Tobirama glared at Haru with his eyes wide open. He had already lost count of how many times he had gotten angry and broken composure tonight. It almost felt as if Haru had been born specifically to torment him.
"All right, all right. I don't feel like arguing with you anymore."
"Bring me paper and a brush. The equipment, materials, and everything else needed for research..."
"I'll write you a list. Go prepare it."
Tobirama waved his hand, showing he no longer wanted to waste words with Haru. He gestured for paper and a brush, preparing to write out a list of all the equipment he needed for a laboratory.
The laboratory space had to be large. The equipment had to be new and advanced.
The materials had to be top quality and highly responsive.
Tobirama wrote rapidly across the page, the tip of the brush making soft scratching sounds. At first Haru did not pay much attention, but after five minutes he realized something was wrong.
Tobirama still wasn't done.
Haru watched Tobirama, who was writing with great enthusiasm while muttering to himself.
This nutrient solution is expensive. Five thousand ryo a bottle. Let's start with fifty bottles...
This reagent seems to only come from the Land of Demons. It's priceless on the market. Money might not even be enough to buy it. Whatever, write it down first...
As for cultivating grain seeds, I heard the Land of Rice Fields has...
Haru's fists clenched.
This bastard was treating him like an easy mark.
Another half hour passed before Tobirama handed over a thick stack of pages. Haru skimmed through them from beginning to end. The list was packed with every kind of experimental instrument imaginable, some imported from the Land of Wind, some custom-made in the Land of Lightning...
The reagents were even worse, covering practically every nation in the ninja world. Some of the places Haru had never even heard of, remote little countries in god-knows-where whose specialty secret solutions were apparently sold by the gram.
Haru's Sharingan opened on reflex from sheer frustration. He did a rough estimate in his head.
At minimum, this would cost over 3 billion ryo.
And that was only the price of setting up the laboratory. It did not even include the later costs of materials consumed as the experiments progressed.
"You old bastard, did you do this on purpose?!"
Now it was Haru's turn to crack. Even if he emptied out the entire Uchiha clan's assets, it still would not be enough for Tobirama to burn through.
"What do you know?"
"Do you even understand science?"
"Do you know how much scientific research actually costs?"
"Every single technological breakthrough is built on mountains of money burning away behind it."
"..."
Tobirama answered with righteous confidence, his eyes full of disdain for Haru. To be fair, he had not made any of it up. Everything on that list really would be useful sooner or later.
It was just that Tobirama had written down only the best possible instruments and raw materials. There were always cheaper substitutes, though the results would be slightly worse.
Some of those instruments and solutions were things Tobirama had never dared buy in the past. They were simply outrageously expensive.
There was a reason Hashirama had always told Tobirama to do less research.
It burned through money far too quickly.
"You don't actually have the money, do you?"
Tobirama sneered. Just moments ago, Haru had grandly declared that no matter the cost, he wanted the power of Hashirama's cells.
But that power did not come cheap.
"I..."
Haru was stuck.
Konoha still had a gap of several tens of billions even before this. He had already torn a piece out of the ninja clans' mouths to fill part of it, and even that had not been enough.
The previous funding had already been entered into Konoha's treasury. To reduce corruption, Konoha published account records at regular intervals too. Of course, some money would still disappear in the middle, but as long as the books looked good enough, people could talk their way around it.
Before, they could hide things under military spending. Who would dare send accountants to investigate military expenses during wartime? Even if a few people were sent, the final result would probably be that they somehow stabbed themselves in the back multiple times and died.
But 3 billion ryo was not a small number.
The entire village was watching that budget closely. For the sake of money, Haru had already fought the ninja clans tooth and nail for their share.
If he pulled anything at this point and even a tiny part of the accounts looked wrong, the clans would seize on it and never let go.
If he got exposed, Haru did not dare imagine what would happen.
He would probably be impeached and forced down from office.
"The mighty Hokage can't even scrape together this little money?"
Tobirama decided to twist the knife. At last, he was finally seeing Haru look miserable.
Wonderful. Truly wonderful.
"You amateur. You have no idea what research really costs."
"And you still dared to boast so grandly, talking about any price being worth it?"
"Evil Uchiha brat, you're too young."
Tobirama pressed the attack, determined to keep pushing.
"So this is why you embezzled?"
Haru instantly thought of the 1 billion ryo Tobirama had skimmed and fired back.
"You skimmed 1 billion from this round of funding, didn't you?"
"You're the Hokage. And the Hokage dared to embezzle? You definitely did it before too. If I audit the records, I'll find it."
