Then the next day.
In the hospital room.
Tsunade lifted her head and stared at the ceiling that was both familiar and strangely new, her mood a little complicated.
It was "familiar yet new" mainly because the angle was different.
She'd always looked at this ceiling as a doctor standing beside the bed. This time, she was the one lying in it.
"I remember last night…"
She blanked out for a second, recalled what happened, and her mood got even more tangled.
It had taken her so much courage, and she still lost that miserably.
Just think about it: she, the main wife, had to fight a mini ninja world war against a bunch of side-chick hussies over a man. She finally scraped out a win, went to see that heartless Yorin, and what did she see? Him and that nun with glasses playing cards—full-blown royal straight flush.
Of course she couldn't take that hit. She blacked out on the spot, which scared Yorin half to death.
If Tsunade actually died for such a moronic reason, the only solution would be to beat the crap out of Suna and force them to hand over the One's Own Life Reincarnation technique.
As for sacrifices… that was the easy part. There were defectors everywhere in the ninja world. You just cast a Sharingan on one, hypnotize them into using One's Own Life Reincarnation, and done.
In Yorin's eyes, One's Own Life Reincarnation was ridiculously overpowered.
Sure, in pure effect it isn't quite on par with the legendary Samsara of Heavenly Life. But the entry requirement for Samsara is insane. How many pairs of Rinnegan are there in the world?
Compared to that, One's Own Life Reincarnation's threshold was downright friendly. Granny Chiyo really was a once-in-a-century genius.
Too bad this time, during the Three-Tails incident, things didn't play out like the original Nine-Tails attack. If only some old woman in the Sarutobi household had croaked on schedule, Yorin could've married Hiruzen off to Chiyo as well, and then the two of them together would be truly unstoppable. A match made in… something.
…
While he was thinking all that, Uchiha Yorin was peeling an apple with his Lightning-Fire sword, carving it into a rabbit and handing it to Tsunade.
"You're about to be a lady daimyo someday. How can you be this careless? You have to take care of your body. I'm still waiting for you to give me six kids."
"I'm not a pig, what six kids…"
Hearing that, Tsunade's face burned. At her age, just dating already felt embarrassing enough. Getting married and having kids on top of that—wouldn't people laugh themselves to death?
But… the idea of having kids did feel kind of… nice.
No, wait, something was off. He almost smooth-talked her right into it.
Tsunade snapped back to her senses, her voice rising. "Why was it the glasses nun?!"
Uchiha Yorin: "?"
"That's your complaint here?" He poked another apple bunny with a toothpick and held it up to her lips. "I thought you'd be asking 'How the hell did I become a daimyo?'"
"Yeah, actually—how did I end up a daimyo?"
Tsunade mumbled while chewing the apple rabbit.
Maybe it was just psychological, but it tasted better than usual.
"So here's the thing. I remember your mother was a princess of the Land of Fire, right? Which makes you the current daimyo's cousin."
Yorin speared another apple rabbit and lifted it toward her while he asked.
"Yeah, but I don't care about that kind of thing at all," Tsunade said, rolling her eyes.
If she were a transmigrated female lead from some Webnovel story, she'd be fascinated by status, etiquette, noble games, itching to A-jump into court intrigue mode.
But Tsunade wasn't that type. She liked being a ninja. After she grew disillusioned with that, she liked being a doctor and saving people. After the village thoroughly disappointed her, she just stuck to the gambling tables. She'd never once thought of marrying into nobility and playing those twisted aristocrat games, much less becoming some "lady daimyo."
"So what the hell is going on? Why am I suddenly the one being shoved onto the daimyo throne?"
She glared at Yorin.
Uchiha Yorin: "Relax, it's just a figurehead." He said it breezily.
"Once I take down the current daimyo, you'll climb up, become Tsunade the First, and turn Fire Country into a constitutional monarchy.
You won't have to care about day-to-day politics. Your main job will be using the royal brand to print money—Yashilan'dai, Louis Vuitton, Harry Potter, all that. We'll happily fleece those pretentious petit-bourgeois. I guarantee you can earn a Las Vegas–class mega-casino per year."
"What are you even talking about?" It all sounded impressive, but Tsunade didn't understand a word, it was just white noise.
