Border Army Reorganization

Kunugi Mokume was one of the so-called Ninja Village Faction ninjas, an outstanding member of the first generation of ninja trained since Konoha's founding. Though his reputation and strength fell short of Hatake Sakumo's, he was still a rare elite Jonin.

Konoha's Ninja Village Faction had distinct traits. As the first generation of the ninja village, they especially worshipped Senju Hashirama, the God of Shinobi, seeing him as a living deity who had ended the wars. They regarded Konoha as their sole treasure, but they also placed particular importance on individual will, believing that only an independent mind could create a true powerhouse. Their respect for the Hokage was comparatively superficial, while they valued the bonds between comrades more highly, and so on...

In short, Kunugi Mokume was a first-generation Konoha ninja raised on the Will of Fire. However, this Will of Fire was the will of First Hokage Senju Hashirama, and apart from sharing the same name, it was fundamentally different from the Will of Fire currently popular in Konoha after being reinterpreted by the Third Hokage.

Kunugi Mokume had long since received the Third Hokage's orders and knew that the Uchiha Clan would be coming to take over the Border Defense Force. But he had assumed Uchiha would send at most eight or ten ninja, then pad out the ranks with a group of sturdy men dispatched by the village. He had never expected the Uchiha Clan alone to send such a powerful ninja army.

"Commander Kamon... Uchiha truly deserves to be called the First Great Clan. With this ninja army here, the northwest border will surely be as steady as a mountain." Kunugi Mokume could not help but marvel at this immensely formidable force.

Especially after learning that the commander of the Uchiha Clan's ninja army was the eight-year-old Uchiha Tokimitsu, he sighed, "So young, yet already so adept at arranging all manner of practical affairs. The Uchiha Clan truly lives up to its reputation for producing geniuses. Not only are they unmatched in combat, they are even so skilled in administrative work..."

Inside the central tent of the Northwest Border Defense Force's Garrison Camp, the tent flap had been raised. Uchiha Kamon and Kunugi Mokume chatted over tea within.

Kunugi Mokume had sorted through all the handover documents, unresolved matters, and various key tasks, then handed them over to Uchiha Kamon.

But as commanders, it was always good to exchange a few more words with colleagues. After all, there were still people and matters that needed to be entrusted to someone's care.

Konoha's Northwest Border Defense Force was one of the four major defense forces dispatched by Konoha. Its primary target of vigilance was Iwagakure of the Land of Earth, and its authorized strength was around 1,200 men. However, due to casualties from long-term conflicts and frequent personnel transfers, it had remained at roughly 1,000 personnel year-round and was consistently understrength. The various border forces also regularly redeployed troops to support other defense zones. Even before the conflict in the Land of Rain broke out, around 200 ninja army troops had been transferred to support the Western Border Defense Force under Shirakumo Hayama's command in the direction of the Land of Rivers, and they had yet to return.

Thus, the Northwest Border Defense Force currently had only around 800 ninja on its rolls, and quite a few among them were wounded or had served for too long and needed to rotate back to the village.

Inside the task management tent of the Garrison Camp, Uchiha Tokimitsu clicked his tongue in amazement as he held the rotation list. Among the roughly two hundred names listed for rotation, it was clear from the names alone that most of those being sent back to the village this time were members of ninja clans.

"Sarutobi, Shimura, Aburame, Nara, Yamanaka, Akimichi, Inuzuka Clan, Takagi, Ise, Utatane, Mitokado, Gekko... and even Hyuga. Uh, Hyuga Clan ninja were injured, so that is understandable. Looks like Konoha's Second Great Clan still cares about saving face..."

"Should I say these ninja clan members have their hands in everything, or that their instincts for the situation are truly sharp?"

Although the Uchiha Clan was itself one of the ninja clans—and the strongest First Great Clan at that—Uchiha's mockery showed no mercy.

The three nominal regimental commanders, Shimura Takewu, Nakagawa Tsunashige, and Nagashima Daigo, stood beneath the tent with their hands at their sides, silent. The Northwest Border Defense Force clerk assigned to the tent was already shivering in the corner.

