"Originally, the Land of Waves was just a poor little country with no resources to speak of—nothing that would draw the envy of other nations. Life here was hard, but the people managed to be self-sufficient. Then Gatō arrived, and everything changed."
Tazuna's voice was heavy, and his hands clenched involuntarily at the mention of Gatō's name. To him, the man was the very definition of an irredeemable villain—one who deserved no forgiveness of any kind.
"I see. An isolated region that no other power bothers to covet—yes, that's exactly the kind of territory most vulnerable to opportunistic predators."
Seated at the stern of the boat, Kakashi nodded. Gatō was clearly the type who had already accumulated more money than he could spend, and once a person reached that point, they inevitably began to feel deficient in other areas. Perhaps they lacked beautiful women, or power, or even longevity.
Gatō's ambitions evidently ran a notch higher than the usual fare—what he believed he lacked was territory. This world's rigid class hierarchy and emphasis on hereditary succession meant that a noble family's legacy must always pass to noble heirs. A daimyō, no matter how incompetent, would never be overthrown by commoners. The only people who toppled aristocrats were other aristocrats.
So a man like Gatō—wealthy, yes, but conspicuously lacking in pedigree or lineage—had very few options for acquiring a domain he could rule however he pleased. He could pledge allegiance to existing nobility, but the daimyō of the major nations were either greedy fools who'd bleed him dry or shrewd operators who'd keep him on a tight leash. Worst case, some powerful clan or consort faction within the country would drag him into their political intrigues, and a merchant with no ability to protect himself probably wouldn't even know how he'd died.
Under those circumstances, setting his sights on the Land of Waves—a nation with neither powerful clans nor meaningful diplomatic ties—was the natural choice. And judging by his conduct since arriving, the stumpy little merchant had very much been treating himself as the local emperor, indulging every petty desire for dominion.
Whether it was bribing the local daimyō into turning a blind eye, executing civilian ringleaders to consolidate power, or aggressively recruiting ronin and missing-nin to bolster his forces—all of it showed the man wasn't completely stupid. At minimum, the fact that he'd managed to recruit someone like Zabuza, a former member of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist, proved he didn't penny-pinch when it came to hiring muscle.
Sitting at the bow, Hinata lowered her head in thought. The pale-eyed girl's fingers trailed slowly through the water along the gunwale. Having now seen the country with her own eyes and heard Tazuna's account—far more detailed than anything the original story had provided—she had finally pieced together the full picture of how this situation had come about.
There was no question: the Land of Waves was geographically barren, but its location was superb. Like a corner so remote it was almost untouchable—a corner that could never produce anything legitimate, but for the products of darkness, it was the perfect incubator.
According to Tazuna, Gatō was a black-market merchant who trafficked in smuggled arms, drugs, and every category of contraband. He had turned the Land of Waves into both a stash house for his goods and his personal playground. The problem was that while the fool might qualify as a passable crook, he was clearly an incompetent ruler—completely ignorant of the most fundamental principle: sharing the spoils.
Not only had he harbored samurai and ronin while turning a blind eye to their terrorizing of the locals, he'd cut off the Land of Waves' external transportation routes entirely, driving the civilian population to the brink of extinction.
From what Hinata had gathered, the people of this world were remarkably docile by nature. Unless pushed to a point where survival itself became impossible, no one would rise up in rebellion.
Strip away all the vapid talk of "justice" and "righteousness," and the underlying truth was simple:
Gatō had bribed the daimyō of the Land of Waves into tacitly permitting him to do as he pleased. Playing local emperor, he had immediately severed all external transportation and trade to protect his smuggling operations from outside interference, while simultaneously importing large numbers of missing-nin and ronin to reinforce his grip on power.
But at the same time, Gatō treated the civilian population as entirely expendable. Cutting off transportation had eliminated the livelihoods of countless people, and given the Land of Waves' barren geography, the loss of external trade meant not just unemployment but a growing shortage of food itself. When it became clear that continuing down this path meant death, Tazuna and his fellow citizens had no choice but to push back—though even their resistance was remarkably timid. They hadn't dared confront Gatō head-on. Instead, they'd taken the most roundabout approach imaginable: building a bridge that Gatō couldn't sever, restoring the Land of Waves' external transportation, and calling it a day.
When Gatō learned of the bridge construction, he flew into a rage—interpreting it as a direct challenge to his authority. And with good reason: a completed bridge would dramatically increase accessibility to the Land of Waves, which was terrible news for a smuggler. Setting aside everything else, the criminal underworld's turf wars and hostile takeovers were vicious. Restored transportation meant Gatō would face constant raids and incursions from rival merchants, forcing him to pour money into security—an intolerable burden for a man accustomed to maximizing margins and minimizing costs.
So it was safe to say that on Gatō's personal stat sheet, Finance and Ambition were both at eight or above, while Governance and Politics were functionally at zero.
