"Are you satisfied now?"
Tobirama looked at Haru with a gloomy face. He had actually fallen so low as to call an evil brat from the Uchiha clan "Hokage-sama."
What a humiliation.
A tiger fallen to the plains being bullied by dogs.
But thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river. Just wait and see.
"I'm fairly satisfied."
Haru nodded, very pleased by Tobirama's concession.
That one "Hokage-sama" from Tobirama felt as refreshing to Haru as drinking ice water in the middle of a scorching summer day.
After all these years of Tobirama dominating the ninja world, Haru was probably the only Uchiha who had ever forced him to compromise to this extent.
Refreshing!
"Enough nonsense. What exactly do you want me to research?"
"Do you want a forbidden jutsu that can kill hundreds of people in an instant? A forbidden jutsu to modify and strengthen your body? Or some forbidden jutsu like Reanimation Jutsu that desecrates the souls of the dead?"
"..."
Tobirama launched into a nonstop introduction of the various types of forbidden techniques he could develop. His research covered a wide range, and he even confidently declared that as long as there was enough funding, he could help Haru create any of them.
Tobirama could guess with his toes that Haru had gone to all this trouble to reanimate him because he wanted powerful forbidden jutsu.
Since they were going to pursue excitement, they might as well go all the way.
Tobirama himself had once had plenty of ideas for these kinds of techniques in life, but for one reason or another had never been able to fully develop them.
What a pity.
As Haru listened to Tobirama's endless introduction, his brows slowly drew together.
Tobirama, and you still have the nerve to call me an evil Uchiha brat?
You enjoy inventing murderous forbidden jutsu that much?
Could you not put that research ability of yours toward improving the productivity of the ninja world and benefiting ordinary people instead?
"You evil old ghost from the Senju clan!"
"Who asked you to research those boring killing techniques?!"
Haru finally could not help cursing at him, leaving the previously eloquent Tobirama stunned.
That was my line!
"What do you mean?"
Tobirama could not make sense of Haru's intention. Wasn't research supposed to be for developing forbidden jutsu? If a ninja developed jutsu not to kill people, then what else were they supposed to do with them?
"Tobirama, you really disappoint me."
"But in the end, I can't blame you too much. Even though you were once Hokage, at heart you're still just a ninja."
"A ninja only needs to think about killing people. A Hokage has to think about much more."
Haru shook his head. As Hokage, having to go begging the Daimyo for money and open his mouth to ask for help was simply too humiliating.
"What do you mean?"
"Are you saying that I was an unqualified Hokage?"
Tobirama looked at Haru with an unfriendly gaze. He had built Konoha from the ground up with his own two hands.
His elder brother Hashirama had mostly just provided military deterrence, spent his days eating, drinking, and secretly doing who knew what with Madara Uchiha, and often tricked Tobirama into giving him money, only to go lose it in gambling houses.
Konoha had been built by Tobirama himself, and now Haru dared imply that he had been an unqualified Hokage?
"Not at all. You were certainly qualified as Hokage. I just think there was still a lot of room for improvement."
"For example, when it came to funding."
Haru's meaning was obvious. That Daimyo sitting above his head was entirely unnecessary.
And by Daimyo, Haru did not mean one individual person. He meant an entire system that had squatted over the ninja world for thousands of years. The distorted technological development, the backward productive forces and relations of production, the whole thing offended his eyes.
"Hmph!"
"The funding Konoha gets from the Fire Daimyo is already the highest in the entire ninja world!"
"This year, I even squeezed out several extra billion!"
"I'm telling you, by my estimate, the funding for Sunagakure in the Land of Wind will probably get cut again!"
Tobirama felt Haru was nitpicking for the sake of it. During his tenure as Hokage, the cost of war had indeed driven spending far past the limit.
But wasn't that normal? War burned money.
Which ninja village wasn't in debt right now?
Konoha's finances were already considered excellent, and they even had a generous patron willing to keep pouring money into them.
Wait.
Tobirama, you're actually proud of that?
And now you've started comparing who has it worse?
That rotten tradition of comparing misery really did thrive in every world.
"Tobirama, you need to broaden your horizons. Why do we have to ask the Daimyo for money at all?"
"We should learn to rely on ourselves."
Haru decided it was time to enlighten Tobirama a little.
"You mean the money ninja earn from taking missions?"
Tobirama looked at Haru as if something had gone wrong with his brain.
Wasn't ninja village self-reliance just sending ninja out to take missions and then skimming a cut from the profits? At most, the village could take thirty percent.
The bigger share still had to go to the ninja themselves. If Tobirama tried taking more money for Konoha, he'd start worrying about getting clubbed from behind by his own ninja while walking home at night.
That little bit of money was a drop in the bucket once war started. It would all burn up within a few months.
Without the support of a nation behind it, a ninja village could get by in peacetime, but in war it couldn't last long at all.
Who didn't want self-reliance? Who didn't want to stand up straight?
But when there's no money, even a hero is helpless. Tobirama could work S-rank missions until he died, and it still wouldn't bring in as much money as the Daimyo's budget.
"Of course not. I mean we can also engage in production, establish our own mode of production, and make these Daimyo unnecessary."
Haru felt he might as well make it even clearer.
In the future, ninja would not need the Daimyo. Of course, for now, the Daimyo's power in the ninja world still could not be underestimated, though not because of military strength.
Ninja were powerful, but their numbers were far too small.
Even a great ninja war only amounted to a group brawl of a few tens of thousands of ninja, and Konoha's current ninja population had already been reduced so much it could not even reach five digits.
But the number of ordinary people in the ninja world was enormous, counted in the hundreds of millions. And among the common people, the ninja's reputation was terrible: killing tools, executioners, and all sorts of ugly labels.
The Daimyo represented the interests of ordinary people and the entire conservative order.
Ninja were the new faction, an alien force that had been introduced from outside. In earlier times, what dominated the land were samurai, who were also formidable in their own way.
Aside from the descendants of the Otsutsuki clan, ordinary ninja had started out weak as well, and in the earliest days they had been treated like freaks and rejected by samurai.
But as the ninjutsu system became more and more refined, ninja power grew stronger and stronger, until it reached the point where ninja could casually kill samurai.
The Daimyo of the past had sensed that shift keenly and begun courting the ninja. Money, women, food, these were all things that could be shared with ninja.
After countless years of evolution, a system gradually formed: ninja served the Daimyo and carried out missions, while the Daimyo rewarded them generously in return. Over time, this became the norm, and everyone on top could continue enjoying themselves together.
The common people just had to suffer a bit more.
The pen remained in the Daimyo's hands, and over the long years the idea that ninja were merely tools had risen to dominance. What a rotten world.
All of these factors made it difficult for ninja to truly rise and become the actual rulers.
Haru mulled over all this inwardly as he waited for Tobirama's response.
(End of Chapter)
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