A merchant lord with a careful beard and too many rings raised a cup and banged it against the table. "To Konoha's swift recovery," he declared, happy to be heard, happier to be leading a toast. "To the elders' wisdom and the Fire Daimyo's hand—"
"Recovery?" Lelouch asked, and did not need to lift his voice.
Silence slid across polished wood. The lord's hand hung in the air with the cup, uncertain now, like a man who had missed a step in the dark.
Lelouch's eyes were polite and merciless. "Who will lead it? A Hokage dead? Elders who will spend a month deciding who gets to sit nearest the ink? Or perhaps Root—the knives that cut where they like and lose count of their failures?"
A low ripple of indrawn breath. Someone muttered, "Root?" with the tone of a man trying to avoid acknowledging a draft under a door.
"Recovery does not come from chaos," Lelouch said, still mild. "It comes from order. And order comes from those who act while others draft apologies."
Gojo, leaning against a pillar, pitched his voice just enough to carry to a nervous cluster near the doors. "He's good," he confided, delighted. "You can clap. No one will arrest you."
They didn't clap. But they listened.
The doors banged open and a Wave guard stumbled in, face white. "South road—bandits—armed!" His breath hitched theatrically and he nearly fell. In a corner, a steward flinched with genuine fear; he hadn't been told. Good. The room's pulse needed to spike.
Panic roused with practiced speed. Men surged to their feet, half-formed orders tangling on their tongues. Women gathered children and title papers as if either could be a shield.
Lelouch didn't move. He lifted a hand as if calming hounds. "Remain seated. Drink. The Eclipse Order will handle it."
Zabuza was already gone. A few minutes stretched long enough for the mind to invent outcomes, then the doors opened again and he came back dragging three men bound with wire, their faces bruised and eyes angry with a courage too cheap to buy sense. He tossed them into the light, where they scuffed the beautiful floor.
"Bandits," he said, contempt precise. "Paid poorly to shout."
"Paid by whom?" the ringed lord demanded, too loud to hide the tremble. "By—by who?"
"By someone who wanted you noisy," Zabuza said, bored.
Lelouch crossed the room like the argument had grown tired of being vague and required a body. "There will always be snakes," he told the lords and ladies. "If not these, then others. What matters is who pulls you back from their teeth. Tonight, you saw who did, and you saw how quickly."
The room changed temperature. Gratitude thickened behind faces like fog. Fear found a shepherd and was relieved to be herded.
A lady in green and gold—the same who had bowed to Ren's men in Konoha's smoking corridors—stood with stiff dignity and bent again, deeper now. "You saved our families," she said. "You did not demand a pledge. You asked for nothing. That cannot stand."
"On the contrary," Lelouch said mildly. "It stands very well."
Her husband—Fire interior, careful hands—said, "We will put it to parchment. Defense in exchange for routes and tariffs. Manifests shared. Names of guards assigned." He swallowed what pride didn't help. "We would be fools to pretend we can do without you."
Lelouch inclined his head as if receiving a correct answer on a test. "We'll draft terms tomorrow morning."
He felt the objection before it arrived; men with rings always had one. The ringed lord set his cup down too carefully and folded his hands in a gesture that wanted to look thoughtful and landed on small. "Prudence," he said, and it was almost a challenge. "Prudence says we consult the Fire Daimyo before we—bind ourselves. Konoha still stands. To sign now would be… hasty."
Lelouch considered him for the length of a single pleasant breath. Here, then, the kind who mistook delay for safety. He could be brought later with the weight of a majority. Or he could be used now to demonstrate inevitability.
He took a step closer, just enough that the lord felt the attention like heat. Violet eyes deepened, a sigil flowering for a heartbeat in the left—red on black, like a command etched into the concept of obedience. Geass, called here with precision and hidden as neatly as a dagger inside a sleeve.
"You will request immediate terms," Lelouch said quietly, and the words went into the man like ink into soft paper. "You will do so with conviction. You will be first to sign. And you will believe it was your idea."
The lord straightened, the doubt washed from his face as if he had discovered a better argument inside his own skull. He turned, voice ringing just enough to carry. "In fact, prudence demands speed. We should sign tonight—before opportunists bargain on our behalf."
Heads bobbed. Relief exhaled. The noble couple who had already bent the knee looked grateful for the cover; those who hadn't yet found it honorable to follow.
Gojo's grin widened, teeth bright under the blindfold. Escanor, still meek as moonlight, frowned faintly and glanced at Ren. Ren didn't nod, didn't blink. He simply watched the room align around a decision and filed the names of those who moved first, those who waited for cover, and those who would require firmer hands later.
They didn't sign that night—Lelouch preferred ink unhurried and witnesses awake—but the treaties were born there, around lantern light and three men trussed on a floor rich enough to shame them. By the time the lords and ladies retired to guest rooms that smelled of cedar and salt, each had agreed to language a steward would bring to them in the morning: Eclipse Order to provide maritime security and emergency protection; nobles to grant port rights, tariff percentages, right-of-audit on mercenary hires, and the courtesy of requesting Eclipse assistance before the fact rather than after. Nothing that said "rule." Everything that meant it.
After the hall emptied, Lelouch walked the length of the table once, adjusting a glass here, a chair there, like a man smoothing the surface of a board before the next match. Gojo pushed off the pillar and ambled over.
"You kept the light show quiet," he said, friendly as sin. "Nice trick. The eye."
Lelouch didn't start. He looked at the blindfolded man and saw nothing reflected back; that was irritating and useful. "I prefer persuasion. Compulsion is for clogs in the mechanism."
"You'll get along," Gojo said, jerking a chin toward Ren. "He likes machines made of people."
Escanor approached, careful, spectacles sliding down his nose. "Isn't it… wrong? To place words in a man's head?"
Lelouch considered the question without contempt. "It is wrong to waste lives because a committee could not agree on definitions," he said. "It is wrong to let fear choose for you. If a nudge prevents a dozen funerals, I will take the sin."
Escanor nodded slowly, as if filing it beside other difficult truths. "At noon," he murmured, almost to himself, "I might say the same thing. Less softly."
Ren watched Lelouch watch Escanor: a mind mapping a paradox—kitten and lion sharing a body, humility and pride with the same heartbeat. He would test him later. He would test them all. Good. Ren needed iron to strike iron.