Chapter 88: It's All Thanks to the Competition! Paying Out of Pocket for War
Fugaku walked to the overturned wooden crate and bent down to pick up an exploding tag.
He rubbed it lightly between his fingertips.
The paper was slightly thick, the color of the cinnabar wasn't bright enough, and the Chakra conduction rate... was terrible.
It wasn't exactly a defective product, but this kind of stuff was usually sold to wandering Ninjas on the black market as cheap goods; the power of ten of these might only equal one standard-issue tag from Konoha's regular army.
"Is this the Village's sincerity?"
Fugaku's voice wasn't loud, but it carried a bone-chilling coldness. He looked up at the logistics Chunin, who was already shaking like a sieve. "If I remember correctly, the consumables the Police Force uses for daily training are two grades higher than this."
"Clan... Clan Chief..." The Chunin was on the verge of tears. "It's really not us skimming off the top; it's just that the funding from above is only this much..."
"Enough."
Fugaku casually tossed away the scrap of paper, the Three-Tomoe in his eyes slowly spinning.
He knew exactly what was going on.
Danzo.
Aside from that rat hiding in the gutters, no one would dare to disgust the Uchiha so blatantly. Wanting to kill with a borrowed knife? Trying to use equipment inferiority to increase Uchiha casualties? The method was despicable, but it was indeed effective.
"Good, very good." Fugaku laughed out of sheer anger, just about to order the entire clan to go on strike in protest.
"Clan Chief Fugaku, could we have a word in private?"
A lazy yet helpless voice pierced through the curtain of rain.
Nara Shikaku, wearing a standard Jonin vest, walked alone into the Uchiha's encirclement. He hadn't brought any guards; the other two members of the 'Ino–Shika–Chō' were on guard duty outside the camp, clearly offering himself up as a hostage.
Seeing it was Shikaku, the killing intent in Fugaku's eyes softened slightly.
As the 'brain' of Konoha, although Shikaku belonged to the Hokage's faction, his reputation among the various clans was fairly impartial; he was a rare sensible man.
"If you're here to be a lobbyist, Shikaku, you can go back," Fugaku said coldly. "The Uchiha may crave glory, but our heads aren't filled with water. Expecting the horse to run without giving it grass—we don't take such losing deals."
"If it were just an internal issue within the Village, I would have come to apologize with the best supplies long ago."
Shikaku sighed, his expression looking worse than if he had eaten a bitter melon. He didn't waste words, pulling a document directly from his robes and spreading it out on the table that smelled of mud and fish.
"Take a look. This is an urgent dispatch that arrived from the Village last night."
Fugaku frowned, his gaze falling on the document.
"Notice Regarding Budget Adjustments for Special Military Operations in the Land of Rain."
The series of numbers crossed out in red ink and the shocking "halved" annotation made Fugaku's pupils contract slightly.
"Even the equipment for the Anbu directly under the Hokage has been downgraded." Shikaku pointed to a line of small print at the end of the document and smiled bitterly. "This time, it's not targeting the Uchiha; it's targeting everyone. The Daimyo believes that fighting the Hidden Rain Village doesn't require such a large scale, and he forcibly compressed the entire army's supply line."
Fugaku fell silent.
This reason did indeed sound like something that idiot Daimyo would do.
But the fire in his heart didn't dissipate because of this; instead, it grew even stronger.
"Since the entire army is being downgraded, why are we still the vanguard?" Fugaku snorted coldly and pushed the document back. "The consumption of the Sharingan cannot be replenished by those low-quality military ration pills. Making the elite cater to garbage—is this your judgment as a commander?"
"There's no other way..."
Shikaku scratched his head, seemingly hesitating whether to bring out his final trump card. Looking at Fugaku's "I'm quitting" stance, he could only sigh and pull out an even more pathetic-looking letter.
"Clan Chief Fugaku, you think we have it bad. Then take a look at this."
Shikaku handed over a letter stamped with the mark of the Hidden Sand Village's Kazekage.
Fugaku took it and looked; his expression suddenly became very interesting.
