I Have a Bunch of Relatives Who Want to Be Hokage Chapter 30

Before long, several bounty hunters appeared and surrounded him.

"Just you lot?" Uchiha Shingen sensed the area. There really was no one else.

"First time in the Land of Stone, kid?" The bounty hunters were blunt. "Us brothers are a little short on cash. Lend us some money."

That was rather disappointing. He had thought they might be spies or something, but they turned out to be this sort.

Uchiha Shingen could not even be bothered to draw his sword. He flashed over, took them all out in one sweep, and looted the bodies while he was at it.

Their pockets were cleaner than their faces. They really must have been broke to come out looking for a quick score.

Leaving the trash behind, Uchiha Shingen continued on his way.

The agreed meeting place was a patch of woods. Even the trees here looked sickly, but it was at least somewhere people could hide.

Uchiha Shingen slipped into the woods and sensed familiar chakra.

The teahouse owner was squatting behind a large boulder with his rear sticking out.

Uchiha Shingen quietly swept to his side and gripped the back of his neck, the neck that held his fate.

"Don't move. This is a robbery. Starting price: fifty thousand ryo. No upper limit."

"No money, just one life." The teahouse owner was not nervous in the slightest, speaking with righteous conviction. "But don't get nervous. I'm simply broke, that's all. What Shadow Clone carries money on it?"

"Root has people like you too?" Uchiha Shingen stopped joking, released him, and squatted beside him as well. "Where are they?"

There was no need to verify identities at all. Both were sensory-type shinobi; for a rendezvous, sensing each other's chakra was enough.

"What's wrong with people like me? Everyone outside is like me." The teahouse owner said, "Head north from here and there's a valley. Those Hannya Group people haven't moved since relocating there."

"Is it reliable? Don't tell me it's an empty-city trap."

"That's a pretty good name. Don't worry, it's reliable. We've checked the place several times. The Hannya Group isn't actually all that capable—they're just good at running."

"Fine, then I'm off."

"Wait." The teahouse owner looked anxious. "Got a cigarette?"

"No. I don't smoke."

"You work in this line of business and don't smoke? Newbie?"

"I'm your outside support. If Root hadn't paid a fortune, who the hell would come to a place like this? What does a Shadow Clone need cigarettes for?"

"My wife keeps a tight leash on me, so I can only smoke through a Shadow Clone. Also, watch yourself. The Hannya Group isn't normal—they like sticking explosive tags all over themselves."

With that, the teahouse owner exploded into a cloud of smoke with a pop.

Following the teahouse owner's directions, Uchiha Shingen continued north.

As the vegetation gradually thinned and finally vanished, Uchiha Shingen entered an area of yellow-earth hills.

He roughly understood what the teahouse owner meant by a valley.

It was really just a ravine in the loess terrain.

For infiltrating an environment like this, Earth Release was naturally the most convenient. Still, with so many ravines and broken ground, managing without it was possible.

And the heavens favored him. Rain suddenly began falling again, providing Uchiha Shingen with tremendous cover. Using the terrain and the curtain of rain, he finally found the Hannya Group's location.

Just as the teahouse owner had said, the Hannya Group was truly nothing special.

Uchiha Shingen quickly found their base.

They had built a simple camp against the side of a hill. Though there was a watchtower, in weather like this, it might as well not have existed.

Their attire matched their organization's name.

Every one of them wore a demon mask, which looked quite intimidating at first glance.

When Uchiha Shingen slipped into the camp, the Hannya Group members in the watchtower did not notice a thing.

The camp was truly crude. Because of the rain, puddles had formed everywhere. As the rainfall intensified, runoff even began to form. Uchiha Shingen used a Water Release technique, merged into the runoff, and made his way deeper inside.

After scouting around, he discovered why the camp was so rudimentary.

The Hannya Group's real base was inside the loess hills, where cave dwellings were everywhere.

The camp was merely the outer perimeter, meant for sentry duty.

Unfortunately, their anti-infiltration measures were far too outdated compared to those of the current Five Great Villages.

They did not even have a barrier.

With ease, Uchiha Shingen had already thoroughly mapped the place out.

The Hannya Group did not have many members. Counting them all, there were around seventy or eighty.

As for their strength, there were about a dozen chunin, one jonin, and the rest were all genin.

