The Yellow-Haired Man's Delight

Sunagakure's finances had always ranked at the very bottom among the Five Great Shinobi Villages. By per capita income, it ranked even lower than tenth.

Its sources of income were also extremely limited, relying heavily on missions and minerals. Things had gotten even worse after the last Ninja World War: the Land of Wind had not only cut military funding but had also outsourced some of its missions to Konoha, leaving the already impoverished Sunagakure in dire straits.

For Rasa, however, this was good news. With the Kazekage gone, he was the only person in the village skilled at prospecting for mineral deposits. His standing had risen rapidly as a result; otherwise, being one of the Third Kazekage's students would not have been enough to win him the support of the Kazekage faction.

"Lord Rasa, is this true?"

A clan chief whose family was primarily engaged in the mineral trade immediately asked Rasa to confirm.

Rasa shook his head. "I'm not familiar with the village's finances, but mineral output is more or less the same as last year. I've heard there may be a new deposit in the west, and I'll go check it out in a while. However..."

"However, the minerals can't be shipped out."

Hoshino Maki cut Rasa off. "Because of the war, neighboring countries have stationed large numbers of troops along their borders with the Land of Wind. It'll take time to reopen the routes. At the earliest, that won't happen until winter, and transportation will slow down then. Worried about the fighting, many buyers have already signed contracts with Iwagakure. At least for the next year, Sunagakure's mineral sales won't improve—in fact, they may drop sharply."

In the end, those merchants simply had no faith in Sunagakure.

If Kumogakure went to war with Konoha, they wouldn't openly pledge their loyalty to Konoha, but they would at least hedge their bets.

But now, they had gone straight to Iwagakure. Old Ōnoki probably hadn't even expected that, in a Cloud-Sand war, he would be the biggest winner.

Rasa nodded. That was what he had meant, and he admired Hoshino Maki's political acumen.

There were plenty of people in this village with strength, but very few with brains.

He had grown up around the Kazekage, absorbing knowledge by watching and listening. Then, after taking over the work of prospecting for mineral deposits, he had often dealt with powerful figures outside the village. Those experiences had given him the broad perspective he had now.

But Hoshino Maki had never left the Land of Wind as a child, and had rarely even left Sunagakure. To have such insight was truly remarkable. If Hoshino Maki took charge of the village's internal affairs in the future, Rasa would have a lot less to worry about.

While Chōjūrō was still thinking about how to become Kazekage, Rasa was already considering the village's future from the Kazekage's perspective.

That was the difference in their outlook.

The clan chief slumped back into his seat, his face ashen.

The mineral business was practically free money.

These clans, which sucked resources from the deposits they sat on, managed them in a very slapdash way. He was no different. When they needed money, they mined more; when they didn't, they mined less. He had never once considered what to do if the minerals couldn't be shipped out.

In the past, he could have borrowed from the village, but now the village was broke too!

"Also, since the Land of Wind has always relied on imported food, the war has caused food prices to soar. While we were fighting Kumogakure, neighboring countries stockpiled food on a large scale. Now it's difficult for us to buy large quantities of food at a reasonable price. Given the village's current reserves, we may face a 'food shortage' in the second half of the year."

Before anyone had time to absorb this terrible news, Hoshino Maki dealt them another blow—and the harshest one yet.

Now it wasn't just the chiefs of the Great Clans who were panicking. Every shinobi was in a state of alarm!

Some of them didn't understand how closely the village's economy was tied to minerals. They thought minerals had nothing to do with them, and that unsold minerals would hurt only the Great Clans, not them.

But food was different. They weren't fairies who could live on air; they had to eat!

"What do we do? We should ask the daimyo for help!"

"The daimyo has never liked us. Even if we ask for help now, it'll barely make a difference. If Hoshino Maki is right, the whole Land of Wind will be short on food."

"What about the other villages? Konoha and Iwagakure must have food, right?"

"They definitely do, but what can we offer in exchange? The village has no money, and they don't need minerals. Besides, why would they be kind enough to help? They're more likely to take advantage of us. If they secretly block our efforts, Sunagakure will be in an even worse position."

"Then let's raid the neighboring countries! None of them are a match for us!"

"Wouldn't that just drive them into Konoha and the Iwa Shinobi's arms? If they intervene, our village will have to fight on an empty stomach!"

"..."

The meeting hall was gripped by panic on a massive scale. The last time things had been this bad was when the Third Kazekage disappeared.

