A few days later…
Uchiha Makoto packed his belongings and left the Uchiha clan alone.
That morning…
A few of his clansmen even came to see him off.
“This treatment is still much better than what Uchiha Madara will receive in the future.”
Uchiha Makoto consoled himself with that thought.
He also had the traveling money Uchiha Madara had given him tucked away in his arms—a full ten million ryo.
To be fair…
Uchiha Madara had treated Uchiha Makoto quite well.
His parting gift could even be described as extremely generous.
According to the mission rank system that would be established by the Leaf in the future, only high-difficulty S-rank missions requiring the participation of an entire Jonin squad would offer commissions in the millions.
Ten million ryo was equivalent to ten S-rank missions.
For Uchiha Makoto, ten million ryo was an enormous sum.
He could even say that he had gotten rich overnight.
But…
it was still far from enough!
Establishing a shinobi village would inevitably require funding in the hundreds of millions!
If he wanted to raise such an enormous amount of money and simply followed the conventional approach of completing missions to accumulate wealth…
Uchiha Makoto could work himself to death and still never make enough.
So…
after thinking it over carefully, Uchiha Makoto decided that he needed a financial backer…
Ahem…
What he really needed was an angel investor who was generous and eager to help others!
Fortunately, when it came to this, Uchiha Makoto had a successful example he could copy.
In the future shinobi world, every shinobi village would have an angel investor behind it, constantly pouring money into the village.
The angel investor behind the Leaf was the Land of Fire.
The financial backer of the Hidden Sand Village was the Land of Wind, while the Hidden Stone Village had the Land of Earth…
Of course, no gift bestowed by fate was ever truly free.
The daimyos of the various countries regularly provided funding to their shinobi villages, while the shinobi villages had to pledge their loyalty to the daimyos, protect their lives, and safeguard their rule.
The daimyos needed the power of shinobi.
After all, wherever there was oppression, there would be resistance…
The nobles of the shinobi world had never been particularly interested in behaving like decent human beings.
Commoners on the verge of starving to death weren’t going to obediently wait for death, and rebellions by unruly civilians challenging the rule of the noble lords were hardly uncommon.
It was just that every rebellion had been suppressed by shinobi.
“I need an angel investor!”
Uchiha Makoto decided to copy the Leaf’s strategy.
He then opened the map he carried with him.
If he wanted a financial backer, he had to find a major one!
Small countries could be eliminated immediately!
The Land of Wind…
Endless yellow sand, a sparse population, a weak country, and impoverished people…
Pass!
That terrible place was simply unsuitable for human habitation.
Every time the wind blew, you could eat a mouthful of sand.
Uchiha Makoto definitely didn’t want to establish his shinobi village in the middle of a desert.
The Land of Water…
Too far away.
There was a vast stretch of ocean in between, and it was isolated from the mainland.
Establishing a shinobi village there would mean he could only become the shinobi world’s troublemaker…
Temporarily placed on the backup list!
The Land of Earth wasn’t bad!
The Land of Lightning…
It was pretty good too.
The Land of Fire was the best choice of all.
After thinking it over carefully…
Uchiha Makoto decided to make a move on the Land of Fire before the Leaf even had a chance!
The Land of Fire had an exceptionally advantageous geographical location.
It was situated at the center of the shinobi world and possessed the most fertile land and the cheapest…
Ahem…
It possessed abundant human resources.
If he could obtain the support of the Land of Fire’s Daimyo…
That would be as good as it could get.
As for the future Leaf…
The Land of Fire was so enormous.
Surely it could accommodate two shinobi villages?
Wouldn’t it be an insult to the Land of Fire’s Daimyo to suggest otherwise?
Besides, Senju Hashirama was famously kind-hearted.
And good people were always the ones others pointed their guns at.
He just needed to be a little wary of Senju Tobirama!
Thinking this, Uchiha Makoto shook his head.
He was thinking far too far ahead…
The first thing he needed to do was convince the Land of Fire’s Daimyo to become his angel investor.
That was the major hurdle right in front of him.
As for how to persuade the Land of Fire’s Daimyo…
Uchiha Makoto already had some ideas.
He mainly needed to revolve everything around one central argument.
The Senju Hashirama Threat Theory!
Question: “What are daimyos most worried about?”
Answer: “The power of shinobi becoming too strong and threatening their position as rulers!”
The shinobi world created by that old swindler Kishimoto was fundamentally distorted.
The shinobi who possessed military power did not possess the highest political authority.
Instead, they had always remained at the bottom of the political hierarchy.
It was a truly bizarre worldview.
Shinobi were treated as tools.
Shinobi clans constantly fought among themselves in pursuit of missions, while the daimyos remained behind the scenes…
And just like that, the rules of the shinobi world had remained in place for a thousand years.
There had occasionally been minor disturbances along the way, but none of them had managed to create any real waves.
But things were different now.
This system was facing an enormous challenge!
Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara were simply too powerful.
They were so powerful that either one of them alone could sweep across the entire shinobi world.
Over the past thousand years, the Senju and Uchiha clans had produced many extraordinarily powerful shinobi.
But shinobi as powerful as Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara had never appeared before.
The two of them should be the strongest pair among all the reincarnations of Asura and Indra throughout history.
Their power could even be said to have approached the level of Asura and Indra themselves.
However…
If that were all, it wouldn’t be a problem.
According to the traditions of the past thousand years, the reincarnations of Asura and Indra should spend their entire lives entangled with one another, fighting each other until the very end of their lives.
They simply wouldn’t have the time to concern themselves with anything else in the shinobi world.
The daimyos only needed to continue assigning missions to the Uchiha and Senju clans as usual.
But things were different now.
The current reincarnations of Asura and Indra—Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara—had temporarily broken free from their destiny.
They had abandoned their thousand-year cycle of endless conflict and decided to walk toward a new future together, establishing a shinobi village belonging to both the Senju and Uchiha clans.
Once something like that happened…
How was a Daimyo supposed to sleep at night?
The two strongest individuals in the shinobi world had joined forces.
They were establishing a shinobi village together.
And they even wanted to bring peace to the shinobi world.
Daimyo: “What the hell are you two planning?!”
Just imagining such a scenario would be enough to make the daimyos’ backs run cold and leave them restless.
Even if Senju Hashirama, that simple and naive good man, had never once considered overthrowing the daimyos’ rule…
That wasn’t the point.
The question wasn’t whether you wanted to do it.
It was whether you were capable of doing it.
Back then, Han Xin, the Marquis of Huaiyin, had been perfectly obedient and had never intended to raise an army and rebel.
Yet he was still executed on Empress Lü’s orders, dying at the hands of a woman.
And in this shinobi world…
The daimyos were in an even more dangerous position.
They could be said to have absolutely no ability to resist.
As long as Senju Hashirama made up his mind to overturn the existing order of the shinobi world, there would be no one capable of stopping him.
“Although doing this is somewhat like bullying an honest man…
I’m sorry, Senju Hashirama!”
“I really want to get ahead!”
With that, Uchiha Makoto began writing down the contents of his “Senju Hashirama Threat Theory” on a sheet of paper.