"Danzo, what do we do now?"
"Weren't the recent big drops just pullbacks—'backing up to pick up passengers'?"
"Why has this kept happening for days?"
Bloodshot-eyed and unshaven, Sarutobi Hiruzen hadn't slept in a day or two. Panic gnawed at him as he pressed Shimura Danzo for answers.
But Danzo was no better off. He also hadn't slept, mumbling, "How could this be… It shouldn't be like this… By rights it should bounce back again."
"Danzo, say something!"
Hiruzen shoved the blank-faced Danzo once more. They had bought a mountain of high-priced tulip contracts—basically catching the very top—and prices had fallen back to where they were two weeks ago. Their earlier gains had been wiped out.
And they had sunk another five hundred million ryō on top.
Prices were still drifting down in wavering steps. Every little rebound was just Uchiha Makoto's trap—pumping to harvest them again: today's low becoming tomorrow's high. According to plan, this cycle could last a month or two, dangling hope each time and cutting fresh "chives" with every swing.
Danzo was one of the victims. Each flicker of hope set his imagination racing, so he stopped Hiruzen from "getting off" a couple days ago. Hiruzen, though, was in a full panic. The losses were real. If prices didn't rise again to cover the hole, they were finished.
"Quit buzzing!"
"Hiruzen, it's come to this—what do you expect me to do?"
"Are we supposed to dump everything and crawl back to Lord Tobirama with a five-hundred-million-ryō loss?"
Danzo's temper flared. Hiruzen was a fly in his ear, driving him mad. He was already terrified; Hiruzen piling on made it worse.
When you're making money it's smiles; when you're losing—it's rage.
If only he'd never touched tulips.
Regret gnawed at him, along with raw fear. He was truly scared now and had no idea how to end this.
The swagger from the winning days felt like a dream. Waking from it, they were trapped in a nightmare. Five hundred million ryō—enough to buy their lives dozens of times.
Hiruzen: "Then what do we do now?"
"I don't know."
Danzo shook his head. He felt like dying.
What could he know? Aside from praying for a miracle, nothing would help.
But miracles weren't coming. As the two of them scurried like ants on a hot pan, their fathers arrived.
Not long before, flushed with success, Hiruzen and Danzo had written to Sarutobi Sasuke and Shimura Shima, boasting that everything in the Land of Fire was going smoothly and that they were preparing a huge surprise.
Their fathers assumed the procurement was going well. The clan relocation was nearly done, but there'd been no word from the boys, and the village still had to send people to receive the supplies. With no choice, Sarutobi Sasuke and Shimura Shima came to check in person.
Confronted by their fathers suddenly arriving in the capital of the Land of Fire, Hiruzen and Danzo were at a total loss. They had neither the purchased goods nor the funds.
Under a barrage of questions, they confessed everything.
"This is the 'surprise' you wrote about?"
"Explain to me what 'surprise' means!"
"The hell do you mean, 'surprise'!"
Sarutobi Sasuke and Shimura Shima nearly went mad. They had never imagined their proud, promising sons would pull a stunt this huge.
Five hundred million ryō.
Even for clans as large as theirs, scraping together that much took time—and might cost lives on missions. These two wastrels had burned it all on a stack of worthless paper contracts. Even the tulips themselves were just pretty flowers in their eyes.
As you'd expect, in a fury they beat Hiruzen and Danzo soundly, then urgently liquidated every tulip contract in their names. In the end, only a bit over two hundred million ryō remained, plus a small amount of supplies.
"Back we go. If Lord Tobirama wants to beat you or kill you, so be it."
After venting their rage, the fathers still had to clean up after their unlucky sons. As fathers, they couldn't truly harm them— even a tiger won't eat its cubs.
Running was impossible. With the Sarutobi and Shimura clans moving to Konoha, only Senju Tobirama could decide their fate. Hopefully he would spare their lives.
So Hiruzen and Danzo, trembling, returned to Konoha and reported to Senju Tobirama, who was in his office, working through paperwork.
Tobirama was in high spirits.
Konoha could be described as brimming with vitality. The Hyūga; the Ino–Shika–Chō trio; and many other clans, large and small, were coming to join.
Each would be a potential supporter. As the power behind the scenes, he could gradually take the village firmly in hand and form a ring to contain the Uchiha.
The future looked bright.
He thought so—and then met Hiruzen and Danzo. The village was counting on supplies from the Land of Fire as an emergency measure.
Only for the pair to club him with a hammer blow. Learning that five hundred million ryō had vanished, and that the lab equipment he'd planned to buy was gone with it, Tobirama exploded in his office:
"Idiots!"
"Two museum-grade idiots!"
"I sent you to the Land of Fire to procure supplies—not to blow the money on reckless schemes!"
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