When the Scythe Falls, Not a Single Leek Has Grown for Nothing
In the futures trading hall,
"Heh. A bunch of suckers!"
Kakuzu stood on the third floor in high spirits, looking down at the retail traders still packed into the main hall on the first floor. After more than a month of nonstop buying and selling, the amount of capital under his name had finally earned him a place in the high-roller room.
"Kakuzu-sama, your fruit platter and desserts have arrived."
An attendant set down plate after plate of exquisitely arranged food in front of him. The set was not cheap. One meal alone cost 8,888 ryo.
Naturally, it tasted excellent, but at that price, what people were really buying was not the flavor. It was the ritual of status.
To put it plainly, it was a scam aimed at rich clients.
In the past, Kakuzu would rather die than order something like this.
But times had changed. Making money had become far too easy. At the scale Kakuzu was operating now, a single trade could move hundreds of thousands, even millions of ryo in an instant.
Back then, he had run through wind and rain, taking bounty jobs every single day of the year without rest, and still earned less than he had made in this one month.
When money came this easily, what was wrong with enjoying life a little after all those hard years?
Kakuzu waved the attendant away, picked up a toothpick from the platter, and speared a piece of fruit. He savored it slowly.
It really was sweet.
As he ate, he skillfully opened his account. Behind the profit total was a long string of zeroes, so many that the dark green in his eyes practically began to melt.
Virtual trading had detached money from paper bills. One buy and one sell could mean tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions of ryo. The constant rise of the bull market kept magnifying Kakuzu's greed.
Originally, he had only planned to put a little money into it.
But after witnessing the money-making speed of this financial sorcery, all of Kakuzu's old principles had been discarded on the spot. He kept increasing his investment again and again. By now, he had already thrown more than 300 million ryo into the market.
The returns, naturally, had been enormous.
The total value of his futures had tripled, while the price of pig iron had already reached the highest point it had ever seen before, soaring a full eight times higher than its old price.
But pig iron was already sitting at a dangerous high.
The slightest disturbance could send the price crashing down.
In the past, pig iron prices had always been controlled by nobles and merchants. If the price dropped to a certain level, they would step in and prop it back up. This time, however, the situation was far more complicated. Too many retail traders had entered the market.
Street vendors, landlords, wandering samurai, rogue ninjas, bounty hunters, all kinds of people had jumped into the trade. Some of them did not even understand what futures were before they started buying.
If the price fell, panic would sweep through the market in an instant, and the crash would become so savage that it would smash everything beyond recognition.
The market had gone sideways.
This stretch of sideways movement had already lasted a full day and a half.
Kakuzu stared at the price fluctuations, watching them rise and fall. Even the sweetness in his mouth began to fade. An uneasy feeling stirred in his chest. The market had never stayed flat this long before.
In the past, whenever prices stalled, they would usually resume climbing by the afternoon.
This time was clearly different.
Kakuzu's gaze drifted toward another high-roller room, the one where White Fang was seated.
White Fang was still there reading calmly, completely unbothered by the stagnant market, as though everything remained under his control.
Seeing how composed White Fang looked, Kakuzu felt his heart settle once more.
By now, White Fang was wrapped in layer upon layer of halo.
"The God of Futures!"
"The White One Who Plays with the Market!"
"The Man Blessed by Money!"
After so many days of public displays, White Fang had been completely mythologized in the eyes of all these suckers. Time and time again, he had predicted rises and falls, pulling them out of danger with uncanny precision.
Whenever the market wavered, White Fang would step forward, steady everyone's nerves, and forecast the next move.
Every single time, he had been exactly right.
Even the nobles and merchants had begun looking at the young man differently. Every theory he spoke made them click their tongues in amazement, and the more they thought about it, the more convincing it sounded.
The cleverest among those vermin were suspicious of White Fang's theories. They listened, but did not take every word at face value.
There was one thing they were certain of, though.
White Fang had insider information.
That was why he could make his moves before every rise and fall.
Kakuzu revered White Fang so much that the secret manual White Fang had given him was practically falling apart from being read too often.
Following the manual's guidance, Kakuzu had correctly predicted some rises and falls, but he was far from infallible. To fully master its contents and reach White Fang's level was Kakuzu's greatest dream.
More than once, Kakuzu had sought White Fang out, hoping to receive some personal guidance.
But every time, the result was disappointing.
White Fang actually knew nothing about futures at all. Every speech he gave had been memorized from a script, and everything in those books had been written by the Hokage. How could he possibly explain any of it clearly?