The consequences of that kind of lopsided build were severe. A merchant who didn't understand the principle of shared prosperity could never truly establish a lasting foothold. Sure, monopolizing every income stream looked like maximum profit extraction on paper, but it was a shortsighted blunder that sacrificed all future development potential.
In Hinata's eyes, Gatō was at best someone who knew how to grab money—not a real merchant.
If Hinata had wanted to, she could easily have staffed every key position in the production crew with her own loyalists—replacing Shikamaru's accounting role, Shino's advisory position, Choji's logistics directorship, and so on with people who answered to her and her alone. That would have given her absolute control over the crew's decision-making and let her dictate compensation with impunity.
After all, for kids like Naruto who were still attending the Academy at the time, forget a hundred thousand ryō per month—even a few thousand would have been more than enough to keep them happy.
Under that arrangement, Hinata could have pocketed upwards of eighty percent of every haul. On paper, that was maximum profit extraction.
But what would the consequences have been?
First, the Hinata Group would never have achieved its current standing or shadow influence within the Hidden Leaf. Worse, it would have put Danzō, Homura, and the rest of the village elders on high alert. As an heir of the Hyūga clan, she was inherently a target for heightened scrutiny. If the Hinata Group's inner circle were composed entirely of her personal loyalists with no involvement from other clan members, Danzō and his allies would never have permitted the organization to touch Konoha's economic infrastructure. Even if the Third Hokage chose not to actively suppress her, he would have categorically refused to approve the establishment of something as significant as the Konoha Publishing Factory.
So Hinata had done the opposite. She'd placed Shikamaru, Shino, Choji, Ino, and other clan heirs into leadership roles across the crew's key departments. In the early days, she'd even gone so far as to distribute over eighty percent of revenue as lavish salaries and compensation. This carried the whiff of bribery, certainly—but it was enough to make clan heads like Shikaku and Choza understand that Hinata valued and respected their families. As the eldest daughter of the Hyūga main house, she had shown no trace of looking down on their children. If anything, she had demonstrated remarkable trust in Shikamaru and the others.
Under those circumstances, even knowing full well that Hinata intended to use their children, fathers like Shikaku saw no reason to object. In terms of status, Hinata was their equal. In terms of generosity, she offered both money and authority. From a career-development perspective, the girl clearly knew how to make money—following her at least guaranteed financial security.
So since Shikamaru and the rest were destined to serve as subordinates to someone when they grew up, and since that was inevitable, there was no reason to refuse an epic-quality leader who'd shown up on their doorstep.
With the fathers raising no objections, Shikamaru and the others naturally had no reason to refuse either. Ino and Sakura wanted better clothes and cosmetics. Choji wanted more snacks. Shikamaru and Shino didn't spend much, but precisely because they were clever, they understood the importance of building savings.
And once Shikamaru and the rest had put down roots within the Hinata Group, it meant the organization was no longer an exclusively Hyūga operation. Targeting it would now entangle the Hyūga, Nara, Akimichi, Yamanaka, and Aburame clans simultaneously. While Konoha had plenty of clans, those five were unquestionably among the most prominent.
The Hyūga needed no introduction. As for the Ino-Shika-Cho trio—the Nara clan had long served as senior military strategists, and their family had for generations been responsible for cultivating rare medicinal herbs for the village. The Yamanaka were renowned for their sensory and mind-control ninjutsu, maintaining both the village's detection barrier and the high-level intelligence extraction operations at the Torture and Interrogation Division.
The Akimichi clan's contributions were less emphasized in canon, but one glance at the Second Hokage's handpicked students—which included an Akimichi—told you everything about the clan's influence. Even treated as expendable shock troops, a comrade who could pop a Chilli Pill at a critical moment and instantly multiply their combat power a hundredfold was extraordinarily valuable.
And the Aburame clan spoke for itself. The mere fact that Danzō's personal guard included Torune Aburame was proof enough of the clan's formidable capabilities.
So now, forget Danzō—even the Third Hokage would think twice before moving against the Hinata Group. This wasn't a matter of targeting a single clan; it involved members from nearly every clan that held critical roles within the village. It was the very definition of pulling one thread and unraveling the whole tapestry.
On top of that, the Hinata Group had never done a single thing to Konoha's detriment since its inception. Danzō could rack his brain until his ears bled and still wouldn't find a single exploitable misstep.
The only potential leverage—the Nine-Tails jinchūriki and the last surviving Uchiha—fell apart on closer inspection. Neither held any substantive role within the organization. Naruto was the leading lady, sure, but that made him an actor and nothing more. Sasuke was the leading man and had provided real estate, but beyond that held no position with any influence over the group's direction.
Setting aside the fact that their personalities were genuinely unsuited for leadership roles, the optics were clear: these two "dangerous elements" were simply employees. They had no access to core operations and therefore no capacity to use the Hinata Group against the village.
