Thanks to the dedication of the great Third Hokage, the Leaf had a pretty good New Year this time around. The villagers could at least eat their fill now, and on New Year's Day they could even drink a little and eat braised meat. In this brutal ninja world, that was already a rare luxury.
Unlike other ninja villages, and especially the Sand Village. Ordinary ninja there didn't even get time off. They still had to risk their lives doing missions over the holiday just to make money, because their households really were on the verge of running out of food. As for a New Year bonus for ninja, did such a thing even exist in this world?
The Sand ninja had no idea, and didn't want to know either. If they found out the Leaf had something like that, they'd go mad with jealousy.
For the Leaf, happy times were always short. Holidays ended almost as quickly as a single shiver of pleasure, with the satisfaction lasting only for that brief instant.
As soon as the break was over, everyone went right back to work. The laborers returned to the factories to keep shining and generating value. The ninja went back to carrying out missions with their lives on the line, occasionally making a film cameo here and there, or picking up some side work on construction sites for extra cash.
Even Haru couldn't escape it. He had to head back to the office and resume his cherished life of slacking off... no, of working.
Every time a holiday ended, the amount of business waiting to be handled seemed especially overwhelming. The Leaf's financial planning for the new year, mission allocations, factory expansion, endless meetings and reports, and on top of that he still had to make time to see off Ashi, the old pimp, on his return to the Uzumaki Clan.
"Hokage-sama, the moment I get back to the Uzumaki Clan, I'll send the children over. I'll have to trouble Hokage-sama to look after them."
Ashi walked beside Haru, chattering away the whole time. This concerned the future of the Uzumaki Clan, so of course he couldn't help repeating himself.
"Don't worry. In my eyes, the children of the Uzumaki Clan are no different from the children of the Leaf. I'll teach them the same way I teach the Leaf's children."
Haru's words carried a hidden meaning, but Ashi didn't sense anything strange about them at all. Instead, he just felt a warm glow in his heart.
Hokage-sama really was an honest and dependable man.
"And Yozuki, she admires Hokage-sama more than anyone. If possible..."
"Ahem. Ashi, it's getting late. You should probably get on the boat."
Just as Ashi was about to keep pitching Yozuki, Takuya stepped in and interrupted him.
The two of them had already gone at each other in secret several times during the New Year festivities. Both were absolutely determined to seize the position of First Lady for their own side, but neither had managed to gain the upper hand.
Under Takuya's urging, Ashi reluctantly boarded the ship. The vessel was loaded with money, a full fifty billion ryo, carrying back the hopes of the entire clan to Uzushiogakure.
After the New Year, the ninja world remained much the same as always. The smaller villages kept fighting and killing each other nonstop. According to the latest intelligence, a powerful ninja had appeared in the Rain Village, a man named Hanzo. He traveled with an enormous salamander that continuously released deadly poison gas, and he was already expanding his territory by force, now even eyeing the Land of Iron.
Then there was the Grass Village, whose internal disputes had reached absurd levels. They had already changed Kage four or five times, and the village had split into two factions.
Haru had nicknamed them the Banana Faction and the Hoof Faction.
One side was backed by wealthy sponsors who wanted to cover the Grass Country in banana plantations. The other wanted to develop animal husbandry, raising cattle and sheep.
Just from the name, anyone could guess that the Grass Country had a lot of grass, especially good pasture. Its vast natural grazing fields had allowed animal husbandry to thrive.
At the same time, the local climate was apparently also perfect for growing bananas. The ninja world really did have bizarre weather.
Bananas were a wonderful crop. Back in Haru's old world, they had always been seen as fruit, but in Southeast Asia and even in parts of Africa, they were a staple food. They were loaded with starch and nutrients. Their only flaw was that they didn't store well.
Both factions wanted to expand their own industries, so each poured money into supporting Grass ninja to assassinate and attack the other side.
Of course, the Grass ninja weren't idiots.
Just because a sponsor told them to kill didn't mean they would obediently do it.
The shameless Grass ninja had already learned how to play both sides long ago, going back and forth between the Stone and the Leaf, like reeds in the wind. On one hand, they copied... ahem, studied and improved the techniques of both great villages to strengthen themselves.
On the other hand, during wartime, they sold information to both the Leaf and the Stone. Naturally, that service came with a fee, and no guarantee of accuracy. But the Grass ninja were very honest about it. When they sold the intelligence, they openly admitted they didn't know if it was true. It was just something they'd heard. If the buyers wanted it, they could get it at a discount.
To make sure nothing unexpected slipped through, and in case the Grass ninja had somehow stumbled onto genuinely important intelligence, both great villages had still bought the information while holding their noses.