Everyone threw out ideas, only for someone else to shoot them down. Nobody could offer a convincing solution, so in the end, they turned their eyes toward the Elder seats at the front.

"Lady Chiyo, Hoshino Maki, if you have a plan, please tell us."

One of the elders spoke up.

Chiyo quieted everyone, then brought out the financial statements she had prepared in advance. It was impossible that they hadn't made a plan.

Chiyo glanced at Hoshino Maki, nodded, and silently returned to the Elder seats.

Hoshino Maki cleared their throat. "At first, I wanted to send these people to work in the mines. But after discussing it with Lady Chiyo, I thought we might be able to trade them to the Cloud Ninja in exchange for supplies the village urgently needs, such as food, tea, and large equipment. That should resolve the crisis we're facing."

The shinobi present said nothing. If Hoshino Maki had suggested this solution from the start, most of them would have refused—or even berated them.

Why?

Not because Hoshino Maki was "weak," but because there were too many old grudges between the villages of the Ninja World. Even a village as far from Sunagakure as Kumogakure had shed plenty of blood at their hands, and vice versa.

This war had only made the hostility between them worse. And what about the shinobi who had died in it? Their parents, friends, lovers, and children—how could they simply let it go?

They had to be avenged!

Killing and revenge went round and round, an endless cycle in the shinobi world.

But now the village was in dire straits, and might not even be able to afford food. Perhaps some grudges could be put aside for a while.

Besides, in the end, we won the war!

Once people leaned toward a particular choice, they often found all sorts of reasons to convince themselves it was the right one.

Their silence already revealed where their hearts lay.

"As for the shinobi who died in this war, I suggest the village establish a special fund to help their families and children. After the meeting, I'll submit a detailed proposal to the Elder Council."

As everyone lowered their heads in thought, Hoshino Maki added this, offering a ladder to those who wanted to climb down.

"Actually, if it helps the village, we don't have to kill the Cloud Ninja."

Someone muttered the words, and the silence blanketing the hall was immediately broken.

"That's right. It's frustrating, but for the village, we'll just have to swallow our pride. Those Cloud Ninja are lucky."

"If that's the case, we should demand more from them. We can't let the Cloud Ninja off easy."

"It's no hardship for us to suffer a little, but the children in the village can't grow up the way we did. I remember I was still a child during the last Ninja World War, and I could only eat one bowl of boiled beans mixed with twigs a day..."

Everyone claimed they were thinking of the village, but no one knew how many of them truly meant it. Still, the decision about what to do with the Cloud Ninja had more or less been made.

Just then, Chōjūrō, who had been silent for a long time, suddenly gave two light coughs. "The village ended up like this after the Kazekage disappeared. We elders can't escape our share of the blame..."

Then he changed tack. "But those who make mistakes should be the ones to fix them. We can't leave that to others. In particular, as an elder, I must set an example. Leave the Cloud Ninja prisoners to me. With me in charge, even the Raikage himself won't get the better of us."

Hoshino Maki: ???

The old man was trying to steal the credit? Had he no shame?

Hoshino Maki narrowed their eyes at Chōjūrō's withered, impassive face. They couldn't understand why a man with one foot in the grave was still dreaming of becoming Kazekage.

After Chōjūrō finished speaking, the expected chorus of agreement never came. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the two elders who had always been close to him sitting with their heads bowed, pretending to be deep in thought.

Perhaps they noticed his gaze. The two of them looked as if they had just woken from a deep sleep, then smiled and said, "Well, uh, this matter does need to be handled by someone capable."

"Right, right. We're all doing this for the village."

Such fence-sitting platitudes naturally failed to satisfy Chōjūrō.

His expression darkened. He hadn't expected his closest allies to betray him at a time like this.

Only Hoshino Maki understood what was going on.

It was simple: their lifelines were about to run dry!

A person couldn't afford to lose their lifeline.

One elder's clan depended on tea, the other's on large equipment. Both were in critically short supply.

The Land of Wind lay in the desert, and its main sources of vitamins were fruit from the oases and tea. But the oases were limited in size, and their harvests weren't enough to supply the entire country. So most people relied on tea for vitamins, and over time, drinking tea had become a daily habit in the Land of Wind.

That elder's clan had a monopoly on tea sales in Sunagakure and the southern Land of Wind, earning a handsome profit every year.

Now, no more tea could be brought in from outside for a while, and the clan's reserves were dangerously low. The people he had sent out still hadn't reported back.

