Chapter 71 - 64 (1/2)
Hiruzen sat on his chair with his hand rubbing his forehead. He looked in front of him and only saw Hikaru smiling at him as innocent as he can be. He rubbed his forehead again as he closed his eyes due to the stress he's currently feeling right now.
”So, what you are saying is that a month ago, you ordered two of your clones to go to the Island of Paradise while having one of the sons of our Daimyo turned into a little girl before selling him to the pedophiles in that island?” Hiruzen asked.
”Yes.” Hikaru's short response.
Hiruzen rubbed his forehead more and then said, ”After doing all that, you took all the slaves and innocent people with you before destroying the entire island with an S-Rank jutsu you created? And this all happened behind my back?!” Hiruzen asked, becoming more and more distressed because of the situation.
”Yup.” Hikaru's, again, short response.
Bam!
Hiruzen stood up as he slapped the top of his desk and yelled, ”Do you know what you have just done!? The Brother of the Fire Daimyo was there along with other important nobles! It came to me that they all died a month ago, but I didn't know it was all your doing! Thousands! Thousands of important nobles all died there along with powerful S-Rank Shinobis! The state capital of the fire country is currently experiencing massive panic, the nobles are all hiding in their houses and never coming out for the fear of a murderer killing them! There's also been a decrease of budget from the Fire Daimyo, and it's all because of you!! I wouldn't even know what would happen to us if they learn about this!”
Hikaru nervously scratched the side of his face and thought, 'I never knew the situation was this bad. I should've bought newspapers, that way I could've known what happened in the Capital.'
”We're doomed, Konoha is doomed! Doomed, I tell you!” It seems like Hiruzen can't hold his mentality from breaking apart, he's currently having a nervous breakdown right now.
”You underestimate me too much, old man. If it's the budget for the whole village, I can handle that. You know how powerful my abilities are, right? I can just use my genjutsu to fool the Fire Daimyo into giving us more budget than before, or if that's not an option, I can introduce new ways of making our own resources.” Hikaru said he was as calm as a cuc.u.mber.
”It's not that easy! If we messed up the budgeting of the ENTIRE country, it could lead to a public revolt. We could easily stop all of them with our shinobis, but the thing is, they could just leave the country and we cannot have a country without people. I would rather choose the second option, that way it will be more peaceful.” Hiruzen said as he took pills to calm himself.
Hikaru smirked and said. ”Major Villages are just like military camps, we focus on the military instead of making resources. Am I right?”
”Yes, we cannot produce our own resources, that's why we rely on trades and the money that's given to us by the Feudal Lord.” Hiruzen replied.
”Then, I alone can invade an entire Major Village and take all of the citizens there as laborers. We can then use them to make resources for us.” Hikaru said with a smile on his face, as if the idea he just suggested is the most 'okay' thing to do.
Bam!
Hiruzen slammed his hands on his desk and yelled, ”No! That's too barbaric! And wait, doesn't that sound a lot like slavery!?”
”Hah hah hah hah. Calm down, old man. That was just a joke.” Hikaru laughed at his own joke.
”Brat!”
”Okay, okay, geez.” Hikaru suddenly got more serious and the air in the room changed.
Hiruzen, sensing the air changing in the room, turned to what he called, 'The Hokage Mode'.
”As I said earlier, our village, Konoha, is a military village. Our main income comes from the Feudal Lord and the missions they are sending to us. Recently, I have made a wonderful discovery in my power that I can use to solve our money problem. I can create gold, and other stuff, like diamonds. I only discovered this a few days ago, so I still haven't created much but I hope this counts.” As soon as he said that, suddenly, dozens upon dozens of gold bars came out of nowhere.
”I was gonna use these for my personal use, but I guess the village can have these gold bars.” Hikaru said. He looked at the expression of Hiruzen and it was priceless. The poor old man couldn't even speak.
Hikaru could create these gold bars only because of his mana. To construct each of these gold bars, he had to have an equivalent mass of an object, which is why he used stones for equal mass. Thankfully, he studied enough chemistry to create these gold bars. That weird disembodied voice taught him this technique, saying that he shouldn't waste his time acquiring currency. Hikaru asked why he didn't just teach this to him earlier, and the disembodied voice only said that he forgot. This angered Hikaru, since he could've used all those times acquiring money grinding souls. It was truly such a waste. After that, Hikaru kept asking for the disembodied voice if he wanted to go at it. (Note: He meant fighting the voice. Crazy, right?)
He suddenly saw Hiruzen's soul leaving him but Hikaru just caught it back before putting it back in Hiruzen's body.
Hiruzen came back to life while panting and said, ”I suddenly saw my wife and other dead family members waving at me from across from a river. What happened?”
”You almost died.” HIkaru's short answer to his question.
”Ah, that makes sense. Anyway, since you have a lot of these golds, then our money problem is solved for a while. But can you create, I don't know, thousands of these?” Hiruzen said, he is completely calm right now.
”Of course, I'll give it to you tomorrow. It's quite easy to create, after all.” Hikaru smiled as he said that, it seems as if he had something to request of Hiruzen.
Seeing that smile, Hiruzen gulped and said, ”Fine, I'll let you go to Sunagakure along with Azumi. But, just protect her at all cost. The Kazekage and his children are going home a week from now, we've had our talk. It seems like they are just bonding with each other.”
”Family bonding in another village, the Kazekage must be tired of what's happening in his village. If this was any other village, they would've been dead.” Hikaru said.
”Don't be too harsh on them, they've had their fair share of troubles too. Unlike Konoha, they have no godlike child that can do basically anything to save them from disasters. I think right now, they're currently experiencing a shortage of water and food.” Hiruzen said.