The booming voice jolted everyone awake!
Stepping out of the villa, they saw Hashirama Senju bound up like a rice dumpling by Adamantine Sealing Chains, wriggling around like a cocoon.
"Honey!!! What are you doing?!"
"What am I doing?! I waited for you all night last night, you know that?!!!"
"Oh, come on, honey! I just missed Madara so much, and I got so sleepy last night that I crashed here. You don't have to be this mad, do you? Oh, by the way, where's Madara?!"
Still wrapped up like a cocoon, Hashirama was craning his neck, looking around for Madara Uchiha…
Seeing this, Mito Uzumaki was so exasperated she burst out laughing!
"Madara!!! All you care about is Madara, huh?! Get your butt back home with me!!!"
"Honey, wait! I promised Madara we'd go skip rocks today!!!"
"Skip rocks?! I'll make you skip today!!!"
"No, honey, please!!!"
"Shut it, you dummy!!!"
And just like that, Hashirama, with a look of utter despair, was dragged home by Mito using her Adamantine Sealing Chains.
As for what happened next… well…
Minato Namikaze, Fugaku Uchiha, and Tobirama Senju all had weird expressions on their faces.
Minato and Fugaku, who lived next door to each other, exchanged a glance, both suddenly missing their own wives.
"Minato… Lady Mito's got quite the temper, doesn't she? Are all Uzumaki like that? I remember Kushina was kind of…"
As Fugaku spoke, he gave Minato a strange look.
Minato's face flushed red for a moment.
"Kushina's adorable… I love her personality!"
Fugaku shivered at his friend's blushing expression.
"Ugh, give me my Mikoto any day! Gentle and beautiful!"
The two men were lost in thoughts of their wives, exchanging a glance before letting out a long sigh…
"Sigh…"
But what good was longing? Their wives were spirits, and summoning them cost money. There was no guarantee Hirofumi could even summon them!
Early that morning, Hirofumi was sitting at the breakfast table, curious about what everyone in the summoning space was up to. But the moment he saw Hashirama being dragged home like a cocoon…
Pfft! He spat out his food!
His mother, Hanako Ito, looked at him.
"Hirofumi, what's wrong?!"
"Nothing, Mom… just thought of something funny… hahaha… I'm done eating, off to school!!!"
With that, Hirofumi bolted out the door.
Left at the table, Aoyama Ito, Hanako Ito, and Daiga Ito exchanged confused looks.
"What's up with Hirofumi lately?"
"No idea…"
"Is he… in love or something?!"
"…"
Meanwhile, as Hirofumi observed the summoning space, he overheard Fugaku and Minato's conversation, and a sly idea popped into his head!
These two seemed to really miss their wives, huh?
In that case…
Why not have them work for him?!
Summoning people cost money, and if they missed their wives so much, why not have these two go out and earn some cash for him?
The more they earned, the better the chance of summoning their wives!
And, bonus, he'd get rich in the process…
Hmm!
Not a bad plan.
He'd have to have a chat with Fugaku Uchiha and Minato Namikaze later…
To get their wives revived sooner, they wouldn't mind doing a little "zero-cost shopping," right?
The ninja world was huge—surely they could just rob a few places!
With their strength, snagging a few hundred million ryō would be a piece of cake!
Heh heh heh heh heh…
Lost in these thoughts, Hirofumi arrived at the Ninja Academy.
Up at the podium, Teacher Iruka was still going on…
"Class, your graduation from the Ninja Academy is getting closer! So, make sure to study hard and aim to become outstanding ninjas…"
In the classroom, Sasuke Uchiha and Naruto Uzumaki kept stealing glances at Hirofumi.
Last night, they'd learned that Hirofumi could boost his strength by spending money, so they were dying to know just how strong he'd gotten after burning through five hundred million ryō!
Hirofumi noticed their sneaky looks and had a pretty good guess about what was on their minds…
They were probably worried that his strength had skyrocketed and left them in the dust, right?
But Hirofumi figured that for these two cheat-code-level guys, powering up was the easiest thing in the world!
For Sasuke, all it'd take was a little trauma to awaken his Sharingan.
Naruto? Even simpler. Just have a chat with the Nine-Tails inside him. If the Nine-Tails stopped causing trouble and actually cooperated, Naruto's strength would shoot through the roof!
As for the rest of the Konoha 12, Hirofumi hadn't forgotten them. They were his buddies, after all, and he'd need their help to take control of the Leaf Village in the future.
So, he decided that when Naruto went to steal the Scroll of Seals, he'd bring the whole Konoha 12 along!
They could all memorize the techniques in the scroll and learn as many as they could!
These kids were already geniuses. If each of them picked up a few forbidden techniques, a dozen Kage-level shinobi standing together would be downright invincible!
Lost in these thoughts, Hirofumi let out a creepy laugh…
Heh heh heh heh heh…
The entire class turned to stare at him weirdly. Iruka, who'd been enthusiastically teaching, was interrupted by the bizarre laughter!
Following the sound, he saw Hirofumi with a wicked expression, practically drooling!
WHAM!!
Iruka slammed his hand on the desk!
"Hirofumi Ito!!! How many times have I told you not to make those weird laughs in class, especially during lessons?! Where did you even learn that laugh?!"
To be fair, everyone was used to Hirofumi's creepy cackling by now.
He'd been doing it since his first day at the academy, and years later, it was still a thing.
But at that moment, the classroom door suddenly swung open!
A masked ninja stood in the doorway…
The students and Iruka froze. Was this an Anbu?!
But the ninja didn't offer any explanation. His gaze locked onto Hirofumi.
"Hirofumi Ito! Lord Danzo requests your presence!!!"