The handsome young man named Benmaru knelt on the ground, displaying humility to the very bone.
Gennozuke was quite pleased with him.
Such an ambitious young man. Lord Kei will definitely like him, won’t he?
Lord Kei was always teaching them, "A man’s knees contain gold. At critical moments, you need to learn how to reach down and pick up the money."
And Benmaru was exactly the kind of person who could put his pride aside when it mattered.
"Lord Gennozuke, please save us! Those outsiders have gone mad. We can’t survive anymore!"
Benmaru slammed his forehead against the ground with every sentence.
Blood soon stained his brow.
His mournful voice naturally inspired pity.
"Benmaru, there’s no need for you to treat me like this. We’re not strangers. Just tell me what you need."
Gennozuke knew exactly what Benmaru wanted.
Yet he still hoped that Benmaru would give him the answer he wanted to hear voluntarily.
If Benmaru were willing to follow him and lead the Red-Eyed Clan back to Konoha, it would be even better if he could say those words himself.
Gennozuke had personally taught this young man.
Half a year of interaction had made him invest considerable effort in Benmaru.
As the leader of the younger generation of the Red-Eyed Clan, Benmaru had once promised that he would lead his people toward a brighter future alongside Lord Gennozuke.
Therefore, Gennozuke had always been waiting for this young man, in whom he had placed such great hopes, to say those words himself.
"Join the Uchiha and take the Uchiha name!"
Voluntarily joining an organization and being forced into one resulted in completely different status.
Gennozuke hoped that his half-disciple would have a good environment in which to live in the future.
If Benmaru personally made that promise, Gennozuke could also present it to Lord Kei as proof of his accomplishment.
Besides, the Red-Eyed Clan had no other options left.
Joining the Uchiha was their only path forward.
Gennozuke had already blocked every other path.
The young man kneeling on the ground didn’t stop even after hearing Gennozuke’s words.
He continued banging his head against the ground.
"My lord, we don’t have any food left.
"The Sand Shinobi wandering through the area are still stealing our last scraps of food.
"Please grant us some provisions!
"We are willing to follow you!"
The women of the Red-Eyed Clan standing around the outskirts heard Benmaru’s words.
They forced the children beside them down as well and began kowtowing to Gennozuke.
The vacant eyes of those children brought back many memories for Gennozuke.
Every year, the Kōga Group would receive a batch of children like this into its ranks.
Blank expressions.
Tattered clothes.
Bodies reduced to skin and bones.
They should have been at an age when they understood nothing of the world, yet they had already experienced a lifetime of suffering.
Back then, under his grandfather’s leadership, Gennozuke would swear an oath of blood with those children and enter the Kōga Group alongside them, becoming brothers who would share life and death.
Of those people from his childhood, everyone who hadn’t died in battle now possessed a bright future.
Seeing these little ones who looked exactly like his old brothers, Gennozuke smiled.
Just as the Kōga Group had once accepted those orphaned beggar children, the Uchiha were willing to accept these impoverished members of the Red-Eyed Clan.
Their eyes looked far too similar to those of the Uchiha.
With Lord Kei leading them in the future, these children would surely live well.
Perhaps even better than those children the Kōga Group had once taken in.
Thinking of this, Gennozuke smiled and replied to Benmaru.
"No problem, Benmaru.
"As long as you’re willing to follow the Uchiha, food and land won’t be an issue.
"How many do you need?
"We’ll provide it.
"You’ll completely escape this life of poverty!"
Gennozuke spoke with tremendous enthusiasm, as though he intended to welcome his future comrades with all the passion in his heart.
"My lord, just giving us a little relief would be enough.
"Just a little!"
Benmaru seemed to be asking for very little.
"Ah, I’m not that stingy.
"Everyone needs to eat well before we set out.
"Benmaru, you’re one of us now. I won’t treat you unfairly.
"Count the number of people.
"Let’s have a proper feast and fill our stomachs. We’ll need the strength to make the journey."
Gennozuke had already begun imagining their wonderful future.
Benmaru, still kneeling on the ground, didn’t even dare raise his head.
He hesitated.
He was hesitating.
Finally, Benmaru seemed to make a tremendous decision.
"My lord, could you first give us orphans and widows something to eat?
"We can discuss the rest after everyone has eaten.
"Everyone is simply too weak to do anything without food."
Lost in his own fantasies, Gennozuke was already imagining himself completing the mission in glorious fashion and returning home to marry Oboro.
He didn’t notice anything unusual about Benmaru.
Hearing that they merely wanted something to eat first, he didn’t mind at all.
"Of course! Come on. I’ll take you all somewhere good to eat."
With that, he led the group toward the warehouse controlled by Shishirō and the others.
The elderly and children of the Red-Eyed Clan surrounded Gennozuke like followers gathering around a savior.
Several young men surrounded him like stars around the moon, showering him with praise.
Their words of gratitude and flattery flowed endlessly, as though they had rehearsed them beforehand.
More than a hundred people followed him, cheering enthusiastically.
Seeing this scene, Shishirō could only laugh helplessly.
This idiot young master really fell for it again.
The mission his grandfather had obtained from Lord Kei after lowering himself and pleading at such an advanced age had ultimately become nothing more than a trial of Gennozuke’s understanding of human nature.
