"Hmm?" Akane asked, wondering what she meant, and he felt her pulling him towards her. He didn't resist, and Akane found himself lying with his head on her lap.
"Yeah, rest. Sleep for some time. I am sure that after you wake up, you will use your Shadow Clone Technique to look for people and gather more information about the city."
Akane stared into Kaguya's white eyes, and he wondered how she knew what he was going to do. It was exactly as she had said. Even though he could use Zetsu for a preliminary check of people, he didn't want puppets but people who would actively work and solve problems without him worrying about anything.
"How did you know?" Akane asked, but he didn't get a reply to her questions. Instead, he felt Kaguya slowly caressing his hair and understanding her intention, he closed his eyes and decided to sleep.
When Kaguya felt Akane's breathing getting heavy and regular, she understood that he had fallen asleep.
The smile on her face didn't leave, and looking at him, she wondered about how the space was still intact.
"Even though this has happened many times, I still wonder how this space remains active when he falls asleep here. Is it because he is subconsciously thinking and maintaining?"
"The brain and mind don't sleep even if we sleep, and this must be because of it."
Kaguya thought about this because she wondered if he could maintain this space while he worked outside and if it was possible to communicate with her existing in this space while he remained outside.
This way, she would also be able to live the moments with him. Even if she could only watch them live, instead of just hearing about them.
Kaguya knew that as time progressed, the urge to get more and more moments with him was increasing in her heart. She didn't know if it was selfish of her to think about this and find ways to spend more time with him, not just in dreams but in reality.
Kaguya wanted to hold Akane in real life. She wanted to hug him, kiss him, walk beside him, support him, and do whatever she could, and whatever he wanted with her.
As Kaguya's urges grew, it was the same for her anger and hatred for Hagoromo. She wanted to break the seal and get out of it as soon as possible, but no matter how much she tried, she couldn't.
She couldn't even sense the connection with the husk of Ten-Tails. Because with it, she would be able to send a sliver of her consciousness to the planet. This is what she hoped would happen when she heard Akane's plan about feeding the husk some chakra.
"Just one moment, I need a single crack in the seal. That would be enough for me to escape that place."
Kaguya's eyes sharpened as she thought of the opportunity, but soon, the sharp look in her eyes faded, and her eyes returned to a gentle look as she looked at Akane sleeping peacefully.
A smile appeared on her face as she closed her eyes and leaned back, drifting to sleep while her hands continued to caress Akane's head.
In the Outside world, when Akane went to the inn, Tsunade had reached the Daimyo's Palace. The guards at the palace knew of her, and she went to the Daimyo's place without any obstruction.
"Where is the patient?" She asked as she approached the room in which she sensed the person with the highest amount of chakra, and she made sure that others inside would hear her voice.
Instead of entering, she remained outside, and it didn't take long for a woman to walk from the room.
"Tsunade-San?" The woman spoke as she looked at the blond hair and the appearance that matched the information she had from before, and Tsunade nodded in response.
"Yeah, here," Tsunade said as she threw a scroll at the woman, and the woman opened the scroll to see it. After looking at the scroll, reading it and the seal of Hokage, the woman was finally sure that the person in front of her was Tsunade from Konoha.
"I am Akemi. The patient is inside." Akemi said with a light bow and asked Tsunade to follow her. Tsunade nodded at her and followed Akemi inside the room to finish her job as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, Orochimaru was waiting for Daimyo to arrive, and he looked at Daimyo's advisor, who sat in his place. Looking at the fat guy who seemed like he hadn't exercised in his life, Orochimaru didn't understand how someone like them were able to rule the country.
'Ah, yes! It is because of us.'
The thought came to his mind, and he understood that if villages that separate Ninjas from common people didn't exist, then Daimyos wouldn't be normal humans. In fact, the country would have already been divided into smaller parts for each clan, and Orochimaru knew of this situation, as it was during the Warring States era.
'I wonder what gives these guys the guts to look down on Ninjas.'
Orochimaru already knew that the Daimyo wasn't busy, as the Advisor had said. He was just having fun in his big room, watching dancers and getting fed by others.
The situation felt even more absurd because the Land of Wind's Daimyo was with the Land of Fire's Daimyo, irrespective of the fact that his daughter was ill.
'Does he not care about her?'
Orochimaru wondered, and he was curious about the situation, or he should say, about the politics happening. Even though he had a few conjectures, they were all made-up scenarios, and after thinking for a while, he decided not to ponder much on them.
'It doesn't matter. Even if they do have some plans, they would probably be related to Sunagakure. If it involves Konoha, then the Daimyo wouldn't agree, would he?'
When Orochimaru thought of this, another terrifying thought appeared in his mind, but before he could ponder on it, he heard the Advisor speak.
"Orochimaru-San, is there something important you want to talk to Daimyo-Sama? If not, you can tell me, and I will send your words to him."
Orochimaru looked at the Advisor with no change in his expression. He didn't have anything important to discuss with Daimyo. The only reason he went was that he knew his teacher would question him about the mission. Instead of answering everything, he wanted to divert attention with Daimyo's message, or anything related to him.
'Since the conflicts at the border have risen, I can discuss about this and get more funding for the village.'
"Yeah, it is related to borders. It seems other countries have plans for the borders."
"What plans?" The Advisor spoke when he heard the words, but saw Orochimaru just smiling and didn't say anything. He understood that Orochimaru wouldn't tell him about the plans, and after thinking for a moment, he understood what he had to do.
"I will come back in a minute," the advisor said, and he got up from his place. Seeing this, Orochimaru inwardly smiled, but he showed no expression outside and just gave a nod.
---
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Two people sit in a hospital waiting room. The doctor speaks. One hears reassurance. The other hears danger. They walk out into the same world carrying different stories.
Weight of What They Know is a book about why and what it means for every story ever told.
Across twelve essays, this book examines the invisible architecture beneath human experience: why people act on incomplete information, why belief resists evidence, how rumours travel and distort, how power determines who is allowed to speak, how memory rewrites the past, and how the self changes so slowly that no single moment feels like change at all.
This is not a book about writing. It is a book about the way people actually inhabit the world and what fiction must understand about that if it wants to be honest.
For anyone who has ever left a conversation convinced they understood it, only to realise later they did not. For readers of reflective literary nonfiction in the tradition of Joan Didion and Annie Dillard.
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