Snowlight Valley – Eighth Week
The morning after the failed purge, smoke curled over the east quarter.
A storehouse had burned. No bodies. No screams. Just fire, fast and controlled. A message.
The High Council was reminding the valley what happened when rules bent too far.
Daigo didn't react. He showed up to the administration hall at sunrise with ink-stained sleeves and three new ledgers. Everything in order. Everything filed.
But he knew what they were doing.
They couldn't remove him outright—not yet, not without cause—but they could shift the weight. Redirect pressure. Make things crack from the outside.
So they started changing the script.
Minor edicts appeared from Umido Province. Random audits. Emergency inspections. Sudden requisitions. All timed to interrupt his workflow.
All subtle.
All legal.
He adapted.
Clause by clause, Daigo began rerouting.
If they redirected his ink supply, he diverted his sealing work to requisitioned scrolls from a closed academy—approved under archive salvage protocol.
If they blocked his courier lines, he folded messages into student assignment reviews and sent them through the educational clearance pipeline.
When they tried to reassign his Black Quill observer, he invoked Section 5.11: Continuity of Oversight Personnel during Active Investigation.
The shuffle was turning into a war.
Ichi pulled him aside after curfew.
"They're setting you up."
"I know."
"They'll wait until you slip."
"I don't plan to."
"You're playing defense."
"I'm buying time."
She paused. "And what happens when they stop playing with scrolls and start using blades?"
Daigo looked at the stars, sharp above the valley peaks.
"Then I'll make sure the paper cuts first."
Outside Snowlight, the game widened.
A Sand delegation made a public offer to host a neutral chakra academy.
Konoha's genin team sent home a report, and their jonin stayed behind. "For diplomacy," they said.
In the Land of Iron, a shinobi summit denied the High Council access to tactical seal libraries for the first time in five years.
The walls were tightening.
Not around Daigo.
Around the High Council.
And he was going to keep pushing until they noticed the cracks weren't in the valley.
They were in the doctrine itself.