"The innately evil Uchiha brat is still too young. Right now the priority should be building a shinobi village, training more shinobi, taking more missions. Truly dereliction of duty."
Senju Tobirama sat in his chair paging through the latest intelligence on Akatsuki Village, the corners of his mouth lifting into a smile.
His traditional Warring States war-thinker's mind could not grasp Uchiha Makoto's current behavior. He himself was not good at business and instinctively disliked it.
Most importantly, the fresh lesson lay before his eyes.
That damned tulip venture had not only made the village lose a huge sum for no reason, it had also saddled the village with a pot of blame.
Was that lesson not harsh enough?
Shinobi should do what shinobi are meant to do.
"Only an innately evil Uchiha would commit such heresy. Nobles are already growing displeased with Uchiha Makoto. Give it time and Konoha's mission load will inevitably increase."
"Even if we agreed to a thirty–seventy split with Akatsuki, so what? The clients are naming Konoha to execute the jobs."
Tobirama was delighted at the thought.
In his shrewd eyes a light flashed as if he could already see through the fog of time. He had sharply sensed that the Land of Fire's nobles were turning hard against Akatsuki. Clumsy Uchiha Makoto.
After peeking over the Akatsuki intel, Tobirama sorted it and locked it in his cabinet.
Ever since being mistaken for a plagiarist,
this had become his daily habit.
Then
he began a day's routine work. He opened the stacks on his desk and, as usual, flipped to the last line and read from the bottom up. It was a basic quality a qualified Hokage should have, letting him process everything quickly.
"Another clan faking expenses."
"This one is faking too."
"Denied."
"Denied."
He wrote a few Denieds, then rubbed his brow. These shinobi clans could invent any pretext to cheat a budget.
The cause of this phenomenon
was his big brother.
That big brother of his.
Utterly no sense of secrecy.
In general, budgets are top secret. Uchiha Makoto in Akatsuki never published their finances, so Akatsuki's clans only knew their Lord Lightshadow was rich and the coffers were very full.
How much, they had no idea.
But as soon as Senju Hashirama came back he blabbed everywhere that they had reaped a bumper haul in the Land of Fire. Whatever the clans asked, he answered honestly. He let slip that they had brought back ten billion ryō.
That was a huge sum.
After that, Konoha's clans went mad.
But every last ryō of that ten billion had to be used properly. Good steel must go to the blade. For example, his own research experiments could barely get a little.
"Little brother, what a coincidence. You're in the office too."
A furtive head poked in at the door. Hearing the voice, Tobirama knew exactly who it was.
"Big brother, truly a coincidence. I recall you have not shown up here for three straight days. If you stayed away any longer, I might forget you are Hokage."
Tobirama looked up and saw a sneaky, guilty-faced Senju Hashirama. He put on a deadpan and mocked his big brother.
"Hahaha, sorry, sorry."
"That's why you're here. You know I've never been good at this sort of thing. When I was clan head, you handled many clan affairs."
Hashirama scratched his head, unbothered by Tobirama's barbs. He knew himself. Since he was not good at it, he might as well leave it to his younger brother and free up time to have fun with Madara. Oh, almost forgot, and Mito.
"Say it, big brother. What did you come for this time."
"My time is very busy."
Tobirama's cold face told Hashirama to get to the point. His time was precious and there was a mountain of documents only he would handle.
His instincts also told him
this visit would not be good.
"I want to apply for funds."
"Impossible."
"Big brother, I will absolutely not let you squander precious funds gambling. That will not happen."
At the mere words apply for funds, he refused on reflex.
His big brother was an old gambler.
He not only lost all the pocket money his sister-in-law gave him, he loved to borrow from Tobirama and never paid it back, and now he dared set his sights on Konoha's budget.
"Tobirama, you misunderstand me."
"How could I gamble with Konoha's funds. At most I'd use my pocket money, and yours."
"My pocket money is out of the question."
"This time I'm applying for funds for a proper use, for all of Konoha."
Hashirama spoke with solemn conviction, and the look on his face shocked Tobirama. His usually idle big brother was actually doing something proper.
Strange. Far too strange.
Could it be that innately evil Uchiha Madara, trying to use his naive brother to cheat Konoha's funds.
Possible. Very possible.
Other clans were eyeing the ten billion, and the Uchiha were no exception. They wanted subsidies for the clan, and Tobirama refused outright.
He had not spared the Senju either. Every unreasonable request was rejected. Business was business. That was his shadow-Hokage principle.
Even his own research
came from scrimping and saving his budget, one bit at a time.
Not a single serious matter could be delayed.
"Big brother, if the Uchiha are egging you on from behind to scam funds, you had better tell me now. You cannot fool me."
Tobirama grew stern. He felt a wave of weariness. He had to guard against the Uchiha and against his own brother doing something foolish behind his back.
"Of course not."
"Tobirama, this is entirely my own idea."
Hashirama vowed with conviction.
He was Hokage after all and had to contribute to Konoha. He pulled two books from his pocket. One cover read New Shinobi, the other Romance of the Warring States.
"What is this."