If things really were as Hoshino Maki had said, there was probably no hope of getting tea from outside. If they could sell the tea the Cloud Ninja paid in compensation, that would be a way to solve their immediate shortage. Otherwise, tea merchants from the north would surely take over the markets in Sunagakure and the southern Land of Wind!

That was why he couldn't afford to offend Chiyo. Even if Chōjūrō reached an agreement with the Cloud Ninja, Chiyo could cause a few snags. Two would die today, three would fall ill tomorrow—there were plenty of ways to drag things out or even ruin the deal. Then his clan really would be left with nothing to live on!

Choosing between Chōjūrō and his clan wasn't difficult.

Unlike Konoha, which was made up of individual families, the foundation of Sunagakure was its clans.

They had originally been independent clans, united by Lie Dou, but he hadn't dismantled their clan-based structure.

So although they intermarried, their blood ties weren't close. If a leader seriously harmed their interests, they could organize to remove him without hesitation.

The other elder was in the same situation. Sunagakure simply didn't have the technology to manufacture large equipment.

Hoshino Maki had learned all this from the intelligence Mei had gathered.

Important intelligence didn't always come from heavily guarded palaces. Sometimes it came from ordinary people at the bottom.

The names on Hoshino Maki's list were all ordinary salespeople at the lowest level. Their pay was tightly tied to their sales, and their little habits could reveal a great deal.

Take tea, for example. The salesperson on the list used to stand at the door, smiling and welcoming customers. Then he started sitting inside the shop, pulling out the tea and shouting, "Highest bidder wins!" After that, he closed the shop altogether.

As a drunk, he hadn't used to go to taverns very often, usually buying liquor to drink at home. Later, he started going to taverns for several days in a row and spending lavishly. Recently, though, he had stopped going to taverns—and had even stopped buying liquor from the shops.

One example could suggest a hypothesis, but several examples allowed for a reasonable conclusion.

Sunagakure's tea market had gone from a buyer's market to a seller's market, and then to having no goods for sale at all. That was more than enough to show that the tea supply chain had run into trouble.

In that situation, how could they be expected to cheer their leader on?

Chōjūrō felt like a clown. It was as though his face had been covered in frost that would never melt.

"Let Hoshino Maki handle it instead. Since it was their proposal, it would be safer to put someone familiar with it in charge. This is, after all, a matter that will affect the village's future."

Rasa spoke up again, but Chōjūrō refused to back down. "Precisely because this is such an important matter, we need someone familiar with the village's situation and held in high regard to take charge."

Hoshino Maki watched Chōjūrō with a smile.

The old man was full of himself, wasn't he?

Even if Rasa hadn't unexpectedly spoken up for them, could Chōjūrō get anything done in front of Chiyo?

He couldn't! He just didn't have what it took.

Hoshino Maki was about to say something when a Sand Shinobi hurried in from the doorway. After looking around, he quickly went over to Chiyo, bent down, and respectfully whispered:

"My lady."

Then he handed her an envelope with both hands.

Chiyo took the envelope. Her half-closed eyes quickly scanned the letter, and then she calmly passed it to Chōjūrō.

Chōjūrō took the letter. The moment he read it, his breathing grew ragged. His eyes bulged, and the tuft of hair above his lip twitched with his mouth, rising and falling like the bristles on a wild boar's snout.

"I... I'm feeling unwell. I'll take my leave."

He shakily rose to his feet, using the last of his self-control to rein in his anger. He left the hall with a back that seemed composed to him, but looked utterly disheveled to everyone else.

Rasa watched him go, somewhat surprised. Just then, the letter reached his hands. He quickly read it, his expression turning to understanding.

The letter was from Kumogakure. It invited Sunagakure's chief medical commander, Hoshino Maki, to meet in Amegakure seven days later to discuss the ransom for the prisoners. It bore the handwritten signatures of Hanzo and the Fourth Raikage.

Rasa immediately understood why Chōjūrō had lost his composure.

With the Kazekage missing and Chiyo retired, Chōjūrō considered himself the village's de facto leader. But the Cloud Ninja had completely ignored him, going straight over his head to invite Hoshino Maki.

Whether they intended to drive a wedge between them was unclear, but they certainly didn't respect Chōjūrō as much as he'd imagined. That had left the prideful Chōjūrō humiliated.

When Hoshino Maki got the letter, their expression turned peculiar.

Two shinobi villages had fought, leaving the other side's territory in ruins. Then they stopped fighting, only to invite the biggest victim of the war to witness their negotiations. How was that any different from NTR?!

At the thought, Hoshino Maki felt the giddy thrill of being the yellow-haired man.