"We're home."
Haru looked at the Leaf Village not far away, in an excellent mood.
After traveling far from home and experiencing the local customs of the Hot Water Village, although the hot springs were very nice and the scenery was not bad, no matter what, it still could not compare to being comfortable at home. The Hot Water Village had no big soft bed, and on the bed there were no charming, lovable twin sisters.
This time, the ones returning with Haru were not only the Leaf delegation, but also the Sand Village delegation led by Chiyo, as well as the Chinoike clan Haru had brought back from Hell Valley.
At the entrance of the Leaf Village, Shikato had led a welcoming team and had been waiting since early morning for Haru's return. The return of the Leaf's big boss absolutely could not lack grandeur, so Shikato had thoughtfully prepared a grand welcoming ceremony for Haru.
Salutes, red carpet, banners, flags. Everything was there.
Chiyo stepped onto the red carpet as firecrackers rang out around her, and a trace of envy flashed through her eyes.
The Leaf really was rich. They could even spend money on this useless kind of ceremony.
Shikato walked over enthusiastically to greet them. Haru had already sent someone to brief him beforehand. Today, the Sand Village delegation would be visiting the Leaf, so they had to show the Leaf's best side.
"Everyone, let's not keep standing here. Please enter the village together."
"So many people..."
"The ground is so flat. Is that an electric lamp? It looks like there are some outside the village too. They even built them all the way out here. Wow, that building is huge."
"The air here is so sweet!"
Ever since entering the Leaf, exclamations kept coming from the group. The Sand Village ninja were like country people entering the city. Their worldview had suffered a violent impact, and they were amazed by everything in the Leaf.
As for the Chinoike clan, there was even less need to say anything. Throwing their clan into the Sand Village would already count as improving their living conditions, let alone bringing them to the Leaf.
They walked on a wide, clean concrete road. Green belts had been built on both sides of the road, planted with flowers and grass. Looking around, both sides were lined with new-style two-story houses, clean white walls, and beautiful doors and windows.
The Sand Village ninja kept looking around at everything. Did Leaf ninja usually live like this?
No wind and sand, no choking dust, no sandstorms every few days. Even the ground was clean, without a single piece of trash.
Envy, amazement, curiosity. All kinds of hushed whispers made the Leaf ninja mixed into the group involuntarily straighten their backs.
This was enough to make them that envious?
Was the Sand Village's standard of living really that bad?
Tsk, tsk. Good thing I was born in the Leaf.
After walking for a few minutes, they arrived at a busy market district. The ninja in charge of security had already opened up a path in advance to make Haru's return to the village easier.
"Hokage!"
"Hokage!"
The villagers had spontaneously gathered on both sides of the road, cheering Haru's arrival. Haru enjoyed the cheers, raised his arm to acknowledge both sides, and was immediately met with another wave of thunderous shouting.
Chiyo followed behind Haru, listening to the cries around her. The scene before her gave Chiyo a tremendous shock, and her emotions inexplicably surged.
Haru had only been Hokage for one year, yet he already possessed such prestige. What exactly had he done during this year?
Chiyo suppressed the emotions in her heart and observed the villagers' expressions.
Fanaticism. Loyalty. Each of their faces was rosy.
Chiyo had never seen such a scene in her entire life.
The Leaf was invincible.
This sentence suddenly flashed through Chiyo's mind. When the First Hokage was alive, the Leaf had also been invincible. Back then, the other four great ninja villages feared the unmatched power of the First Hokage, Hashirama, and honestly behaved themselves for many years. Only after Hashirama died did they expose their ambitions.
But now, things were different. The Leaf no longer needed Hashirama's power.
The Leaf was still invincible. Those who had not witnessed this scene would never understand.
Haru had completely changed the Leaf.
Perhaps forming an alliance with the Leaf this time was the most correct choice the Sand Village had ever made.
Chiyo walked along the road, her eyes scanning her surroundings as she could not help falling into thought.
What exactly had Haru done to develop the Leaf to this extent? This could not simply be explained away with one sentence like, "The Leaf was lucky and occupied the best land."
Commerce?
Chiyo recalled Haru's comments at the drinking table.
"We must vigorously develop commerce and raise the village's..."
"Economic foundation."
Obscure sentences, specialized terms. These were things Chiyo, an old-fashioned ninja, could not understand. She had never considered letting ninja do business, and she was even less able to tell whether it was right or wrong.
