Chapter 6: A Standard Task — Expressing the Will of Fire, Free-Farming the Third's Favor
"Ah, I see, I see." Yujiro muttered thoughtfully as he walked. "So the rewards vary depending on which clan you bring in."
The logic was simple enough.
For the Uchiha, it was Sharingan, Mangekyō, ocular jutsu.
For the Hyūga, it'd be Byakugan, Gentle Fist, maybe even Tenseigan someday.
For the Ino-Shika-Chō trio? A bottomless stomach, a pineapple head, and terminal romance brain.
For the Inuzuka? Dogs.
Aburame? Creepy branded bugs.
And the Sarutobi? Probably just… a staff.
As for clans outside Konoha—well, Uzumaki chakra reserves sounded juicy. Kimimaro's bone mutations had potential. And kekkei genkai like Ice Release, Lava Release, or Magnet Release? Great in theory, but hard to master without spreading yourself thin.
Yujiro preferred something simple and clean—like raw attribute points.
With that thought, his mind cleared, and he couldn't help flashing a sparkling pretty-boy smile.
"Why are you grinning?" asked Uchiha Yakumi at his side, brow furrowed.
Yakumi was Fugaku's advisor—arrogant, proud, loyal to the clan above all. He didn't approve of many of Yujiro's antics, but he still acknowledged him as part of the Uchiha's future. Hearing of the Cloud ambush had worried him deeply, and when he learned Yujiro had awakened three tomoe, he'd insisted on escorting him to the Hokage Tower.
Better safe than sorry—especially with the aging Sarutobi still lurking around to meddle in village politics.
That was when Yujiro's dumb system pinged:
[Emergency Quest: Gain Hokage Recognition. After the Senju's fall, the Hokage's seat shifted temporarily to the Sarutobi clan. But this is only a stopgap. One day, the Hokage will return to its rightful master.
Until then, building good relations and earning the Hokage's approval is necessary. A peaceful transfer of power is ideal. If not… watch The Fifth Republic a few more times.
Reward: Chakra Increase]
When the Cloud corpses were unsealed from the scroll, the Hokage's office fell into silence.
Both Minato and Hiruzen wanted to believe Yujiro's account. And with corpses as hard proof—not to mention ANBU and Root already reporting Cloud activity—the evidence was solid.
The truth was obvious: the Hidden Cloud had bad intentions toward Konoha.
Not that they were the only ones. Stone, Mist, Sand—every major village had bad intentions toward Konoha.
Such was the burden of being Fire Country—sitting at the continent's center, blessed with the richest land, but exposed on every side. Strong, and you reaped tribute. Weak, and every border turned into a battlefield.
…
The first two shinobi wars hadn't been so bad. At least Konoha had fought beyond its borders. But the Third? That one had crushed Konoha's spirit.
No matter how you spun it, Konoha had lost. Not utterly, not as bloodily as it could have—but lost nonetheless.
Why do you think the Third Hokage "graciously stepped down"? Because he felt like it? No—because when you lose a war, you take the blame.
If not for Jiraiya's golden boy—the Yellow Flash—restoring a shred of dignity, Hiruzen wouldn't just have abdicated. He'd have committed seppuku on the Hokage's Monument, live broadcast, traditional art performance included.
…
Konoha had fought Cloud, then Stone, then Mist. Three major villages back-to-back, until they were bled dry. Now, whenever other villages tested them, the response was only retreat and appeasement.
If Tobirama had lived to see it, he would've screamed: "What the hell happened to my Konoha?!"
But Tobirama was long dead. And with him had died the Senju clan's dream of peace and stability.
Hashirama had been so naïve.
From Yujiro's perspective—as someone who'd seen this story before—history was obvious.
The Warring States era, with its clan skirmishes, resembled previous world's Spring and Autumn period. The founding of the Five Great Villages, when clans merged, pushed things forward into the true Warring States stage.
Scale ballooned. Armies grew. Wars became bloodier, crueler.
Normally, after such chaos, history demanded unification. One empire, one rule, one peace.
But it hadn't happened.
Hashirama had the power to conquer, but instead he shackled himself to a fantasy—"balance" through villages, "peace" through institutions. He even fought Madara, his closest brother-in-arms, for it.
And the result? His dream was proven wrong.
The tailed beast deterrence theory was worthless. Tailed beasts weren't nukes. They couldn't guarantee mutual destruction.
Instead, the villages treated them as battlefield weapons, deploying them mercilessly whenever it suited them. Not deterrence fleets—just hammers.
Compared to Hashirama's naïve dream, Madara's plan for conquest actually had a chance of success.
If he and Hashirama had joined forces, who on earth could have opposed them?
Granted, with Madara's temperament, any unified empire would likely have collapsed within a generation under poor governance. Still—even a short-lived unification would have been better than Hashirama's foolishness of placing hope in "balance" and others' goodwill.
Once the idea of unification was planted in shinobi minds, later generations would naturally strive toward it. Someday, the ninja world would move forward.
Not remain like this: drowning endlessly in war, confusion, and fear of the future.
…
Yujiro spat curses at Hashirama in his heart. Outwardly, however, he softened his features, smiled gently, and delivered a string of politically correct nonsense to Hiruzen and Minato.
Summarized, his speech boiled down to this:
"The Will of Fire, the Will of Fire, the Will of Fire! For the Will of Fire, I am willing to set aside the matter of Cloud's ambush. Everything—everything—is for the Will of Fire!"
At the same time, Yujiro worked on his persona.
He couldn't copy Naruto's passionate, loudmouthed blond routine, nor did he want to.
So he adopted a different mask: the man of deep, enduring love. His voice steady, his tone grave, every word laced with self-sacrifice and burden-bearing resolve.
Never mind that he didn't actually know what the hell "the Will of Fire" even meant. Honestly, Yujiro suspected neither the Third nor the Fourth knew either.
But that didn't matter. Hokage didn't need you to understand. Hokage only needed you to believe—and to bleed. Give your youth, give your children, and that was enough.
The "Will of Fire" was just a slogan. It could have been "For the Emperor," or "Restore the Kingdom." The name was irrelevant.
And shinobi? Most of them were barely educated and thought too highly of themselves. They were the easiest targets for this kind of ideological PUA.
If health supplement salesmen ever crossed into the shinobi world, their jaws would ache from grinning.
Take Sarutobi Hiruzen, for example.
Especially Sarutobi Hiruzen.
As Yujiro delivered his "deeply loving" speech about the Will of Fire, the Third Hokage's eyes lit up like a resistance fighter hearing the secret passphrase. He was one second away from blurting, "Ah! He's one of us!"
His goodwill toward Yujiro skyrocketed.
Yujiro thought it was hilarious.
The Will of Fire was propaganda the Hokage used to manipulate others. But somewhere along the line, the Third had started believing his own lies.
To Yujiro, it looked like the early onset of dementia.
If Minato survived, it wouldn't matter. But if he died early like in the original timeline, the Third could forget about "returning to power." He'd be better off checking into a retirement home, getting his senility treated.
That would do Konoha more good than anything else.
"—No!"
At that moment, Uchiha Yakumi spoke sharply:
"We can't just let this go! If we don't retaliate, what happens to the Uchiha's pride?!"