The confident smile on Madara Uchiha's face only grew brighter.
Right now he felt Uchiha Makoto's earnest warnings were nothing but alarmism.
Advice in private could be called counsel; aired in public it became a challenge to Madara's personal authority. Madara didn't care in the least.
It was trust in Hashirama Senju and confidence in himself. He was the proudest Uchiha, and in the vast shinobi world he recognized only Hashirama. So long as Hashirama stood with him, the village they would found together would, by the strength of the two of them, realize the dream they had shared as boys.
But…
Fate is a thing hard to speak of.
People cling to unrealistic fantasies about their white moonlight.
Once Konoha was founded… Hashirama changed his heart.
Madara remained Madara, but Hashirama became the First Hokage, convinced that protecting the village meant protecting people, shinobi, and children.
So in the First Hokage's eyes, whether it was father and son or brothers, if it threatened Konoha's future, it had to be erased.
As Hashirama himself said: no matter if it is my friend, my brother, even my child—if he dares stand against the village, I will not spare him.
"Since Lord Madara has made his choice, I've nothing more to add.
"I will obey Lord Madara and cease revenge against the Senju, but I will not join the Senju to build a village. I choose to leave the Uchiha clan."
Makoto had no patience to argue with Madara about the Senju any longer.
Teach a man and he won't learn; let events teach him once and he will.
When Madara felt the knife in his back and his clansmen refused to follow him, he would understand how far-sighted today's words were.
"So that is your idea… I understand."
Madara nodded.
He said little about Makoto's choice.
The hatred stockpiled over a thousand years between Uchiha and Senju was beyond counting.
Not only those two clans; other shinobi families were the same. In the Warring States era a tacit rule had even formed—never speak your surname when traveling. With your luck you might meet an enemy clan.
The outcome for such unfortunates was obvious.
Training a shinobi was costly. Better to weaken the enemy than to strengthen yourself. Enemy clans were only too happy to seize such chances.
"If you wish to leave the Uchiha, I can give you travel money and let you go."
Madara saw Makoto's resolve and did not try to keep him, even offering him a stake to depart with.
Wandering the shinobi world alone was dangerous. Without money, even a hero could be stumped by a single coin.
On that point, though, Madara underestimated Makoto—or rather, overestimated his bottom line.
Every craft has its codes. The Uchiha had a thousand-year pedigree, a storied name that rang across the shinobi world. Madara himself, and the clan as a whole, kept the rules.
Kunai and shuriken purchases, training elixirs, the clan's daily supplies—paid for to the last coin. They would never force sales or freeload on power. The proud Uchiha truly cherished their reputation.
Makoto was different.
He was setting out to build something of his own, to found a shinobi village like Orochimaru once did.
The Uchiha had long passed their period of primitive capital accumulation. Makoto was about to wade into that arduous and bloody phase. What company doesn't stain itself with gray, even black, at the start?
Some outfit with nerves of steel even issued a token pegged one-to-one to currency. The regulatory hammer came down in the end, but that did not stop it from becoming an internet giant.
As long as you can wash clean later.
Makoto didn't mind using his strength to do a little dirty work.
He certainly wouldn't be a fool like Kakuzu, grinding away at bounty missions. A hoodlum who never thinks will be a gofer for life. To make real money you have to do business like Jimmy Jai.
Official–merchant collusion, buy low and sell high—just standard practice.
In Makoto's blueprint:
First earn seed money, then found a company and enter an industry. Next use force to establish a monopoly and harvest monopoly profits. Then open a bank to draw in deposits, borrow from that bank in the company's name to expand scale, reap more profit, and feed the bank in return. Cycle it over and over—left foot on right foot, spiraling into the sky.
There was some risk. For any company, scaling up was a gamble, and the losers were many.
Makoto had countermeasures.
If something went wrong and cash broke, liquidate at once. Sell the bad assets to a sucker, or declare bankruptcy outright, dump the bad debt, grab the funds, and run.
Beastly, perhaps.
But it would make money.
In this treacherous shinobi world, a shinobi may suffer conscience for a lifetime, but he must not suffer poverty for a lifetime. Otherwise, what was the point of being a shinobi?
These clans never learned. A thousand years had passed, and they still made money by taking missions.
Even the progressive Hashirama Senju—he built the strongest village, Konoha, and merely rationalized mission ranks, parceling tasks according to shinobi ability. He did not change the base logic of survival. Shinobi live by taking missions, and sooner or later they die somewhere in the shinobi world.
Makoto had a greater dream.
If you build a village, build the biggest. If you make money, make the most for the least effort.
Madara's offer of money pleased him, but money alone did not.
In the twenty-first century or in a shinobi village, what is most expensive?
Beyond question.
Talent.