Murakami sat alone on the low engawa of his house, legs crossed beneath him as the cool evening breeze blew against his skin.
The village lights were beginning to flicker on in the distance at which he stared at but wasn't really seeing it.
Power.
In any world or reality, it determined the status of things.
In the world he came from, the one before this one, power had worn different faces: money, information, technology, influence over institutions, control of narratives.
Hard power was armies and weapons. Resource power was oil, rare earths, supply chains. Institutional power was law, bureaucracy, the ability to write the rules everyone else had to follow.
This world was not much different.
The shinobi held hard power with their jutsu and ability to kill or protect at will.
The major merchant guilds and families held resource power, coin, trade routes, raw materials, the lifeblood that kept the village fed, armed, and clothed.
The daimyō held institutional power, the seal of legitimacy, the right to command armies, declare war, grant land, and define what was lawful.
And yet the structure was lopsided.
The shinobi population had only recently been centralized into villages, a few decades, barely a generation since the Warring States ended.
Their systems were still young, still raw, still adapting to the idea of serving under a single banner instead of fighting for their own clan's survival.
The merchant families and the daimyō's court?
Those had centuries behind them.
Trade had existed long before the hidden villages.
Clans bought and sold with merchants, merchants bought protection from clans, daimyōs taxed both and granted charters.
The relationships were old, deep, and stable.
When Hashirama proposed unification, the clans could agree quickly because they already knew how to negotiate with each other, they had been doing it for generations through trade and marriage alliances.
But once the villages formed, the shinobi stepped onto a larger board, one they had never fully played on before.
That was where the imbalance showed.
Without knowledge of how to navigate the higher playground, the court, the merchant guilds and the daimyō's favor, personal strength was just a sword in another man's hand.
Tobirama had understood that.
Hashirama had the charisma and the raw power to unite the clans and Tobirama had the genius to build the systems that kept them united.
He created the academy, the ANBU, the mission ranking system, the council structure, all the institutional bones that let Konoha function as a military village under the daimyō's nominal authority.
A hidden blade for the Land of Fire.
A military force that answered…. in theory… to a civilian ruler.
Murakami's gaze drifted downward to his own palms.
He turned them over slowly, studying the faint lines and calluses earned from training, not from labor.
The shinobi were strong.
But they were young in the game.
The merchants had centuries of practice moving money and goods without ever lifting a blade.
The daimyō had centuries of practice wielding legitimacy without ever stepping onto a battlefield.
And between them stood the naive centralised hard power that was the Shinobi village.
Sharp, deadly, but politically naive.
That was the crack Murakami saw.
It was not a flaw to be exploited with violence, but to be exploited with knowledge and patience.
He already knew about how this world's trajectory was going, so he had the edge of general future knowledge but on the current and past.
He closed his hands.
"Power is not the blade, " he had told Katsuro. "The blade is only the tool."
Power is the choice to use it or not.
Murakami stood up slowly, brushing invisible dust from his pants.
Graduation was coming.
After that, missions.
After that, choices.
He had already begun making his.
The village would see a unique student.
The merchants would see very appreciative deals.
The daimyō's court would see nothing at all, not until it was far too late to stop him.
And if the three great men ever sat in a room and tried to bid him kill the others…
Well.
He already knew who would walk out alive.
Murakami slid the door shut behind him and stepped back into the house.
…
…
Sumi arrived at the eastern gates of Konoha just as the first pale gray light began to bleed into the sky.
The village was still asleep safe from the soft rustle of leaves and the distant crow of a single rooster.
She slowed from a full sprint to a jog, then to a walk, letting her breathing even out.
Her legs burned with a deep and familiar ache, the kind that came after pushing the body far past normal limits, but nothing was torn or broken.
She had run through the night without stopping more than twice, each pause barely long enough to drink water.
A five-day journey by horse-drawn carriage turned into a thirteen hour sprint by a shinobi.
That was a dividing line between a normal person and a shinobi.
The divide in their physical stat was just that enormous.
To any normal human, that distance would have meant five full days of dusty roads, creaking axles, overnight inns, and the constant plod of hooves.
They would have seen sunrises and sunsets, eaten cold rice balls by campfires, grumbled about sore backs and bad weather.