It was a "Request for Material Coordination" sent by the Sunagakure Advisor, Chiyo.
Throughout the entire text, there wasn't a single tough word; it was all crying poverty.
Things like "Due to the Land of Wind Daimyo suspending funds, our unit's antidote reserves are less than thirty percent," "Requesting your honorable army to support us with five hundred rolls of basic medical bandages," "If you have any spare capacity, could you lend us some Shuriken"... every word was written in blood, every sentence was begging.
The Hidden Sand Village, one of the Five Great Nations, hadn't even started fighting yet and was already asking allies for bandages?
"This..." Fugaku's hand holding the letter trembled slightly.
These weren't allies; this was practically an army of beggars holding sticks.
"You see it now." Shikaku spread his hands helplessly. "Compared to the Hidden Sand side, where they can barely even eat, we in Konoha can at least guarantee one military ration pill per person. Although they taste like rocks, at least we won't starve to death. This is the reality."
A strange sense of superiority suddenly welled up in Fugaku's heart.
Although Konoha was also in a bad state, compared to Sunagakure, they were practically a well-to-do Family.
So-called happiness is often built upon the suffering of others. Seeing Sunagakure so pathetic, the anger of "being targeted" in Fugaku's heart dissipated quite a bit, replaced by a kind of reserve known as "nobility."
"Slap."
Fugaku threw the Hidden Sand's plea for help back to Shikaku, a trace of a disdainful cold smile appearing on his face.
"Let the Uchiha risk their lives with this kind of garbage like those paupers? In your dreams."
He turned around and kicked the crate containing the low-quality exploding tags away. The crate drew an arc in the air and smashed heavily into a mud pit, splashing up a mess of dirty water.
"Yashiro!"
Fugaku's voice echoed in the rain, carrying the arrogance and madness unique to the Uchiha.
"Here!"
"Open the Family's No. 4 Warehouse." Fugaku waved his hand, his black cloak fluttering. "Since the Village can't afford it, this war—we Uchiha will pay for it ourselves!"
Fugaku turned back, looking at Shikaku with a disdainful gaze: "The consumption of these supplies will be recorded on the Uchiha's tab, and so will the corresponding military merits!"
Shikaku was stunned for a moment, then he breathed a sigh of relief, a glint of light flashing in his eyes.
"That is only natural. I admire the Uchiha's magnanimity."
This is what a noble Family is.
Since they couldn't solve the problem, they would use money to crush it. Although the process was convoluted, as long as the Uchiha were willing to put in the effort, the vanguard would be secure... The next morning.
The rain was still falling, but the allied forces had already broken camp.
On the muddy road leading to the heart of the Land of Rain, an extremely fragmented scene unfolded.
Walking at the very front were two hundred Uchiha elites.
They were all dressed in brand-new waterproof combat uniforms, their Ninja tool pouches bulging, the Kunai in their hands glinting coldly, and they were chewing on fragrant, high-grade military ration pills.
The main Konoha force following behind looked somewhat disheveled. The Ninjas grumbled about the tooth-breaking dry rations while carefully protecting their damp exploding tags, looking at the backs of the Uchiha ahead with eyes full of envy, jealousy, and hate.
As for the Sunagakure forces on the flanks... that was simply a disaster. Many of their Puppets showed signs of rust, and the Ninjas' headbands were dull. During breaks, one could even see Sand Ninjas digging in the mud, trying to recover a Shuriken that had just been test-fired.
"What kind of Great Nation alliance is this..."
Shikaku sat on his horse, looking at this team torn apart by the wealth gap, a deep sense of powerlessness welling up in his heart.
Before even seeing the enemy, the heart of the allied forces had already scattered.
"Splash."
The horse's hoof stepped heavily into a mud pit.
Shikaku lowered his head.
In that dirty mud water soaked a Land of Rain flyer that had been trampled by thousands of men and horses.
Although it was so dirty that its full appearance couldn't be seen, the large characters printed on it still looked exceptionally piercing under the gray sky, as if they were the greatest mockery of this impoverished allied army—
The Hidden Rain Village will defend every person's right to'survive' to the death!
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