Shu Shiraishi stood on a raised platform beneath Hokage Rock.
The platform had only just been raised with Earth Release. Chunks of dry dirt were still falling from its edges.
The wind swept across the square, carrying a lingering smell of blood.
He gripped both ends of a parchment scroll.
Several drops of dried, dark red blood stained its edge. They had splashed onto it when he killed people that morning.
Shu spread his arms.
Rustle.
The parchment unfurled in the wind with a crisp sound.
Tens of thousands of eyes stared fixedly at what he held.
The square was as quiet as a graveyard. No one dared breathe too loudly.
Sweat gathered into droplets on the foreheads of several Jonin in the front row, then ran down their noses and splattered onto the flagstones.
Adults even clamped their hands over the mouths of the children.
Shu cleared his throat and swallowed the dry dust in it.
He channeled Chakra into his vocal cords.
His voice struck all of Konoha like the deep toll of a temple bell.
"The first new law."
Shu looked down at the dense sea of heads below.
"From this very second, the mission hall is closed."
"All traditional contract missions, from D-rank to S-rank, are abolished."
Those words landed.
A faint gasp rippled through the crowd.
Clang.
A Genin's hand shook, and he dropped his Kunai onto the flagstones with a piercing clang.
Still, not one of the tens of thousands dared speak.
But panic spread through them like ripples on water.
No more missions?
If ninjas don't take missions, how will they make a living? How will they buy Explosive Tags?
He had just destroyed the livelihoods of tens of thousands of people.
Shu lowered the scroll a little.
The wind stirred the parchment. He tugged hard on it, pulling it flat.
"What, you think you've been wronged?"
His face cold, he swept his gaze over the heads wearing Forehead Protectors.
"You take D-rank missions to find the daimyo's wife's cat and clear sewers for rich merchants in the city."
Shu scoffed.
"You hold killing blades in your hands and train your minds to refine Chakra."
"And in the end, you become cleaners?"
"Aren't you ashamed?"
In the crowd, several Genin who had just completed cat-finding missions bowed their heads.
Their faces flushed bright red, and their fingers clenched the seams of their pants.
"Now let's talk about high-rank missions."
Shu tapped the scroll with his finger, his nail making a dull tapping sound against the parchment.
"A-rank escorts. B-rank bandit suppression."
"You use your own bodies to take blades for those fat-bellied nobles. They drink in their carriages while you bleed in the mud."
He took half a step forward, his military boot landing on the edge of the wooden boards.
"Then they toss you a few stacks of filthy cash, and you have to be grateful for it."
An older Chunin clenched his back teeth, grinding them together.
A knife scar half a foot long marked his belly, left there when he escorted a merchant caravan the month before.
"Ninjas?"
Shu curled his lip.
"What kind of ninjas are you? You're nothing but the cheapest mercenaries around."
"Your lives are worth less than grass."
"The nobles and daimyo treat you as useful tools. When you break, they throw out a little compensation to send you away like beggars."
The square, filled with tens of thousands of people, was stiflingly silent.
Some people's eyes reddened. Others clenched their fists tightly.
From childhood, they had been indoctrinated with the Will of Fire and taught to sacrifice themselves for the village.
Now Shu had torn that fig leaf to shreds, exposing the bloody, cheap reality beneath.
"Starting today, you're forbidden from risking your lives for those pieces of trash."
Shu raised his voice.
"Konoha is undergoing a complete transformation."
"Its organization will be changed to the 'National Industrial Construction Corps.'"
Industrial Construction Corps.
A completely unfamiliar term.
Hyūga Tensō stood in the front row, his thin gray shirt soaked with sweat. He raised his head, his face full of confusion.
Akimichi Chōza wiped the sweat from his forehead. His thick lips moved, but he didn't dare make a sound.
"Lord Hokage..."
In the crowd, a civilian Jonin finally couldn't hold back.
His voice trembled and cracked as he shouted.
"If we don't take missions, where will the village get its money? If the daimyo cuts off our food supply, we'll all starve to death!"
Shu glanced at him.
He didn't have anyone seize him.
"No money?"
Shu rolled the scroll halfway up.
"Then we'll manufacture our own weapons."
"Work has already begun on Orochimaru's weapons factory."
Shu pointed toward the west side of the village.
"Machine guns. Heavy Chakra cannons. High-frequency vibrating blades."
"Make them and haul them to the border."
He looked at the Jonin.
"Set the cannons up right outside their gates. Every village in the Shinobi World will have to pay to buy them."
"They won't buy? Then fire."
"Blast their vaults flat and haul the money back ourselves."
The Jonin's mouth fell open. He swallowed and retreated into the crowd in fright.
That wasn't making money. It was outright robbery.
"The daimyo cuts off our food?"
Shu snorted coldly.
"There's plenty of wasteland outside the village."
