Chapter 28: Kushina Wants to Rebuild the Uzumaki Clan
On the surface, Fugaku often shouted lofty slogans with the clan, things like "The Uchiha should seize the Hokage's seat!"
But in truth, he was a conservative. His true stance was simple: maintain the current relationship with the village. If ties could be improved, all the better. If not, at least preserve the status quo.
Yet now, the intelligence Yujiro delivered had shown him the looming dangers.
If the Uchiha openly clashed with Danzō and Orochimaru, relations with the Hokage faction would deteriorate rapidly.
Yes, the Uchiha might be "in the right." But this was a world where "being right" meant nothing.
"Our ties with the Fourth… perhaps we can rely on them… no, we can't risk putting everything on Minato alone. We need to eliminate Obito quickly… but if we do, the Fourth's attitude toward us may shift completely…"
Because as long as Obito lived, he was the reason Minato needed the Uchiha. To destroy Obito, the Fourth would have no choice but to ally with them.
But if Obito were dead? Then Minato's stance toward the Uchiha would become precarious.
The Yellow Flash wasn't supposed to be a backstabber—not the sort to kick away the ladder or bury allies with a secret.
But "supposed to be" was not the same as "never will be."
After all, no one truly knew a man's heart. Unless you were Kushina herself, how could you know if Minato was a genuine man of honor or just another hypocrite?
"This really is a problem…" Fugaku muttered with a bitter smile. But then his eyes landed on Yujiro—and widened in surprise.
Even as he himself was torn between caution and paranoia, Yujiro wore that same cocky, confident grin as always.
Why?
Yujiro answered with ease:
"Because I have another way to bind the Fourth Hokage even tighter to us."
When shared ideals and shared crimes weren't enough to hold two sides together, there was always the ultimate trump card—
Interests.
Yujiro's plan was simple: tie the Uchiha clan's fortune directly to Minato's, through hard profit.
No outdated tricks like intermarriage, sworn brotherhood, or taking godfathers—those tired rituals stopped working back in the year 184 A.D.
The modern currency was shares, dividends, and funding.
And Yujiro had ideas—two projects that could generate massive revenue and pour fresh lifeblood into Konoha's coffers.
If the Uchiha tried it alone, they might profit—but not wildly. Fire Country's daimyo and his swarm of leeching nobles would swallow most of it, leaving them with scraps.
But if Minato fronted it? If the Hokage's office endorsed it? Then everything changed.
Konoha was the Fire Daimyo's one true military contractor. Minato was his most trusted general and retainer. The weight of Minato's words could never be matched by "a thousand Yujiros."
With Minato's name attached, even if they had to hand over seven, eight, or nine-tenths of the profit, the Uchiha would still gain more than if they'd gone alone.
And those profits wouldn't only feed the clan—they'd flow back into Konoha itself, strengthening the village. Better that than letting the parasites in the daimyo's court fatten on it.
This was for the clan, yes. But also for Yujiro's own hidden scheme—his ridiculous but ever-convenient Senju Revival System.
And here was the overlooked key: Minato's wife.
Uzumaki Kushina.
Her surname was Uzumaki.
The Uzumaki and Senju clans had been bound far more closely than the Senju and Uchiha ever were.
When the Uzumaki fell—when Uzushiogakure was obliterated by the combined shinobi nations—the decline of the Senju became only a matter of time.
And if the Senju were ever to rise again, so too would the Uzumaki.
Would Kushina want to restore her fallen clan?
Whether she personally did or not didn't matter. What mattered was this: her son would one day bear the surname Uzumaki, not Namikaze.
That fact alone revealed everything about both her will and the complicated stance of Konoha's leadership.
So the question became inevitable:
If Kushina seeks to rebuild the Uzumaki clan, Minato—will you support her, or not?
The thought of Minato caught between the Konoha elders and his fiery wife was deliciously tragic. Yujiro could almost see the poor man's grim future—wedged into a domestic and political hell.
The sympathy was so sharp that it curved into amusement. His lips twitched upward, and before he could stop himself—
"Fuhahaha… kukuku…!"
He laughed so darkly that Fugaku's skin prickled with goosebumps.
And in that moment, Fugaku knew for certain: this boy truly carried the potential of a Mangekyō Sharingan.
Even a Mangekyō is not a money tree. Fugaku Uchiha basically accepted Yujiro's logic about binding interests—he was even willing to consider Yujiro's vague hints about "diplomatic marriages" and a "Uzumaki–Senju restoration" plan to tie Minato Namikaze to them.
But compared to the latter, the former was trickier.
"What profitable industries in the Land of Fire aren't already monopolized by others? What can we actually do?" Fugaku asked, sounding helpless.
He claimed his family's mansion and wealth came from shrewd business sense. Yujiro nodded like he believed it—but in truth, Yujiro had no quarrel with Fugaku's competence.
"Tobacco, alcohol, sugar, salt, iron, coal… almost every profitable trade is controlled by the nobles. Land, mines, even waterways are theirs. What Konoha can realistically touch are timber and construction—and that at best only gets you a bowl of soup."
Fugaku knew his stuff and rattled off a list in one breath, then fell into a worried frown—something that made Yujiro fight the urge to snort.
Konoha and the other great villages didn't primarily make their money from timber merchants or 'new energy' projects. They were, at bottom, military contractors.
Yes, feudal lords had samurai, priests, shrine maidens, and other chakra-using fighters. But compared to Konoha's two full divisions on constant standby, those were small fries.
Yujiro nearly spat at the absurdity.
Konoha—and the other villages—looked, from his point of view, hopelessly incompetent.
How do you screw up a wildly profitable business like being a state's military contractor? If Yujiro ran things, he'd have already gone full mercenary company: conquer, extort, switch sides on demand—ruthlessly pillage the Fire Nation's coffers.
Mercenaries are brilliant: flip the script on your employers, shake them down, and make sure the last copper in the daimyo's treasury ends up in your pocket. When the war actually happens, toss three kunai into the field and you've earned your fee.
Not only that, Yujiro would form a tacit cartel among the five great villages: keep up the show of war, bleed the daimyo dry in the name of "military expenditure," and never actually sacrifice your manpower. If you lose a war, the daimyo pays through land cessions and indemnities—again, not Konoha's problem.
What's that? The daimyo don't want to cede land or pay up? Fine—raise military levies. No coin in the coffers? Take customs, mines, plantations as collateral. Monopoly on currency issuance, tobacco, alcohol, salt, and iron? Perfect—Yujiro wouldn't be picky.
So how in the world did they manage it? How did they turn the most profitable line of business on earth into a loss-making farce, and still have the nerve to whine, "I've done my best—what more do you want from me?"