"For the current situation, I've got three plans: top, middle, and bottom."
Uchiha Yorin confidently held up three fingers. Minato opened his mouth, fighting the urge to quip.
"No way, again?"
He wanted to say that, but worried Yorin might flip the table, so he chose another tactic: "How about you skip to the middle plan?"
Yorin: "The top plan is: we hit the daimyo's treasury now and pull one massive job. Besides grabbing the cash, we snatch a hostage.
I know—a Hokage and an Uchiha doing that looks bad.
But no worries, I've prepared—look at this mask. It's a 'Nine-Barrel'; looks way better than those dumb Anbu masks, right? We go in wearing these, and split the take 30–70. How about it?"
Seeing Yorin staring at Minato with such sincerity, Kushina couldn't help chiming in:
"Uh… sounds kinda… good?"
Minato: "…Let's just hear the middle plan."
Uchiha Yorin shot Minato a "steel that refuses to become iron" look.
In his view, having a busted-OP jutsu like Flying Thunder God yet not moonlighting as a master thief hitting ten thousand households is a criminal waste of resources.
If Minato would just swallow his pride and rob the treasuries—Fire, then Water, then Wind—then after the Five Great Nations, roll the dozens of minor countries too, Konoha could afford not twenty thousand but two hundred thousand shinobi.
With ten times the numbers, forget tactics—draw a line and slow-roll the map. Rule the world. Shame Minato isn't into that kind of "aggressive doctrine."
…
"The bottom plan is just… natural recovery. The Land of Fire's fundamentals beat everyone else's; if we rest and rebuild, we'll bounce back faster than the others.
So we grit our teeth, let the other villages get a few cheap wins.
Once we're maxed out, we come out—then the other villages are all for harvest."
This time Kushina beat Minato to it: "That's way too stifling. Though… it does sound like something the Third would do."
Minato could only give a helpless smile at that.
Looks like he's afraid of his wife, too.
As a "new-era youth," Yorin despised that type—but as the Uchiha clan's schemer, he welcomed it.
After all, "influencing Minato via Kushina" was a key part of his playbook.
So the more Minato listened to Kushina, the better for Yorin.
"Which does he love more—his village or his wife? Probably the former. So when using Kushina, mind the dosage."
Yorin thought: "Me and Kushina—could we… ah, forget it. That substitute meal's too beefy; skip it."
"But seriously, you don't act like an Uchiha at all," Kushina grumbled, unhappy with his coyness—prompting equal annoyance from Yorin.
Where can a guy find a patron who plays along?
His bar isn't high—his lord just needs to recite four lines and be a statue the rest of the time:
'What then is to be done?'
'Whence comes the stratagem?'
'Speak, and swiftly!'
'The top plan is too rash, the bottom too slow—only the middle is just right.'
Sadly, Minato would never be that guy, so this "Naruto–Sasuke substitute snack" didn't hit the spot.
Maybe, once Minato "logs off," he should groom the "Prince Naruto" into his own Puppet?
Might be workable.
"'Leave your wife and child to me—worry not.'" Yorin kinda wanted to say that.
…
Minato, still very much alive, had no idea Yorin had already planned his "arrangements." He waited expectantly for the middle plan—and Yorin didn't disappoint, offering the option any sane person would pick:
"Logistics."
"…"
"Logistics?"
"Or rather, transport," Yorin said evenly. "It's the business most suited to ninja—and to Konoha."
Turn the big wheel, overload once, profit a million. '80s or now; America or Old Bell—running big rigs is a money printer.
Granted, on the ninja world's busted roads, you won't be running semis. Still, transport is a high-barrier, risky business that demands real muscle.
And guess what? Konoha happens to have all those conditions.
Escort missions are a staple shinobi job.
But up to now, shinobi were passive bodyguards—not even a proper security firm.
Yorin's plan upgrades Konoha: build our mule-horse caravans—be both carrier and escort.
"With a village's strength, forming wagon-and-pack caravans is easy.
With Konoha's name, merchants will gladly hand us their cargo.
We won't just guard—we'll carry, taking a bigger cut.
Next, we set up large Konoha-controlled depots at trade nodes—move from logistics into warehousing. Build a Konoha logistics empire.
Konoha gains not only cash but trade leverage.
We'll widen the Land of Fire's trade lanes—the whole world's lanes.
Konoha becomes the Land of Fire's trade hub.
Every day, endless goods from north and south, seas and skies, flow in—supercharging Konoha's economy and lifting the Land of Fire—and the world.
We won't need the Land of Fire's budget. We won't even need other missions. Guard the trade arteries, run our transport corps—and we bring in oceans of funds and resources, feed a 100,000-strong army, and conquer the world!"
By the end, Yorin's Sharingan had spun to life; he stood, arms wide, as if to embrace the sky.
Night and moonlight, paired with the blood-red Sharingan, gave his words a savage glamour—a hundred percent rousing.
For a heartbeat, Minato and Kushina almost thought they'd been caught by genjutsu—then realized it was just words. No Sharingan needed—Yorin's rhetoric alone stirred them.
"Uchiha Yorin is a frightening man," Minato thought.
All the more when he saw, out of the corner of his eye, that Kushina looked fired up, wholly swept into Yorin's current. He grew more wary.
Still—wary or not—when Yorin looked to him expectantly, he answered:
"Let's do it. The village will marshal resources to build its own transport corps. And the Uchiha clan will have a stake."
With that, he grabbed Kushina's hand and flickered away in a Flying Thunder God.
He left so fast you'd think staying a moment longer would mean falling further under Yorin's spell.