"...Obito chose to break ninja rules in order to save his comrades."
"...He sacrificed himself to save his comrades... and the remaining two-man team ultimately completed the mission and helped secure victory in the war."
"..."
Shikato thought about it for a while.
"Hokage-sama, this really is an interesting script. But only ordinary people who have never been on a battlefield would believe in this kind of story. As mission executors, ninja must remain rational and calm. Sometimes abandoning a comrade is a choice that cannot be avoided."
"But if I put myself into the story, then I would also want a teammate who wouldn't abandon me."
Haru nodded, agreeing with Shikato's words.
At this point in time, the view of ninja as tools still dominated the era. For the sake of completing a mission successfully, abandoning comrades was practically an everyday occurrence.
But that was exactly what Haru wanted to challenge.
A ninja was first and foremost a person, not a tool for carrying out missions. Just like ordinary people, ninja had joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness. They would also feel pain and resentment over the death of their comrades, and that could drive them to do things that violated ninja rules.
Sometimes, overcorrecting was unavoidable.
A stubborn disease required strong medicine.
"Shikato, do you think there are more ninja in this world, or more ordinary people?"
"The answer is obvious. There are more ordinary people. Unlike ninja, they're emotional. And besides, no one wants to be treated like a tool and then casually thrown away in the end..."
Haru spoke casually, but Shikato shivered.
He was a smart man. Some things only needed the slightest hint.
My lord, the times have changed.
And ninja had to change too.
"Hokage-sama, truly far-sighted!"
Once he saw that Shikato agreed, Haru started thinking about casting.
The protagonist group in the story was a three-man team, and in the Naruto world, the most memorable three-man groups were only a handful.
In this era, the only truly fitting one was Jiraiya, Tsunade, and Orochimaru, the future trio of chaos.
Orochimaru, known for his cold temperament, had delicate skin, a soft aura, and even liked eyeliner. He really was promising material for certain roles. Unfortunately, things went in a different direction later.
Tsunade was still flat at this age and hadn't completed her future evolution yet, which was a bit of a shame. The movie was losing a selling point there.
As for Jiraiya, he was a little pervert.
Best not to go into that.
The very next day, Haru saw the future trio in his office.
Still just ninja academy students, they had been directly hauled over by Haru to become child labor.
Orochimaru and Jiraiya were both so nervous they could barely get words out. It was their first time speaking in the same room as a true major figure of the Leaf.
Only Tsunade looked calm. Important figures in the Leaf came and went through her home all the time, so she had long since gotten used to it.
"You've already heard the requirements clearly. This is the Leaf's first attempt at entering the film industry. You're very lucky. So, would you be willing to act as the protagonists in this movie?"
Faced with Haru's invitation, the first one to agree was Jiraiya.
Even though he hadn't actually taken in a single word of the script Haru had described earlier and had spent the whole time drifting in nervous excitement, there was no way Jiraiya was going to miss this chance.
The Hokage himself was inviting them to make a movie.
"Hokage-sama, if we take part in filming, there should be pay, right?"
Little Tsunade was severely short on money lately.
The last time she had gone gambling, she had been held there after losing, and she had immediately revealed her identity.
Faced with someone of Tsunade's status, the gambling house naturally treated her with extreme respect and sent her straight home. If they dared detain the precious granddaughter of the Senju family, they might as well shut down their business for good.
After a brief exchange, Mito had neatly paid off the debt. She was clearly very familiar with this kind of thing. Back then, she had handled Hashirama's messes the same way.
When dealing with Hashirama, Mito generally preferred physical attacks. Tobirama, meanwhile, specialized in mental attacks, standing on the high ground of morality and lecturing Hashirama nonstop. Hashirama, feeling that his body was tougher than his spirit, had always felt that getting beaten was the more economical option.
Tsunade's pocket money for the month had been cut off entirely.
To punish her gambling habits, Mito had decisively severed her financial lifeline.
"Of course. I'm not going to have you work for nothing. The salary is fifty thousand ryo each."
Faced with Tsunade's love of money, Haru named a figure that might as well have been astronomical for a child. Fifty thousand ryo was already an unimaginable amount of spending money at their age.
"Hehehe, deal!"
Tsunade immediately beamed.
Fifty thousand ryo was enough for her to have a wonderful day at the gambling house. Lately, she had been practicing her dice-throwing technique like crazy. She was absolutely convinced she was going to sweep the tables and win back everything she had lost before.
