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The construction site was noisy, and dust flew everywhere.
"Ugh!"
Asuma Sarutobi, who had gotten a mouthful of dust, quickly spat several times.
He suddenly turned around and kicked the wall that had just been formed by earth release.
Bang!
The wall didn't budge, but the impact made his foot numb.
This made him even more furious.
"No! I can't take this anymore!" he roared. "I must see the daimyo! I want to ask him directly what he thinks of us! Foremen?!"
With that, Asuma turned and walked out of the construction site. His entire chakra was agitated with anger.
"Stop."
A cold voice sounded.
Two shinobi, dressed in Shadow Guard attire, appeared before him.
The leading Shadow Guard spoke. His voice was flat. "The daimyo has commanded that you are not to leave this place until the project is complete."
Asuma's temper immediately flared up. "Get out of the way! I am one of the Guardian Shinobi Twelve! Not a prisoner for you to guard!"
His jonin chakra erupted, and the sand and dust on the ground paused.
The deafening construction noise on the site seemed to pause for a moment.
The Kurokaze shinobi who were performing earth release ninjutsu, including several Shadow Guard also performing earth release, merely slowed their movements, glanced over, and then immediately turned back to continue channeling their chakra.
It was as if this imminent conflict was not worth mentioning.
This feeling of being ignored made Asuma's fists clench tighter.
"I'll say it again, get out of the way!"
Asuma took a step forward. His right hand gripped the hilt of his chakra blade at his waist.
The atmosphere was tense.
The Uchiha shinobi in the corner narrowed his eyes, leaning slightly forward, ready to intervene at any moment.
The Nara clan member inwardly thought this was bad and was about to step forward to mediate.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
Another six figures silently appeared around him, joining the initial two, surrounding him in the center.
Not only that.
On the distant rooftops and scaffolding, more blurry figures flashed by.
They were like a large net, enveloping the entire construction site.
Eight Shadow Guard surrounded him closely, and who knew how many more were on the outer perimeter.
Asuma's movements completely froze.
He could feel that if he moved again, a thunderous strike would greet him.
The eyes of these Shadow Guard... they would kill him without hesitation.
Here, the identity of one of the Guardian Shinobi Twelve was useless.
The only thing that mattered were the words "daimyo's order."
"Asuma, come back!" The Nara clan member shouted in a low voice, with a warning in his tone.
Asuma's face alternated between pale and flushed. His chest heaved violently, and the hand gripping the sword hilt turned white.
He stared intently at the leading Shadow Guard.
Finally, he released his grip with extreme reluctance.
He turned around angrily and walked back to his original spot.
A conflict was thus averted.
But a shadow fell over the hearts of all the shinobi clan elites.
They finally understood.
They weren't sent here. They were imprisoned here.
It was at this moment that a fierce argument suddenly broke out at the other end of the construction site.
"Shinobi-sama! Shinobi-sama! Please stop!"
A sweating old craftsman, holding a bent and deformed steel punch, shouted at a Shadow Guard shinobi who had just finished performing earth release.
The Shadow Guard shinobi frowned. A hint of impatience crossed his face.
"What are you yelling about! Can't you see I'm busy?"
"You... look at this!" The old craftsman handed over the bent steel punch. His face was flushed with anxiety. "This wall of yours... it's too hard! My perfectly tempered steel punch can't even get through it! There's no way to secure these window frames!"
The shinobi glanced at it. He said indifferently, "Hard is good! Hard means sturdy! If you can't even drive a nail in, then your tools are no good!"
"But... but the blueprints require bolt holes to be reserved here! Otherwise, the doors and windows can't be installed!"
"How would I know about bolt holes? Don't bother me..."
"Shinobi-sama, if you do this, we can't do the subsequent work!"
"You... fine, fine, fine, you tell me how to do it, and I'll change it!"
"..."
This scene clearly fell into the eyes of the Guardian Shinobi.
Asuma's anger, which he had just suppressed, was threatening to resurface.
But this time he held it in, merely letting out a cold snort.
The Nara clan member's brow, however, furrowed even deeper.
The trouble had only just begun.
The arguments did not stop but intensified.
"Hey! Shinobi-sama! The dimensions! The dimensions are wrong!"
A middle-aged man, who looked like a foreman, held a long carpenter's ruler and gesticulated frantically at another newly erected earth wall.
"The blueprint clearly states that it should be exactly three meters here! This wall of yours is three meters and one centimeter on one side, and two meters and ninety-nine centimeters on the other! That's a difference of a full two centimeters! How am I supposed to put up these prefabricated beams?"
The Kurokaze shinobi scratched his head, looking bewildered.
"Two centimeters? Does it make a difference? It's just the width of two fingers."
"It makes a huge difference!"
The foreman was practically jumping and yelling. His spittle almost sprayed onto the shinobi's face.
"This is building a house! It's for people to live in! It's not for you to play with mud!"
"If it's off by one centimeter, the beam won't be stable! In strong winds, it will collapse! People will die! Do you understand?!"
The Kurokaze shinobi was annoyed by his shouting, and his chakra became unstable.
Crack!
A huge crack appeared in the wall.
"Oh my god!"
The foreman let out a wail, almost falling to his knees on the spot. "This wall... it's ruined!"
The Kurokaze shinobi's face turned ashen. His eyes glared fiercely at the foreman. Killing intent practically overflowed.
But he ultimately held it in.
Because he knew that if the foundations and load-bearing walls could not be completed within half a month, preventing these craftsmen from entering the site to work, then the daimyo's punishment would await them.
He could only grit his teeth and squeeze out a few words.
"Tear it down! Start over!"
Similar arguments, like lit firecrackers, erupted one after another on the construction site.
The power and crudeness of ninjutsu and the precision and rigor of architecture clashed most directly here.
The powerful ninjutsu that could decide life and death on the battlefield now couldn't even guarantee the most basic dimensions.
The shinobi who could easily tear apart the earth were now helpless against the precise data on the blueprints.
They could build sturdy walls.
But they didn't know that they needed to leave space for windows and doors in the walls.
They could erect a ten-meter-high wall in one minute.
But they couldn't control the verticality of the wall, making it crooked and wobbly, as if it could collapse at any moment.
The entire construction site began to descend into a strange chaos.
Efficiency was extremely high, but the rework rate was even higher.
Watching this absurd and chaotic scene, Asuma felt his lungs were about to explode with anger.
The cigarette in his hand was crushed out of shape.
"This is a joke!" He could no longer hold back, roaring. "We are shinobi! We are Konoha's elites! Not a bunch of advanced bricklayers!"
"Did the daimyo throw us here just to make us watch this?"
"This is an insult to us!"
His voice wasn't loud, but which shinobi present wasn't sharp-eared and keen-eyed?
Every word was heard clearly.
The Inuzuka clan shinobi irritably gripped the soft fur behind his ninja dog's neck. The large dog whimpered uneasily.
The Uchiha shinobi's face was also terribly grim.
Clearly, Asuma had spoken everyone's mind.
Their ninjutsu was for killing enemies, not for digging dirt.
However, in this oppressive silence, a voice spoke up.
"Asuma-sama... I don't think... this is an insult."
The voice was not loud.
It was even a bit faint, but every word was exceptionally clear.