However, those genin were all veteran genin. Setting their skill aside, judging from their movements, they could be considered seasoned soldiers.

The Hannya Group was not a shinobi organization from the Land of Stone. They had been chased all the way here by the Leaf Village, and these seventy or eighty people were likely the final core of their organization.

Once these people died, the Hannya Group would vanish as a shinobi organization.

Uchiha Shingen had lurked there for most of the night and discovered that the Hannya Group's core members had gathered in the largest kiln cave, where the lights were blazing and arguments occasionally rang out.

Uchiha Shingen could not make out much clearly, only words like "secret realm," "activation," and "entry."

They might really have discovered some secret realm.

But Uchiha Shingen did not hold much hope for it. This world was neither particularly big nor particularly small, but secret realms with a senjutsu inheritance were probably limited to the three claimed by the Legendary Sannin. Otherwise, after all these years, a fourth secret realm with a senjutsu inheritance would have surfaced long ago.

A secret realm without a senjutsu inheritance was of little value to Uchiha Shingen.

After confirming that these were indeed the Hannya Group, Uchiha Shingen left a Flying Raijin mark behind and withdrew, returning to the camp area.

The client had said while they were having tea that he wanted no survivors. He could not let anyone escape.

Come to think of it, although Shimura Danzo looked like a stiff old prude, he was quite well-versed in the art of tea. He knew all the basic routines. It made sense—being the Hidden Leaf Village's intelligence expert, he had spent plenty of time fighting on the front lines in his early years and had experienced all sorts of situations. There was no way he lacked experience in that regard.

Unfortunately, times had changed. His methods were still old-fashioned, far inferior to Uchiha Yakumi's.

Uchiha Yakumi had been making appointments with several of them left and right, and he was no less active than the younger generation.

Using Water Release to remain concealed in the pooled rainwater, Uchiha Shingen lay in ambush at the spot where the Hannya Group's patrolling ninja changed shifts.

When three Hannya Group ninja coming off shift passed by, Uchiha Shingen made his move.

Several water needles suddenly shot out from the puddles in the mud, piercing all three through the throat.

Before they could fall, a sweep of freezing air encased them in ice where they stood. From afar, the three figures in the rain merely appeared to have stopped moving.

Once that was done, Uchiha Shingen immediately used Water Release to move to the next location and repeated the same trick, "fixing" another group of Hannya Group members in place.

Only a few minutes had passed from start to finish, yet there were no living people left on the ground in the camp.

Except for those in the watchtower.

But they posed no trouble. Uchiha Shingen no longer needed to stay hidden. He revealed himself and blasted the watchtower to pieces with a Great Fireball.

The Hannya Group ninja stationed atop it had just managed to leap out in time when a flash of blade light cut through the air, separating his head from his body.

The Body Replacement, Clone, and Transformation Techniques really were essentials for experts showing off, but if one was not an expert, one truly should not attempt on-the-spot substitutions or clones.

The orange-red flames were equally distinct through the curtain of rain, and the tremendous crash alerted the enemies inside the kiln cave.

Figures darted out from within.

That was exactly what Uchiha Shingen wanted.

Ignoring the limits of distance, he vanished from the camp and appeared before an enemy who had just rushed out of the kiln cave, beheading him with a single slash.

A veteran genin was still ultimately a genin. Experience at the genin level meant nothing before an absolute gap in rank.

As his short sword danced, one Hannya Group member after another met their end.

This environment was simply too convenient for Uchiha Shingen. The entire ravine was now covered in his Flying Raijin marks.

Did they think he was using the Body Flicker Technique? No, this was the genuine Flying Raijin Slash.

The Hannya Group's ninja could not react at all. Every time Uchiha Shingen appeared, another head flew into the sky.

In the blink of an eye, everyone except the Hannya Group jonin had been slaughtered by Uchiha Shingen as easily as chopping vegetables.

That jonin was not doing well either. His arm had been wounded, the cut deep enough to expose bone. Uchiha Shingen had nearly taken the entire arm off, and that was only because he had not aimed for a vital spot.

Jonin differed from jonin, after all. There was nothing to be done about that.

As the old saying went, chakra level did not represent combat power, and different organizations had different standards for judging jonin.