"Hokage-sama, I don't need a salary. I hope I can spend some time learning by your side."
Orochimaru had no interest in money.
He sought knowledge.
Knowledge could change fate.
Of that, he was absolutely convinced.
As the Hokage, the chance to study at Haru's side was far more precious than a mere fifty thousand ryo.
As expected of the future greatest research genius in the ninja world after Tobirama, he already understood the importance of learning at such a young age.
Haru readily agreed to Orochimaru's request.
Of course, Haru had no intention of teaching Orochimaru personally. He was going to have Orochimaru follow Tobirama instead.
Only a true master could shape a rough gem into fine jade.
If Haru taught Orochimaru, all he would do was ruin his scientific talent.
Besides, teaching Orochimaru personally would make it all too easy to form a teacher-student relationship.
And the Hokage position had a long tradition of killing teachers.
With most people, Haru wouldn't worry about that. But if the student in question was Orochimaru, then Haru really did have to ask himself whether his life was sturdy enough.
Tobirama, however, was already dead.
His life couldn't get any sturdier.
In every possible way, he was the more suitable one to guide Orochimaru.
"For now, you don't need to attend ninja academy classes. Go home and memorize the script."
Haru handed each of them a script and told them to go home and learn it by heart. After that, all that remained was to begin filming.
Once the troublesome trio had been sent away, Haru began organizing the actual film production details.
He personally sent people to negotiate with the Land of Fire's daimyo, demanding that theaters across the country fully promote his new movie.
The daimyo happily agreed.
After all, Haru had helped him make an enormous amount of money not long ago. As the saying went, repay a drop of kindness with a spring. In Haru's case, the kindness wasn't even a spring. It was practically a waterfall.
So for this tiny request of Haru's, the daimyo agreed on the spot.
Not only in the Land of Fire, but in the other Four Great Nations and the smaller countries across the ninja world as well, the daimyo guaranteed he would personally make contact and have their theaters promote the film with full effort too.
The Land of Fire was the richest country, and where there was wealth, culture naturally flourished most strongly. It had always stood at the forefront of the cultural world. If the arts crowd in the film industry dared refuse to give him face, then they could just forget about remaining in the industry at all.
Haru was very satisfied with the daimyo's promise.
Art was all about promotion.
A film could be brilliant, but without publicity, its box office would never go very far. It might not even earn back its production costs.
As for extras, that was even easier.
The Leaf had a huge number of ninja still unemployed at home. The moment Haru posted the recruitment notice, the spots were instantly packed. Hokage-sama was making a movie, so of course they had to show their support. Even landing a tiny extra role and getting their face on screen would be enough to make them happy.
That night,
Haru went down to the underground laboratory and told Tobirama to upgrade the film technology as quickly as possible, even if other work had to be paused first.
"Making movies?"
"You're a Hokage. Why are you diving into filmmaking?"
Tobirama found Haru's way of thinking harder and harder to understand.
This was simply neglecting proper duties.
"What do you know?"
"This is the first step in seizing the high ground of public opinion. If you don't take that high ground, someone else will. You old fossil, what would you understand?"
"Do you know what it means to slip messages into the story? A movie always has heroes and villains, right? Naturally, our Leaf will be the heroes. So who do you think the villains are going to be? The influence of this movie is going to spread very far."
Tobirama understood instantly.
Why hadn't he thought of this himself?
The ninja world had always operated on chaos. Every side fought its own battles and treated the others as enemies and bandits.
Once films spread wide enough, if the entire ninja world started seeing the Leaf as the righteous force, then the benefits would be impossible to overstate.
As expected of an inherently evil Uchiha.
He could even think of such quietly vicious tactics.
"I'll handle it."
Tobirama agreed immediately and promised to finish the upgrade within a few days.
After that, Haru discussed the script and casting with Tobirama.
The moment Tobirama heard that Tsunade was going to be one of the leads, he instantly lost all composure. He grabbed Haru by the collar and demanded that when the movie premiered, Haru had to take him to see the first screening.
Naturally, Haru refused.
Letting Tobirama out was far too dangerous.
So Tobirama pulled out his old trick again. If he couldn't watch it, then he would go on strike.
In the end, Haru could only promise that the moment the film was edited, he would screen it in the underground lab for Tobirama first.
That would count as giving Tobirama a vacation.
Working twenty-four hours a day as labor still required some occasional relaxation.
Once everything was arranged and the film was just about to begin production, Mito came to Haru's office.
