"Shingetsu, you're just in time. I have something to discuss with you."
After putting away the lunch boxes, Tobirama stiffened his expression, his face visibly turning serious. It was time to get down to business.
Seeing him like this, Shingetsu grew alert as well. A vague sense of foreboding rose in her heart, and she asked nervously:
"Did something happen in Konoha?"
Tobirama shook his head. Konoha was peaceful at the moment, with nothing major happening. But across the Land of Fire as a whole, it was a different story.
The good news was that Konoha's talent development was gradually getting on track. Promising people really were emerging across the country, taking one burden off Tobirama's shoulders.
The bad news was that as Konoha's control over the Land of Fire deepened, all sorts of problems were surfacing.
Local messes cropped up one after another. From disaster relief to infrastructure and education, everything needed Konoha to manage it and clean it up, adding a hundred burdens to Tobirama's shoulders.
The Land of Fire covered a vast territory. Apart from Konoha, whose cleverly chosen location spared it from natural disasters, some region was bound to suffer terrible luck each year and get hit by floods, earthquakes, droughts, or the like.
The shinobi responsible for disaster relief were run off their feet. They wailed about why the Land of Fire had so many natural disasters when they had never encountered any during the Warring States Period.
In reality, however, natural disasters had never stopped occurring throughout history. The shinobi of the past simply hadn't seen them.
Banditry and uprisings had been frequent throughout the Land of Fire's history. Often, natural disasters had destroyed ordinary people's homes and families, forcing farmers into rebellion just to secure a bite to eat and stand up for