Ryoma’s and Kakashi’s voices came thinly through Genma’s earpiece. It was unsurprising, Genma supposed, that Kakashi didn’t believe in gods or karma. At least half the ninja Genma knew had left their childhood religious beliefs in tatters on the corpse-littered battlefields of the Third War. And amongst ANBU— even those who hadn’t seen the wholesale bloodshed of the war—believers were few and far between. Some days Genma agreed with them, but usually he took the opposite view: it was far easier to be the Hokage’s death-edged tool if you believed there was a next life for your victims.

Especially for targets like Tsuto’s children. Pick better parents in your next life.

Tsuto himself was probably just as karma-bound as the ninja who’d dispatched him.

Tsuto’s counting room was tidy and organized, with ledgers filed neatly on a shelf near a low desk, and locked safes built into the walls to hold the private bank’s reserves. Securing the gold and documents would have to wait, though. The drug Genma’d poured into the servants’ rice was powerful, but it was impossible to be sure every eater had taken a sufficient dose to keep them unconscious through Tsuto’s agonized screams.

He doubled back through the kitchen on his way to the servants’ quarters. The cook raised a groggy head and thrust out an arm, struggling to coordinate her movements. Her fingers brushed at the handle of a chef’s knife that had fallen to the floor near her. Genma kicked it away, knelt down, and clamped a hand over her mouth. “Shhh,” he told her. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

But of course he was.

He pulsed chakra through the coils at the base of her skull, tripping her into deep unconsciousness. When she woke, she’d find her employers dead, her home half destroyed, and her livelihood in ruins.

Genma shook the thought away. At least she and the other servants would live. There were other employers—better ones—though he didn’t doubt there was corruption under the surface in most of the homes of the very wealthy.

He dragged her body carefully next to the other drugged kitchen servants, checked them all for breathing to be sure none had overdosed on the poisoned rice, and as extra insurance, repeated that chakra pulse on each of the others. It would be at least half an hour before they had any hope of shaking that off, at which point Genma and his team would be long gone.

In his earpiece he could hear muffled sounds as Ryouma and Kakashi searched Tsuto’s room for the hiding place Genma’d told them about. His journey under the floor had revealed it; it hadn’t been on Intel’s blueprints.

A brief static burst announced someone turning up his mic. ”Found the compartment,” said Kakashi. “Looks like accounting ledgers. It's all encoded, but the numbers stack up with some of Intel's information on the coup.” There was a subtle edge to Kakashi’s voice—relief, maybe, that they had solid proof to validate the vengeance they’d just wreaked on Konoha’s behalf.