"I heard you're making a movie. And you plan to make Tsunade one of the leads?"
Mito sat in a chair, glaring at Haru with obvious hostility.
One look was enough to tell she was here to pick a fight.
"Is there some problem with that?"
"Tsunade agreed to it herself. I didn't force her."
Haru assumed Mito thought he had pressured Tsunade into taking the role, so he immediately made his position clear.
He truly hadn't forced her at all.
"I know that."
"I'm not against Tsunade acting in a movie. But I'm not very satisfied with her salary..."
Mito recalled the contract that had practically made her cough up blood.
An operation worth over a hundred million a year, and she had practically sold it off for a few million.
She absolutely did not believe Haru hadn't known the annual coal cost of the power plant.
He had intentionally set a trap and fooled her.
Later, Mito had even managed to get her hands on the full power plant project proposal. The Senju clan was one of the shareholders, so that kind of information had not been difficult to obtain.
Honestly, seeing it had only made things worse.
The future planning and profit projections of the power plant had made her so angry she hadn't slept properly for days.
If she were given another chance, she wouldn't even glance at the contract unless the salary line had at least eight digits.
Now Mito had learned her lesson.
Haru never did anything that didn't make money.
If he was making a movie now, then even though she didn't understand the business, she firmly believed it had to be profitable.
"Fifty thousand isn't low. She's just a student. Making that much from a movie is already the equivalent of a C-rank mission. She's getting a great deal."
"The other leads are all being paid the same too. And they themselves have already accepted the figure. Mito-sama, acting like this doesn't follow proper rules."
Haru shook his head, making it seem as though the matter was difficult.
"Don't give me that nonsense about rules. Did you make those rules?"
"If you agree to void the previous contract, then I won't interfere in this matter."
"You're talking about a business worth over a hundred million, and you only gave me one million each time. You've got some nerve."
If Haru hadn't been the Hokage, Mito would have long since started throwing hands at him.
Part of it was the pain of losing money.
The other part was that this was the first time she had ever experienced what it meant to be sold off and still help count the money afterward, smugly thinking it was a lot and easy money too.
Haru was definitely laughing behind her back, calling her some old woman who had never seen the wider world.
The more Mito imagined Haru gossiping about her like that, the more she wanted to smash a Tailed Beast Bomb right into his face.
"Ahem."
Haru felt a little awkward.
This really had been a dirty move on his part.
But Mito had already signed the contract. There was absolutely no way it was getting voided. If they drew up a new one, she would definitely ask for a monstrous price.
"Mito-sama, the power plant doesn't belong to me alone. The Leaf, the Hyuga... even your Senju clan has shares in it. Saving costs is making money for the Senju clan too."
"And what percentage do the Senju even own? How much does the Uchiha own? You know the answer to that. Besides, one thing has nothing to do with the other. The money the Senju earn doesn't all go into my pocket alone. There are over a thousand mouths in that clan waiting to be fed. How much do you think actually reaches me?"
Mito had no intention of letting Haru talk circles around her again.
She was afraid that if she kept arguing, Haru would beat her with those smooth talking tricks again.
So she raised a single finger.
"One-tenth of the movie's total revenue."
"Are you joking? The movie is being financed top to bottom by me and the investors. We have to pay the Leaf ninja, the promotion costs money, the theaters all need their cut, and with a single sentence you want one-tenth of total revenue? I think you're daydreaming."
Haru rejected her demand immediately.
If Mito insisted on opening her mouth that wide, then Haru would simply replace the female lead.
He really didn't want to break up the trio, but for the sake of profit, he would do it if he had to.
"Then you give me a number!"
Of course Mito knew she was opening with an outrageous price.
But that was how bargaining worked. Start absurdly high, then haggle downward. If she didn't begin with a sky-high figure, Haru would absolutely try to brush her off with a small amount of money.
Mito didn't really care about the salary Tsunade would get from acting.
What she wanted was face.
"The salary can get one more zero added to the end. Or you can take one percent of total revenue."
"That's already a very high price."
In order to satisfy his collecting instincts, Haru finally decided to loosen up a little.
Acting in a movie in exchange for the reward of an A-rank mission was something countless Leaf ninja would happily fight for.
Mito mentally reviewed the information she had collected.
The highest box office in the history of the Land of Fire had only ever gone a little over fifty million ryo, and that didn't even account for production costs.
Fifty thousand turning into five hundred thousand was still the better deal.
(End of Chapter)
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