Thanks to all that experience, the Grass ninja found it easy to milk money from both groups of sponsors.
But after such a long war, everyone was poor. The great villages were bleeding dry, so of course the Grass Village, trapped in the middle of all that conflict, was even worse off. Still, people always had dreams. Who didn't want to spend New Year eating bananas with beef and lamb? That was the kind of luxury only the Grass Kage could enjoy.
So internal bloodshed was inevitable. In a village with such a rotten climate, ambitious schemers and habitual traitors flourished everywhere. Becoming Grass Kage was basically a high-risk profession.
The Rain Village, meanwhile, was steadily building strength, slowly growing into a force capable of challenging the Five Great Villages, and it would eventually spark the Second Great Ninja War.
Still, Haru wasn't all that interested in the Rain Village. The one that really caught his attention was the Grass Village.
The Leaf had already started down the road of industrialization. All the nearby refugees had gone into factories to work as black laborers. Nobody was farming anymore. They couldn't just live forever on protein blocks.
The Grass Country's bananas were cheap, practical food, and they also had vast herds of cattle and sheep.
For the sake of love and justice, all of that naturally belonged to the Leaf.
The smaller villages were in constant turmoil, but the great villages were relatively quiet, each of them desperately trying to recover. They were cleaning up rogue ninja, mercenary forces, and internal insurgents within their own lands, doing their best to stabilize their countries so civilian life could recover. Once the daimyo and nobles collected more tax revenue, they could hand out more money to the villages.
And if the villages performed well, they could also demand more funding and commissions from the daimyo.
Time passed little by little, until one day an explosive piece of news spread across the entire ninja world and drew everyone's attention.
The Five Kage Summit was about to begin.
This would determine the political landscape of the ninja world for years, perhaps more than a decade to come. If the smaller villages wanted to live in peace, they had to watch the moods of the great ones.
The Hot Springs Village
Usually it was just a quiet tourist village, but in only a few days it had become a whirlpool of hidden currents. Quite a few small villages hadn't received invitations, yet still sent people there in hopes of observing the summit from the sidelines.
They just wanted firsthand information, to get an early read on the intentions of the Five Great Villages. If the talks collapsed, they could at least prepare supplies and make defensive plans in advance.
Very quickly, the Five Great Villages all gathered in the Hot Springs Village.
The Hot Springs Kage hadn't slept in days from stress. How had such a cursed responsibility fallen onto his head?
Their village had always stayed out of conflict, minding its own business and quietly making money from tourism. They had always shut their doors and lived peacefully, never once interfering in the ninja world's political struggles.
And now all five of those "great and benevolent leaders" had come to hold a summit in his village.
Who knew whether this would end in disaster?
Please don't let them start fighting. Please, absolutely do not let them start fighting.
His fears weren't baseless. The moment several of the delegations laid eyes on each other, the air turned hostile.
For example, Onoki looked at the Mist ninja with open disgust. Things had been going smoothly for the Stone, then all of a sudden they got hit from the flank, his teacher died, and everything fell apart. That kind of hatred was irreconcilable.
The Mist ninja were just as displeased with the Stone. The lava attacks from the jinchuriki and the Dust Release from the Tsuchikage had killed plenty of their people.
And after the deaths of their Second Kage, the later clash between their retreating forces had become a bloodbath. The two sides glared at one another like they wanted to kill each other all over again.
As for the Leaf, there was no need to even mention it. They had grudges with all four of the others, since every last one of the great villages had attacked them. The deepest hatred was reserved for the Cloud, who had fought them from beginning to end and then gotten the Leaf's own Second Hokage killed in the process. Though Haru, honestly, was rather grateful to Kinkaku and Ginkaku.
The Sand Village kept quietly playing the background role, planning to lie low for a few more years. The Third Kazekage, Masara, shot Haru an oblique glance. He'd heard the Leaf had been developing quite well lately. Maybe the Sand ought to form an alliance with the Leaf. After all, there wasn't actually that much bad blood between them.
The Hot Springs Kage was sweating bullets. That atmosphere of barely restrained hostility was horrifying. If they really lost control and started fighting inside the village, then everything would be over.
"Honored Kage, I have already prepared accommodations for all of you. If you would please..."
The Hot Springs Kage bowed and smiled obsequiously. These were the five great powers. He couldn't afford to offend any of them. He just wanted to serve them carefully and send them on their way as fast as possible.
That night
"The Leaf recovered far too quickly."
"It hasn't even been a full year."
The Third Raikage frowned as he stared at the intelligence reports in his hand, his whole face dark and troubled.
