An Anbu Ninja knelt on one knee on the bluestone pavement. His breathing was heavy and rapid beneath his mask.
Sweat dripped from his chin and splashed into a puddle at his feet.
"Lord Hokage. It's not just the grain shops. Eighty percent of the Explosive Tag workshops and ninja tool shops in the village have locked up too."
Shu Shiraishi stopped in his tracks.
He turned and looked at the Anbu Ninja trembling on the ground.
He didn't get angry or smash anything. He simply gave a small stone at his feet a gentle kick.
The stone rolled into the drainage ditch by the street with a sharp clink.
"Trying to play economic sanctions against someone ushering in the age of heavy industry?"
Shu Shiraishi gave a soft snort.
"Hiruzen Sarutobi, you're pitifully stupid."
The Anbu Ninja lowered his head even further, not daring to respond to those treasonous words.
Shu Shiraishi adjusted his cuffs.
That spineless coward Hiruzen had been scared out of his wits. He was probably hiding under his blankets and trembling right now. He didn't have the nerve for this.
The one pulling the strings had to be Sarutobi Sasuke.
Sarutobi Sasuke. Hiruzen's father and the former head of the Sarutobi Clan.
Old-generation politicians always liked cutting off supplies to force those in power to yield.
They thought cutting off the supply of rice and Military Rations Pills would incite the villagers to cause trouble.
They thought that would force the Hokage back to the negotiating table and keep sharing the pie with them.
Konoha's economic lifeline had always been in the hands of the Sarutobi Clan and a few small and midsized ninja clans.
In the past, a Hokage faced with this could only compromise. They would give up Anbu positions and high-paying missions in exchange for stable prices.
But Shu Shiraishi didn't play that game.
What did heavy industrialization require? A high concentration of resources. The nationalization of violence.
Not a balance of supply and demand.
"I was just worrying about having no reason to raid your homes and confiscate everything." Shu Shiraishi raised his head. "And here you are, handing me one."
He turned his head toward the Anbu Ninja.
"Go notify Kagami Uchiha."
"Have him bring his men and whatever weapons they handle best. Tell them to wait for me at the Third Street intersection in the village center in ten minutes."
The Anbu Ninja nodded and vanished in a flash.
Ten minutes later.
At the Third Street intersection.
A hundred and thirty Uchiha ninjas stood in three square formations.
None of them wore the cumbersome, high-collared police uniforms.
They were all dressed in short black outfits of coarse cloth, with a glaring red strip tied around each of their right arms.
There hadn't been time to make armbands, so these were the Urban Management Brigade's temporary insignia.
A barely contained restlessness ran through the crowd.
Every man had a standard-issue straight sword at his waist and held a meter-long jujube-wood club pointing down.
Pairs of eyes glinted in the dark like wolves that hadn't eaten in three days.
Shu Shiraishi came down the long street in military boots.
Kagami Uchiha stepped forward. His short sword traced a cold gleam through the air.
"Lord Hokage!"
All 130 men bowed in unison. Their scabbards struck their thighs with a synchronized series of muffled thuds.
Shu Shiraishi came to a stop.
He pointed across the street.
That was the Sarutobi Chamber of Commerce's headquarters, a row of tall, three-story wooden buildings connected to an enormous granary behind them.
The two thick, iron-clad wooden doors were firmly shut, secured by three brass locks the size of fists.
"The mission is simple."
Shu Shiraishi looked at the red-eyed Uchiha.
"The Sarutobi Clan has locked its warehouses, hoping to starve the village."
"Go open their doors for them."
The breathing in the crowd grew heavy at once.
"The grain, ninja tools, and Explosive Tags inside-drag them all to the supplies office at the village entrance. Don't leave a single sack behind."
Shu Shiraishi's voice remained perfectly level, as though he were assigning a trivial chore.
"What if they try to stop us?" Kagami raised his head, his fingers tightening around the hilt of his short sword.
"Then beat them."
Shu Shiraishi looked Kagami in the eye.
"Break their legs. Knock out their teeth. Just leave them breathing."
"Whether they're Chunin or elders, smash anyone who resists right where they stand."
Kagami drew a deep breath of the cold, damp morning air.
His chest heaved.
In the decades since the Military Police Force had been established, they had never received an order this satisfying.
Before, even when they caught a Sarutobi pickpocket, they had to watch their superiors' reactions. Now? They had orders to raid the clan's property!
"Urban Management Brigade!"
Kagami spun around, pointing his short sword straight at the iron-clad doors across the street.
"Move in!"