The Five Great Ninja Villages had the strictest standards for evaluating jonin in the ninja world. By those stringent standards, Uchiha Shingen was also one of the Hidden Leaf Village's foremost jonin.

"Who are you?" the Hannya Group jonin asked weakly.

He could not act tough. He knew he was doomed anyway and merely wanted to die knowing the truth.

"Hand over the information on the secret realm." Uchiha Shingen did not waste words. At this distance, the Hannya Group jonin could see those scarlet eyes as well.

"The Uchiha Clan!" He gritted his teeth. "I'll give you the information, but the Hidden Leaf Village has to spare our remaining people."

"There are no remaining people. Only you are left." Uchiha Shingen shook his head. "You're doomed. We do not care about the secret realm's information either; it is merely incidental."

"You will care. And I'm not talking about the people here. You know what I mean."

"That depends on your influence—oh, no, the value of your information. Honestly, if you people had not gone looking for death yourselves, the Hidden Leaf Village could not be bothered to deal with you." Uchiha Shingen decided to give the man some dignity. "That is how the ninja world works. If you get too carried away, you get cut down."

"Dragon Cave. We found the location of Dragon Cave and a way to enter it." The Hannya Group jonin did not beat around the bush, laying everything out in a single sentence.

"Dragon Cave?" Uchiha Shingen froze. "You know what happens if you lie, right? Your remaining people really will be wiped out completely."

"It's true. Dragon Cave is here. We have already figured out how to enter it."

The Hidden Leaf Village's First September Meeting

According to the rules established since the Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, took office, the Hidden Leaf Village's highest-level decisions were made by the Hokage, the Hokage's assistants, and the advisory elders.

Each member of the leadership would compile the work of the departments under their jurisdiction, then discuss it together at leadership meetings. Under normal circumstances, they held a meeting once every three days.

The sun shone brightly over the Hidden Leaf Village that day, and the weather was exceptionally fine.

The first work meeting of the ninth month of the year was being held in the Hokage's office.

There were no new faces among the attendees, only the same familiar ones.

The Hokage, Namikaze Minato, twenty-four years old, represented the jōnin corps—the regular forces that formed the main body of Leaf Village's shinobi army.

The former Hokage and current Hokage's advisor, Sarutobi Hiruzen, fifty-seven years old, represented the ANBU outside of "Root," as well as the Education Department, Medical Department, and Interrogation Department.

The former Hokage's advisor and current elder consultant, Shimura Danzo, fifty-seven years old, represented "Root."

The current elder consultants, Utatane Koharu and Mitokado Homura, both fifty-seven years old, represented the Administrative Department.

The meeting was anything but a leisurely tea-and-newspaper affair. On the contrary, the old men were brimming with energy, each striving to secure benefits for the department he represented.

After all, under the old rules, the Land of Water's two-billion-ryō reparations were split evenly between the Daimyo's Court and Leaf Village. One billion ryō had already been deposited into the Administrative Department's accounts.

How that one billion ryō would be divided was up to the people present.

If it had not been for this, the meeting would have ended long ago.

However, although Utatane Koharu and Mitokado Homura oversaw the Administrative Department, they did not have the final say in how the money would be used.

Namikaze Minato, Sarutobi Hiruzen, and Shimura Danzo did.

But Namikaze Minato had withdrawn from the fray early on. His demand was simple and reasonable—shinobi who had died in the war had to receive additional compensation, and it had to be paid out immediately.

No one objected.

Thus, Namikaze Minato contentedly shifted into spectator mode.

That left Sarutobi Hiruzen and Shimura Danzo to continue fighting.

Their conflict mainly centered on the allocation of ANBU funding.

"Hiruzen, this hundred million must go to me," Shimura Danzo said. "The ANBU just wander around the village every day. What do they need so much funding for?"

"The ANBU have missions within the Land of Fire as well," Sarutobi Hiruzen refused to yield. "The war has only just ended. It would be inappropriate to make any major moves abroad right now; that would only make trouble more likely. Don't forget, 'Root' is ANBU too."

"Nonsense. As long as the funding is sufficient, nothing will go wrong. It's when there's no funding that things go wrong." Shimura Danzo's cane rose and fell as he spoke, and Utatane Koharu and Mitokado Homura unconsciously shifted away, putting more distance between themselves and him.