In less than half a month, the Land of Water's daimyō's residence had changed entirely.
The genjutsu Uchiha Hikari had chosen required extended time and multiple adjustments, but its advantage was that once fully completed, it needed no further handling and was far harder to detect.
Under the calibration of her Mangekyō Sharingan, the deepest recesses of the minds of the Land of Water's daimyō, his ministers, and even their relatives had been repeatedly altered countless times.
Their greed for power, their addiction to pleasure, their fear of loss the deepest desires in their hearts had been skillfully twisted toward another direction, tightly binding with "ensuring the interests of the Red Hot Sand Guild" and "cooperating with the actions of Hii Kōri and his associates."
This kind of adjustment, which directly tampered with the subject's personality, was essentially like "I, Lelouch vi Britannia, command you.jpg." Normally, they showed no signs of abnormality; only in various actions would some subtle changes emerge.
In this atmosphere—where everything seemed to have changed, yet nothing seemed to have changed—the flag of the Red Hot Sand Guild also appeared openly and conspicuously at the Land of Water's ports.
From the moment the first cargo ship docked, they were greeted with customs clearance procedures of astonishing efficiency, local officials whose attitudes were so enthusiastic they bordered on servile, and storage areas that had already been arranged in superior locations.
The person in charge sent by the guild for subsequent negotiations was a capable woman named "Aoi." She was from Rōran, had joined the guild from the beginning as Akane's assistant, and was now a seasoned veteran after all, the guild hadn't expanded that long ago.
At first, she had expected to encounter some unspoken rules or subtle resistance. After all, the Land of Water's xenophobia was famous; not just against foreigners, but even between different towns there could be conflicts.
But over the following days, she encountered no difficulties whatsoever. The mountains of supplies she had brought were digested and diverted at an astonishing speed, directed to various pre-planned construction zones. Not even a tenth of the funds she had prepared for bribery and gift-giving were used. The officials could even be described as "proactively serving," occasionally offering optimization suggestions tailored to the local environment—suggestions the guild hadn't even considered.
This wasn't because Uchiha Hikari had run all over the Land of Water putting everyone under genjutsu. The main reason was that the local officials genuinely wanted them there.
The location Hii Kōri had chosen for the port was indeed an excellent natural harbor. Correspondingly, the people here had more frequent contact with the outside world.
Having witnessed the power of the Red Hot Sand Guild in other countries and seen the benefits it brought to local economies, the local officials would have to be out of their minds to cause trouble now. Even if people from other regions or factions tried to secretly sabotage, they would fight back against them.
Blocking someone's money path was like harming their parents.
Moreover, the Land of Water's curse had been exorcised by Hii Kōri, and the higher-ups had indicated strong support for the guild's development. Not seizing this opportunity to climb up would be a disservice to the favorable wind.
The construction of various facilities soon began in full swing.
First came the expansion, renovation, and modernization of the port area. New cranes, well-planned warehouses, and paved roads rapidly changed the coastline's appearance.
The craftsmen from the Land of Waves and the guild's own construction teams were insufficient. The former went without saying; the latter had to be deployed worldwide to repair various facilities. On average, even though the Land of Water had the largest project, it couldn't get that many people.
Thus, the local people of the Land of Water had work to do.
Hii Kōri had no intention of getting involved in these matters.
The guild had grown to this point; it was no longer the early days when he and Sakaki Tatsuma had to painstakingly calculate everything themselves. Let the subordinates handle things—otherwise, why pay them?
On the other hand, calculating the days, the turmoil in Kirigakure should have settled down by now.
"Go to Kirigakure and issue a bodyguard commission."
Hii Kōri found a guild liaison officer and instructed him, handing over a commission form he had prepared in advance. "Set the rank at S-rank. The content is long-term protection of the guild's various construction sites in the Land of Water. The requirement is at least one experienced jōnin per site. The commission period is tentatively set at one year, renewable. As for the compensation..."
He paused, stated a figure, then said, "Go to the Finance Department and have them issue the authorization."
Even though he had been mentally prepared, the liaison officer's eyes twitched sharply at the number.