More importantly, the Hokage had once warned White Fang in the gravest terms: futures existed for insiders and market operators to fleece the suckers, so he must never act on his own and had to follow instructions exactly.
So whenever Kakuzu came to him humbly seeking advice, White Fang simply told him to read more and practice more.
As for the current pig iron prices, White Fang was nervous too.
The price had his heart pounding. In just over a month, it had surged eightfold.
The last time pig iron had reached this height was during the brutal all-out clashes between the Five Great Ninja Villages, when the fighting had been at its bloodiest.
And yet now, this war had only just begun, and the price had already risen to such a terrifying level.
On the very day the market began moving sideways, White Fang had wanted to dump every futures contract in his hands.
That was 80 million ryo.
Enough to let him skip more than ten years of struggling.
After waiting in fear for a full day, White Fang finally received intelligence from Shikato.
The final harvest was about to begin.
After so much preparation, the scythe was finally about to fall.
The simple words in the report made cold sweat break out across White Fang's back. Even though he had long expected this day to come, when it truly arrived, he still felt dizzy.
With the price rising so high and the amount of money involved becoming so massive, practically anyone in the Land of Fire with any savings at all had thrown their money into this market.
The common people were too poor to survive, struggling every day on the edge of starvation. The main force here was the middle class, along with wandering samurai, rogue ninjas, and the most dangerous group of all: nobles and wealthy merchants.
Once the bubble burst, the middle class would put on a spectacular performance of people jumping from great heights.
The wandering samurai and rogue ninjas would probably hunt him down like mad.
And the nobles and wealthy merchants would hang White Fang's bounty high in every bounty office.
In this grand performance of harvesting the suckers, White Fang was the one helping push them into the abyss, beating the drums for the people manipulating everything behind the scenes.
This money was so hot it might as well burn through his hands.
But no matter how dangerous it was, White Fang had no path back anymore.
Now the time had come.
He had already memorized the script for today.
It was time to send this group of suckers beneath the blade.
White Fang took a deep breath, rose from his chair, and slowly walked toward the staircase.
As the star of the futures market, every one of his movements attracted attention.
"It's Master White Fang!"
"Master White Fang is going to speak again. Everyone, quiet down!"
"Master White Fang, can we still buy in at this price?"
The trading hall instantly exploded into noise. The suckers all looked toward White Fang as though they were pilgrims gazing upon a saint, hoping for his next hint.
"Starting to get nervous again, are you?"
"Starting to think about handing over the positions in your hands again, right?"
"How many times have I told you? Every time you panic-sell, the next time you'll only buy them back at several times the price!"
"You must remember this. The current price does not matter. Do you understand? What matters is that one month from now, two months from now, you won't even be able to see today's price anymore!"
"This is the best possible chance to buy the dip! And you're still panicking? Still panicking? Ten years from now, when other people have already achieved financial freedom while you're still wasting your life, it'll be because you hesitated today!"
"Buy the dip, you worthless fools!"
White Fang's voice grew low and magnetic, rising from soft to loud, seducing the crowd like a devil whispering into their hearts.
The image Uchiha Haru had spent so much effort building for White Fang now showed its full effect. His speech became a battle horn, and futures prices began climbing once again.
"The ninja war has already begun. This war will be even more brutal than any before it. The price of pig iron is still only halfway up the mountain!"
"Charge forward! If the price still isn't high enough, I, White Fang, will make up the difference for you!"
The feverish mood surged to its peak along with White Fang's shouting.
Blinded by profit, the suckers were even prepared to throw in their entire fortunes. The image White Fang had built was simply too perfect. It had stripped them of all reason.
The cries, the chaos of people lining up, the red line of the price chart climbing higher and higher made Kakuzu's heart pound wildly.
The price of pig iron was still only halfway up the mountain?
If he threw in the remaining 700 million ryo he had, would it double into 1.4 billion?
Greed and reason battled fiercely in his mind.
After more than a month of futures trading, Kakuzu's threshold had already been raised far too high. A mission that earned only a few hundred thousand ryo now felt painfully slow to him. He no longer thought that kind of money was worth his time.
Futures were where the real money was.
In the end, greed crushed reason.
Kakuzu put his entire fortune on the line.
White Fang's predictions had never been wrong.
This time would not be different.
All in.
The nobles and wealthy merchants still retained a shred of rationality. Unlike the suckers, they did not throw in their entire fortunes right away.
They were waiting for news.
Waiting for updates from the ninja war.
