"Calm down, calm down, Yorin. You too, Tsunade. Things aren't bad enough to start swinging axes at people just yet."
After that, Uchiha Yorin took Tsunade and headed to the Hokage building for a meeting.
This wasn't a spur-of-the-moment thing; they'd planned this meeting for a while.
The daimyo's recent malice toward Konoha was getting out of hand. They had to figure out what was going on, and how to fix it.
And so, in this meeting, Uchiha Yorin calmly proposed: kill the daimyo and put Tsunade on the throne as the new daimyo.
"Doesn't matter if the blood ties are remote. As long as we back her, we're covered on the military side. Whoever opposes it gets removed. We kill a batch of idiots who don't know what's good for them, and the problem disappears."
Yorin laid it out with a perfectly calm expression, nearly scaring the Third Hokage to death.
What really terrified Hiruzen was that when Yorin finished, not one other person in the room looked shocked. Even Minato just looked thoughtful. The Inuzuka lunatic, on the other hand, looked excited—about ready to applaud.
Seeing that, the Third couldn't help thinking: This is bad. Back then, only the Uchiha were crazy. Now that Uchiha Yorin's become Hokage's advisor, that Uchiha insanity is starting to infect the whole village.
Of course, to be fair, Hiruzen himself had barely kept it together.
When he first heard the daimyo had just swallowed that much of "his" money, his first reaction had also been rage and murderous intent. He'd seriously considered just offing the daimyo.
But on the way to the Hokage building, listening to the young hawks, the warmongers, and even the more conservative neutrals all fuming, all shouting about kicking the daimyo's head around like a ball… Hiruzen's mindset began to shift.
He thought: No. If everyone gets this radical, someone has to stay steady. If the whole village tips into extremism, Konoha's not far from destruction.
"Let's send someone to the daimyo's palace first and ask what's going on," Hiruzen said.
"What good would that do? The daimyo will just shrug and pretend he knows nothing," Uchiha Yorin replied coldly.
"Yeah, those bastards are useless at everything except passing the buck!"
"I say we just gather the troops, march on the capital, make Tsunade-sama daimyo, Yorin-sama chief councillor, Minato-sama shogun, and we all get ourselves a proper post. Beats rotting around here!"
Hearing this guy talk that wild, what stunned Hiruzen was that a whole chunk of the high-ranking ninja actually agreed out loud.
What comforted him, slightly, was that many of the centrists in the room frowned at that—obviously uncomfortable.
Just as Hiruzen was about to step in and object, Uchiha Yorin spoke:
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves. We're nowhere near prepared to replace the entire Fire Country government overnight.
Even if the military operation succeeded, we'd still have to rely heavily on the old noble bureaucrats to keep the bureaucracy running…"
A lot of people were thinking: And? So we keep them, then. This is what revolution is—grab the country, then sit on it. I've fought my whole life, why shouldn't I enjoy the spoils?
But after hearing Yorin, at least the Konoha One-Heart Club crowd who'd been exposed to "advanced thought" showed serious, considering expressions.
"So what should we do, Yorin-sama?" someone finally asked.
"Multiple fronts at once," Yorin's eyes flashed. "First, send envoys to the Fire Country daimyo to make our position clear.
Konoha can't quite do without them yet—but do they think they can do without Konoha? We can give them a bit more profit and shares from the Konoha Group, but we also need to show some teeth. They can't be allowed to think we're easy to bully.
Second, send envoys to the other great villages, get them to back our stance. Form a united front.
Third, we accelerate talent-pipeline building. This year's education budget is going up. Again.
Konoha Technical Institute, Konoha Institute of Technology and Management, Konoha School of Economics and Finance, Konoha Higher Academy, Konoha University—this entire education system needs to be built out fast.
No equipment? We buy it. No teachers? We hire them. Can't hire them? Then we kidnap them and bring them here."
"Um…"
Hearing all this, the Third still wasn't totally at ease. He raised his hand and asked:
"Even if… everything you're saying makes sense… do we really have enough qualified students to fill all those schools?"
Up to now, Hiruzen hadn't even wanted that many schools.
The traditional ninja mindset was: We're a ninja village. We train ninja. If a kid doesn't have chakra talent and can't mold chakra, what's the point of sending him to school? Learn advanced math for what?
Better to find a shop and be an apprentice. Learn ramen or blacksmithing—something that fills your stomach.
But now, with capitalism blossoming in Konoha, everyone had started to realize schools were pretty great.
Especially STEM.
And STEM.
Students coming out of tech schools were not the same as old-school apprentices.
Arts majors weren't useless either—ideas had to spread. This was an era of upheaval, not a stable era.
Yorin needed propaganda machines running nonstop, to get people mentally ready for a unified ninja world and a constitutional monarchy ninja empire.
Still, there really weren't enough students.
And even if there were, they'd be slow to bear fruit.
Uchiha Yorin: "If Konoha doesn't have enough people, then we recruit from outside. As the richest, most prosperous place in the world, I'm sure plenty of people want to become Konoha residents.
We can give them work visas, even permanent residency. Let them contribute to Konoha's prosperity. And besides that…"
"Besides that?"
"Besides that, it's time to dust off the Uzushiogakure Restoration Plan," Yorin said calmly. "A single village's land and resources can't support our ambitions anymore.
But if we suddenly declare we're building a whole new city, it'll spook everyone.
So proposing to restore Uzushiogakure and the Land of Whirlpools is the perfect play.
Kushina-sama," he turned to look at her, "looks like you might beat Tsunade to being this era's first female daimyo."
Kushina's eyes lit up, and a huge grin spread across her face.
"Well, sorry about that then, hehe…"
Thanks to Yorin constantly talking it up, Uzumaki Kushina had gotten very into the idea of restoring Whirlpool, becoming a daimyo, being "Whirlpool Kage," all of it. Hearing him say it out loud, she couldn't help but laugh happily.
"Then that's settled," Yorin said, wrapping things up and finally turning to Minato.
"Fourth, you okay with that?"
Minato actually wanted to say: You're asking me after you've already decided? Am I the Hokage or are you? But in the end, he just nodded and said, "What Yorin says is what I say."
"So that's that."
"But… will those bastards really back off?" someone couldn't help asking. "Once nobles smell money, they're like sharks in blood.
Even if we patch things up with the daimyo and he orders them to stop, will they really listen?"
"I've thought about that too. They probably won't," Yorin replied evenly.
"That's the tricky part. So—imagine this. What if, right now, a terrifying, fanatical, so-called 'friend of the poor' rebel organization shows up and cleans out a few of those parasites?
The nobles that remain would quickly understand they can't do without Konoha's protection. Without us, they won't just stop making money—their lives won't be safe.
I think once they understand that, they'll stop messing with Konoha's business."
Everyone in the room exchanged looks and stayed silent.
Even the dumbest lord wouldn't be that dumb, right?
There's no way someone would still be obsessed with squeezing money when rebels are literally at their doorstep… right?
And anyway, is there really such a conveniently placed organization?
It was precisely at that moment, far away in the Land of Water, that Uzumaki Nagato slowly opened his eyes.
Before him unfolded the scene of local nobles bullying commoners, oppressing villages, and trying to force extra taxes from the Konoha–Kirigakure joint trading company—inciting pure fury among the people.
"The world has been stained again."
Nagato slowly raised his hand.
"Shinra Tensei."