"Fortunately, Lord Kei has a large fortune.
"If you Kōga people had squandered this much money under a shogun, it would have been enough to bury your entire family and fill a pit."
Gennozuke confidently led everyone to Shishirō.
This time it’s settled.
As long as he arranged enough supplies for everyone’s journey, the Red-Eyed Clan could begin their relocation.
He had completed the mission in only half a year.
Lord Kei should be quite pleased.
Gennozuke approached Shishirō with righteous confidence, ready to request the supplies.
But the moment he saw Shishirō’s expression, Gennozuke suddenly lost his nerve.
That expression looked strangely familiar.
It reminded him of the way Grandma Maboroshi looked at him whenever he had spent all his monthly allowance and Oboro had to use her own income to cover his expenses.
"Um... Shishirō, don’t look at me like that.
"I have good news!
"The entire Red-Eyed Clan has agreed to relocate with us.
"There is no future left for them in the Land of Rivers.
"The Sand Shinobi have lost their supplies and are running wild everywhere.
"We should prepare to withdraw soon too."
As he spoke, Gennozuke familiarly tried to put an arm around Shishirō’s shoulder, hoping to use their friendship to achieve his goal.
"You miss your fiancée Uchiha Chikako too, don’t you?
"Let’s finish the mission and go home!"
Shishirō rolled his eyes.
He couldn’t be bothered to deal with Gennozuke.
"No!!!"
Gennozuke was stunned.
He hadn’t expected Shishirō to refuse so bluntly.
Before Gennozuke could think of a way to persuade him, the Red-Eyed Clan members who had followed them became anxious.
"You servant!
"How can you behave like this?
"That belongs to Lord Gennozuke!
"How dare you refuse to let him distribute it?
"Are you going to disobey Lord Gennozuke’s wishes?"
The moment those words were spoken, all the Red-Eyed Clan members began shouting along.
They loudly insisted that Lord Gennozuke had promised those things to them and demanded that the supplies be handed over immediately.
These people seemed to have already decided that anything Gennozuke had promised them was now theirs.
Shishirō’s face darkened.
He couldn’t be bothered to argue with these people.
But in this situation, he had no choice but to remind Gennozuke that he had crossed a line.
"Gennozuke, do you understand what the situation is right now?"
Gennozuke could be addressed as "Lord Gennozuke."
But he absolutely could not place himself above Lord Kei.
Everything here belonged to Lord Kei.
The authority Gennozuke possessed to use these resources had been granted to him by Lord Kei.
That did not mean the resources belonged to Gennozuke.
And certainly no one was permitted to claim these supplies in Gennozuke’s name.
Around them, all forty shinobi from both the Kōga and Iga Groups looked solemnly at the young master of the Kōga Group.
Has Gennozuke lost his mind?
He is treating Lord Kei’s supplies as his own?
Doesn’t he understand what that means?
Even though he was Danjō’s grandson, the Uchiha would never tolerate such behavior.
In fact, they didn’t even dare let Lord Kei know about this.
For the sake of the entire Kōga Group, even Gennozuke would have to be secretly executed if he truly committed such an offense.
The Kōga Group absolutely could not leave Lord Kei with the wrong impression.
Doing so could cost every member of the Kōga Group the status and comfortable life they had finally obtained.
But the Red-Eyed Clan knew none of this.
And even if they had known, they probably wouldn’t have cared.
Seeing the dozens of shinobi become tense, the Red-Eyed Clan assumed they were afraid.
They surrounded Gennozuke and encouraged him, urging him to stand firm and reclaim what belonged to him.
The elderly and children surrounded Gennozuke in the center, chattering endlessly.
At some point, more than a thousand young adults from the Red-Eyed Clan had gathered around them.
The advantage of possessing a Bloodline Limit was that as long as a clan hadn’t lost its inherited secret techniques, even a little training could rapidly produce combat-ready shinobi.
If a Bloodline Limit awakened during that period, they could enter a period of rapid growth.
Over the past six months, with Gennozuke’s support, this impoverished clan that had lost its secret techniques had already begun learning to mold chakra.
Originally, Gennozuke had done this so he could boast about his accomplishments before Lord Kei.
If the clan he had just recruited already possessed basic combat power, Lord Kei would certainly be pleased.
Of the several thousand members of the Red-Eyed Clan, more than a thousand had now become shinobi.
They were only people who had learned basic skills such as throwing weapons, fighting with blades, and chakra cultivation.
Even so, they were far stronger than ordinary civilians.
And that had given the Red-Eyed Clan a confidence they shouldn’t have possessed.
The daimyō’s soldiers who had bullied them in the past were no longer their match.
So who did they have to fear?
Only true shinobi remained a threat.
Gennozuke, trapped in the middle of the crowd, was drenched in cold sweat.
His mind had completely stopped functioning.
The Red-Eyed Clan members shouted:
"You damned servants!
"You’re trying to seize Lord Gennozuke’s property!
"My lord, don’t be afraid!
"We’ll help you take it back!"
Only then did the stunned Gennozuke finally understand what was happening.
So these people didn’t just leave us with two choices.
There was actually a third path.
They were going to drag me into it with them!
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