Naruto: How to Be an Undercover Shinobi

Yugakure, red light district, Hanamichi 1-chome.

Reiji sat cross-legged on a tatami mat, humming a carefree tune as he picked at his toes.

Across from him, a hollow-eyed man with stubble chugged sake glass after glass.

The once-luxurious kimono he wore was now stained with oil and liquor.

He used to be loud, arrogant, always surrounded by sycophants. Now, not a soul sat beside him.

He was a gambler—a broken one. A man who had lost everything. Well, almost everything.

He still had two things left: the territory of the Land of Rain, and the title of its Daimyō.

As for the iron he'd hoarded in seven or eight full warehouses?

Hah—nobody wanted that junk now. Not even the dogs.

And the worst part? Out of nowhere, his warehouses mysteriously caught fire. The ore vanished without a trace.

Weird, huh?

Now broke and unable to hire bodyguards, all he could do was drink himself into oblivion.

Watching the man slip into a drunken daze, Reiji spoke with exaggerated respect.

"Lord Ametsu, I have a contract here. Would you care to take a look?"

The Daimyō waved him off clumsily, slurring,

"Don't wanna see it! I'm not reading anything! Get... get out of here!

And who even are you? Why'd you invite me for drinks?

C'mon—cheers, my brother!"

Watching the thoroughly wasted Daimyō, Reiji gave a modest wave and replied,

"My lord, I'm just a small-time charcoal merchant from the Land of Rain.

Caught the iron boom and made a little cash.

Now I'm thinking of buying some land and settling down for retirement~"

"Hic—land? Hic... I got land! How much you want?"

At that, Reiji dropped the act, grinned brightly, and asked in a soft tone,

"How much do you have?"

"Bang!" The Daimyō slammed the table, blinking open his bleary eyes with a snarl.

"How much? Hic—The entire Land of Rain is mine! You tell me!

How much you want, hic—I'll sell that much!"

Reiji nodded seriously.

"I'll take all of it."

That sobered the Daimyō halfway. He blinked and looked Reiji up and down.

"Hic... all of it? You think you can afford that?!"

"Name your price." Reiji casually scratched his foot, totally unconcerned.

Seeing that, the Daimyō grabbed his cup, downed it in one go, and held up five fingers.

"Five hundred million! Not a ryo less!"

Reiji nodded immediately and pulled out a scroll.

Strictly speaking, it wasn't a contract—but an official notice of abdication.

It detailed ten charges against Lord Ametsu, ending with the names of the abdicating and succeeding parties.

Half-blind from drink, the Daimyō reached out his greasy hand to grab it—

But Reiji yanked it back, stood up, and grabbed the Daimyō by the shoulder.

In the next moment, Flying Thunder God activated.

They vanished on the spot.

A clean escape.

The world spun, and when it stopped, Reiji and Lord Ametsu were standing at the gates of the Fire Temple.

According to Hiruzen's intel, the Fire Daimyō had been visiting here lately.

To be fair, only the lords of the Five Great Nations truly deserved the title "Daimyō." The rest were barely glorified village heads.

Just as Reiji was about to pull Ametsu—more like the Land of Rain's village head—into the temple, three figures with belts bearing the Fire Nation emblem suddenly appeared and blocked their path.

"Halt. State your business."

Reiji smiled, calmly pulling a forehead protector from his ninja pouch.

"I'm Dan Dan Shimura, younger brother of Konoha Councilor Danzō Shimura. A merchant—and a jōnin of Konoha.

This gentleman here is Lord Ametsu, Daimyō of the Land of Rain."

"What do you want?" the bald elder at the front asked, flat as stone.

Reiji held up the scroll and replied gently,

"An abdication. Also a transaction. I'd like the Daimyō of the Fire Nation to serve as witness."

At that, one of the shinobi behind the monk stepped forward, glaring at Reiji.

"I've never heard that Lord Danzō had a younger brother."

"Oh?" Reiji countered. "Then have you ever heard the name of Lord Hiruzen's eldest son?"

Honestly, he was curious about the answer.

The shinobi froze, gulped, and had no reply.

The old monk didn't press the issue. He simply nodded.

"Follow me."

And with that, he turned and walked toward the temple.

...

Just then, Kitty yawned lazily in Reiji's mind, her voice tired and disinterested.

"Reiji, you humans are so boring. It's just a piece of land. Why go to all this trouble?"

Reiji chuckled, patient as ever.

"If you want to stay hidden, you can use any means. But if you want to push a plan forward in broad daylight—you need a witness.

Sure, the Fire Daimyō doesn't have real power, but he's still a Daimyō.

And besides... what else am I making all this money for, if not to spend it?

This paper's so damn stiff, I'm scared it'll scrape my hemorrhoids raw!"

At that, Kitty spat in disgust and turned her head away, completely ignoring him.

...

Just as Reiji was on the verge of becoming the Daimyō of the Land of Rain, a meeting was underway on the other side of the shinobi world—in Iwagakure.

The agenda? How to resolve the growing internal tensions.

That's right—even the seemingly unified Iwagakure, in the Land of Earth, was now facing internal strife.

And it all traced back to one cursed thing: raw iron.

Located on a resource-rich plateau, Iwagakure had always been self-sufficient. Iron ore wasn't as abundant as in the Land of Iron, but there was always enough to meet their needs.

That is, until four years ago—when they lost the Four-Tails, Son Gokū.

From then on, their iron veins started drying up. Ōnoki at first suspected it was sabotage by the Third Kazekage of the Land of Wind.

But after an investigation, they discovered something even stranger: massive amounts of their ore had ended up in a tiny, no-name shop in Yugakure.

Ōnoki tried everything.

Assassinations. Mercenaries. Even acts of terror.

But it was all for nothing.

Blow up the shop? They just opened another one.

Kill the clerks? Turned out they were all unique Shadow Clones.

Try to hijack the ore shipments? The loot wasn't even worth the cost of hiring the ninjas.

The more they pushed, the more they bled.

Eventually, unable to suppress the situation, Ōnoki switched tactics—he joined in. He ramped up domestic mining efforts and started flipping ore himself, buying low and selling high.

For a while, it worked. They turned a modest profit.

But once the bubble burst, not only did they lose those early gains, they also sank a huge chunk of the village's war reserve into the collapse.

Now, the iron stockpiled by the clans had become a deadweight.

If they dumped it at market prices now, the losses would be catastrophic!

So the only option left was to repurpose it—put it to use where it truly counted.

The major clans reached a consensus: forge weapons.

Then start a war.

A ruthless war of plunder.

Shift the losses onto the neighboring small nations.