But everything before her eyes in the Leaf made Chiyo feel that what she considered right or wrong no longer mattered, because the answer was right in front of her.
The Leaf model was correct. As long as it could increase the Sand Village's strength and let the Sand Village's people live good lives, they had to learn it completely!
Chiyo thought about whether the Leaf model could be replicated in the Sand Village, but after only a little thought, she realized that it simply would not work.
The Sand Village was so poor that only sand remained. Wanting to learn from the Leaf and develop commerce was nothing but a fool's dream. What decent person would risk their life crossing the desert to do business in the Sand Village?
Even the road under her feet was something the Sand Village could not envy into existence. The wild sand that filled the sky would drive the cost of maintaining roads up to the heavens.
The Sand Village wanted to change its current situation, but it could not even find the direction in which to change it. Did they really have to spend twenty years slowly planting trees?
That was too slow.
Before she knew it, Chiyo had already reached the Hokage Building. The Leaf delegation had already been dismissed. Everyone went home to their own families. After being away on business for so long, it was time to return home.
As for the Chinoike clan and the Sand Village delegation, Shikato arranged for them to stay in the Leaf's guesthouse, planning to have them live there for a while first.
The Chinoike clan was a newly joined ninja clan of the Leaf. Allocating land, building houses, and so on would all require some time. Only the current Chinoike clan leader followed Haru to the Hokage Building, preparing to discuss the Chinoike clan's future development in the Leaf.
Haru sat back in his chair for the first time in a long while and casually poured himself a cup of iced cola.
Chiyo and Hoen were arranged in two separate rooms. Both of them sat on the sofas somewhat stiffly. The Hokage Building had long since been renovated by Haru. There was no need to fear spending money. Just build boldly, and make the comfort level as high as possible.
Haru had always been willing to spend money when it came to enjoying life. Naturally, the staff working in the Hokage Building raised both hands and feet in approval. They were benefiting from the Hokage's good fortune too.
Chiyo and Hoen were different. One had come from the countryside, and the other had come from hell. Suddenly arriving in such a luxurious office made them both cautious, not daring to move around carelessly.
"Hoen, does your Chinoike clan have any requests for the Leaf?"
"Let the grudges of the past remain in the past. People still need to look forward."
Haru looked at the restrained Hoen and spoke casually. As long as the Chinoike clan was properly cultivated, they could absolutely occupy a place in the Leaf. Their clan's bloodline limit was very powerful. It could mass-produce human bombs, which would be extremely useful in war and could inflict large-scale group damage.
The Chinoike clan's individual combat ability was not weak either. In the non-canon continuation, the Chinoike clan survivor Chino had been able to briefly exchange blows with Sasuke using her bloodline.
It was just that their luck was very bad. They had run into the Uchiha.
Haru wanted to arrange the Chinoike clan's new clan territory near the Uchiha clan. First, it would be convenient for the Uchiha clan to monitor and supervise them. Cough, cough. It would be convenient to take care of the Chinoike clan and rebuild the relationship between the two clans.
A rising eye-based bloodline clan was worth Haru's effort.
That was what Haru thought, but he still had to seek Hoen's opinion. A melon forcefully twisted from the vine was not sweet, especially since these two clans had a generational feud.
"Everything will be according to the Hokage's arrangements."
Hoen did not have that many complicated thoughts. His heart was completely immersed in imagining a beautiful future. As long as they could live in the heaven-like Leaf, anything was fine.
"In that case, I will arrange for you to live beside the Uchiha clan. That will also make it convenient for the Uchiha to look after you."
"The children of the Chinoike clan should go to the ninja academy in a few days."
"..."
Haru explained a long list of arrangements for the Chinoike clan, and Hoen simply kept nodding.
Haru was very satisfied with this. As for whether Hoen truly did not care about the hatred between the two clans, Haru did not take it to heart.
Haru was confident he could erase the old debt between the Chinoike clan and the Uchiha clan. His previous world had far too many methods he could borrow for handling this kind of thing.
Educational indoctrination, granting benefits, intermarriage between the two clans.
With the Uchiha clan's current overwhelming presence in the Leaf, it would be very easy to absorb the Chinoike clan, which only had a few dozen people left. Perhaps after a few decades, the Chinoike clan and the Uchiha clan would merge into a single clan.