Sumi had seen none of that.
…
To put her speed into perspective, a World-class marathon runner runs at a sustained speed of 20–21 km/h over 2–3 hours but Sumi is 50–90% faster, and she held it for 4–6× longer without collapsing.
An elite 100 m sprinter peak burst for 10 seconds to reach 37–44 km/h but Sumi is in the same ballpark as a world-record short sprint… but sustained for 13 straight hours.
The average car in city traffic runs 30–40 km/h so she is literally running as fast as a car in moderate traffic, for half a day.
A horse galloping in short bursts runs at 40–48 km/h. She is nearly matching a horse's top sprint speed… for 13 hours straight.
Note that a horse would die or collapse long before that.
This is the major reason Shinobi see no need to use normal means of transportation and prefer to run.
They cover much distance in less time.
…
Sumi reached the front of the Lotus Store and took one steadying breath, rolled her shoulders, and stepped up to the side entrance used for deliveries.
She rapped the wood three times, the pattern Ishida had told her to use before she left.
A moment later the door cracked open.
A young attendant peered out, eyes widening when she saw the Konoha headband. She didn't recall the Story making a request of a Shinobi.
Just as she was wondering who the Shinobi could be, Sumi pulled out the scroll Ishida gave her from her pouch.
Upon seeing the scroll in Sumi's hand, she relaxed slightly.
"You're…?"
"Sumi," she said quietly. "I'm here for Hasumi Hina. The scroll is from Ishida."
The attendant's expression shifted from surprise to instant recognition. She stepped aside without another word.
"Please come in. Hina-sama is already awake."
Sumi followed her through the dimly lit back corridor, past shelves of neatly stacked sealing paper and jars of ink, past the faint hum of dormant protective seals woven into the walls.
Sumi was slightly surprised that a normal civilian store could have this level of seal sophistication.
They reached a narrow staircase leading to the upper floor.
Natsu paused at the bottom step.
"She usually starts work before dawn," the girl said softly. "Especially when something important is expected."
Sumi nodded and climbed the stairs alone.
At the top, a sliding door stood slightly ajar, warm lamplight spilling into the hallway.
Sumi knocked lightly on the frame.
"Come in," came Hina's calm voice.
Sumi stepped inside.
Hina sat at a low desk near the window, brush paused mid-stroke over an open ledger.
The first rays of true sunrise were just beginning to touch the rooftops outside.
She looked up, eyes sharp and unsurprised. "You must be Sumi," she said, setting the brush down. "Ishida mentioned one of you would be coming."
Sumi bowed slightly, then stepped forward and offered the scroll with both hands.
"From Ishida-san. He said it was urgent."
Hina nodded and accepted it, her fingers brushing Sumi's briefly. She broke the lotus seal with a practiced motion and unrolled the paper.
For several long seconds she read in silence, eyes flicking rapidly across the lines.
Then she exhaled, not quite a sigh, but close.
"He really did it," she murmured, almost to herself. "All five… and the craftsmen too."
She looked up at Sumi again, expression softening.
"You ran through the night?"
Sumi nodded. "Thirteen hours. No major delays."
Hina studied her for a moment, not with judgment, but with quiet respect. 'As expected of Shinobi.'
"That's no small thing. Sit. You look like you could use tea… and maybe something to eat."
Sumi hesitated only a second before lowering herself to the cushion opposite the desk.
Hina rose gracefully and moved to a small side table where a kettle still steamed faintly.
As she poured two cups, she spoke without turning.
"Ishida trusts you enough to carry this. That means I trust you too."
She turned back, offering one cup.
"So tell me, Sumi, how much of what's in this scroll have you already guessed?"
Sumi accepted the tea, cradling the warmth between her palms.
She met Hina's gaze levelly.
"Nothing substantial." Sumi said and took a sip of her tea as she allowed the silence to settle. "Thst is not what I should know as it isn't my mission directive."
Natsu bowed again, deeper this time. "Understood, Hina-sama."
She turned to Sumi with a polite, professional smile. "This way, please."
Sumi rose smoothly and followed her out of the office as Hina began drafting the details of the contracts.