"Hokage-sama... my fiv... my fifty billion..."
Ashi could hardly believe his ears. He looked at Haru in disbelief, and even the number coming out of his mouth came out wrong.
"Five hundred million?"
"Fifty billion!"
"Hokage-sama, you're giving me a surprise today, aren't you?!"
After getting Haru's confirmation again, Ashi's head started spinning, and for some reason his legs went weak.
So this was what it felt like to have a big brother backing you up?
It felt incredible.
"Hokage-sama, I... the Uzumaki Clan... and the Leaf... through life and death together..."
Ashi excitedly blurted out a long stream of words, about how the Leaf would forever be the Uzumaki Clan's big brother, how they would stand together through thick and thin, never abandon one another, and so on.
"Ashi-kun, the bond between the Leaf and the Uzumaki Clan has already withstood the test of time. This little bit of money is nothing. The Leaf has never been stingy with its brothers."
Ashi nodded over and over, his impression of the Leaf's new Hokage, Uchiha Haru, skyrocketing.
Just look at how generous the current Hokage was. Fifty billion ryo, and he called that a small amount. Even back when Hashirama was Hokage, the Leaf had never been this generous to the Uzumaki Clan.
Whoever said the Uchiha were cold and arrogant and impossible to get close to?
Lies. All lies.
Haru watched Ashi's reaction with satisfaction.
If you wanted to take something, you first had to give something.
What Ashi wanted was aid.
What Haru wanted was the entire Uzumaki Clan.
The Uzumaki Clan was worth far more than a mere fifty billion ryo.
Once the money was in place, the feelings would follow.
Haru and Ashi chatted pleasantly for a while, and Ashi eagerly started trying to get closer to him.
He even dragged up old stories from over twenty years ago about the Uzumaki Clan and the Uchiha Clan. He mentioned how, back when Hashirama married Mito, the then-head of the Uchiha Clan, Madara, had apparently clashed a little with the Senju because of her.
Ashi clearly wasn't bringing it up to provoke the Uchiha. He was sighing about how, if Mito had only had a younger sister back then, the Uchiha and Uzumaki might also have married into each other, and relations between the three clans could have improved a lot.
Haru just smiled and nodded without saying much, though internally he was already complaining.
Completely wrong.
Mito had been the third wheel. If Madara and Hashirama had been a man and a woman, the story of Naruto would have ended right there.
Apparently this old fool Ashi genuinely thought Madara and Hashirama had fallen out over Mito.
After reminiscing about the past, Ashi moved on to the present. He talked about the comradeship between the Leaf and the Uzumaki Clan during the First Great Ninja War, the Uzumaki Clan's recent circumstances, and how the Leaf's current development was so impressive it was enough to make people furious with envy. When he got to that point, his face visibly dimmed.
The Leaf's growth had already reached a pace the Uzumaki Clan couldn't even imagine.
The last time Ashi had exchanged letters with Tobirama, the Second Hokage had described the Leaf as economically worn down and buried in debt.
After that came the Hokage's death, internal strife within the Leaf, and then another war with the Stone and Mist.
During the First Great Ninja War, the Leaf had practically fought the other four great ninja villages by itself.
No matter how you looked at it, the Leaf should have ended up in much the same state as the Uzumaki Clan, barely able to keep the village functioning, needing at least a year or two to recover.
But there was not the slightest sign of that in the Leaf now. The whole village was thriving.
Even with the Land of Fire backing it, recovery this fast should have been impossible.
This had to have something to do with the Third Hokage sitting in front of him.
When Tobirama had still been in power, the Land of Fire's daimyo had also been funding the Leaf, yet Tobirama still wrote letters complaining to the Uzumaki Clan about poverty. Now the Leaf had not only recovered from the shadow of war, it had enough strength left over to generously aid the Uzumaki Clan, and Haru's opening offer was fifty billion ryo.
This current Third Hokage was a remarkable man.
As Ashi chatted with Haru, his mind raced, and the way he looked at Haru grew hotter and hotter.
Back then, Hashirama had been the Uzumaki Clan's son-in-law, and Tobirama had been Hashirama's younger brother, which had already made both of them close relatives of the Uzumaki Clan. Now the Uchiha ruled the Leaf, and Haru himself was a man who had descended like a force of nature.
The Leaf and the Uzumaki Clan had always had a good relationship, but small villages had their own way of surviving. Aside from maintaining necessary friendly ties, binding interests together and intermarriage were naturally the best ways to strengthen bonds.
Ashi felt the Uzumaki Clan ought to become even closer to the Uchiha Clan too.
