Mahjong Parlor Speech

In a corner where no one noticed.

Konoha's youngest, most fragile shoot silently set itself alight, blooming with an inconspicuous spark in the long night.

That faint light and heat flowed ceaselessly along its branches and leaves, burning toward the ancient, decaying trunk and roots of this giant tree.

Over the course of that entire month.

On the surface, the confrontation between the advisory council and the Senju Clan continued.

But the alliance among the ninja clans had not been without effect.

After Clan Head Inuzuka Gentai was proven innocent and released back to his clan grounds, public opinion in the village stopped targeting the conspicuous heads of the various clans and instead turned toward the industries the ninja clans regarded as cash cows.

Deer antler, medicinal gardens, food streets, forestry, insect feed, steelmaking, arms manufacturing.

The various industries once firmly controlled by the ninja clans and regarded as their lifeblood all suffered losses of varying sizes in this invisible conflict.

Those seemingly insignificant losses became a rather terrifying figure after accumulating over a month.

Yet even more terrifying than the losses on the books was the resentment accumulating in people's hearts.

Neither Shimura Danzō nor Sarutobi Hiruzen realized that their blade was being deliberately or inadvertently redirected by certain people, away from the powerful ninja clan leaders and toward commoners with weaker resistance and quieter voices.

The elephant's strength was building, bit by bit.

"Crash."

The tottering doorframe finally slammed onto the scorched ground.

An eleven- or twelve-year-old child stared blankly at his family's blacksmith shop, burned down to nothing.

The ninja kunai and various other weapons displayed in the warehouse and on the shelves had all been swept away under the pretext of an inspection. His father, once a ninja but now disabled, had been knocked to the ground merely for resisting the search, and the shop had been hit with a Fire Release technique before they left.

All they had left behind was a freshly signed "search warrant."

They probably did not even know where the order had come from themselves.

Although no one had been killed or injured, the blacksmith shop that had operated since his birth had ultimately reached its end.

His father sat slumped on the ground with a desolate expression. His leg, supported by a wooden stick, was caught in a crack between the stones, and he still clutched the nameplate bearing the surname "Haruno" against his chest.

Their Haruno Clan was merely a small ninja clan. They had struggled for generations to make a living and had never dared to make enemies of anyone else in the village.

How had it come to this?

"Bastards!"

Haruno Genji pounded the ground viciously, yet he no longer had the strength to prop up his own body. A ninja who had never groaned even with blades pressed against him could not stop tears from spilling out now.

"Fuck! How did the village become like this?!"

"F-Father." Haruno Kizashi's eyes were red as well. He clenched his fists tightly, his voice choked with sobs. "Let's go complain at the Hokage Building! Our home, our home was all burned down by them!"

But Haruno Genji remained seated on the ground, his face stiff as he stayed silent for a long time.

Go to the village?

If going to the village was useful, why had the compensation he received after losing a leg on the battlefield been only one-third of what it should have been?

If going to the village was useful, why had the "Ninja Marriage Law" imposed no punishment when his wife ran off with a foreign merchant while he was fighting at the front, and instead allowed her to take nearly half their property for nothing after the divorce?

If going to the village was useful, how could those Anbu-looking bastards dare—

"Bang."

Another fist smashed viciously into the ground.

Haruno Genji looked at the surrounding shops and neighbors with their doors tightly shut and let out a long sigh.

At last, he laboriously used the still-standing wall to pull himself upright. Supporting himself with his son's shoulder, he said with a resolute expression, "We're going to the Disabled Ninja Association."

Haruno Kizashi froze at that.

Though he was still young, he ran around everywhere and had occasionally heard the other village children talk about this organization that had recently been giving speeches all over the place. Most of its members were injured or disabled middle-aged ninja, and they spoke about things children like them could not understand.

Haruno Genji understood them.

But for people like them, with families to support, who would go near those "good-for-nothings," "ungrateful wretches," and "extremely dangerous" people for no reason?

What if they did something dangerous one day? He himself would be fine, but what about his son? His son still needed to take the Hokage Building civil service exam in the future!

Haruno Genji had once thought that way, looking down on those people who blamed the village for every little thing that went wrong—he was a man who could make his own way through any hardship.

Until the sparks scattered by certain people happened to fall upon his own home as well.

In truth, if one looked down the entire street, only their place had burned down. It did not seem all that significant.

Yet when a speck of ash from an era landed on an individual, it became a weight life could hardly bear.

Even before setting out, Haruno Genji still felt uneasy.

What attitude would those dangerous commoners he had looked down on have toward someone like him, burdened with a family, born into a ninja clan, and possessing little wealth?

He could not explain it himself.

But driven by some inexplicable stubbornness, he still thought:

Let's go take a look.

Pitiful people always gathered with other pitiful people.

The nearest outpost to their home was a small mahjong parlor that also sold tea and snacks. But with the village economy declining recently, fewer people came to drink tea and play mahjong.

It had been deserted for a long time since the war began.

Yet when the Haruno father and son entered the mahjong parlor, it was bustling with excitement.

A similarly disabled man missing an arm stood atop a mahjong table, shouting passionately at the crowd below.