She snapped, "So seriously, what's actually going on?"
As much as she still wanted to dig into the glasses-nun issue, she knew how to prioritize. Sitting cross-legged on the bed, she focused on Yorin.
Uchiha Yorin: "The daimyo, of course."
He wasn't interested in playing mysterious in front of her. He laid it all out:
"Konoha's been doing great lately. And because of that, the daimyo wants to 'balance' us a bit."
Tsunade snorted at that idea. Balance her ass. What gave that useless daimyo the right to "balance" Konoha? Didn't he know his country was only this prosperous because of Konoha?
Yorin: "It's about the economy."
Annoyed as he was, Yorin still explained everything point by point.
As everyone knows, when the state is strong and wants to screw you, your business environment can tank fast.
Seeing Konoha about to unify the ninja world, the daimyo of Fire panicked. He hated himself for not striking earlier.
But after turning it over in his mind—how, exactly, could he strike now?
Military, politics, diplomacy…
Going down the list, the only practical lever left was economic.
In the old days, if a daimyo wanted to mess with a village, it was easy: slash their budget and the hidden village would cough blood. Follow that with a "mission quota reduction," and even the toughest Kage would end up on his knees—like Suna's situation with the Wind Daimyo.
But now? That didn't work on Konoha anymore.
Because Konoha's logistics network was already taking shape.
As that network expanded, Konoha's broader economy grew with it.
Whether it was the delivery service that grew from that network, or the gas stations, service stops, restaurants, and inns bundled along the routes—everything created jobs, and all of them were steady, recession-proof gigs.
At the same time, caravans of merchants joined Konoha's economic web, their businesses tied to Konoha's logistics system.
Because if you're in physical goods, you simply cannot avoid transportation.
With a legion of magnates and rising capital backing Konoha, plus the massive financial oxygen from Konoha Transport Company, Konoha frankly no longer needed the daimyo's military budget. They barely cared about regular ninja missions anymore.
The Fire Daimyo raged: "See? This is what you get when the army does business!"
…
Tsunade: "So we can basically ignore the Fire Daimyo now… No, not completely, I guess. We're technically still part of the Land of Fire, right?
We Konoha ninja… are citizens of Fire Country too… I think?"
As her thoughts tangled, Tsunade felt like her head hurt. It was like she was on the verge of… gaining intelligence.
Yorin: "Exactly. The two simplest economic levers won't work anymore. But there's still a third: administrative pressure."
As he spoke, he handed her a stack of documents.
"…What's this…" Tsunade wanted to refuse, but grumbled and took them. After a quick glance, she exploded:
"MY MONEY!"
They were stacks of government notices from all over Fire Country, fining Konoha's warehouses and transport depots.
For "noncompliant storage," "fire safety hazards," "irregular licensing procedures"—you name it, they found it.
When your transport network spans the entire country and is even reaching into the other great nations, the number of sites equals the number of chances to tax and leech.
The local nobility had been drooling for ages.
Yes, Yorin and Konoha had promised them a fair cut. But for nobles, "enough" is not a concept. They only ever want more.
Before, they'd at least been wary of Konoha's power, a little too scared to go all-out.
But now? The daimyo had given them a "signal."
"The sky won't fall.
We're aristocrats. As if shinobi would dare touch us."
Piles of silver, handed to ninja? That was the real outrage.
…
"Recently, site inspections and fines on our warehouses have skyrocketed. Our convoys are being hassled constantly.
Keep this up and we can forget expansion—we won't even be able to maintain current size. Then it's losses, collapse, maybe even massive debt.
That's the terror of politics. With one administrative decision, the logistics network we built with so much effort can be pushed to collapse."
"I get it now."
Looking at the terrifying numbers, Tsunade finally understood.
Those rows of figures—just a few of them—were enough to justify Konoha starting another ninja war. And this was only the beginning; there would only be more.
Like anyone freshly robbed, she almost shouted, "That's my money!" at the top of her lungs.
A daimyo like that wasn't just incompetent—he was dangerous. He had to be dealt with.
Just as Yorin said: you take him out, you take his place, set things right, and become the first queen-daimyo of Fire Country.
Tsunade the First.
~~~
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