That was an amount that would make any hidden village's finance director's eyes light up far exceeding the reward of many S-rank, high-risk missions.
But this was the guild's "style." In the end, the money would come back to them anyway. Consider it relationship maintenance.
On the other end, the Mizukage's office in Kirigakure.
The upheaval Hii Kōri had caused had been pacified, but the Fourth Mizukage had not yet been chosen.
At this moment, the one sitting here handling various administrative affairs was Kirigakure's elder, Genji.
This hairless, beardless old man looked even more "shriveled" than Bunpuku, but he was also the person whose words carried the most weight in all of Kirigakure. With the Third Mizukage's "heroic sacrifice," no one objected to him acting as interim administrator.
The guild's messenger was somewhat curious about this, but he didn't dare ask about the Mizukage's whereabouts. After a brief communication, he left the commission form behind and departed.
When Yagura saw that commission, his emotions were far more intense.
The influx of guild resources and the construction boom pouring into the country like snowflakes—even amid the process of rebuilding Kirigakure's order, Genji and Yagura had heard about it. This commission was also within expectations.
Before Elder Genji, he crossed his hands, his violet eyes staring fixedly at the content of the commission or rather, at the crest of the "Red Hot Sand Guild." His fingers tightened slightly, the tips turning white from pressure.
He knew exactly what this meant. This was the follow-up collaboration that Hii Kōri had mentioned.
Did Kirigakure need money?
Desperately.
The legacy of the Bloody Mist policy was not only internal bloodshed and suspicion, but also a depressed economy, damaged facilities, and the dilemma of being unable to recruit new blood.
The Third could conveniently blame it all on the curse and die. But Genji and Yagura were left with a tangled mess, struggling to change things while making little progress.
This huge compensation would be enough to address their most urgent needs.
Yagura even suspected that Hii Kōri had deliberately controlled the damage to Kirigakure so that at this moment, he could offer terms convenient for himself.
Accept, or not?
Recalling his actions in the first half of his life, the number of Kirigakure people who had died by his hands wasn't much fewer than those in Hii Kōri's attack.
If he were to dwell on it, he'd have to commit seppuku himself.
Why did people become ninjas? To make a living. Since Hii Kōri could offer such a price, what did it matter to work for him once?
Work was work, no matter who you worked for. After all, this was also part of their previous "deal."
"...No need to hesitate, is there?"
Yagura opened his eyes and replied to Elder Genji: "Although the village is still somewhat unsettled, it's not to the point where sending out a batch of reliable jōnin and chūnin would make things unmanageable."
"'Reliable ninjas'... hearing you say that makes me genuinely happy, Yagura."
The old man, who barely had any teeth left, smiled as he signed the commission acknowledgment and stamped it with the acting Mizukage's seal.
His words seemed to imply he knew what Yagura had been doing all along.
Elder Genji handed the acknowledgment to Yagura, asking him to call the Anbu outside. He was old; his voice didn't carry that far.
"Call Ameyuri Ringo, Hōzuki... have them come over. There's a long-term commission here that needs their takeover."
"So, you're planning to assign me a bodyguard?"
At the same time Kirigakure accepted the commission, in a temporary residence at the construction site, Sakaki Tatsuma looked at Hii Kōri, who was lying in a rocking chair playing with chakra spheres, with a strange expression.
"Is that necessary?" He scratched his perpetually messy curly hair, somewhat out of the loop. "Didn't you already handle Kirigakure?"
"One thing at a time. The Land of Water is the Land of Water. The future is the future."
Hii Kōri, who had mixed Wind and Water chakra spheres to create an Ice Elemental Spirit, turned his gaze to his good brother, who lacked any sense of self-preservation, and shook his head helplessly.
"Akane has Tsunade by her side. The other department directors who need to travel frequently long ago found themselves trustworthy guards. You're the only one without anyone. I don't know what you're thinking."
"Going forward, I probably won't have time to accompany you everywhere like this. I need to find someone trustworthy to look out for you."
"Ahahaha..."
Sakaki Tatsuma had wanted to say, "Haven't I been getting by just fine all this time?" But thinking about what they were about to do, he felt a bit uncertain himself. He stroked his curly hair and let out his usual oblivious laugh.