"Today! We stand here, upon the land of Konoha! The land our ancestors watered with their blood and dignity!"

"On the mountain behind me stands the carved visage of Lord Hashirama Senju!"

"He is the light of the entire world!"

"He said Konoha's elderly should be cared for, its children should be raised, and children should not go to war!"

"But what about now? Me, you, us! All of us! We lost our limbs on the battlefield, our children lost their lives on the battlefield, and after the war, we lost our dignity as well—up to this day, has any one of us commoners received a single medal, a word of praise, or even a single coin in postwar support?"

"Some of you may say: Ida-kun, I don't care about honor. As long as the village gives me, a man who lost an arm on the battlefield, a piece of bread, I'll already be grateful."

"Yes, you are right. Survival is indeed far too important! But I must tell you that there are things more important than life in this world. That is dignity! That is order!"

"The First Hokage founded the village, and the Second Hokage established its laws—those who contributed to the village should be supported by it. That is a rule every Hokage, no matter who they are, must obey!"

"What we need is not merely a piece of bread, but a living space built upon rules! A living space for those who sacrificed for Konoha!"

"This living space will not be achieved through begging or charity! It will be achieved through iron and blood!"

Haruno Genji listened in a daze. Those speeches that had once sounded like chaotic birdsong whenever he was full and content had never shaken his heart as they did today.

And he was not the only one.

Everyone present, every person who had voluntarily walked into this mahjong parlor, listened in silence.

Just as little Seele had once said.

What gathered the German people around him had never been his speeches, but rather the tax police who extorted them mercilessly, bread that cost five hundred thousand marks a loaf, the usurious Jewish aliens, and children who starved to death even after their parents had spent everything they owned to buy food.

Only when they truly became victims did Haruno Genji realize how fiercely the flames in their hearts burned.

Standing atop the mahjong table, Ida Masaya answered those burning hearts and blazing gazes with an impassioned voice.

Just as he had one month ago, when he stood in the open space beneath Hokage Rock and listened to Lord Sahara Mizu speaking from the stage.

He firmly believed it, just as Sahara Mizu had said!

Only Lord Tsunade, who bore Senju blood, could bring them a fairer Konoha!

However, before the speech could continue for long, a sudden commotion erupted outside.

"Move aside! Move aside!"

"Everyone inside, come out!"

The cramped mahjong parlor immediately descended into chaos.

Everyone realized that the Uchiha Police Force had arrived.

Yet Haruno Genji saw with his own eyes that a small group of disabled ninja led by Ida Masaya and the others calmly climbed down from the mahjong table, supporting one another as they walked toward the entrance amid the crowd's escort.

The moment they stepped outside, the Uchiha men viciously pinned them to the ground and locked shackles onto them.

It looked anything but dignified.

Yet in the eyes of victims like Haruno Genji, at the moment those shackles were placed upon them, their bodies seemed to radiate a strange light belonging only to pioneers.

Haruno Genji instinctively turned his head to look at the crowd packed inside the mahjong parlor.

Among them were commoners, small ninja clan members with unfamiliar crests embroidered on their clothes, disabled people, and others dressed poorly.

They were ordered out of the mahjong parlor, but every one of them held their heads high and stared fiercely at the Uchiha Police Force ninja sent to arrest them.

It was as though fire burned in every pair of eyes.

Haruno Genji lowered his head and looked at his son following closely at his side, then at the charred hem of his own clothes.

At some point, a Red Dragon tile with a chipped corner had appeared in his hand.

He could not even say what had made a man who had been honest his entire life suddenly find such great courage.

Standing amid the crowd, Haruno Genji abruptly raised his head and cursed loudly.

"Fuck them!"

With a whoosh, the mahjong tile flew like a shuriken and struck an Uchiha in the front row squarely in the back with a bang.

That tiny act immediately ignited the explosive called the crowd. A roar of uproar erupted as sparks of courage splashed outward and set everyone ablaze.

In front of the entire mahjong parlor, stones, mahjong tiles, wooden chopsticks, and table legs filled the air. A few more impulsive people even charged headlong into the middle of Ida Masaya's group as they were being arrested.

The Uchiha Police Force members present all froze.

But no one stopped. As if they had received some signal through their united courage, they howled and surged toward the mere six Uchiha Police Force members outside in a chaotic storm of shrieks and wails.

But reality did not contain that much unity, and ninja were still ninja. Any one of them could easily take down dozens of ordinary people. Even more people used the opportunity to flee, running beyond the Uchiha's reach before diving into alleyways.

Very soon, Haruno Genji and the more than twenty others who had started it all were pinned to the ground.

As for those who seemed cowardly, they became even hotter sparks, silently spreading in every direction.

Thanks to readers 20170401085049439, 20180703031814507, Youkli, 20181128165442216, Emperor of Gensokyo, Lose Europe 20231111122158799, Author Get Up and Update, Kaede of the End, Somewhere, 151028203730881, Northern Border War God Ye Crooked Mouth, Bully Cockroach, and 20180905185032500 for the monthly votes!

This chapter is 3,500 words. There is one more update, though it will be a bit later. I'll try to finish this part in one go.

Everyone can read it tomorrow morning.