The Leaf's recent activity was no longer something that could be hidden. The intelligence departments of the other four great villages were not useless.
But what could they actually do, even knowing all that?
March straight over and attack?
The Leaf could survive another ninja war, but they couldn't.
All they could do was sit there and watch the Leaf keep developing.
The hatred between the Leaf and the Cloud had grown deep during this last war. Their own Second Hokage had died at the hands of Kinkaku and Ginkaku. If the Leaf ever found the right chance, they would absolutely make the Cloud pay.
"We have to find allies."
After thinking it over, the Third Raikage decided to speak to the Third Tsuchikage, Onoki, first. The Leaf was not something a single village could handle. It would take two, maybe three, maybe even four great villages working together.
As for the Sand and the Mist, those could wait for the moment.
The Sand was poor enough to piss blood. Even the Kazekage had gone out in person to pan for gold. If they allied with the Sand, they'd probably have to subsidize them, and the Cloud wasn't exactly wealthy either.
As for the Mist, they weren't familiar. Better to deal with them later.
That very night, a towering man quietly slipped into Onoki's room.
Onoki naturally welcomed the Third Raikage's visit. After all, nobody wanted to face a powerful Leaf alone. Back in the era of the First Hokage, the Leaf had crushed all four great villages under its weight.
No matter what, they could not allow the Leaf to become dominant again.
The purpose of the Five Kage Summit was to give the leaders of the great villages a chance to speak face to face. If they could talk things through directly, then why bother fighting and killing?
Was that good?
No.
It was terrible.
Haru had no idea that the Cloud and Stone had moved so quickly, already talking so smoothly, practically climbing into bed together. If he knew, he'd be calling them idiots. The two of them had already decided to stick together.
Why put all that effort into ganging up on the Leaf?
Why not pressure the daimyo instead?
They drank and feasted while the villages bled themselves dry fighting the Leaf, all while drowning in debt. What exactly was the point?
For a share of mission commissions?
Well... honestly, that probably was the point.
After all, missions were how ninja survived.
This world was vast. There was more than enough to let ninja live well, with food, drink, and stability. Who actually wanted to fight wars, living every day with their head tied to their belt?
Haru very much wanted to drag the other four great villages along and collectively flip the table on all five daimyo, but that was something he could only imagine.
Even within the Leaf itself, it would be incredibly difficult to persuade the village ninja to rebel against the daimyo. At the moment Haru was only skirting the line, killing a few nobles here and there. If he openly turned against the daimyo, a great many people in the village would oppose him.
And if the Leaf was like that, the other four villages would be even worse. If Haru ever spoke such an idea aloud, they would immediately see it as a malicious attempt to divide them from their daimyo.
Without daimyo, who would hire them for missions? How would the ninja earn money to eat? Where would the villages get funding to train new ninja?
"What a strange world..."
Haru lay in the hot spring, enjoying one of the Hot Springs Village's specialty services, bubbles churning around him through the mist as all kinds of thoughts ran through his head.
At the very least, this summit had to produce a formal peace agreement.
After that came trade, and that was the real point.
Haru knew full well that another great ninja war would eventually come.
He hated war, and he absolutely did not want to fight one.
What he wanted was to slack off during the day and spend the nights playing around in bed with Kaede and Rin.
If he wanted to reduce the number of ninja wars, then the ninja first had to live well. Maybe not luxury, but at least food and security.
The simplest method was naturally to seize the wealth of the nobles.
Unfortunately, the ninja of the other four villages were too stupid to wake up to that.
Only the Leaf had begun making a little progress. Some of its upper ranks had gradually started realizing that looting noble estates was easier than grinding through missions for money.
But even if the ninja all had full stomachs and no longer worried about daily survival, that would only prolong the peace, not make it permanent.
He needed to improve the standard of living for ninja across the entire world, reduce the frequency of war, and at the same time keep the Leaf in a position of superiority so it didn't get dragged down and destroyed by everyone else.
That wasn't exactly easy.
He would have to do some fine-tuned management.
Haru let his thoughts spread out.
What if the Leaf slowly used commerce to infiltrate the other villages? Start with everyday goods, then expand to all aspects of food, clothing, housing, and transport, and eventually seize control of the economic lifelines of those villages.
Then support that with the Leaf's films and newspapers to shape public opinion, while using dedicated funds to cultivate local collaborators in each village.
After that, push ideological subversion and internal chaos.
Would that work?
Haru didn't know whether the methods of a certain eagle-headed nation from his old world would work in this one, but surely they would produce some kind of effect.
(End of Chapter)
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