Night fell, and darkness swallowed the world. In this era, electricity was a luxury; only Konoha and a handful of large towns had streetlights.
It was late, but the lights in the Hokage's office were still burning bright. Behind the desk, Tsunade—who hadn't slept in over twenty-four hours—was buried under a mountain of paperwork.
With her constitution, physical fatigue wasn't the issue. It was the sheer, mind-numbing volume of documents that was making her blood boil.
Tsunade couldn't believe what Hiruzen Sarutobi and those other fossils had been doing before they died. The amount of backlogged administration was a disgrace. They were a bunch of "vegetarian" bureaucrats who had lived on the village's tit without doing a lick of actual work.
Fortunately, the Nara clan were all geniuses. She had drafted several Nara administrative specialists to handle the non-essential logistics, or she genuinely would have smashed her head through the desk by now.
The Ino-Shika-Cho trio were legendary clans, and they were staunch Hokage loyalists. No matter who sat in the chair, they supported the position.
The Nara, in particular, provided the high-IQ manpower that kept the village's civilian and military bureaucracy running.
Because of this, she'd been able to start the transition almost immediately after the morning meeting ended.
Truthfully, the free-spirited Tsunade hated this job. The paperwork made her want to commit violence. But the mess that "certain brat" had made was hers to clean up, and she couldn't just abandon the Leaf.
Tsunade rubbed her aching shoulders and stood up, walking to the window to stare at the black expanse of the village. "God, this job is exhausting," she muttered.
If Saiki were there, he'd have snarked, "It's not the work that's exhausting you; it's the weight of those two massive melons on your chest."
Her moment of self-pity passed as her expression turned grave. The war at the front was still raging, and she had to stabilize the logistics immediately.
Thinking about logistics made her head hurt. Konoha's finances were a disaster. Hiruzen and the Elders had died so suddenly that they hadn't left behind a proper ledger. Tsunade had no idea where half the village's liquid capital had even gone.
If the money was missing, she'd have to find it. But the resulting deficit was a nightmare she had to solve right now.
During peacetime, the village took a heavy cut of mission rewards to stay afloat. But in a world war, trade was dead and private commissions had plummeted. The economy was collapsing.
If Saiki had seen the books, he would have understood why, at the end of the Third War, a "victorious" Konoha had allowed the Cloud to extort them. Hiruzen and his cronies had literally spent the village into bankruptcy.
War drains men, but it drains gold faster. The ninja at the front were fighting for their home, yes, but they still needed salaries, bonuses, and death benefits for their families. You couldn't ask them to fight on an empty stomach.
Tsunade knew the village High Command and the elite clans controlled the "grey" industries—the casinos and red-light districts. She just couldn't understand where the profits went.
Where did it go?
It didn't take a genius to figure it out.
Aside from funneling wealth into their own clans, they spent it on themselves.
Take Root, for example. Everyone knew it existed, but it wasn't an official part of the Leaf's military budget.
So where did the money come from? Training ninja was incredibly expensive—not everyone was a freak like Saiki who just needed a bowl of rice and a scroll.
A ninja needed medicinal baths, specialized gear, and food from a young age. Root's "survival of the fittest" training likely wasted more resources than it produced.
Danzo had Root, and Hiruzen—aside from the Anbu—undoubtedly had his own private "loyalist" factions that he maintained with bribes and favors.
Truthfully, Saiki's decision to slaughter the Council was cathartic, but the tangled web of corruption they left behind was going to haunt the village for years.
Fortunately, Saiki's solution was simple: kill the complainers. If the arrogant clan ninja didn't want to work, there were plenty of commoner ninja hungry for the opportunity.
"If you won't do it, someone else will." That was the mindset of a boy who held zero respect for "Noble Blood." But Tsunade was a clan ninja herself; her brain was wired differently. She felt she had to accommodate them because the village needed their numbers.
Ultimately, Tsunade just wasn't strong enough. If she were truly absolute, these wouldn't be problems.
Ninja possessed god-like power, yet they refused to engage in production. They were a class of parasites who only knew how to exploit. This was the root of all misery in the world. If ninja used their efficiency for production, the world would have reached the modern age decades ago.
The Shinobi World needed a "Daddy" like Saiki to whip them into shape.
Unfortunately, Saiki was a "salted fish" who couldn't be bothered to fix the world. The future looked bleak.
Tsunade sighed and returned to her desk.
She continued her work, trying to find a way to plug the holes in the budget. But neither raising taxes nor cutting spending was a viable long-term fix.
The "cake" of the Shinobi World was simply too small. If the ninja had the vision to grow the economy, they wouldn't be slaughtering each other over a handful of C-rank missions every year.
While Tsunade was buried in files, Saiki's night life was just beginning.