"Sorry, grabbed an extra. Romance of the Warring States is the novel Madara and I have been reading lately. Pity the author updates too slowly, only one chapter a day. I wish for three a day."
"Dereliction of duty," Tobirama said, rolling his eyes.
"Found it. This article."
Hashirama ignored him, opened New Shinobi, and found the latest short story.
The story was titled The Kindness One Ought to Have When Born in Akatsuki Village.
"On street corners across Akatsuki Village, no one knows when old wooden boxes appeared, one of them under the eaves of the ninja tools shop. The boxes were not locked. On each lid, eight characters were painted in red: 'Take if in need, give back if you have extra.' Inside, velvet lined the bottom and several tens of thousands of ryō lay scattered."
"A young genin just back from a D-rank hobbled past, his forehead protector crooked at his temple. He had only enough money for bandages. He paused at the box and took two thousand ryō, the fee to see a medical shinobi. When his fingertips brushed the velvet, he touched the kunai at his waist and murmured to himself, 'I'll bring it back after I finish the next mission.'"
"The ramen-stall uncle passed by after closing, glanced at the box, and counted out three hundred ryō into it. The onigiri girl beside him rose on tiptoe and set a few hundred ryō she had earned for the day on the velvet. Petals drifted down and landed on the coins like pinning a brooch to the box."
"Three days later, the injured genin returned. The cut at his temple had healed and his protector was tied neat and straight. He put three thousand ryō into the box, a thousand more than he had borrowed. On the flagstone beside the box, someone had carved a line of small characters: 'Borrowed two thousand yesterday, repaid three thousand today. Thank you for the helping hand.'"
"A jōnin on patrol watched from the dark. An orphaned trainee had twisted an ankle and taken money for medicine. Well-off clan members who passed always tossed in a coin, muttering 'What a hassle,' yet their steps paused for half a beat."
"The oden granny squatted by the box feeding charcoal to the brazier, watching the money grow. Sometimes a gem-inlaid coin pouch appeared, placed there by some jōnin who had come quietly. She added a handful of radish to the pot and muttered, 'This box is warmer than the soup. It holds the village's warmth.'"
"A month later, the box was repainted and the red letters shone brighter. At the bottom lay a note from the injured genin: 'A forehead protector will get dirty, but the light inside won't.' Beside it a new line had been added, like Lord Lightshadow's handwriting: 'A hassle is a hassle, but we cannot let the light go out.'"
"What a village of tacit accord and ardor, carrying the Will of Light."
"An unknown daimyō learned that it had all been arranged by Lord Lightshadow. The first boxes and the money were placed at his order. He tapped his attendant's shoulder. 'See that? This is Akatsuki's foundation. It isn't how fearsome the jutsu are. It's that when someone falls, someone quietly slides over a stepping stone, and when he stands again, he wipes the stone clean and leaves it for the next.'"
"I cannot help but reflect. If the shinobi world all learned from Akatsuki's boxes, hatred would have long simmered into hot soup. After all, even the coldest night cannot outlast a whole village holding each other up."
"If other shinobi villages cannot do this, it is likely because they still retain the Warring States shinobi's bad roots."
Under Hashirama's shining gaze, Tobirama spent a few minutes reading the whole piece. When he finished, he was shaken, as if the folds of his cerebral cortex had been smoothed.
Hashirama felt it too. Though he had read it several times, he was still moved, the corners of his eyes growing damp.
He seemed to see the light of the shinobi world. This was the future he had always pursued, the image of a village he hoped for.
People could understand one another and help one another, making Konoha into a home everyone cherished.
Konoha had to learn from Akatsuki's advanced experience and grow step by step.
He had to act quickly.
"I want to apply for two million ryō. I have the plan ready. Place fifty wooden boxes on Konoha's street corners, putting forty thousand ryō in each. This is the first step to building a friendly, mutual-aid atmosphere in Konoha and a great step for Konoha's future."
"Two million ryō."
"Big brother, do you know that is the reward for two S-rank missions."
Tobirama frowned. He admitted the article was good, but he told him plainly
there was an unspeakable strangeness throughout.
More importantly,
Konoha's populace needed improving. The village was a mixed crowd, not only clan shinobi but relocated civilians, a small number of merchants, and others. As long as those boxes held money, in a single night the two million would likely be gone.
Even if Konoha's coffers were fairly full now, such precious funds could not be squandered.
Better to turn them into his research budget.
"Big brother, I think your idea is unsound."
"If all that money vanishes overnight, what then."
Tobirama shook his head, finding the idea absurd,
yet he did not reject him outright.
"That is exactly Konoha's bad roots."
Hashirama spoke in pain. He had anticipated that possibility, and it was precisely what proved Konoha's bad roots and the necessity of his plan.
Those roots had to be corrected.
If two million disappeared, then put in another two million, and keep up education and publicity. One day those bad roots would disappear entirely.
Konoha would become the village he longed for.
You cannot stop
because there is difficulty ahead.
Hashirama spoke righteously. He would do this, and he would make it succeed. However many obstacles lay ahead, nothing could stop him.
All of it was for Konoha.
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