Ah, what an interesting chapter. Just as the other chapters, it makes me seriously consider what the heck I'm doing with my own stories while also inspiring me to do better.

I believe you've told me (and I've observed) that some people lose interest in your writing simply because of 'no action or romance.' Okay, so there's no fights, and the romance is still budding. Honestly, so what? I would do anything to read more stories like this, where there's an actual interesting plot and both major and minor characters play an important role.

Seriously, the best part had to be when the Daimyo stepped in and ranted on the shinobi. I love how he accused them all of slacking off and being lazy. It's such a great scene. The power he holds mixed with his intimidating personality is so astounding, and blended with your wonderful description just makes it so much more enjoyable.

And of course, cliffhangers as always. I'd expect no less, but they always leave me wanting more just because there's always some kind of twist that leads easily into the next installment to continue the story.

SWB is one of the few outstanding fics that can be considered a story with a romance instead of a romance with a story. Sure, romance is included in this, but it doesn't make the story. It doesn't define everything there is. I enjoy reading about the politics and the social issues and the people in general. It makes it so much more likable to read a good plot and idea.

The only thing I have to ask is something capitalization-related.

'It's good to see you're all assembled,' her disembodied voice informed the crowd, 'We've got a lot of work to do…'

Shouldn't the 'w' in 'We've' be lower case? It's something I just recently noticed something in your writing, though probably because I beta for someone who does the same thing. Very minor proofreading mistake, but just something I wanted to point out.

Anyway, great job, Batty-O'Nee-san! Another brilliant chapter, just as I expected ;) Keep up the great work!

Author's Response: To be honest, I think you'll find that's a British thing, especially as 'It's good to see you're all assembled' and 'We've got a lot of work to do' are two separate sentences and the only reason that comma isn't a full stop is because of where I've inserted the non-spoken part. I mean, I'd need to look it up to be 100% certain, but I'm still like 98% sure that's correct to British punctuation standards.

Interestingly the old Austrian standards I was taught as a young child would have it as,
'It's good to see you're all assembled.' her disembodied voice informed the crowd: 'We've got a lot of work to do…'
and the Germans would have made it as something like,
,It's good to see you're all assembled.' her disembodied voice informed the crowd ,We've got a lot of work to do…' or <> her disembodied voice informed the crowd <>.
This was back before endless editions of the New German Writing system obviously, but basically I think my point is that these things vary with the nation concerned (although those are the only examples with which I am personally familiar). What people have always told me on the subject is that so long as you stay consistent to one method all the way through, it doesn't really matter how you do it. It just has to all look the same...

I think I have come to the conclusion that those people who love a good book love this story. Those people who just wanted some steamy Gaara romance get bored more easily. I guess I just can't please everybody... and I'm at a disadvantage as people aren't really expecting to be given a highly structured plot.

It doesn't help either that I use a lot of very subtle writing techniques, many of which are deliberately designed to alienate the reader from certain characters and that doesn't go down well with my short attention-spanned fanfic audience. Still I've learned many valuable lessons from doing this story and I think all of that is going to feed directly into anything I write later on. It's nice of you to say such lovely things, but to be honest I'm not sure even I (as the author of SWB) could set out to write a story like SWB.

The idea just appeared in my head one day and grew bigger and bigger until it was this fully-fleshed out world with a whole host of people living it in. For months and months on end I couldn't think of anything else every time I tried to write... and because of that there are so many little things that build into everything I write for it.

Take the old lady among the clan heads from this chapter for example. It so happens that this lady is in fact the head of the Iriai Clan (since the death of her husband), Ayame Iriai, who is also Naomi and Ren's grandmother (from her third son). I'm pretty much certain I will never directly reference that anywhere in this story, but it affected the way I wrote this installment, it's had an impact on things I wrote in the past and it'll certainly affect 8.a or b (which ends up carrying on from this scene) and probably other installments in the future. That said, I was actually surprised to see her here in person - I wasn't expecting her to ever make a personal appearance in this story - but in the end nobody else could have delivered that speak with quite the same meaning she did and, because I can see through all its layers, it's got a really heavy impact for me. There're parts of ongoing themes hidden there, you see...
Another named, but nameless, face you might be interested in would be the chubby clan head on the other guy's back, because I'm more and more certain that he's the head of your character's clan.