Aftermath

Shiraishi Yoshijo took an extended leave of absence from the hospital.

After resting for two days, Shiraishi Eizawa began taking him around to pay visits.

They met with over a dozen heads of various ninja clans, followed by visits to clan members who had been absorbed into other families; all told, there were several hundred people.

Half a month passed in the blink of an eye.

Shiraishi Eizawa finally brought him to the Takemoto household.

Takemoto Shuichi sat cross-legged on the veranda, a sneer appearing on his face the moment he saw Shiraishi Eizawa.

"Eizawa, are you prepared to die?"

Shiraishi Eizawa replied with a calm expression, "It is not a matter of going to die, but rather that I was already meant to be dead."

As he spoke, he loosened his clothes to show Takemoto Shuichi the sealing jutsu on his body.

Takemoto Shuichi glanced at it and lost interest, turning his gaze to Shiraishi Yoshijo. "It's been over two years since you moved here, and this is your first time visiting. Quite rare."

Shiraishi Yoshijo rolled his eyes and simply said, "I'll be sure to visit you plenty in the future."

He really didn't have any affection for this old man; at most, he maintained a facade of respect.

Shiraishi Eizawa glared at him before saying to Takemoto Shuichi, "Uncle Shuichi, I came this time to hand over the family's assets. I'll have to trouble you with them."

Takemoto Shuichi waved his hand, and soon someone placed the ledgers in front of them.

"Your family's assets were entrusted to me by Yukihito. If you want to manage them yourself, Yoshijo, you can take them back. It's also fine to keep letting our family handle them."

Shiraishi Yoshijo began flipping through the ledgers, reading each page very carefully.

Once he finished, he lost interest.

There were over a dozen businesses of varying sizes, including izakayas, ninja tool shops, and barbecue restaurants, along with quite a few merchant caravans. They all had dedicated clan members managing them, so he didn't need to worry about a thing.

The annual income fluctuated between twenty million and fifty million ryo.

The Takemoto family only took responsibility for balancing the books once a year; he just needed to be present when that time came.

"No need. I'll keep troubling you with it in the future."

Shiraishi Yoshijo had no interest in managing these shops; besides, no matter how much one person spent, they could never finish it all.

Takemoto Shuichi nodded, then revealed a meaningful smile.

Shiraishi Eizawa gave a bitter laugh and then took him to bid farewell and head home.

Upon arriving home, Shiraishi Eizawa took out a bankbook and handed it to him. "This is all the liquid assets our family has left."

Shiraishi Yoshijo took it and looked it over, a look of hesitation on his face. "A little over thirty million ryo?"

This figure was at most the annual income of those businesses; having flipped through the ledgers earlier, he had assumed the family had at least a hundred million in assets.

Shiraishi Eizawa didn't speak, but instead pulled a thick stack of lists from his robes.

"A clan is not that simple. Did you think it was all income and no expenditure?"

Shiraishi Eizawa handed the lists to him and said, "This is the clan's pension list. More than half of our money is consumed by it every year. From now on, you must personally deliver the money to them every year."

Shiraishi Yoshijo took it and saw the densely packed names, feeling a headache coming on.

That wasn't all. Shiraishi Eizawa took out another list of materials and said, "These are the materials you need to cultivate the Summoning Butterfly. In the future, you will coordinate with Sadahisa, the head of the merchant caravans."

Shiraishi Yoshijo only glanced at the materials before seeing the total at the bottom: over two million ryo.

Shiraishi Yoshijo gave a bitter laugh. He had only cultivated three types of Summoning Butterfly and it already cost this much; if he wanted to cultivate more in the future, he feared he would drain the family coffers dry.

Shiraishi Eizawa sighed and said, "In the past, the family had income from missions, which was the bulk of it. Now that it's just the two of us, we've actually been eating through our savings all this time."

Shiraishi Yoshijo fell silent.

Thinking about it, it made sense. Since they were a ninja clan, they naturally had to rely on missions to sustain the family.

However, through his visits over the past few days, he had also discovered that there were hardly any ninjas left among their clan members.

Most of the mission quotas allocated to their clan by Konoha had been taken by the Takemoto family.

Even if he asked for the mission quotas back, there were no ninjas left in the clan to carry them out.

Fortunately, the Takemoto family wasn't taking their mission quotas for nothing; every year, a sum of money was calculated into the total accounts.

Shiraishi Eizawa patted him on the shoulder and smiled. "In the future, the old, weak, sick, and disabled of the clan will all depend on you for their livelihood. If you want to revitalize the clan, select ninjas from among the clan members to pass down the secret arts."