On the financial side, Hinata had been unfailingly generous—splitting revenue with the other clans after every project, never hoarding. When the Konoha Publishing Factory was established, she had unhesitatingly ceded the title of factory director to Asuma and retained only a ten-percent equity stake for herself. In one stroke, she had pulled the Sarutobi clan into the Hinata Group's power structure—a development the Sarutobi were more than happy to embrace. After all, not every clan member was cut out for the shinobi life. There were retired veterans, those disabled in the line of duty, those who simply needed stable work. And once the factory opened, it provided employment to ordinary Konoha civilians as well, earning their gratitude rather than resentment.
The Third, for all his faults, was a reasonably fair-minded leader. He wouldn't arbitrarily slot unqualified relatives into critical positions, which meant the Sarutobi clan inevitably had plenty of idle members sitting at home.
One look at the factory's senior leadership—seventy percent of whom were Sarutobi clansmen—made the scale of their windfall obvious.
The equity breakdown of the entire factory looked like this: Hyūga clan, ten percent. Uchiha clan, ten percent. The four families of Ino-Shika-Cho plus Aburame, twenty percent combined. Naruto and Sakura each held five percent individually. Kiba, who joined later, had been given five percent as well. Of the remaining forty-five percent, the Sarutobi clan had taken fifteen outright, and the final thirty was split among non-clan investors like Kakashi and others.
This was the real reason the Hinata Group had grown so rapidly within Konoha without provoking backlash or suppression. If you wanted to oppose it, you'd need a reason—and there wasn't one.
The lion's share of profits went to the Third Hokage's own Sarutobi clan. Every major clan had its own stake. If you still had complaints, your beef wasn't with the Hinata Group—it was with the Third Hokage himself.
The lion's share of authority likewise rested with the Sarutobi and the other clans. Apart from Hinata as its leader, there wasn't a single other Hyūga anywhere in the organization's hierarchy. If you wanted to find fault with that, you'd need to demonstrate you could do the job better than Hinata—and good luck with that.
Hinata had made the deliberate decision to bar every other Hyūga from the group's power structure. She had assigned half of her personal equity stake to her younger sister Hanabi—effectively letting the Hyūga clan collect dividends while staying entirely out of governance. This approach happened to align perfectly with the conservative, risk-averse Hiashi's own instincts, which only reinforced his tacit approval of Hinata's external operations.
This development had thoroughly dispelled the Third Hokage's doubts and hesitations—even leaving the old man slightly guilty. Though guilt didn't stop him from maintaining his wariness toward Hinata.
Placing Hinata on Team Seven hadn't been solely about compatibility with Sasuke and Naruto. It was also a subtle act of counterbalancing: since Hinata had already gained near-total influence over Konoha's rising generation, the least the Third could do was ensure she wasn't assigned to a team alongside any more clan heirs. That would prevent those clans from tilting too heavily toward Hinata too soon. After all, if they shared a squad, Hinata's influence over any clan heirs placed with her would become ironclad, and their families would naturally shift from cautious observation to full-throated support.
Conveniently, Sasuke's clan had been annihilated, and Naruto was an orphan with no connections. Placing these two high-risk solo targets alongside Hinata served a dual purpose: it limited her ability to further consolidate clan loyalties, and it created a shadow of contingency—should either of those two cause trouble, some of the fallout would inevitably splash onto Hinata, providing leverage to damage her reputation or even control her through association.
Regardless of the maneuvering, the Hinata Group's position within the village had long since outgrown the label of children's social club. It was a genuine center of generational power, and that was the fundamental reason Jōnin like Kakashi and Asuma treated Hinata with real respect—even a measure of awe. In their eyes, she was no child. She was a future pillar of Konoha's leadership class.
Barring some extraordinary upset, Hinata was on track to be an Elder-rank figure at minimum upon reaching adulthood—and this future had already been recognized by the village's senior leadership before she'd even officially become a shinobi. Even someone as calculating as Danzō, after careful deliberation, had decisively chosen to court Hinata's favor, reasoning that her support would boost his chances of becoming the Fifth Hokage by more than ten percentage points.
Connections, capital, status—the Hinata Group had maxed out all three within the Hidden Leaf. In the real world, an organization with that kind of foundation would already be a viable candidate for national leadership.
But this was the shinobi world, where ascending to the upper echelons required one final attribute: strength. And that was precisely why the Hinata Group's members still needed to grow and train.
After all, Hinata had arrived here carrying a stat sheet with Governance, Politics, Economics, and Ambition all maxed out at the cap. She was fully entitled to look down on a lopsided amateur like Gatō.
"A location with this much natural advantage, reduced to a festering ruin by an idiot who doesn't understand development. Then again—perhaps that's exactly the opportunity heaven has laid before us."
Lifting her gaze, the pale-eyed girl's lips curved into an arc of fervent ambition, her words a perfect match for the hunger in her expression.
"Excellent~ Mr. Tazuna, we'll help you. We're going to save this country. Heh hahahaha~~"