The reason why Sozen Ichihara and a group of elders from the Ichihara family were heading towards the SENBON TORII store was for 2 reasons.
First, to find out who was trying to blackmail his family.
And second, to find her Kozue and bring him back to the family.
But in the eyes of Kazushi and the old man Yusuke, Sozen Ichihara was hurrying to find his allies to tell them what was happening.
This was in accordance with their plans.
According to Kazushi's plan, they had a better chance of success if they only communicated with the Ichihara family.
In that way, the hidden ninja organization would think they were still in the dark and would be more inclined to resolve this situation quickly and quietly.
Since the message only mentioned the Ichihara family and not them, Kazushi and the elder Yusuke were certain that this ninja organization would prefer to hand over the money.
Although 100 million Ryo was a lot of money, this organization could afford it if they could continue opening so many stores across the country.
And what happens after they get the money?
Kazushi could wait for some time to pass before repeating the operation.
Thanks to the suggestion of old man Yusuke, his Kawada family did not fear reprisals from the Ichihara family and this hidden ninja organization.
Kazushi had to accept that he still had much to learn.
The man had just taken over as the family leader, so he couldn't be compared to an old man like the elderly Yusuke who had more experience.
And what was old man Yusuke's suggestion?
Well, simply hire ninjas from another country.
The old man Yusuke's idea was good and was accepted without complications by Kazushi.
Here one could see the hypocrisy of many nobles and wealthy merchants regarding the ninja.
Many nobles and wealthy merchants despised ninjas.
But this contempt stems from envy and fear of their power.
They fear their power and the possibility that the ninjas might want to rule the world.
It almost happened with the appearance of Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha and the formation of ninja villages.
'Fortunately, these two died,' Kazushi thought.
Kazushi remembered the stories he heard when he was young and couldn't believe that someone could have so much power.
Just imagining that gave her goosebumps.
If these two hadn't fought, Kazushi was sure that if the Leaf Village didn't rule the world, at least it would rule the Land of Fire.
Fortunately, no more monsters like those two appeared, and the ninja villages now depend on the Daimyo and his funding.
'At least something came out of this,' Kazushi thought.
Before the formation of ninja villages, the world was chaotic.
Everyone was fighting against everyone else.
And to make matters worse, very few ninja acted with honor.
After all, ninjas are just mercenaries who receive money in exchange for completing certain tasks.
This gave one an idea of what kind of actions the ninja mostly performed.
Murders
Nobles and wealthy merchants lived in fear of being killed at the hands of ninjas hired by enemies at any moment.
But with the formation of ninja villages, the situation was brought under control… somewhat.
A ninja village is economically dependent on a country, and for that reason the ninjas accepted some conditions.
One of them was that they could not cause problems within their own country.
This meant that they could no longer cause massacres of villages or condone murders.
Of course, it was mainly nobles and wealthy merchants with connections who fell under this protection.
If a person wasn't important, nobody would investigate their deaths at the hands of ninjas.
Of course, the ninjas knew how to restrain themselves since they didn't want to cause trouble for a little money.
In this way, the chaotic world calmed down a little… for a while.
Intelligent people realized that they could hire ninjas from other countries to eliminate their enemies.
And since only a few had the ability to contact ninjas from other countries, it was easy for certain people to eliminate new competitors.
Kazushi was new to the position of leader of the Kawada family, so he didn't have many resources yet.
The elderly Yusuke, on the other hand, had been in his position for many years and knew certain things.
In addition to certain illegal assassination organizations, he also knew how to contact ninjas from other villages and commission certain tasks.
To avoid retaliation from the Ichihara family and this clandestine ninja organization, old Yusuke thought of hiring ninjas from another village to collect the money.
This way, they won't have to worry about hiding their identities.
.
.
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In the only SENBON TORII store within the capital of the land of fire, Sozen Ichihara and a group of elders from the Ichihara family had managed to meet the person behind this company.
But contrary to what Kazushi and old Yusuke believed, they weren't discussing how to handle the situation they were in.
In contrast, the 5 men had dull eyes as they stood in front of Kozue, who was reading her memories.
To say Kozue was angry was an understatement. He was furious.
These guys had arrived here demanding that the employees meet with him.
Since Kozue was busy with other things, he left the management of the shops to his shadow clones.
And it was one of his shadow clones who answered the call from one of his employees.
The shadow clone arrived quickly and met the 5 men, who greeted him first with a smile.
Seeing her grandfather in this world smile at her like that was strange for Kozue, so it was the same for her shadow clone.
After all, in his entire life on this earth he had only seen him a few times when he was a child.
He would have more than enough fingers on his hands if he tried to count them.
You could tell how important Kozue was to the man when he returned after many years and the guy didn't even come over to say hello.
Of course, although this seemed like a warm welcome, the true intentions were revealed later.
Claiming that he had attracted the attention of dangerous people, his grandfather offered to manage his stores.
'I promise you that I will use the Ichihara family's resources to make this company bigger,' the man said.
'Yes, of course,' thought Kozue's shadow clone.
For him, it was clear that they wanted to take away his stores and leave him with nothing.
Kozue's shadow clone told them to wait a moment before finding a secluded spot and disappearing in a puff of smoke.
In this way, the real Kozue received his memories.
Kozue didn't think twice before leaving the administration of the country of waves to her girls and quickly returned to her shop in the capital of the country of fire.
And when she encountered the 5 men, Kozue wasted no time in controlling them with mental magic and leading them to the underground base of her shop.
In a quiet room, Kozue was able to take her time to read the memories of the 5 men and better understand the situation.
And even though Kozue expected to only deal with the Ichihara family, she found that it was possible that the rat she couldn't catch earlier was involved in this.
Some time ago, their shadow clones had been dealing with the situation of a large-scale robbery attempt in many of their stores.
They easily dealt with the robbers and identified the criminal gangs behind them through their memories.
And although they already suspected something due to the coordinated attack on several stores, they were able to confirm that a third party had met with all these gangs.
Unfortunately, their shadow clones were unable to find this hidden person or force because they had covered their tracks well.
When her shadow clones sent her this information, Kozue hoped they would continue to cause trouble so she could find clues to their identities.
But he thought it was unlikely.
After easily dealing with the red attempt and eliminating so many bands in a single night, anyone would think twice before causing trouble again.
But he was wrong.
They had sought out the Ichihara family when they couldn't deal with him, and Kozue wondered why they were so confident that they continued to cause trouble.
Shrugging, Kozue planned to wait until the money delivery date to deal with these guys.
But at this moment, he had to think about how he would deal with the 5 men in front of him and the rest of the Ichihara family.
After all, the rest of the Ichihara family elders knew about their shops and wanted to take them away.
Although it wasn't too late to find all these men and erase their memories, Kozue wouldn't be satisfied after they tried to take advantage of him.