There was no way to answer that.

Shimura Takewu was inherently from a ninja clan, and he was even a member of Danzo's clan, whom Uchiha hated most. He might even have been shouldering some shady special mission. Being able to avoid being set up was already a stroke of great fortune. Nakagawa Tsunashige and Nagashima Daigo, though Jonin, were commoners who had largely muddled their way up through seniority. Every one of the ninja clan names Uchiha Tokimitsu had just read out was beyond their ability to offend.

Seeing that none of them spoke, Uchiha Tokimitsu turned to Uchiha Nobuhiko and Uchiha Kensuke beside him. "Say, is our Uchiha Clan really the strongest great ninja clan?" He waved the list in his hand. "There isn't a single member of our clan in the peacetime border forces, yet when war is clearly about to break out, we have to rush all the way here from the village. The Hokage ought to give us several tons of gold medals, or it would be hard to justify."

Uchiha Tokimitsu's teasing made the more serious Uchiha Nobuhiko and Uchiha Kensuke somewhat uncomfortable. Uchiha Nobuhiko bowed slightly and replied, "Reporting to the Young Lord, our clan primarily serves in the Konoha Military Police Force, so naturally there are fewer of us in the other standing ninja army units..."

"That makes sense. The Konoha Military Police Force is still not as profitable as the peacetime Border Defense Force. It is only wartime now, after all."

Uchiha Tokimitsu's indiscriminate attack made Shimura Takewu, Nakagawa Tsunashige, and Nagashima Daigo lower their heads even further.

Seeing the three of them looking like quails, Uchiha Tokimitsu did not hold their awkward silence against them. "Call them in batch by batch. I am very easy to talk to, after all. They are the offspring of the ninja clans that hold up Konoha's pillars. It is always better if fewer of them die."

"Yes!" ×3

The three left the tent and hurriedly summoned the rotating ninja according to the list, bringing them into the tent one by one to complete the procedures.

Uchiha Tokimitsu checked each name, physical description, and mission record one by one. He did not make any strange remarks mocking those uninjured clan ninja, and straightforwardly issued certificates permitting the rotating ninja to return to the village—anyone who returned without travel papers issued by the Garrison Camp would be purged as a deserter.

Uchiha Nobuhiko and Uchiha Kensuke were naturally astonished to see Uchiha Tokimitsu handle official business so skillfully. Great strength was one thing; history had seen countless genius Uchiha who slaughtered their way across battlefields at young ages. But to be able to independently manage governmental affairs at such a tender age, with every point well reasoned and public matters clearly separated from private ones—how had he developed such a talent for administration?

As for Uchiha Tokimitsu, he had been a manager-level corporate drone in his previous life. Basic management duties and all kinds of document-handling skills had naturally never been his weak points. Handling these official documents with clear objectives came easily to him.

Each rotating ninja's identity verification and certificate issuance took less than a minute. Even so, Uchiha Tokimitsu spent more than three hours on the task.

"Ah... that was torture. More exhausting than training." After finishing the rotation paperwork, Uchiha Tokimitsu stretched deeply.

"Next, arrange the next task..."

While Uchiha Kamon was still chatting with Kunugi Mokume, Uchiha Tokimitsu had already finished handling the rotation affairs and was preparing to begin an inventory of supplies.

The Garrison Camp's warehouses were packed full of supplies, showing that Kunugi Mokume, the overall person in charge, had been rather clean-handed.

However, after taking inventory, they found no shortage of various ninja tools and large equipment, but medical supplies, Military Rations Pills, and Explosive Tags—the most heavily consumed items in peacetime—were in desperately short supply. Upon inquiry, it turned out that the ninja army dispatched to support the Land of Rivers had taken away most of the supplies.

"Send a document back to the village. Request three times the standard allocation of supplies."

Uchiha Tokimitsu spoke to Nara Kohei, who served as a Staff Officer.

