Mikoto sighed and pointed toward the study.
"What else? The tens of millions of ryo the higher-ups allocated for our relocation. He's worrying over how to distribute it fairly."
Chikage set down the dango and tilted a head toward Itachi.
"Go get Sasuke to have some dango. I need to talk business with Uncle."
Chikage walked to the study door, pushed it open, and entered.
Fugaku sat at his desk wearing reading glasses, writing and drawing on a scroll with a brush.
When he saw who had arrived, Fugaku put down his brush and rubbed the corners of his eyes.
"You sure never miss your clock-out time."
"Everyone who delayed me getting off work is sitting in jail." Chikage pulled out a chair and sat down.
Fugaku pushed the scroll on his desk toward Chikage.
"This is the draft allocation plan I drew up this afternoon. Some will go toward compensating the South Street merchants, and most of the rest will go toward building materials and ninja tools. What do you think?"
The study's lamplight was somewhat dim and yellow.
Uchiha Fugaku sat behind the broad desk.
He pushed the draft allocation plan, covered in densely packed figures, to the edge of the desk.
He had spent the entire afternoon in the study working on that draft without stepping outside.
Anyone else would have been beside themselves with joy at receiving tens of millions of ryo.
But he was the head of the Uchiha Clan.
He had to carefully calculate how every sum would be spent and distributed, leaving absolutely no room for criticism.
Chikage sat across the desk and pressed two fingers against the edge of the scroll.
Without even looking at its contents, Chikage pushed.
The scroll slid across the desk, returning to Fugaku untouched.
Fugaku froze for