The moment Hiruzen Sarutobi shuffled back through the gates of the Sarutobi clan compound, he was immediately surrounded. The mood wasn't one of welcoming a retired hero, but of bewildered, entitled anxiety.
"Clan Head! You just… handed it over? Just like that?" one elder demanded, his voice tight.
"Sandaime-sama, your tenure brought Konoha decades of stability and prosperity! This is how it ends?" another chimed in, the flattery thin over a core of grievance.
The murmurs grew louder, more agitated. "That's right! Our Sarutobi clan has contributed more to Konoha than any other! And your son, Asuma-san—his skills are exceptional! Couldn't he have been considered for the succession?"
This was the heart of it. Ever since Hiruzen ascended to the Hokage's seat, the Sarutobi clan had enjoyed a golden age. Their influence had bloomed, their coffers swelled, and their private militia had quietly grown to three thousand strong—a force that dwarfed even the legendary Uchiha at their peak. To them, the Hokage's hat wasn't just a symbol of leadership; it was their birthright, their meal ticket. Letting it go felt like theft.
"ENOUGH!"
Hiruzen's roar, fueled by a lifetime of authority and fresh terror, silenced the crowd. His face was ashen. He saw it now—the arrogance he had nurtured through decades of preferential treatment, the insatiable appetite his protection had fed. They'd grown fat on privilege and now balked at the mere idea of a diet.
"I know exactly what you're thinking," he spat, his voice trembling with a mix of fury and profound weariness. "And you will bury those thoughts. Now. All of you, you will be quiet and you will be careful."
He knew, with a certainty that chilled his bones, that if a single Sarutobi made a move against Tsunade's new regime, the retribution would be swift, absolute, and uniquely, horrifically personal. Not a single one of the three thousand would be spared a fate worse than death.
Seeing their stunned, resentful faces, Hiruzen felt his spine curve a little more under the weight. How long did he have left? And when he was gone, what would become of this bloated, complacent clan without his shadow to shield them?
'I must accelerate the training of the truly promising youngsters. And we must forge ties… with Namikaze Raimon's circle. At any cost.' Survival was the only priority now. He needed a lifeline, a way to preserve even a spark of the clan.
"Starting tomorrow," he announced, his tone brooking no argument, "the Sarutobi clan will assume full responsibility for the duties of the Konoha Military Police Force."
Leaving that bombshell hanging in the air, he turned and walked away, his spirit exhausted. He needed solitude, or what passed for it with the specter of a hundred-billion-ryō debt hanging over him.
Behind him, the stunned silence erupted into frantic whispers. "The Military Police? But… the Uchiha…"
The Uchiha were the ghost at this feast. Their story was a cautionary tale of a clan damned by that very duty—mistrusted if they were strict, despised if they were lax, forever trapped between the villagers and the Hokage's office.
"Hah! What is there to fear?" a younger, brasher clansman scoffed. "The Old Man is still the Sandaime! His prestige remains! Who would dare disrespect us?"
"Right! Who would dare?" others echoed, their confidence built on sand.
They were fools. The Uchiha, for all their flaws, had possessed the Sharingan—a tool for undeniable, dynamic evidence. The Sarutobi had only their name and fading prestige. If they stirred up public anger, Tsunade would have the perfect excuse to 'relocate' them from their prime, central compound to the spacious, but now-ghostly, Uchiha district on the outskirts. And their valuable downtown land? Perfect for a new, revenue-generating commercial strip.
After a night of heated, naïve debate, the clan's decision was made: they would send their best and brightest to the Military Police, to ensure the Sarutobi name remained etched in Konoha's heart.
****
Dawn in Konoha found the flames of youth burning as brightly as ever. Seven figures in eye-searing green spandex blazed a trail around the village perimeter, their speed a testament to insane dedication.
"What a catastrophe…" Hatake Kakashi sighed from the sidelines, his one visible eye crinkling in despair as he watched Rock Lee, Might Guy, and a newly-drafted Sasuke (running on his hands, for 'variation') utterly ignore his suggestions for 'subtlety and reconnaissance.'