"Make fertilizer. Build greenhouses."
"Use Earth Release to till the land, Water Release to irrigate it, and Lightning Release to stimulate plant growth."
Shu surveyed the entire square.
"Use Chakra for agriculture and multiply the yield per mu tenfold."
"Konoha's granaries will be piled high enough to reach the sky. The daimyo can save his moldy old rice for his own burial."
The entire square fell silent.
That sweeping, brutal logic smashed the traditional ninjas' worldview like a sledgehammer.
Use Ninjutsu to farm? Use Chakra to manufacture weapons for sale?
For hundreds of years, that wasn't how things had worked in the Shinobi World.
But coming from Shu's mouth, that twisted reasoning had a power that made their scalps tingle.
No money? Rob it. No food? Grow it.
There was no need to watch an employer's face or curry favor with the daimyo.
A long-suppressed ambition ignited in the chests of many young ninjas.
Shu unfurled the scroll again.
"Now, everyone listen carefully to the new assignments based on Chakra nature."
The wind blew again.
Shu read a little too quickly and inhaled some dust. He coughed and spat out dirt-flecked saliva.
He wiped the corner of his mouth and continued reading.
"Fire Style ninjas, all of you are assigned to Heavy Industry Base Number One."
"Stop practicing Great Fireball. Go fire boilers and melt iron at the steelworks."
"I want you to keep the temperature of your flames above the melting point. Anyone who dares let the fire go out can jump in and become fuel."
At the edge of the crowd, several surviving Uchiha ninjas swallowed dryly.
"Water Release ninjas, you're assigned to the cooling workshops and hydraulic engineering teams."
Shu ran his finger down the parchment.
"The cooling lines for the machine tools and the cooling of the blast furnaces are all up to you."
"Half of you will also go build reservoirs. Alter every waterway around Konoha for me and build hydroelectric power stations."
Several Water Release Jonin exchanged glances, seeing the shock in one another's eyes.
"Earth Release ninjas, you're assigned to the infrastructure brigade."
"Lay foundations and build roads."
"Level every dirt road in the Land of Fire and pave it with concrete."
"Within one day, I want to see a straight road from the eastern end of the village to the border. Use Earth Style Wall to build factory buildings."
"Wind Release ninjas, go to the ventilation shafts and air pressure stations."
"Use Vacuum Sphere to create vacuums and Great Breakthrough to blow air into the blast furnaces."
"Lightning Release ninjas, go to the power grid."
"Until the Chakra generators are built, you're living batteries."
"Take shifts discharging electricity into the capacitor towers."
"Genjutsu ninjas, go to the propaganda department and drafting rooms."
"Use Genjutsu for virtual reality testing and safety training for new factory apprentices."
"Medical-nin, aside from those staying at the hospital, all of you are going to the biochemical laboratory."
Shu raised his head.
"Refine nutrient solutions and develop high-strength recovery potions. Make sure the people on the construction sites can carry bricks for three days and nights without closing their eyes."
The assignments came down one after another.
No one objected.
Tens of thousands of killing machines were being dismantled into assembly-line workers while still alive.
Kunai and Shuriken would no longer be the main tools.
In their place would be shovels, wrenches, and firebricks.
The traditional ninja way, bonds, and the Will of Fire.
Before the steel tracks of this newly started machine of industrialization, they were crushed to powder.
In the crowd, a hidden-weapons ninja carrying a giant scroll clenched her fists.
Now the hidden-weapon techniques she took pride in could only be used to tighten screws.
Beside her, several Ninja Dogs from the Inuzuka Clan lay whimpering on the ground.
They had just been told that tomorrow they would go to the machinery factory to be evaluated for prosthetic modification. Their leg bones were to be replaced with titanium alloy.
Shu finished reading the final organizational roster.
The bottom of the parchment scroll came into view.
He brought his hands together.
Snap.
The wooden rollers of the scroll struck each other with a crisp sound.
He stuffed the scroll back into his pants pocket.
The tens of thousands below the platform were silent.
The ground was littered with the heads of the dead, freshly severed that morning.
The Uchiha Urban Management Brigade stood on the outskirts of the crowd.
Their red armbands glared in the sunlight, and the jujube-wood clubs in their hands were still dripping blood.
Who dared utter a single word of dissent?
Shu stood on the raised platform.
The cold wind stirred the Hokage hat on his head.
He took a deep breath. The dry, earthy smell filled his lungs.
He raised his right hand.
With a sweep of his large hand, he pointed straight at the vast wasteland outside Konoha.
"Six o'clock tomorrow morning."
Shu Shiraishi's voice rose above the wind.
"Everyone, bring your tools."
"Everyone to the factory!"
The order had been given. There was no room for discussion.
Early the next morning.
Day was just breaking, and the clouds in the east were tinged gray-white.
The morning mist had yet to lift, rolling along the ground.