Based on early 50s' manga chapter and a certain possession of Bradley's.
14. Covered eyes
Things had gone to hell. What little security he'd had in the way of triply layered coded talk between his cultivated and closely guarded crop of subordinates and doubly acting friends had been decimated into a single diseased and crippled stalk, its survival threatened through its tie-in with the farmer. A weed now held it in its strangling grip, poised to suffocate the budding sapling, death resultant from any failed move on his part.
…Unless it could be timely snipped.
As it stood now, he was powerless to stop it. Some tilling was called for, some combing through the fields was necessary, some research desperately in need if his harvest was still to yield.
He was aware he was the weed in the weed's garden, aware that the nurturing fertilizer had turned out to be a slow herbicide when they had sprouted too far.
One cultivator had been better prepared.
The other had not seen far enough in advance.
Now the land would suffer.