At a single glance from Fucheng, the two grain shop clerks who had drawn their knives turned around on the spot and slashed at the shopkeeper.
The overbearing shopkeeper seemed to have lost his mind, too. He grabbed a weight and began smashing it into the heads of the two burly clerks.
He kept bashing them as he shouted, "Murder! Murder!"
Uchiha Fucheng smiled as he looked at Mikoto and the others.
He waved to the Uchiha Police Force at the back of the crowd. "The owner of Shimura Grain and Oil has been forcing customers to buy goods and driving up prices. The shopkeeper and clerks have attacked one another and deliberately caused injuries. Police Force, take orders: arrest all three and bring them in.
"Their injuries aren't serious. Just bandage them up. Keep them alive, and give the Shimura Clan two days to pay a fine of fifty thousand jin of grain. They can come bail them out as soon as possible."
The grain shop's farce had begun because Fucheng, after reading Kagami Uchiha's Notes, had grown resentful of Shimura Danzō. Using Nonō as an excuse, he had deliberately come to pick a fight.
Unexpectedly, all the commotion drew quite a crowd of Konoha villagers.
With prices skyrocketing, the villagers had grown furious with the people of the Shimura Clan.
For a time, the incident left Shimura Danzō's reputation in such tatters that even chickens and dogs wanted nothing to do with him.
When Shimura Danzō heard about it, he immediately felt humiliated.
The Pot Kage stormed through the village in a rage. Before Uchiha Fucheng could return to the Uchiha Clan Compound, Danzō intercepted him on the road.
Danzō's bandaged finger jabbed furiously at the sky.
"Young man, don't get too cocky!"
Danzō glared with his one eye, his gaze murderous.
But Uchiha Fucheng wasn't intimidated in the least. He stared back at Danzō without budging.
"If you're not cocky, are you even young?"
The retort made Danzō's temples throb.
"Don't get too arrogant. Even with the Mangekyō Sharingan, you're still only one person!
"If you won't think about yourself, then at least think about the other Uchiha."
Danzō practically ground out that last word through clenched teeth.
Uchiha Fucheng raised an eyebrow. "Shimura Danzō! Use your head before you say things like that. Sure, the ordinary members of the Uchiha Clan are a weakness I have to consider. But what about you?
"The largest clans in the village aren't the Uchiha and the Senju anymore.
"The clans with the most members are the Shimura and Sarutobi Clans. Did Baku eat your brain?
"Do you really think that you're the only one who can scheme against people, and that no one would dare take it out on your clan?"
Though Uchiha Fucheng hadn't even activated his Sharingan, his murderous gaze alone radiated a terrifying presence.
His words jolted Danzō awake.
It seemed Danzō had truly forgotten that he wasn't the only one who could scheme against others. Others could threaten the Shimura Clan, too.
Abandoning all limits to scheme in the shadows?
That only worked if "the other side doesn't use the same dirty tricks against you."
Danzō fell silent.
But Fucheng wasn't about to let him off.
"Danzō, you'd better show me and the Uchiha Clan the most basic respect.
"Otherwise, I'm not some good-hearted fool who only cares about fairness and justice."
As he spoke, Fucheng curled his lips into a cold smile.
"If I find you taking any action against the Uchiha, or even suspect that you or the Shimura Clan are involved, I'll apologize in advance.
"I don't need evidence. If I suspect someone, I'll make them disappear."
Stunned that Uchiha Fucheng dared to threaten him in broad daylight, Shimura Danzō widened his eye and stared at him in disbelief.
But Uchiha Fucheng was even more ruthless.
His eyes spun directly into the Mangekyō pattern, and a genjutsu anchor made up of a core illusion was instantly implanted in Danzō's mind.
The genjutsu didn't do much. It would just make Danzō easier to hypnotize next time.
Or, whenever Danzō thought of Uchiha Fucheng, he would feel uneasy without knowing why.
Only after finishing this did the Uchiha shinobi stroll away from Danzō, who stood there looking utterly dazed.
A piercing hawk's cry echoed above Konoha.
All four ninja hawks sent to the Land of Rain had returned to the Hokage Office.
