Chapter 46: Image is Everything

As midday approached, the Fourth Hokage, who had been busy for most of the morning, returned home.

Ever since becoming Hokage, Minato Namikaze's time with his family had drastically decreased. Therefore, even this short mealtime was to be cherished.

And because Minato had only recently become Hokage, he was still unfamiliar with political affairs and various tasks, far from being as proficient as the Third Hokage. He had to spend a lot of time learning, so even though he was just home for lunch, he still had several documents with him.

At the dining table.

Minato was eating while simultaneously flipping through a report.

"Since we entered a tacit ceasefire with Sunagakure and Kirigakure, the pressure on the front lines has eased considerably. In addition, Iwagakure doesn't have the strength to continuously penetrate through Takigakure and Kusagakure to launch a large-scale invasion of Hi no Kuni; the Cloud's spearhead in Ta no Kuni is no longer as aggressive as before… You could say that, although the war isn't over, from the Hokage's standpoint, we must start considering post-war matters now."

Currently, all the nations were weakened, so it was easy to see the trend toward ending the war. And precisely because of this overarching political situation, and to avoid any further disruptions to the process of ending the war, some "minor matters" were deliberately ignored… such as the recent incident where a Kirigakure squad infiltrated Hi no Kuni.

"Suddenly talking about the post-war period, it feels like there are a thousand threads, with no place to start."

The young, red-haired woman placed the final dish, a soup, on the dining table and spoke. She was very understanding and didn't prevent Minato from working at home.

Just as she was about to sit down, Minato immediately stood up, pulled out a chair from the dining table, and pushed a high stool to its place.

"First, there's the issue of the ninjas. During the war, a large number of ninjas died in battle, leading to a weakening of the village on one hand, and an imbalance in the gender ratio on the other… In any case, far more male ninjas died than female ninjas."

"Population growth?"

The population issue was indeed a matter of national policy. The number of ninjas essentially determined the life and death of a hidden village.

Encouraging marriage and increasing the population were indeed standard practices after a war.

"For this kind of thing, we need someone to set an example… How about Kakashi? And for the sake of encouraging remarriage, it would be best to find him a suitable marriage partner."

Kakashi Hatake was indeed Minato's true disciple. Minato's words seemed to imply he wanted to find Kakashi a pretty widow.

"…Minato, sometimes your ideas are really out there."

"No, no, I'm just worried about Kakashi's mental state lately… By the way, let him help with that upcoming matter."

Kakashi was indeed a cause for concern, because he had the face of someone destined to be alone for life.

...

Meanwhile, Habara had just finished his brief conversation with the retired old man, who had quickly left.

Habara's ideal sounded grand, so what was the retired old man's reaction? The answer was: no reaction. Habara's remarks might sound shocking at first, but what significance did it have for a genin to say these things? Imagination is innocent because imagination is meaningless. Wait until Habara can become a department head or a high-ranking official, then talk about this ideal.

Moreover, for the current Habara, it was less that he wanted to fight for the rights of civilian ninjas and more that he simply disliked ninja clans. Although there wasn't much difference between these two ideas, if one had to point out a slight difference… well, it mainly reflected a difference in a person's overall outlook.

However, the tragic thing about people is that hatred and anger are far stronger driving forces in life than kindness and dedication.

After sitting on the bench for a while longer, Habara stood up, preparing to tidy himself up as the old man had suggested.

But first, he went to the ninja tool shop he'd frequented before to replenish the mercury he'd lost. Based on his previous combat experience, he realized he didn't need to carry so many weapons. So, he modified the specifications of his "sword box," reducing the carrying capacity… that is, he changed it to carry only one 8x25x140 "sword box," half filled with iron and half with mercury.

This way, at least what he was carrying looked like a ninja tool, and not like he was lugging around a cracked coffin lid like before.

After replenishing his mercury, Habara was about to leave. However, perhaps because the shop owner wasn't content with just selling raw materials to this regular customer, he called out to stop him.

"Sir, do you need any of those high-grade ninja tools?"

"High-grade ninja tools?"

Habara was puzzled. Weren't explosive tags high-grade enough?

"Yes, like chakra blades, for example."

"Chakra blades?" This piqued Habara's interest. "Can I see one?"

"Of course."

The shop owner carefully handed Habara a weapon that looked no different from an ordinary kunai. Habara then tried to release his chakra, and immediately, his chakra flowed smoothly through the kunai.

A chakra blade, in essence, was still an iron blade. The difference from ordinary ninja tools should be in the arrangement of the atoms. The tiny gaps between the atoms seemed to be just the right size to allow chakra to pass through…

After testing it briefly, Habara immediately handed the thing back to the shop owner. "What's the price of this kunai?"

"Very cheap, 200,000 ryo."

"…"

Could he maybe look up the definition of "cheap" in a dictionary?

"Not interested."

Habara waved his hand and strode out of the shop.

Not long after leaving the ninja tool shop, he reached into the "sword box" on his back, pulled out a kunai, and happily tossed it up and down, catching it… Habara seemed to have found a way to make money. Such a simple method, how had he not thought of it before?

Not just a way to make money, but the way to make money.

With an exceptionally cheerful mood, Habara entered a barbershop, ready to deal with his messy, overgrown hair.

And he made an exceptionally arrogant request to Konoha's Tony-senseis.

"Do you know Konoha's genius ninja, Kakashi Hatake?"

"Yes, he's the Fourth Hokage's disciple, right? I've seen him before. I have some impression."

"Good, then give me a haircut like that of Konoha's genius ninja Kakashi Hatake's even more genius father, the White Fang of Konoha, Sakumo Hatake."

"…Sir, could you say that a bit slower? I didn't quite catch that."

At this point, he had already untied Habara's hair and was about to toss the hair tie aside, when Habara stopped him.

"Oh, I need that hair tie back."

"I apologize. Is this something important to you?"

"No, it's just a trivial thing I got from someone I met in passing, but I don't intend to throw it away."