A female ninja with black hair and black eyes and a cold, emotionless face, wearing red clothes, a member of the Aka lineage, was walking toward her room. She was Lucy!
After being imprisoned for a few days the Midori ninja chief finally gave up; he couldn't find the spy and couldn't keep them all imprisoned forever, so he released them.
Honestly, Lucy was surprised when they released everyone; she expected them to try taking another exam. However, it seems they decided it isn't worth it, or the risks are too high. What specific calculation they had, Lucy doesn't know, but she likes the results.
This new identity is very different from the last one; her overall body structure is close, but her hair color and facial details are different. Even though she cannot change her voice, height, etc., she can do makeup.
In this era, makeup techniques are quite advanced, and as an assassin, Lucy is skilled in it. As a matter of caution, she always keeps makeup equipment on her person.
Ninjas from the Aka lineage are primarily responsible for ninja prisons, courts, torture chambers, interrogation rooms, etc. Aka ninjas have far less access than Shiro ninjas, but for the moment, Lucy has no other choice; too many identity changes can inevitably create flaws.
Already, her job was not perfect; if they had investigated carefully, they could have found clues; this is very different from her usual perfectionist personality, and she already felt uncomfortable; more identity changes would cause her to lose sleep.
Putting these thoughts aside, she opened the door of her room and went in. Fortunately, Aka ninjas usually work in isolated places and have few friends; she would probably be fine, although she isn't sure.
The identity she stole may have friends who know her; if that comes to be, she would have to do her best to act as normal as possible, and if the friends got suspicious, she would have to change her identity once again.
…
Midori chief was in a room, debating intensely with Kuro and Pinku.
Midori chief originally wanted to imprison all suspects until the spy was found, but Kuro overruled his decision.
When Kuro first found the letter, he called an elder's meeting. The meeting was delayed because of what happened with the exam, but it was held nevertheless.
It was a very divided council, with some advocating for cooperation with Jack.
The ninja council was comprised of 13 elders.
Kuro ninja chief, the executive chief of the ninja village, is responsible for training those with leadership potential.
Shiro ninja chief, responsible for record-keeping, clerks, libraries, etc., and training those with relevant talents.
Midori ninja chief, responsible for ninja barracks and guarding the village, responsible for training guards and less talented ninjas in ninja arts.
Aka ninja chief, responsible for prisons, courts, torture chambers, and training those with relevant talents.
Pinku ninja chief, responsible for foreign relations and training those talented in related areas.
Ao ninja chief, responsible for ninja hospitals, doctors, and training those with relevant talents.
Senmon ninja chief, responsible for many different specialized buildings, such as blacksmith buildings, kitchens, etc., and for training those with special talents that don't fit in other areas, such as blacksmithing, cooking, and all kinds of different talents; it can be said that anything that doesn't fit into other ninja chiefs' territory is dumped into the Senmon ninja lineage.
Mienai ninja chief, responsible for spies inside and operations outside the village, and training those with relevant talent.
Kiiro ninja chief, responsible for trade, buying supplies, providing food for the village, and operator of all settlements outside the village that aren't primarily used for fighting. For example, the ninja village owns restaurants in many cities, and those are under Kiiro ninja.
Murasaki ninja chief, responsible for building roads, upgrading ninja dormitories, and any construction, and training those with relevant talents.
Kyōryoku ninja chief, responsible for coordinating the ninja branches to smooth the operation of the village and training relevant talents.
Gōruden ninja chief, responsible for keeping ninjas' financial assets, treasure, gold, and investing spare money, and training those with good money management and other relevant talents.
Shinia ninja, responsible for talent detection, distributing young talents among ninja branches, solving differences among ninja branches, along with the responsibility of choosing chiefs of ninja outposts outside the village, etc. In addition, the Shinia ninja can choose any ninja as a student and has a big voice in selecting a successor in other ninja branches if the last chief dies without fully training the next successor.
In addition to all those, Shinia ninja is also the oldest and usually the strongest; if there remain any holes in the operation of the village, Shinia ninja can appoint temporary branch leaders to fill those holes until the ninja council can address them.
