The sun was setting in the west.
Today’s ceremony was coming to an end, but this entire series of ceremonies was nowhere near its conclusion.
Seeing that Koharu had begun to lose confidence, Homura Mitokado became interested.
"Don’t you think something is off? Although we don’t directly control the finances, we’ve always had access to Konoha’s financial trends. Prices in Konoha have skyrocketed recently. No matter how wealthy the Sarutobi Clan is, they can’t possibly have this much spare money."
Homura raised his question.
He knew that the Sarutobi Clan was wealthy, but they certainly weren’t wealthy to such an absurd degree.
If organizing such a grand ceremony were really that easy, it wouldn’t have disappeared from the shinobi world for hundreds of years.
Poverty was practically a shinobi tradition.
"Draining the clan’s entire treasury to do this doesn’t fit Sarutobi’s calculating personality."
Homura voiced his doubts.
He understood the Sarutobi Clan better than the other two.
His surname, Mitokado, was said to have its roots in Mito Uzumaki, the wife of the First Hokage, Senju Hashirama.
With distant ties to the Senju Clan, he had managed to rise to the position of elder despite his mediocre abilities largely because of those connections.
"There’s no way something is truly Sarutobi’s doing if it doesn’t serve at least three or five purposes. Danzō, you have access to more intelligence than either of us. The three of us are all tied to the same rope, so why don’t you tell us what you know?"
Danzō had been considering revealing some of what he knew as well.
Seeing that Homura had noticed the blind spot, he finally spoke.
"I can tell you. But once I do, you’ll have to make your choices based on mine."
Naturally, Danzō wanted to talk.
Whether or not there was something to gain, he might as well say it. If he could squeeze some benefits out of the situation, there was no reason not to try.
"Then let’s hear it."
Neither of them had expected Danzō to actually know something.
They had assumed that getting beaten by a child had frightened him into hiding.
Apparently, Danzō hadn’t been idle during this period.
The two men were not about to act until they saw what Danzō had to offer.
Danzō did not press them.
"Heh. Then I’ll tell you something I’ve discovered—something neither of you thought of."
"What?"
The two immediately pressed him for an answer.
Danzō, however, remained completely composed and asked them a question instead.
"What do you think the Third Hokage is trying to accomplish by making such a spectacle?"
The attention-loving Koharu Utatane immediately answered:
"Obviously, he’s trying to demonstrate his strength to everyone and unite all the shinobi clans of Konoha against the Uchiha!"
Danzō shook his head with an expression that seemed to say, I knew that’s what you’d think.
Then he spoke mysteriously.
"Everyone thinks Sarutobi has created such a huge spectacle as a mobilization before launching a purge against the Uchiha. But if you follow the clues carefully, you’ll discover that this isn’t a military battle at all."
"It’s a battle of currency."
Without waiting for their reactions, he continued.
"Have you noticed? Prices didn’t begin rising after the Uchiha split into two factions. Konoha’s prices simply began soaring all at once. Don’t you want to know the real reason behind it?"
"Could it be because everyone is stockpiling goods in anticipation of a civil war in Konoha?"
Homura sounded puzzled.
Danzō wasn’t interested in keeping them guessing.
"Of course not. There’s only one reason prices have risen so sharply."
"Someone has flooded Konoha with an enormous amount of currency."
Koharu refused to believe it.
"How is that possible? Where would Konoha get that much money? Surely the shinobi clans of Konoha sensed the coming danger and began stockpiling supplies."
Homura immediately rejected Koharu’s explanation.
"Impossible. You and I are both members of shinobi clans. Naturally, we understand whether clans need to stockpile supplies. Aren’t the reserves we’ve accumulated over all these years enough?"
Koharu disagreed.
"That’s because we’re elders. We have privileges that allow us to make money."
The highest-ranking official the Utatane Clan had ever produced was Koharu herself.
Homura was speechless.
Why did she always have to bring this up?
"Koharu, clans aren’t that simple. What clan doesn’t have a few illustrious ancestors?"
Homura’s words were tactful.
What he really meant was:
Someone from a nouveau riche family like yours can’t understand the foundations accumulated by Konoha’s old clans.
After rejecting Koharu’s explanation, Homura accepted Danzō’s theory.
But there was still one thing he didn’t understand.
"Where did the money used to flood the currency supply come from?"
Danzō immediately dropped a bombshell.
"From the daimyō, of course."
As he spoke, Danzō’s expression became increasingly mysterious.