The Nara Clan, one of the Ino-Shika-Cho Three Clans, had always been known for their sharp minds and endless stratagems. Thus, they often served as Staff Officers in various units.

"Th-this..." Nara Kohei showed a troubled expression.

"Is there a problem?" Uchiha Tokimitsu glanced at him.

"The village... has fixed allocations for every type of supply, and resupply is also scheduled regularly... Making such a sudden request, especially for an excessive amount..." Nara Kohei phrased his words somewhat tactfully.

"This is wartime!" Uchiha Tokimitsu rebuked him. "It is one thing for the useless deadwood in the village to idle away their days in mediocrity during peacetime. But now that the situation is tense and war could erupt at any moment, if they remain so incompetent and inflexible, I will personally throw their clansmen onto the front lines to fill trenches!"

Nara Kohei was dumbfounded. He knew the Uchiha Clan had always been arrogant and domineering, but he had never known them to be this wildly arrogant.

"Go send the document! Tell the village to allocate more supplies!"

Nara Kohei could only return to the tent in frustration, chewing on his pen and racking his brains for reasons to demand resupply materials from the village.

At present, both Konoha and the entire Ninja World generally neglected medical care. Naturally, Medical Ninja were extremely scarce. When ninja were wounded, they generally relied on rear-echelon units to rescue them and administer simple medicinal treatment. If the injury was truly severe, additional manpower had to be spent transporting them back to the village for treatment.

The entire Northwest Border Defense Force had only five Medical Ninja and twenty-one attendants serving as nurses, all of them Genin. As for the Medical Ninja's level of skill, that was open to interpretation. At any rate, they did not kill people with their treatment.

For this situation to improve, they would have to wait until after the war, when Tsunade proposed a Medical Ninja training program. Only after Konoha saw the massive boost that promptly healed wounded soldiers returning to combat provided to the village's sustained combat capability did it begin to place great importance on training Medical Ninja, with other ninja villages following suit.

Since the current state of affairs could not be solved, they could only make up for the shortcomings as much as possible. Uchiha Tokimitsu went to the Medical Team and spoke with the Medical Ninja, learning about their work and their views on medical matters. After a round of discussion, Uchiha Tokimitsu approved the Medical Team leader's suggestion to increase the issuance of trauma medicine to frontline Combat Ninja units. He also stated that the Medical Team leader would organize various basic first-aid training sessions for the ninja on the rolls to attend, minimizing secondary harm after injuries as much as possible. In addition, he proposed establishing the position of Field Rescuer, specifically responsible for extracting wounded ninja from the battlefield. Those lightly wounded would be bandaged and allowed to remain at their posts, while the seriously wounded would be pulled back to the rear for emergency treatment.

Drawing on the experience and knowledge of his previous life, Uchiha Tokimitsu spoke at great length. The Medical Team leader wisely nodded again and again in agreement.

Only after his throat had gone dry did Uchiha Tokimitsu stop, still not entirely satisfied.

He found that the feeling of instructing professionals was quite wonderful. No wonder the Hokage always liked giving speeches.

After touring the Medical Department, the Garrison Camp's administrative affairs were essentially finished.

Uchiha Kamon had just sent away Kunugi Mokume after their lengthy discussion when Uchiha Tokimitsu hurried over and reported all the matters one by one.

When Uchiha Kamon learned that the personnel rotation, supply inventory, logistical support, and other administrative matters had all been completed, he could not help but be greatly astonished.

All Along, the Uchiha Clan had produced countless geniuses and was filled with powerful figures, yet it had been extremely short on talent in internal administration. Elder Setsuna's training had not covered such detailed administrative affairs either. In that case, Uchiha Tokimitsu's aptitude for government work could no longer be described merely as "exceptionally gifted." He was practically a monstrous talent who had been born knowing it all.

Uchiha Kamon praised him without reservation. He had originally expected to spend an entire day slowly sorting through the administrative work, but Uchiha Tokimitsu had already completed it all, greatly reducing his workload.

Then next came the most important matter: the training and reorganization that would determine the combat strength of the entire Border Defense Force.