"If you don't want to, then just pass the secret arts down to your descendants, generation after generation."

Shiraishi Yoshijo put the items away and asked, "What is this, settling your affairs?"

"Mm, there's no need to hide it anymore." Shiraishi Eizawa nodded. "At most, my body will only hold out for another half a year."

"You really can't learn it?"

The ninjutsu Shiraishi Yoshijo had developed to rapidly digest food and promote cellular absorption had been a success, and he had already taught it to Shiraishi Eizawa.

"Even if I learned it, so what? It would only buy me another year or two of life. It's quite exhausting."

Shiraishi Yoshijo was silent for a moment before saying, "I understand. I'm just not used to it."

"You will get used to it eventually. Your medical ninjutsu is outstanding, and with it, you will soon make a name for yourself in Konoha. By then, you will be able to support this family."

Shiraishi Eizawa took his hand and added, "There are some things I need to entrust to you next. Let's go, to Butterfly Habitat Valley."

Upon arriving at Butterfly Habitat Valley and greeting Lady Mei, Shiraishi Eizawa began to brief him on the family's collection of texts.

"The dozen or so bookshelves on the right contain texts regarding the five elemental ninjutsu. You can come and read them yourself whenever you want to learn."

"The first five bookshelves on the left contain information on sealing jutsu, and the ones behind them are our family's secret techniques."

"The bookshelf at the very back contains the family's forbidden techniques. You must be extremely cautious when practicing forbidden techniques; do not let power blind you."

Shiraishi Yoshijo looked over the bookshelves one by one. When he saw the sealing jutsu, he asked, "How does our family have so many texts on sealing jutsu?"

"Your grandfather traded some of our family's ninjutsu and secret techniques with the First Hokage for them. Many of the ninjutsu currently circulating in the village are actually our family's techniques."

"Why trade for sealing jutsu? We shouldn't have any use for them."

"Many elders in the Takemoto family used to raise Butterfly Seed. After the family split, the Butterfly Seed continued to drain their vitality. Your grandfather traded for those techniques with the First Hokage precisely because of this."

Shiraishi Yoshijo nodded.

After explaining everything, the two returned home.

Shiraishi Eizawa had intended to return to his own room, but after a moment of thought, he turned back and said, "There are still some things to tell you about Konoha. You will have to figure things out for yourself in the future; don't let your hot-headedness get the better of you."

"I know you don't like the Takemoto family, but you must understand that they would never harm you. We are related by blood, after all. You should show them some respect in the future."

Shiraishi Yoshijo nodded with a dark expression: "I understand."

"And then there is the Uchiha clan. You must be careful around them in the future and try your best not to deal with them."

Shiraishi Yoshijo was stunned for a moment and asked, "Why?"

Shiraishi Eizawa's expression was complex as he said, "The Uchiha are arrogant, paranoid, and conceited. Your grandfather suffered at their hands back then, which led to his defeat in the struggle for the position of Hokage."

"Furthermore, the deaths of your father and mother are also related to them. At the very least, they definitely betrayed us."

Hearing this, Shiraishi Yoshijo's eyes widened: "How could this be?"

"That mission was a joint operation. Only the Uchiha and we knew the details. Later, I was the only one who escaped the ambush; the three Uchiha who accompanied us also died."

"The Uchiha pushed all the blame onto me. I didn't argue at the time, as they had lost their own clansmen too, but the more I think about it over these years, the more wrong it feels. I just don't have any evidence."

Shiraishi Yoshijo asked with a cold face, "Does a matter like this require evidence?"

"The situation in Konoha at the time was very strange. It wasn't necessarily the Uchiha who did it. The one who issued the mission to us was Lady Mito, she..."

At this point, Shiraishi Eizawa hesitated: "In short, telling you this is to make you wary of the Uchiha. They have already been isolated in the village, and their decline is only a matter of time."

Shiraishi Yoshijo's face was dark. He had always thought his parents' affairs were the work of the Third Hokage and Danzo; he hadn't expected it to involve the Uchiha and the Senju as well. It was truly a tangled mess.

He looked up at the sky and sneered in his heart.

This village, heh, it really is quite detestable!

Shiraishi Yoshijo did not say anything more.

Shiraishi Eizawa patted his head and said, "Don't let hatred blind you. The past is in the past; you need to look forward."

Shiraishi Eizawa left after saying this.

Shiraishi Yoshijo stood in the courtyard for a while before returning to his room with a cold sneer.

He had no intention of avenging his parents, especially since he lacked the power to do so.

It was just that he now saw his own path very clearly.