"And if I spread that news..."
Hm?
Tobirama's composure cracked. He immediately thought of the letters between himself and the Daimyo. For so many years, the Hokage's office had basically been his private office. He had long gotten used to leaving sensitive things there, since apart from Hashirama, nobody would dare casually enter.
He had died too suddenly and forgotten to destroy them.
The panic on Tobirama's face looked exactly like someone who had died before clearing their browser history.
"Ahem..."
"Actually, there are cheaper substitutes for some of these items. I can write you a new version."
Tobirama tried to look as though nothing was wrong, grabbed the stack of pages back, and started replacing some of the materials with more affordable alternatives.
Watching Tobirama force himself to stay calm, Haru sneered inwardly.
He had known it. This black-hearted bastard was trying to cheat the budget, exactly like Orochimaru in later years.
Once Tobirama finished and handed the revised list back, Haru recalculated the total.
The price had dropped by nearly one-fifth.
Mm. Still an astronomical figure.
"This is already the cheapest version. Stop staring at me. Research requires money, that's just how it is..."
Tobirama helpfully added that from the side when he saw Haru's ugly expression.
"I know."
Haru nodded helplessly. He understood that research required money and that the good stuff was naturally expensive.
The problem was that he truly did not have the money.
"We can first work on research projects that improve steel output, grain production, and generators..."
Haru also thought of the appliances he had drawn from the roulette before: the refrigerator, television, air conditioner, and radio. He was almost at the point of putting together a full modern household set.
He hit the extraction button and summoned the appliances out, planning to first let Tobirama study their internal structure and see if they could be mass-produced.
"These things?"
"Some kind of special ninja tools?"
Tobirama examined the appliances in front of him. They were truly strange devices.
He very badly wanted to tear them apart and study them.
As the foremost researcher in the ninja world, Tobirama's instinctive curiosity toward their internal structure was overwhelming.
"Tobirama, if we understand these things, we can make an enormous amount of money."
Haru reminded him. Once Tobirama figured them out and they could be mass-produced, the first people he intended to sell them to were the Daimyo across the ninja world. Those people had money and cared about comfort. They would not hesitate to spend.
Haru planned to sell one air conditioner to them for hundreds of thousands of ryo. Then, once production scaled up, he would lower the price.
Tobirama nodded, indicating that he would study them carefully. Then he glanced around.
This secret chamber was too small. There was no way it could hold all the future laboratory equipment.
"This place definitely won't work as an experimental site. We need to move somewhere else..."
"I think a place in the Forest of Death on the outskirts of Konoha... would be quite suitable."
Tobirama did his best to keep his tone calm as he made the suggestion.
Agree. Just agree already.
Tobirama prayed inwardly. He still wanted to take advantage of the move and find a chance to see Mito. Now that Haru had become Hokage, eliminating him openly and properly would require careful planning.
"That's fine. The Uchiha grounds have a large underground prison. It was originally meant for interrogating spies, but the Anbu stole that work away, so the place has never actually been used."
"Moving the laboratory there will be perfect."
Haru remembered the underground prison Tomita had mentioned in passing before. It was tucked away in a remote corner of the clan grounds, and even the clansmen rarely went there.
Damn it.
Tobirama nearly wanted to punch his past self.
Under his old arrangements, the Anbu had long since stolen away the Police Force's role in interrogating spies.
"All right, Tobirama. I'm leaving for now. You stay here and think about how the future experiments should be done. I'll make time every day to come keep you company."
After that, Haru laid down a whole series of commands for Tobirama: he could only remain in the secret chamber, he was forbidden from using any ninjutsu, and so on.
The endless chain of orders wrapped around Tobirama like lines of code, making his face grow darker and darker.
"Haru, you really are cautious."
"Of course. You're Tobirama Senju. I have to take you seriously."
With that, Haru turned and walked out of the secret chamber. He had already spent the whole night with the Senju brothers. The two girls at home were still waiting for him to come back and sleep.
Not long after, Haru stepped out of the chamber. It was already very late, and his mood was not exactly good.
How was he supposed to solve the problem of the missing 2 billion or more?
Taking the money from the clan was impossible. This research was for all of Konoha. The Uchiha alone could not bear that burden, and in any case they were not capable of it.
So how was he supposed to create a proper excuse and quietly divert part of the budget?
What a headache.
How did things end up like this...
Haru was starting to realize that ever since becoming Hokage, all he had done was worry about Konoha's finances.
(End of Chapter)
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