More than a hundred Uchiha ninjas surged across the broad street like a flood through an opened gate.
Their leather boots pounded against the bluestone pavement with a thunderous roar that chilled the heart.
The civilians on both sides of the long street hurried back indoors and shut their windows tight, daring to peer outside only through cracks in their doors.
The Sarutobi Chamber of Commerce's number one granary.
More than a dozen Sarutobi Clan Chunin stood on the steps with their arms folded, guarding the iron-clad doors.
They froze for a moment at the sight of the mass of Uchiha charging toward them.
"Stop!"
The Sarutobi Chunin in the lead drew a Kunai and took half a step forward.
"This is private Sarutobi property. Uchiha, what do you think you're doing..."
Before he could finish-
Kagami Uchiha used the Body Flicker Technique and appeared right in front of him.
His right knee shot upward, slamming squarely into the Sarutobi Chunin's stomach.
The Chunin didn't even manage a scream. He doubled over at once like a cooked shrimp.
Stomach acid and breakfast spewed from his mouth.
Kagami followed up with a kick to his chin.
The Chunin flew sideways and slammed back-first into the iron-clad doors, knocked unconscious.
The remaining Sarutobi guards were stunned.
Had these Uchiha gone mad? No questions, no investigation, just going straight for the kill?
"Make Hand Seals! Def-" One guard had just raised his hands.
A jujube-wood club came down with a whistle.
"Crack."
The club struck his forearm hard, snapping the bone into a grotesque angle.
The guard clutched his arm and fell to his knees, his screams tearing through the street.
The Uchiha didn't waste any words on them.
Clubs rained down. They struck everyone they saw.
Decades of pent-up frustration were unleashed in that moment.
The outpouring of violence, unrestrained by any rules, thrilled them to their very bones.
In less than half a minute, all dozen or so Sarutobi guards on the steps were rolling on the ground.
"Break down the door!" Kagami roared.
Three Uchiha ninjas stepped forward, their chests swelling.
"Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique!"
Three balls of flame slammed into the iron-clad doors.
The three large brass locks glowed red-hot in an instant, their cores melting and dripping down as molten metal.
Two Uchiha skilled in Taijutsu took a running start and kicked out with both feet.
"Boom!"
The heavy iron-clad wooden doors crashed inward, sending dust billowing everywhere.
Inside the granary.
Mountains of rice and flour were stacked all the way to the roof.
More than a dozen Sarutobi clansmen who had been counting supplies inside stared in terror at the black-clad men charging in.
"Urban management operation! Everyone, hands on your heads and squat down!"
The Uchiha ninjas pounced inside like wolves and tigers.
A Sarutobi Jonin tried to resist, but had only just brought his hands together.
Three pairs of Sharingan lit up at once, seeing through his movements instantly.
Three straight swords slashed down from different blind spots.
The backs of the blades slammed into the backs of the Jonin's knees and his shoulders.
The Jonin collapsed as though his bones had been pulled out. Just as he tried to raise his head-
A large foot came down on the back of his head, grinding his face into the white flour scattered across the floor.
"Behave!" An Uchiha ninja jabbed the back of his head hard with a sword hilt.
Screams rang out one after another.
Rice sacks were roughly torn open, spilling white grains mixed with blood across the floor.
Handcarts were pulled over one after another.
The Uchiha began loading sacks of grain onto the carts like bandits.
Just then.
A furious shout came from the inner courtyard deep inside the granary, shaking the roof tiles twice.
"All of you, stop!"
A heavy, pitch-black iron staff with gold bands descended from the sky.
"Boom!"
It plunged straight into the blue bricks in the middle of the granary.
The paving stones shattered, and the blast of air overturned two nearby carts loaded with rice.
A dark figure vaulted over the inner courtyard wall and landed heavily beside the staff.
He was an old man in his sixties, dressed in a dark brown combat outfit.
His face was fleshy and fierce. Every hair of his thick beard bristled with anger.
Sarutobi Sasuke.
He pulled the iron staff from the ground.
He looked at his clansmen rolling on the ground and wailing, and at the grain being plundered.
The corner of his eye twitched violently, and veins bulged on the back of the hand gripping his staff.
"Kagami Uchiha!"
Sarutobi Sasuke pointed the staff at Kagami by the door, his voice full of killing intent.
"With no proof or evidence, you brought men to ransack a shop in your own village!"
He slammed the staff against the ground.
"Your Uchiha Clan is acting like bandits!"
The moment he finished speaking-
The sky suddenly darkened.
A deeply disdainful snort came from overhead.