What kind of eye technique would be born from combining the Chinoike clan's Blood Dragon Eye and the Uchiha clan's Sharingan?
That was truly something to be curious about.
After Haru finished explaining everything, he had someone take Hoen to the guesthouse. At the same time, he had the Finance Department issue a sum of money to the Chinoike clan so they could establish themselves in the Leaf and have money to walk around the village during these days.
After settling the Chinoike clan's matters, Haru went to the office where Chiyo was waiting.
"Hokage."
When Chiyo saw Haru enter, she immediately stood up from the sofa. During the waiting process just now, every moment had felt like a year. Her mind had been constantly thinking about how she could dig something good out of the Leaf.
After some polite greetings, the two of them quickly entered the main topic and began negotiations over the business of buying and selling chakra.
The top priority of this business was naturally One-Tail Shukaku. What surprised Haru was that the Sand Village had actually succeeded in sealing the One-Tail inside a Jinchuriki.
Without the Uzumaki clan's physique and powerful sealing techniques, successfully sealing a tailed beast inside a ninja's body was naturally as difficult as climbing to the heavens. Chiyo lightly brushed over the process, only saying one sentence: after a large number of experiments, a monk named Bunpuku successfully contained Shukaku and became the One-Tail Jinchuriki.
However, from Chiyo's expression, Haru could tell that many people had definitely died in the process.
"Hokage, the One-Tail's seal is not stable. Selling the One-Tail's chakra sounds simple, but if we actually try to implement it..."
Chiyo raised her concern. If extracting chakra caused the seal to become unstable and the One-Tail escaped, then things would become a huge mess.
The One-Tail was a tailed beast. Once it escaped and caused destruction, that was not something selling chakra a few times could make up for. The Sand Village had experienced the tragedy of a tailed beast rampage before. It had been a scene like hell.
In order to prevent the One-Tail from sneaking out while he slept, Bunpuku had barely slept since the day he became the One-Tail Jinchuriki.
A person who went one or two days without sleep could go mad. Not sleeping for decades would make someone's mind collapse.
In later generations, Gaara directly went insane and even needed to kill people to calm the anxiety inside him. Of course, that was also inseparable from Gaara's unlucky father.
This was the sorrow of becoming the One-Tail Jinchuriki in the Sand Village. The Sand Village did not have mature tailed beast sealing techniques. Unless the Jinchuriki and the One-Tail shared the same mind and the tailed beast voluntarily stayed inside the body without causing trouble, there was no real solution.
That possibility could be ignored directly. The tailed beasts right now were all extremely violent. Unless they were beaten into the ground first, they would not calmly listen to you talk.
Even Naruto, who possessed his talk-based persuasion, first had to slam a Big Ball Spiral Sphere into the Nine-Tails' face before the Nine-Tails truly became patient enough to open its heart and communicate with Naruto equally.
Haru naturally understood Chiyo's concern, but he did not have any good solution either. Haru did not understand much about sealing techniques, and the Scroll of Seals left by Tobirama only recorded a few scattered words about them.
The Uzumaki clan had not been wiped out yet, so the Leaf naturally had no way to receive their sealing techniques. High-level sealing techniques were all exclusive patents of the Uzumaki clan.
After thinking for a while, Haru realized that he still had to ask Mito for help with this matter.
Thus, Haru went to the Senju clan compound and found Mito. When Mito heard that Haru had come to ask her for help, she was so happy she almost jumped up.
This day had finally come!
Haru had ultimately come to beg her.
Mito put on a full display, wanting Haru to say a few pleasant words and make her happy. Ever since meeting Haru, she had never once gained an advantage over him. She had only suffered losses.
However, Haru had an unyielding spine. It was impossible for him to watch Mito act smug after gaining the upper hand. Was she not just an expert who understood sealing techniques? Did he really have no one else besides Mito?
Was Haruno not a person?
She had been learning sealing techniques to deal with tailed beasts since she was young!
There was also Ashina!
Although Ashina had returned to the Uzumaki clan, as long as Haru sent word, he would immediately rush to the Leaf to solve Haru's problem.
"Hmph. If you won't do it, there are plenty of people who will!"
"Where is Haruno? From now on, let Haruno live at my place. It just so happens that I'll need to trouble her constantly during this period!"
(End of Chapter)
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