Sarutobi Hiruzen, Mitokado Homura, Utatane Koharu, and Shimura Danzō passed around the latest message Orochimaru had sent from the Land of Rain.
Sarutobi Hiruzen tapped his pipe and said gravely, "Salamander Hanzo has declared war after all!"
Danzō looked indignant. "We should have made the first move. We shouldn't have waited for Hanzo to declare war. We've lost the initiative."
Sarutobi Hiruzen shook his head. "We've just fought a battle against the Sand Ninja. Konoha needs time to recover. Being able to delay things a little longer is a good thing."
Danzō sneered. "And what now? What do we do if Konoha can't delay any longer?"
Sarutobi Hiruzen set down his pipe and replied firmly, "Then we fight!"
He looked at the three advisors. "Since Salamander Hanzo has foolishly declared war on both the Sand Ninja and Konoha, we just need to put pressure on the Sand Ninja's front. Konoha will win this war."
The sky was overcast, and a fine drizzle fell.
Sparse raindrops tapped urgently against the roof tiles, as if heralding the war to come.
Every shinobi clan in Konoha had received a mobilization order.
The Land of Rain had formally declared war on Konoha and the Sand Ninja.
The news spread through every street and alley in Konoha.
Inside the Uchiha Clan Compound, Fucheng murmured, "The new Shinobi World War has finally begun."
Once the mobilization order went out, the heads of Konoha's large and small shinobi clans were once again summoned to the Hokage Office Building.
The Uchiha Clan, the Senju Clan, the Hyuga Clan, the Shimura Clan, the Sarutobi Clan...
The Ino-Shika-Cho Clans, Hatake, Inuzuka, Yuhi, Kurama, Gekko...
The smaller groups had only a few dozen or a hundred people in total, counting men, women, young, and old.
The larger clans, on the other hand, could have hundreds or even thousands of shinobi.
These clans formed the core of Konoha's fighting strength.
Sarutobi Hiruzen had summoned the clan heads today to assign their shares of the burden before the war.
They would determine how many shinobi each clan needed to send, based on the number of combatants required for the war.
The quotas set by Konoha's leadership were largely based on the previous campaign against the Sand Ninja. Each clan would send 70% of the number it had provided last time.
To be fair, clans whose shinobi had achieved major victories or earned great honors in the previous war could send fewer fighters this time and take on a smaller share of the burden.
The Hatake Clan, the Hyuga Clan, and the Uchiha Clan were among them.
In the last battle against the Sand Ninja, Hatake Sakumo had practically decided the outcome with a single campaign.
He had killed two Kage Level shinobi from the opposing side, a husband and wife, earning the greatest share of the credit.
Sarutobi Hiruzen assigned Hatake Sakumo to lead the logistics troops this time.
On the surface, this was a fair way to make more clans shoulder the burden of war.
Assigning him to logistics could even be seen as a reward for the Hatake Clan.
But the Third Hokage's true motive was naturally to keep Hatake Sakumo from earning more merit. If Hatake Sakumo decided the outcome of this war as well, then Sarutobi Hiruzen would probably have to step down and yield his position.
The Hyuga Clan had also contributed a great deal in the last battle against the Sand Ninja.
The proportion of branch family members who had died was very high, so the Hyuga Clan had proactively requested permission to send fewer shinobi this time.
The request wasn't unreasonable.
After discussing it, the Konoha elders and Sarutobi Hiruzen agreed to it.
The key issue was the Uchiha Clan.
During the last war against the Sand Ninja, the Uchiha Clan had no clan head, so Konoha's leadership had taken advantage of the situation to divide the clan's factions.
They had even made the Uchiha send a third more shinobi than required.
In truth, Konoha's leadership had been in the wrong.
But the decision had already been made, and Sarutobi Hiruzen was certainly unwilling to concede now and reopen old grievances.
So Fucheng hadn't argued much at the time and had accepted the loss.
But this time, Konoha's leadership still wanted the Uchiha to send the same number of shinobi as they had during the last war against the Sand Ninja.
Ha! They could dream on!
When Uchiha Fucheng heard Utatane Koharu announce the number of Uchiha shinobi required, he let out a derisive laugh and kicked over his chair.
"Let's stop right there, Elder Utatane. If you keep going, there's no point in holding this meeting..."
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