"The channels you control, the plans in your head, the connections you have, your status as the guild's public face... there's far too much that someone could scheme to take from you."
Hii Kōri wasn't buying it. He brought the Ice Elemental Spirit to his lips on his finger
tip and gently blew it toward Sakaki Tatsuma. A gust of cold wind carrying snowflakes showered "Ahaha-kun" with a flurry of white.
"...That's all well and good, but where am I supposed to find a suitable guard like that?"
Sakaki Tatsuma stopped playing dumb. He walked over to Hii Kōri, squeezed into the rocking chair beside him, then shook all the snow off his head back onto Hii Kōri, rolling his eyes as he complained. "Come to think of it, if someone had plenty of strength, would they be happy following a merchant like me around as a bodyguard?"
"There is, brother. There is. There's actually someone in the ninja world like that."
Hearing Ahaha-kun's complaint, Hii Kōri seemed to have been waiting for him to say that. He eagerly raised his hand, as if trying to show off a lawyer's badge.
"Absolutely solid strength. Experience richer than you can imagine. Simple and direct requirements for an employer. And he'd absolutely be willing to work with you."
"Oh? Do tell?"
Sakaki Tatsuma played along perfectly.
"Kakuzu."
"Kakuzu? Who's that?"
Sakaki Tatsuma enthusiastically responded to Hii Kōri's introduction, then asked with genuine curiosity.
Although knowledge of the ninja world's famous names meant little to ordinary people and was hard to come by, for a "wealthy merchant" of Sakaki Tatsuma's standing, information about powerful ninjas wasn't particularly difficult to obtain.
But Sakaki Tatsuma, whose ninja education had only gone up to graduation from the Ninja Academy, had been absurdly busy with other matters and had never been interested in this area.
"Ah... that guy's a missing-nin from Takigakure. He was already active back in the era when the First Hokage, Hashirama Senju, was alive."
"Isn't he an old man by now?" "Don't interrupt!"
Slapping Sakaki Tatsuma on the forehead and ignoring his outcry, Hii Kōri continued introducing Kakuzu: "Kakuzu was once an elite of Takigakure. He even accepted a mission from his village to assassinate the First Hokage."
"And he didn't die?"
Even after being slapped, Sakaki Tatsuma couldn't suppress his urge to respond.
Even though he had barely been involved in ninja affairs since graduating from the Ninja Academy, he still remembered the fearsome reputation of Hashirama Senju.
"Nope. He didn't die. Only, after he escaped back to the village, the higher-ups punished him for the mission's failure. So after he broke out of prison, he stole the secret technique that Takigakure regarded as a treasure and, while he was at it, wiped out the higher-ups. Now he roams the black market and bounty exchange offices—a legendary figure in the bounty hunter circle."
To be honest, Hii Kōri completely understood Kakuzu's actions.
Risking his life for the village, only to come back and be humiliated like that—no one could tolerate it.
Receiving an order to assassinate Hashirama Senju and actually going through with it—that was loyalty beyond the ordinary.
"A secret technique? Could it be some kind of longevity method?"
Noticing the term "secret technique" Hii Kōri had mentioned, and combining it with the First Hokage's age, Sakaki Tatsuma boldly guessed.
"Close? The technique is called 'Earth Grudge Fear.' But I'm not too clear on the specifics. I only know it's a technique that allows one to obtain other chakra natures by stealing hearts, and probably also to extend one's lifespan that way."
Not that he didn't know.
But even if he revealed this information to Sakaki Tatsuma, it would be meaningless, and Hii Kōri didn't want to create trouble for himself.
"In any case, probably due to experiencing his village's betrayal, he no longer cares about so-called loyalty or trust. Only 'money' matters to him."
"So..."
Sakaki Tatsuma realized what his good brother was getting at.
"Mm-hmm. That 'so.'"
Mixing Fire and Earth chakra spheres to create a small lump of lava, Hii Kōri glanced at Sakaki Tatsuma and revealed a delighted smile.
"You, the famously wealthy 'God of Fortune,' are probably his favorite type of customer~"