If the wives of the Leaf's Hokage across generations all came from the Uzumaki Clan, then the Uzumaki Clan really could rest easy forever.
Meanwhile, Haru was busy thinking about how to reasonably relocate the Uzumaki Clan into the Leaf and hadn't realized yet another old man was thinking about sending him a young girl.
"Ashi-kun, the Leaf's ninja academy just started a new term recently. Would you be interested in sending some of the Uzumaki Clan's promising younger generation to the Leaf for further education?"
After thinking it over, Haru decided to start by cultivating the seedlings.
As long as the Uzumaki Clan sent people over, Haru was confident he could make every last one of them stay in the Leaf.
Give those Uzumaki youths excellent living conditions, high-paying jobs, and a little ideological education, and eventually they would want to join the Leaf on their own. They might even go back to the Uzumaki Clan, spread word of the Leaf's generous policies, and bring their families over to settle there too.
Since the Leaf and the Uzumaki Clan were as close as brothers, Ashi probably wouldn't reject the idea.
That was how certain countries in another world had absorbed elite talent from all over the globe, after all.
Haru explained the concept of exchange students to Ashi.
The Leaf was the most advanced and most powerful ninja village in the world, with the best teaching staff and learning environment.
The Uzumaki Clan and the Leaf were brothers. Right now the Uzumaki Clan was struggling in every area, so they might as well let the Leaf train their best young people. Once they became excellent ninja, they could return to the Uzumaki Clan and shine there.
The rich helping the poor get richer.
With the Leaf's advanced experience, those trained in the Leaf would surely become the core pillars of the Uzumaki Clan when they returned home. The Uzumaki Clan's future would be limitless.
"Ashi-kun, I know the Uzumaki Clan is in a difficult position right now. As the Uzumaki Clan's good big brother, the Leaf will help all the way to the end."
"Don't worry. For any Uzumaki Clan members who come to study in the Leaf, the Leaf will cover everything: tuition, living expenses, and training resources."
As always, Haru's pitch was perfectly delivered, and Ashi quickly found himself drawn in by the bright picture Haru painted.
Lord Haru really was a great man.
"Hokage-sama, are you serious?"
Ashi felt as though he were floating. One surprise after another today had left him dizzy.
"Of course I'm serious."
"The Leaf has always regarded the Uzumaki Clan as its own people. What difference is there between the Uzumaki Clan and the Leaf's own ninja?"
Haru's firm answer left Ashi deeply moved. The words were enough to warm anyone's heart.
Very quickly, Haru and Ashi settled on a rough plan.
The process was actually simple. The Uzumaki Clan would submit the names of its best young people, then choose an auspicious date and send them over.
At one point, Ashi hesitated over whether some children whose talent wasn't especially outstanding would even qualify as exchange students, because Haru had specifically said they would select the best.
The Leaf had already gone above and beyond. Ashi felt that the Uzumaki Clan shouldn't be too greedy. He wanted to send only the children with truly strong talent to avoid wasting the Leaf's valuable resources.
When Ashi hesitated, Haru just waved a hand.
Not to refuse. To say there was no need for more words.
Even if Ashi emptied out the entire Uzumaki Clan and sent them all to the Leaf today, the Leaf could absorb all of them.
"Lord Haru, I... there really aren't any words that can describe how I feel right now..."
Ashi had already stopped calling him Hokage-sama and had switched to calling him by name to show closeness.
Even when Hashirama and Tobirama had been in power, the Uzumaki Clan had never been treated this well.
If the age gap weren't so large, Ashi probably would have wanted to kneel and bow.
Haru patted him on the shoulder and said this was all just what he ought to do.
Once everything had been negotiated, Ashi suddenly brought up Yozuki.
This time he had brought Yozuki here to test whether she had the qualifications to become the next Nine-Tails jinchuriki.
This had been part of the agreement between the Leaf and the Uzumaki Clan from long ago. The Uzumaki Clan, with its advanced sealing techniques and powerful vitality, was best suited to become the vessel for the Nine-Tails.
Yozuki's talent was top-tier even within the Uzumaki Clan, and her training in sealing techniques far surpassed others her age.
Haru looked at Yozuki and understood that the original course of the Naruto world had already been completely thrown into chaos by him. In the original story, choosing the next Nine-Tails jinchuriki wouldn't happen until more than ten years later.
So Haru wasn't too invested in the matter.
Mito would still live for another ten years or more.
At the very least, this girl named Yozuki could still enjoy over a decade of a normal life.
Besides, Haru felt sure that in ten years, he would have completed one or two gold-tier reward missions and become another Madara with ease.