"You didn’t know? Something major happened in the Land of Rivers. The daimyō of the Land of Rivers appealed to the daimyō of the Land of Fire for help. But the ones causing trouble were the Uchiha of Konoha. Naturally, the Land of Fire’s daimyō had to give him an explanation."
"And Sarutobi obtained the daimyō’s support with ease."
"The daimyō’s support?"
"The Uchiha caused trouble in the Land of Rivers?"
The two men reacted to the bombshell with completely different questions.
"That’s right. The Uchiha sent people who turned the Land of Rivers upside down."
The two became even more confused.
Why would they do that?
"How would I know?"
Danzō’s answer was completely matter-of-fact.
"I only know that the Uchiha offended the authority of a daimyō. Naturally, they would have to pay a price for that."
The two believed Danzō.
What they couldn’t believe was that the Uchiha would dare do such a thing.
Or rather, they couldn’t believe that the Uchiha, relying on the power of a single clan, could cause enough chaos to drive a country’s daimyō into exile.
After pondering for a while, they accepted the reality and asked their next question.
"So what does the daimyō want?"
"Obviously, he wants the entire Uchiha Clan dead."
Danzō answered without hesitation, making no effort whatsoever to hide his own desire to see the Uchiha wiped out.
"Sarutobi agreed?"
"He agreed, but not completely. Sarutobi wants to profit from both sides."
"What do you mean?"
"He bypassed the daimyō of the Land of Fire and contacted the daimyō of the Land of Rivers directly. The daimyō of the Land of Rivers wanted to vent his anger and return to his country, so he paid Sarutobi a huge amount of money."
The two immediately understood.
"So that’s where the Sarutobi Clan’s funds came from?"
Danzō nodded.
"Exactly."
The two were confused again.
"But what does that have to do with a currency war?"
Danzō had been reading quite a few books lately.
This was finally his chance to show off his knowledge.
"How does it relate? Simple. Sarutobi didn’t use that money to kill the Uchiha."
"Instead, he began injecting that money into Konoha’s commercial sector, driving prices upward."
"He’s using it to solve Konoha’s fundamental economic dependence on mission allocations from the daimyō."
"You mean Sarutobi took the money and didn’t do what he was paid to do?"
Koharu became somewhat worried.
Offending the daimyō like this could seriously reduce the number of missions assigned to Konoha.
Homura, however, saw things differently.
"He’s using the flow of capital to fill Konoha’s economic reservoir, diversifying Konoha’s finances."
"Quite a move, Sarutobi."
Homura could see further than Koharu, who only cared about immediate gains.
Danzō nodded in agreement.
"Exactly. Using war as the threat and capital as the leverage, he’s forcing the shinobi clans to channel their funds into Konoha’s commercial sector while simultaneously protecting Konoha’s financial reserves."
"Hahaha... Now that’s the Third Hokage."
Danzō then asked with a sly grin:
"Do you know why those small clans so readily chose to follow Sarutobi?"
"Why?"
"Because Sarutobi gave them massive loans."
"That money is enough for those small clans to develop—perhaps even enough to grow into mid-sized clans like the Shimura Clan, the Mitokado Clan, and the Utatane Clan."
Danzō dropped another piece of news that was bound to make them resent him.
"Damn it. We’ve followed Sarutobi for all these years, yet I’ve never seen him willing to help us at a time like this."
Koharu’s jealousy flared.
"Help us? Don’t make me laugh."
Homura shook his head.
"If we rely on Sarutobi to help us, then our current situation is already the limit of our clans’ development. Growing any larger would simply be... impolite, from Sarutobi’s perspective."
Homura was mediocre as a shinobi and came from a branch of a great clan, but he possessed considerable political insight.
He had followed the Senju Clan, and now he followed the Sarutobi Clan.
The principle was the same.
Koharu, who had risen from a civilian background, did not see it that way.
"What good does supporting those small clans do? Their foundations are already there. No amount of money can change that."
Koharu had once plundered the collections of several small clans.
As a result, she placed extraordinary importance on a clan’s accumulated foundation.
Perhaps even more importance than those clans that had spent generations building theirs.
Danzō saw things differently.
"That’s precisely the point. Sarutobi doesn’t need a group of clans with powerful combat forces."
"He needs clans with weak combat forces but strong money-making abilities."
"Those small clans that have managed to survive in Konoha—aren’t they all especially enthusiastic about commerce?"
Every major clan had its own way of surviving.
Small clans had their own as well.
If one had to divide them into categories, the difference was rather like that between powerful aristocratic families and wealthy merchants and local gentry.
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