****
At the Hokage Tower, a different kind of exhaustion reigned. Jiraiya and Shizune looked like they'd been through a war, surrounded by mountains of untouched scrolls. The administrative backlog from Orochimaru and Suna's joint assault was staggering: compensation claims, reconstruction orders, survivor pensions… And Konoha's treasury, upon inspection, was so barren it would bring a tear to a miser's eye.
"Where in the name of the Sage did all the money go?" Jiraiya growled, poring over ledgers. Money didn't vanish. It was spent. And the spending records made his blood boil. "Ten thousand ryō for a single standard-issue shuriken? Three hundred thousand for a basic soldier pill?!" The scale of the graft was breathtaking. No wonder Hiruzen could bankroll three thousand private soldiers.
A check with the Fire Daimyo's office confirmed the worst. This year's allocation—a full nine hundred billion ryō—had been disbursed to Hiruzen Sarutobi months ago. Jiraiya hadn't seen a single coin of it.
Meanwhile, in his home, Hiruzen was wrestling with his own financial nightmare. After setting aside the apocalyptic hundred billion for Raimon, the clan's reserves were precarious. Supporting three thousand shinobi was ruinously expensive. Was a sixty-nine-year-old man supposed to go on D-rank missions?
"Sigh…" He trembled at the thought of the embezzlement scandal landing squarely on him. You could only hide a missing mountain of money for so long.
'I'll have to send the clan en masse on missions. Bounty hunts, mercenary work… A thousand shinobi working around the clock should be able to recoup funds…'
His worst fear materialized with his morning miso soup. Jiraiya was waiting for him in the living room, arms crossed, face like a thundercloud.
"Sensei." The honorific was ice-cold. "About the nine hundred billion in Daimyo funds. And the… creative procurement pricing. Care to explain?"
Any lingering respect in Jiraiya's eyes had been replaced by pure, undiluted contempt. The wise, benevolent leader of his youth was a fiction, eroded by greed.
"Jiraiya… the money, it will be replenished. Surely you wouldn't force an old man like me onto the mission circuit?" Hiruzen tried the frail-elder card, his voice a masterclass in pathetic wavering.
The old Jiraiya might have relented. This new one, tasked with saving a village from bankruptcy, saw only a thief. "Hiruzen Sarutobi," he said, discarding the title. "Is this how you honor Nidaime-sama's legacy? You will return those funds. Today. Willingly or otherwise."
"Jiraiya, I truly don't have it!" Hiruzen's face was a mask of practiced despair. He had money, but it was the sacred, terrifying fund for Namikaze Raimon. Jiraiya could be stalled. Raimon… stalling Raimon meant inviting a personalized, clan-wide calamity of a very specific nature.
"Nine hundred billion," Jiraiya repeated, his chakra beginning to prickle the air. "Hand it over, and you remain my teacher in memory. Refuse, and you face the consequences." For Jiraiya now, it was simple: Konoha came first. Sentiment was a luxury they couldn't afford.
"Can't you give me a few years?!" Hiruzen pleaded, a note of genuine desperation creeping in.
"A few years? This isn't pocket change, Sarutobi! It's nine hundred billion! The man I respected is dead." Jiraiya's stance shifted subtly, his hands moving towards a seal. "And that's not even accounting for the decades of skimming! I'm being generous! Pay up now, or I will lose my temper."
Hiruzen calculated swiftly. He could probably defeat Jiraiya, but the battle would be catastrophic, forcing him into a Danzo-like exile. But Raimon's deadline was still weeks away… there was a sliver of room.
"Fine! Fine!" he hissed, capitulating. "Wait here."
He would bleed the clan's operational funds dry first. The Raimon Debt was non-negotiable.
Half an hour later, a grim-faced Jiraiya returned to the Hokage Tower with a mountain of cash and promissory notes totaling nine hundred billion ryō. He left behind a Hiruzen Sarutobi who looked like he'd aged a decade in a morning.
As Hiruzen slumped into a chair, trying to steady his breathing and calculate how to possibly raise another hundred billion in weeks, a voice—smooth, calm, and demonic—sounded from directly behind his shoulder.
"Sarutobi. How are the preparations for my funds coming along?"