At that point, what use would a Nine-Tails jinchuriki even be? He could just let the Nine-Tails out and use it as a mount.
While Haru's mind wandered in that direction, Ashi was already endlessly praising Yozuki.
He started with her talent, then her high level of sealing skill, and little by little he began casually working in things about her personality and preferences.
"Yozuki has admired Lord Haru for a long time now. What she likes most is a truly powerful man..."
The topic was drifting in a strange direction.
Haru could see it clearly now.
This was yet another shameless old man who liked playing matchmaker.
He immediately steered the conversation away. If he accepted Ashi's "kind intentions" and opened that door, then Takuya would never let himself fall behind. Haru had no desire to fill his house with enough women to seat a whole mahjong table.
In an atmosphere that had somehow turned subtly strange, Haru brought the conversation on that topic to an end.
Ashi then invited Haru to go with him to see Mito. Since this involved choosing the next Nine-Tails jinchuriki, Haru, as Hokage, had to be present to oversee the situation.
Senju Compound
"Ashi-ni?"
The moment Mito saw Ashi, she lit up with joy.
Ashi was slightly older than Mito, and the two were cousins. When they were children, Ashi had looked after her quite a lot.
"Mito..."
After an emotional reunion between relatives, Ashi got to the main point and explained that he wanted Mito to test whether Yozuki had the qualifications to become the Nine-Tails jinchuriki.
Mito completely ignored Haru standing to the side and walked straight toward Yozuki.
By now, just seeing Haru was enough to irritate her.
The total box office for the Leaf's first movie had come out a few days ago, and it had been even higher than predicted. The final profit had been close to seven hundred million.
As soon as the good news came in, Haru had eagerly called for a celebration meeting and specifically invited Mito to attend.
Mito had sat through the whole thing with a dark face and said nothing.
Another massive loss.
The regret in Mito's heart was unbearable.
If she had chosen one percent of net profit back then, Tsunade's fee would have come out to seven million ryo this time, more than a year's worth of Nine-Tails chakra sales.
Whether it was about money or not, Mito cared far too much. Seven million wasn't a small number. She hadn't made that money, and she hadn't recovered any face either. She had already been miserable enough.
Then Haru had made a point of needling her in front of everyone.
"If the heavens gave you one more chance, would you still pick five hundred thousand?"
Bang.
Faced with Haru's mockery right to her face, Mito shattered a table and stormed out.
"Good girl. This will hurt a little."
Mito gently stroked Yozuki's red hair. The young girl's face was full of determination.
Long ago, Ashi had already told Yozuki the truth about the Nine-Tails and the possible destiny awaiting her: becoming its vessel, the container of a tailed beast, the final weapon of the Leaf, the Nine-Tails jinchuriki.
A stream of yellow Nine-Tails chakra poured into Yozuki's body, and a kind of negative emotion beyond words surged into her heart.
The chakra continued eroding her skin, but Yozuki quickly used a sealing technique to suppress it.
Mito let out a bitter smile.
The child had passed.
No one understood better than Mito what it meant to become the Nine-Tails jinchuriki. Without her exceptional status, she herself would have been nothing more than a humanoid weapon in the Leaf.
Ashi's feelings were just as complicated.
The Uzumaki Clan had fulfilled its agreement with the Leaf, but placing all of that burden on a little girl was a cruel fate.
If Yozuki could somehow recreate Mito's story...
Ashi still hadn't given up on playing matchmaker. This time it wasn't only for the Uzumaki Clan, but also for Yozuki's future.
"Lord Haru, since Yozuki qualifies, why not let her stay by your side?"
"Hm?"
Haru's eyes widened.
You shameless old man, are you still after my body?
The moment Mito heard that, she exploded.
Haru's reputation as a lust-driven beast had already spread through the Leaf. Everyone knew that after one trip to the daimyo, he had come back with a pair of twin playthings.
Putting a sweet little girl like Yozuki by Haru's side was basically sending a lamb into a tiger's den.
More importantly, a shameless man with no bottom line like Haru would definitely corrupt Yozuki.
"No way!"
"Absolutely not!"
"Yozuki can never be handed over to a bastard beast like Haru!"
Mito started cursing immediately, all her old resentments toward Haru bubbling back up. He had tricked her into signing a low-price contract, humiliated her, even once deliberately got himself beaten up to manipulate her...
"Enough, Mito!"
"I won't let you slander Lord Haru's good name!"
Ashi cut her off with impressive force.
(End of Chapter)
[Check Out My P@treon For +20 Extra Chapters On All My Fanfics!!][[email protected]/euridome]
[Thank You For Your Support!]