his face impassive, but allowed a flash of encouragement to encourage her to continue. She knew Tara didn't like it when others weren't discreet while she faked her distinction.
"It's about the barrier." People have been reported to have illegally crossed our walls. "It's embarrassing!" Before Saturo could ask, the woman exploded.
Tara allowed herself the audacity to walk from one side to the other on the carpets that he himself had chosen. He knew that later, she would realize it and use that as an excuse to change them to their original color, the red or black that he hated so much.
"Our Ninjas are disappearing, we can't risk sending more and losing them. What will happen if those who abducted them found a way to circumvent our surveillance and the barrier itself? Our fallen comrades would not forgive me!"
"Refrain from using our colleagues as an excuse to justify your anxiety." Saturo interjected. "No one can come in here, right? Everything is under control. In fact, you yourself have assured me of this on multiple occasions."
"Oh, yes?"
Tara's expression changed abruptly. The previous serenity gave way to a grimace of disbelief. The woman, known for her impulsive brazenness, looked at Saturo as if he had more than ten heads.
The king remained unperturbed, embodying the role of an ignorant ruler, just as the elders had molded him (and he himself had taken advantage of). Determined to divert Tara's attention, he began to execute his daily plan to get rid of her.
"Of course! Don't you remember? It was at the inauguration dinner of the statue of Katori-sama. You assured me that you had all the doors under control and that you were aware of the well-being of the secret residents. You can't let this worry you too much."
Tara listened intently to every word as Saturo stroked his beard with apparent disinterest. He acted as if he didn't care at all about what happened beyond the doors of his imposing residence.
That was the image Tara and the others had of him, and he was determined to maintain that façade.
Saturo knew that what he had said was not entirely true. Tara had confided those words to him at dinner, yes, but he knew that not everything was under control as she thought. Tara hid Ninjas and wealthy people behind walls, freeing them when they were no longer useful or when they ran out of money.
They had also discovered the hidden underground entrances within the palaces; everything was being misused by them. It was evident that this money was not going to the government or to the people, but ended up lining their own pockets.
They took advantage of the unwritten law that prohibited visiting other people's palaces, which allowed them to carry out their illicit activities without fear of being discovered.
Paradoxically, only the king's palace became the scene of surprise gatherings and unimportant festivities, a rule that had aged badly and was now turning against him.
So it was quite strange for Saturo that Tara would inform him of something abnormal at the barrier. I never did! Every irregularity that occurred was usually the result of Tara and the other elders' selfishness, and they rarely reported it to her.
Therefore, if he did so this time, it meant that the situation was out of his control and that of the other elders.
Saturo feigned perplexity (or perhaps concealed his genuine surprise under a mask of work perplexity) and, with a hand caressing his chin, raised an eyebrow.
"Or maybe I'm wrong." He asked, reflectively. "Could it be that this time it's something of real gravity and that you've come to inform me after confirming it through an inspection... truth?"
He waited patiently for Tara's response, observing how her words seemed to have alerted the woman to the danger she was in if the King discovered her illicit activities. The look of alarm on Tara's face gave way to a forced serenity, as if she had suddenly remembered some urgent commitment to a client.
Saturo noticed the obvious sweat on Tara's forehead and the tension in her eyes before she finally spoke.
"You're right... I'll be sure to check everything." Tara said, rushing to the door while trying to appear calm. Saturo could hear the dry sound of his throat as he swallowed nervously. "This type of matter usually takes time... In the meantime, I would recommend that you forget any plans you have arranged for today. Stay here, quiet, while I work."
"I'll wait patiently for your news, Tara-dono." Saturo replied calmly.
Tara nodded once and slammed the door behind her, disappearing through the hallways with an unusual speed that caught Saturo's attention. He knew that Tara used to take her time on other people's business, so this sudden change in her attitude could only mean one thing: she was trying to hide something important.
For years they had maintained this game, but Saturo knew that sooner or later the time would come to reveal the truth.
The man stopped in front of the cup of coffee, which was lying alone on the table. Although the teapot still gave off heat, he didn't feel the longing to taste it again. He had grown tired of that little indulgence, wasted in a sea of worries.
With determined steps he approached the table, his eyes fixed on the kettle and the empty plate. He could have called someone to pick up the remains, but he decided that the best thing to do would be to order some cookies to accompany his sleeplessness.
With his arms folded, he noticed that there weren't enough cups for his guests. The need to ask for more was evident, but he feared that the palace servants would notice.
However, he felt that perhaps it would be safer to send one of the few protected Ninjas in the palace. After all, they had been his eyes and ears all these years, informing him about the intrigues of his former companions.
A heavy sigh escaped his lips. At last he could breathe easy, without masks or fears of being judged by dishonorable tongues.
"You can go out now. No one will bother us from now on." He said aloud in the vast dining room.
His gaze was lost in the distance, longing for the attention of those whose eyes were fixed on him. The presences he had sensed as Tara entered materialized behind him like shadows.
A sigh of relief escaped his chest as he didn't feel any surprise attacks. Really? Wouldn't someone finally betray their trust? He respected that humane and honorable aspect of those he had met.
If these people from the outside could be so discreet, it meant that those whom the elders of their village avoided were wiser than the elders themselves. Even wiser than he.
"At this moment I will order tea and biscuits." He announced, turning to the shadows with gratitude for his faithfulness. "Is there anything else you are offered? They can ask for whatever they want."
One of the four Ninjas in front of him, whose face was hidden behind a mask and a Shinobi bandana, stepped forward to communicate with the king properly. His one eye, serious and discreet, reinforced the clear, formal tone of his voice.
"You don't have to, don't worry about it." The white-haired man replied. "I beg your pardon for our boldness. We are Ninjas of Konoha; We have been commanded to appear before you, who is supposed to be the King."
"That's right." Saturo confirmed, bringing his hands behind his back to get a better look at the white-haired man.
The Konoha Ninja bowed, followed by the young men who accompanied him, except one.
Saturus watched him out of the corner of his eye, feeling a strange familiarity about it. When the pink-haired teenager took his arm, forcing him to do the same, Saturo couldn't help but frown slightly as he noticed the look of discontent on the young man's face.
The boy seemed reluctant to look him in the eye.
"My name is Hatake Kakashi." The man introduced himself. "And the ninjas who accompany me are Haruno Sakura, Sai and Uzumaki Naruto."
Unbeknownst to Kakashi and the others, Saturo's eyebrows raised for the first time in a long time.
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