Though Shinia ninja is powerful, Kuro ninja is more powerful because Kuro ninja can actually order other ninja branches. In contrast, Shinia ninja can only use her influence and seniority to persuade them.
After all, Kuro Ninja is the chief executive. Even though Shinia ninja is senior and respected, she is not talented in leadership, and thus, among ninjas who value meritocracy, she isn't qualified to order other branches."
Only these 13 can participate and vote in ninja elders' meetings.
In the last meeting, opinions were divided in strange ways.
Political parties barely exist in the ninja village; everyone is trying to do their best for village advancement, so partisanship is not a problem in the village; still, over long periods of time, some people ended up having the same vote on issues, simply because their brain circuits and ways of thought are similar to each other.
Usually, votes end up with Senmon, Kuro, Shinia, Pinku, Ao, Mienai, and Kiiro on one side and the rest on the other.
This time, however, the vote ended up very different.
Kuro, along with Shiro, Aka, Gōruden, Kyōryoku, Murasaki, and Pinku were on the side of cooperation with Jack, while Shinia, Ao, Midori, Shiro, Mienai, Shinia, Senmon, and Kiiro were on the other side.
After everyone spoke, it was a vote of 7-6 against cooperating with Jack. However, after Kuro spoke privately with his former disciple, Midori, he changed his vote from against to abstention; therefore, the vote was deadlocked at 6-6.
With a vote of 6-6, Kuro announced that they would decide on the issue again after a week, and in the meantime, he ordered Midori to release the prisoners.
Shinia ninja protested the decision, but as said before, they respected each other, so after discussion, Kuro compromised on other matters, and eventually, everyone left more or less satisfied.
The next vote, therefore, is crucial; Kuro and Pinku are trying to convince Midori to vote for cooperation with Jack.
"Kuro-sama, I was originally not against cooperating, but after what that spy did, killing our colleagues, how can we ignore that?' Midori chief was still angry over losing his guards; even though ruthless, he cared about his subordinates' lives.
Even worse, Jack killed over 50 Midori ninjas before, which makes it unacceptable for the Midori ninja chief to cooperate with the murderer, even if he accepts the logic behind it.
'We must look at things without personal emotions, don't you remember my teachings? It was me who nearly died at the hands of Jack and his archer; they even shot me in the groin; but, I have to admit, secret cooperation with Jack is beneficial to us! Eventually, Kampaku would want to centralize his power, and we, ninjas, as warriors not under his control, would be an eyesore for him."
Pinku, a feminine-looking ninja going with male pronouns, continued Kuro's sentence with his feminine yet soothing voice, "Kampaku is already restraining even samurais, who are extremely unlikely ever to rebel; also, he has removed many nobles who were not on his side, and sent them to rule far away places; he would never allow us to stay here, this close to the capital; sooner or later, probably sooner, he would order us to move our village to faraway places; it's possible he would take out businesses, as he did with White Cloud ninja village." Pinku ninja, the person with the most knowledge about the outside, was the most passionate about cooperating with Jack; in fact, it was he who convinced Kuro.
Hearing this, Midori said, "Those are speculations; the fact is that until now, the only one that killed our colleagues is Jack, not Kampaku!"
"It's not speculation; have you heard what happened to White Cloud ninja village? Kampaku forcefully confiscated all their businesses and expelled them to faraway lands," said Pinku.
"That was because White Cloud assassinated one of the nobles close to Kampaku; in fact, the example of White Cloud is exactly why we should not ally with Jack," said Midori.
"You are just wrong! Kampaku never cared about that noble; it was just an excuse to expel them; Hear me, if we wait, eventually, Kampaku would destroy us!' said Pinku.
After 6 hours of talk, Kuro and Pinku managed to persuade Midori, but still, he didn't pledge his vote, but only said he would 'think about it.'
Having already said everything they could, Kuro and Pinku left; there was nothing more they could say that they didn't already say.
…
After a week, finally, the day of the vote arrived.
All ninja lineage chiefs moved into the council's main room and started casting secret votes.
In this last vote, Kuro decided to keep the next votes secret. Usually, votes are public, but Kuro, as the chair, has the ability to hold secret votes.
After a few minutes, he started reading the votes aloud.