The Cushion Scam

"Master, I'll be going on ahead."

"Goodbye, Old Eight."

With a formulaic smile plastered across his face, Uchiha Gin waved at Hydrangea as she departed, watching his newly recruited rich woman disciple hurry off to bring the good news back to her hometown in Amegakure.

"A Gin, are you really taking that foreign woman as your student?"

Uchiha Hikari watched Hydrangea's hurriedly departing figure, a hint of gravity on her face. Uchiha Gin had taken in quite a few students over the years, but this was his first foreigner.

"It's about making money. Nothing shameful about that. Besides..."

Still smiling, Uchiha Gin lowered the hand he had been waving and gently shook his head.

"There's more to it?"

"Of course. Did you really think I was the kind of lecherous Gin who only cared about money?"

"Uh, aren't you?"

Under the piercing stares of several acquaintances, Uchiha Gin's drooping mouth twitched.

Today, he had finally learned what prejudice was, what discrimination was, and how preconceptions in people's hearts were like mountains.

"I'm doing this for peace in the Ninja World."

"Huh?" *N

They had initially been half-convinced, but now they were utterly certain that Uchiha Gin was a money-grubbing pervert who fell for a pretty face.

Come on, even if you were making up an excuse, couldn't you at least make one the public could accept?

Peace in the Ninja World?

What did that have to do with a salted fish like you, coasting through life and waiting to die?

"Ah, life truly is lonely as snow."

This was what it meant to be the only sober man in a world of drunks. If Hanzo kicked the bucket, Iwagakure could flatten Amegakure in less than a day. At that point, the Wind-Earth War would be inevitable, and a vortex of