Ch193. Leaving the Fire Capital

Tsunade and Rei sat in a tavern near the Western Gate of the Fire Capital, enjoying their afternoon with tea and a bit of innocent cuddling. The attention did wonders to stop Tsunade's mind wandering back towards the speculations about Hiruzen's part in the Senju extinction and Rei was hell-bent on keeping it that way. He even decided to teleport back home to inform his girls that he and Tsunade are taking a week-long vacation and will travel back home on foot rather than teleporting back.

That naturally prompted a few protests from Mei and suddenly, Rei found himself promising a private week-long time to each of his girls, not even knowing how or when.

This day was also quite hard for Tsunade. The talks about the Konoha Creation Treaty continued, causing her a stark reminder of what happened to her clan while also highlighting all the reasons Konoha's higher-ups could have for it.

This time, however, Rei was more focused on the other founding clan, the Uchihas. He doubted Madara would sign a treaty so favorable to the Senju clan without getting anything in return for his own clan.

Turns out that while the Senju got land, and it really didn't look all that profitable at first glance, the Uchiha clan got many permanent exemptions for tax and trade. Rei didn't need to think hard to find out why such an imbalanced treaty was signed. In a way, Uzumaki Mito screwed the Uchiha clan over with this treaty since they got immediate returns and a chance to get rich fast all the while the Senju clan part looked quite unappealing from a financial standpoint. They got the land and had to rent them for free to clans. At that time, most of Konoha's populace was made of clans, hence the returns were abysmal. No wonder Madara would sign it. Rei wouldn't be surprised if the man was elated and gleeful at the time.

Rei knew how 'scheming' clan heads could be. They had to be good in business and diplomacy but he doubted even the current clan head of the Uchiha clan would figure out how insidious Mito made the entire treaty without spending weeks of pondering and referencing economy books. Madara? He had no freaking way to see it. He might have been a combat prodigy of titanic proportions but businessman he was not. At best, Madara was passable in the field because, at the time of the village formation, the clan heads didn't really need as much knowledge in such matters as nowadays when most profitable clans are those who have businesses in the village.

It was simple, then, ninja clans earned most money through doing ninja missions. Now? Now the really rich clans are focused on producing strong ninjas only to uphold tradition and reputation while keeping the clan strong. It is more a matter of pride and standing in the village rather than money.

Alas, only when more and more civilians came to Konoha, the Senju started raking in money on a monthly basis, becoming the richest clan in the village in a few short years. Not that anyone noticed since, by that time the clan was already in half-shambles, half-extinct, and the Senju clan was not known for its wealth in general, nor were they inclined to show how much money they had. In short, nobody even knew how wealthy the clan was, except the Hokage.

The next part that interested Rei was how they managed to convince Madara to sign the treaty with a clause that would let the Senju clan head take command of the village in case of corruption. According to Toyotomi, Rei was looking at it from a bad angle.

The Senju clan got a special privilege but the Uchiha clan also got something similar. Sadly, neither Toyotomi nor Tsunade could tell him what exactly the Uchiha clan received. No matter what privilege they received in return for letting the Senju clan seize the village if it became corrupt. It must have been equally good for Madara to sign the document. All Toyotomi knew was that it had something to do with the seat of Hokage. Needless to say, Rei could make a guess and if he was right, it would be quite obvious why Madara was so pissed when Hashirama was chosen to be the first Hokage.

Well, at the very least, Rei now finally understood why Hiruzen wasn't that sad after the Uchiha massacre and why Danzo was so driven in getting rid of them. The entire reason was politics... who would have guessed, right?

The second part of the day, after the breakfast and the talks, was Tsunade healing the Daimyo's son, a man of thirty years old. It wasn't hard to heal him, per se. The problem however was that it was not an illness but poisoning by a very rare and slow-acting poison from Kusagakure. Fortunately for the man, the poison was very easy to get out of his system and Tsunade did it in ten minutes tops. The real danger of the concoction was how undetectable it was.

Needless to say, neither the Daimyo nor his son was amused by that revelation and the shitstorm began. The Daimyo ordered a search through the belongings of literally everyone in the castle. Hundreds of samurais made a whole lot of mess, heedless of the protests. Honestly, both Rei and Tsunade found it quite funny, considering their own belongings were stored in the dimension and their room was basically empty.

Not even an hour after the order was given, the poison was found in a drawer of one of the Daimyo son's concubines. The one who bore him his oldest son and his heir since his own wife only had daughters.

One quick interrogation later, the boy was no longer the heir and the concubine... well, Rei had no idea what happened to her or the boy afterward. He knew enough to not get entangled in such a royal pain in the ass as that situation.

All in all, Rei was damn happy because finding this out and helping in the matter only made it easier for Rei to negotiate the trading agreement between the Land of Fire and the Land of Spring more in the favor of the Land of Spring for him.

The main reason why he came to the Land of Fire finished and knowing staying longer in the Fire Capital would be unpleasant because of the following events, Rei and Tsunade quickly decided to be on their way.

As they relaxedly sipped their tea in the tavern while sitting near the window and watching people passing by on the streets, three black blurs whizzed through the crowd, completely without any notice from the civilians. Rei and Tsunade's eyes, however, saw these three figures clearly which told them it was time to leave the city.

"Konoha's ANBU." Rei sighed, "I guess, the Hokage already knows of your presence in the capital."

"Yeah," Tsunade bitterly smiled, "Time to leave the city."