An Opening for Investigation

A tangled mess of problems lay before him, and his own abilities were visibly inadequate.

After pondering for a moment, Soji quickly decided to set aside his scattered thoughts and focus on the matters he could handle right now.

As soon as he returned to Erina's "temporary workshop," he called over his two teammates, who were still discussing the Coordination Commissioner position, and explained the difficult issues behind the job one by one.

At last, Erina and Todo saw the light and put aside their earlier excitement.

"So this Coordination Commissioner job isn't exactly a great deal, is it?" Erina puffed out her cheeks. "Then why did Teacher Motochika recommend you for it? Isn't he setting you up?"

"That's not quite fair. The bloodline secret techniques I've mastered are better suited to waiting for the right moment than close-quarters combat. If I kept doing patrol and security work like before, there'd be no guarantee that someone wouldn't target me... By comparison, although this new job comes with plenty of difficulties, it's still much safer for me than being right on the front line."

Soji hadn't brought his teammates together to criticize Teacher Motochika. Seeing the conversation veer off course, he promptly cut in and steered it back on track.

"That's right. Uncle Nara may not look very reliable most of the time, but Dad once told me that if there's an emergency, he's absolutely the person you can trust most." The little chubby boy chimed in, affirming Soji's judgment.

Seeing that his two teammates had reached a consensus, Erina naturally couldn't keep insisting on her own view.

"All right, if even Todo says so..." The girl nodded quietly, then suddenly had an idea and turned to Soji again. "How about we go ask Teacher Motochika for his opinion in private? Maybe he's already thought of a solution!"

"That is a possibility. Once the meeting is over, I'll definitely ask Teacher for his advice." Soji first agreed with the girl, but clearly, that wasn't why he'd come to discuss things with them.

Then he shifted gears and continued, "But besides that, I'd also like to take the initiative and try a few things myself. That way, I can do my part to ease the burden of building the Field Hospital."

"But... what can we do?"

Todo, the chubby boy, folded his arms and pondered for a while before scratching his head in frustration.

It was no wonder...

They were a group of kids who'd only just graduated from the Ninja Academy. Almost their entire limited education had been devoted to training in combat skills and theory for shinobi.

Now they were suddenly being asked to step out of the role of frontline operatives and consider problems from a decision-maker's perspective. It was only natural that they wouldn't know where to begin.

But in Soji's eyes, having lived through two lifetimes, Erina and Todo's backgrounds had already given them a solid foundation in this area.

If they made proper use of the advantages available to them, the children of prestigious clans had a far greater head start than ordinary shinobi!

And right now, all they needed was a little prompting...

"Here's how I see it... War is nothing more than a contest of manpower and supplies.

"Thanks to my unusual experience of living and working at Konoha Hospital for the past year or so, I've built up some connections with a few of the doctors in charge of logistics. If I ask them to make things a little easier when arranging supplies, maybe we can spare some materials from the hospital's regular consumption and solve the Frontline Support Battalion's supply problems."

"But... wouldn't that be... cheating?" Erina hesitated for a long while, trying several times to phrase her question, before finally voicing her doubts.

Soji had naturally been prepared for that.

He waved a hand and immediately picked up the conversation. "It's not what you think. In fact, to prepare for emergencies, Konoha Hospital usually keeps around fifty percent more supplies in reserve than it actually needs. And since, apart from the conflict along the Fire–Wind border, there's no other demand inside or outside Konoha right now, putting some of that stock toward supporting the front lines would be making good use of it."

The boy paused to wait for the other two to accept his reasoning. "In extraordinary times, we need extraordinary measures. The village's current system objectively ensures fairness and impartiality in day-to-day operations, but when we're at war and need to squeeze every bit of capacity out of our resources, allocating them sensibly according to circumstances is actually more efficient."

By this point, the shady act of "pulling strings"—which went against the traditional values of the Will of Fire—had been given an initial coat of whitewash.

But to achieve his ultimate goal, Soji still had to suppress his guilt at deceiving two ignorant kids and deliver the final, decisive argument!

"Of course, the most important thing is that this doesn't actually hurt anyone. To some extent, it even supplements the current system, and it counts as one of a shinobi's duties."

"Hmm... when you put it that way, I guess it makes sense."

By playing down the downsides and shifting the meaning of the argument, Soji had distorted the potential harm of undermining the Will of Fire and planted a positive impression in Erina and Todo's minds.

In truth, redirecting reserve supplies was no trivial matter. And with the few connections the boy had built up, there was no way he could influence the allocation of logistics supplies!

Still, not everything he'd said was a lie.

Through his secret connection with Director Inoue Hisahide, Soji really did have the ability to bring in enough outside support to make this happen.

More importantly, now that Soji had set the example, persuading Erina and Todo to draw on their family connections would naturally be much easier...

After some discussion, the two little ones, thoroughly bamboozled, agreed to Soji's request in a daze. With help from the Communications Squad, they sent letters asking for support back to the village.

Just like that, as soon as Soji took office as Coordination Commissioner, he'd already made a substantial contribution to the Frontline Support Battalion's supply efforts!

So when the boy attended his first high-level strategy meeting in his new role, the way the others looked at him had already changed in subtle ways...

Nara Motonari sat in the middle, resting his chin on one hand, his eyes full of amusement. His gaze practically spelled out four words: "Just as expected of you."

Director Usami, seated to his right, had more complicated feelings...

From the moment he'd learned that Yamada Soji had been appointed Coordination Commissioner, Hanbei's first reaction had been to feel a considerable degree of hostility toward the boy.

After all, bringing a newcomer onto the Frontline Support Battalion's decision-making team meant diluting the voting power that had originally belonged to Director Usami. And he'd once believed the Coordination Commissioner position was his for the taking.

The resulting frustration and resentment had all been directed at Yamada Soji!

However, as a young opinion leader who'd risen to the position of director at such an early age, Hanbei naturally couldn't let his personal feelings drive him to do anything rash.

For one thing, Soji and he were both products of the hospital's younger generation, making them natural political allies.

Even if the two of them had a genuine, irreconcilable conflict of interest, Director Usami couldn't openly retaliate against him.

That would be like handing the Conservative Faction incriminating evidence against himself, while also seriously undermining his status as a representative of the young doctors!

So when he heard that Soji had made a contribution to the logistics work as soon as he took office, Hanbei's feelings were especially complicated.

—Of the three, only Director Chosokabe's attitude remained unchanged.

The old man sat at the head of the table on the left and hadn't looked in Soji's direction even once from beginning to end.