This time, the news came even faster than usual.
The Mist had already landed in the Land of Fire, and the Leaf and the Mist were already exchanging blows. The Stone and the Leaf were locked in fierce battle. There were even rumors that the Cloud might join the war again.
Among this mix of truth and falsehood, Haru had deliberately released misinformation to muddy the waters. Faced with information spread by ninjas, the nobles and merchants had little ability to tell what was real and what was fake.
In the end, whether it was true no longer mattered.
All signs pointed to the war continuing to expand, showing all the signs of turning into a repeat of the First Great Ninja War.
That boy White Fang really did have insider information!
The nobles and wealthy merchants, who had still been hesitating about increasing their positions, finally joined the army of suckers and began another round of buying the dip.
The price of pig iron soared once more.
Meanwhile, Shikato steadily sold off positions from the inside.
This time, the funds involved exceeded ten billion ryo, and after the hype had driven prices up nearly tenfold, it was impossible to unload too much at once. It had to be done gradually, little by little.
To make sure the daimyo did not make any reckless moves, Shikato directly took control of all the daimyo's accounts and handed their management over to the Leaf.
With funds reaching into the hundreds of billions, even Shikato alone could no longer keep up. He had urgently pulled in additional people from his clan before finally bringing the situation under control.
Gradually, the speed of pig iron's rise began to slow, though it was still climbing every day. There were simply too many suckers. One by one, their eyes red with greed, they kept throwing money in. And the nobles and wealthy merchants, those vermin, had deep reserves of wealth as well. With the high-IQ Nara Clan controlling the market, everything was proceeding with exceptional smoothness.
At the Stone encampment,
Tsuchikage Mu sat inside a temporary command tent, his eyes bloodshot.
The high-intensity war of attrition had made his heart ache from the losses.
More than once, Mu had wanted to challenge Uchiha Tomiya to a one-on-one fight. If he could kill the frontline commander, the situation might turn around.
But Uchiha Tomiya simply refused to give him the chance.
Tomiya was unquestionably one of the Leaf's top fighters. Though he had not awakened the Mangekyo Sharingan, he was still a formidable powerhouse in his own right.
Against Mu, Tomiya would likely be at a disadvantage in a true one-on-one duel.
But Tomiya was not alone.
At his side was a group of Uchiha elite jonin with three-tomoe Sharingan. If Mu made the slightest mistake and became isolated, there was a real risk he would be hunted down instead.
And so the situation remained deadlocked.
Watching supplies and resources bleed away like running water, Mu had already begun considering withdrawal. The front line had been stretched far too long. If this continued for another month, the Stone would end up draining its foundation dry.
They had fallen into the Leaf's trap.
A bitter taste filled Mu's heart.
It seemed this invasion of the Leaf was not going to bring any real gains after all. It was time to find an excuse to return to the village.
No matter what, they had still pushed all the way into the Leaf's heartland. That much, at least, was something he could report.
They had won face, but lost substance.
The Leaf had already been badly worn down by those brutes from the Cloud before this. After this long war of attrition, the Leaf would not be in good shape either. If everyone came out ruined, then no one could be called the loser.
Mu comforted himself with that thought while his mind raced, searching for an opportunity to withdraw in a way that still looked respectable.
The best outcome would be if the Leaf itself took the initiative to propose peace talks, allowing him to squeeze some compensation out of them.
The most direct method, naturally, would be killing Uchiha Tomiya.
But Tomiya was as slippery as an eel and refused to offer even the slightest opening for a duel.
"Tsuchikage-sama, th-this is bad!"
"What is it? Why are you shouting like that?"
"Did Uchiha Tomiya lead a squad to raid us again?"
Mu frowned.
At this point, what could possibly be worse?
Even if the Leaf's Hokage personally came to the front line, Mu would not fear him. At worst, it would simply mean a full strategic showdown.
They had already fought this miserable war of attrition for more than a month. It would be better to settle things in an all-out decisive battle instead.
"No, Tsuchikage-sama!"
"It's the Mist! The Second Mizukage, Gengetsu Hozuki, has already appeared on the flank of our encampment with the Seven Ninja Swordsmen. They're trying to raid the rear of our base!"
"Our wounded, our food stores, all our supplies are back there!"
Mu's vision went black.
He had not even fully processed the news.
Gengetsu Hozuki had gone all the way around most of the Leaf's territory just to strike at the rear of their army?
Had everyone lost their minds?
One look at the map should have been enough to show how absurd that sounded.
(End of Chapter)
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