4 4: Darn it!

Slowly but surely, the stories about Takeda Shoji started making their way into neighbouring countries. His fame spread, and the Hidden Villages all across the world began to take notice of him.

In the Hidden Leaf Village in the Land of Fire, Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Third Hokage, was sitting in his office, finishing off his last paperwork for the day. A few minutes later, having freed himself from the bane of all Hokages, he started looking through his spies' reports to see what juicy gossip they had brought in for him.

-A was caught having a tryst with his assistant-

"Hah! I knew it!" He smacked his hand on the table.

-Onoki reportedly had to be rushed to the hospital after breaking his hips-

"Heh! That old coot," he snickered.

-Madam Shijimi's cat had run away again-

-Tsunade lost another gambling match-

-Jiraiya's newest Icha Icha is out for sale-

He was reading along when something caught his attention.

-Takeda Shoji, a young samurai, developed a method to increase one's physical power without the use of chakra-

"Takeda Shoji…" Hiruzen murmured after he finished reading it. He flipped to the next page and found the breathing technique. He studied it for a time and came to the conclusion that it wasn't that very useful to ninja.

But then two people with bowl cut hairstyles and bright green tights popped into his mind. "Maybe except for them," he murmured.

Puffing out his smoke, he decided it wouldn't be a bad idea to teach this to the children in the Academy. Most young ninja, with a few exceptions, had very little chakra. This could come in handy in the event that they run out of chakra while on a mission.

"ANBU!" he yelled.

Like a ninja, a masked man fell from the ceiling and landed in front of him with the grace of a feline. The man, by the sound of his voice, bowed on one knee and said, "I'm at your disposal, Lord Hokage."

"Tell Kakashi to come to my office now," he commanded.

"Yes!" With that, the ANBU with the cat mask disappeared in a swirl of leaves.

A tick mark appeared on his face. "Darn it! How many times have I told them not to use the Leaf Body Flicker in my office!"

Ten minutes later, he clapped his hands in satisfaction after using a simple Wind Style jutsu to clean his office.

"Finally, it's clean now." He nodded in approval.

It was at that moment that a man in Konoha standard issue uniform with spiky silver hair popped up in his office with a flurry of leaves.

"I'm her-"

"Darn it!"

A few moments later, he was back in his seat, smoking on his pipe. The man from earlier was now standing in front of him, nursing a rather nasty bump on his head.

"Kakashi," he began, looking at the masked Jonin who had one of his eyes covered. "I need you to bring these to Takeda Shoji in Ashikaga Town in the Land of Iron." He finished, taking out a couple of scrolls from his drawer.

These scrolls contained some of the best wines, tea leaves, and medicines Konoha had to offer that he asked someone to prepare for Takeda Shoji. After all, they would be using someone else's technique openly. The least they could do was to send a few gifts.

Kakashi received the scrolls from Hiruzen, which he promptly tucked into a pouch on his back.

"Is there anything else, Lord Hokage?" he asked.

"I have another mission for you when you return," Hiruzen said, handing him a folder.

His lone eye widened in shock when he saw what was written on it. They were Academy graduates' report cards.

"Lord Hok-"

"Calm down, go ahead and read it first." Hiruzen cut him off.

Swallowing back the rest of his words, he opened the folder. The first thing he saw was a photo of a person he recognised, a blond boy wearing an orange tracksuit. After that, there was another boy who seemed as though the whole world owed him an apology. The last one…enough said.

"Lord Hokage, you want me to become a Jonin Leader?" he asked, his voice almost turning into a squeak.

"Yes." Hiruzen nodded calmly.

"So, you want me to become a teacher, to a deadlast, an emo and a fan-girl?" he asked again in disbelief.

"You're the Fourth student and I don't think I need to say more about Naruto, do I?" Hiruzen replied. "As for the Uchiha kid, you're the only one capable of teaching him right now."

He felt Hiruzen's gaze upon his left eye, which was covered by his forehead protector. The eye that was given to him from a departed friend as a memento.

"As you wish, Lord Hokage," he agreed reluctantly.

"Good!" Hiruzen took a pull on his pipe before continuing, "While you're in the Land of Iron, try to get closer to Takeda Shoji and collect his information. That's all."

"By your leave, Lord Hokage!" He bowed slightly and turned around. Suddenly, an idea struck him as he was walking out of the Hokage's office.

'It's payback time!'

Grinning to himself, he quietly raised a hand seal. He summoned forth as many leaves as he could muster and—poof!—he disappeared, leaving behind a stunned Sarutobi Hiruzen, covered in a large pile of leaves.

Pfft!—several Hidden ANBU could be heard snickering in the office.

"Darn it!"

Back in Ashikaga Town, Takeda Shoji was pacing around in the dojo in worry. Scratch that, he was almost having a nervous breakdown.

"Can you say that again?" He turned toward the samurai standing at the door.

"You are now the mayor of Ashikaga Town," the samurai replied in a no-nonsense tone.

"Can I refuse?" he asked, looking hopeful.

"No," the samurai replied briskly. "This is an order from Lord Mifune. You will be the mayor starting from tomorrow and that's final." The samurai shoved the decree to him and left the dojo.

"What a drag..." he complained to himself.

The next morning, Shoji went to Ashikaga Town. As soon as he set foot inside Town Hall, which was more of a shack than anything, he was quickly ushered into the mayor's office by the clerk manning the front desk.

The next thing he knew, he was sitting in his new office, staring blankly at the ceiling and wondering what the hell he was doing here.

He roused himself and focused on a nearby bookshelf stacked high with... well, books and papers. After searching for a while, he finally found what he was looking for—a ledger.

He figured that the town's finances would be a good place to start as a new mayor. The moment he opened the ledger, his eyes almost popped out. Ashikaga Town was in the red, and quite a while too.

He closed the ledger with a snap and sped out of the office, carrying it with him. Quickly, he reached for the clerk and yanked on his collar, pulling him over the desk.

"What's this?" He threw the ledger on the table. "Why is the town in deficit?" he roared.

The clerk swallowed hard. "It's the previous mayor's fault! He stole a lot of money and ran away."

He released his hold on the clerk and continued to ask. "Where is he now? Did you catch him?"

"Yes, we did hire a ninja to catch him," the clerk replied after calming down.

"What happened to the money he stole?"

"He..." the clerk hesitated.

"Answer me!" He banged his fist on the desk.

"He already spent all of them!" the clerk said hastily.

"Damn!" he cursed. "All of them?"

The clerk nodded in fear.

He rubbed his brow. Now he had to find a way to find money or Ashikaga Town would be in deep trouble. Sigh, he shouldn't have taken this job.

"Call everyone into my office. We're going to have a meeting now!" he ordered.

"Yes, Lord Takeda!" the clerk replied before scurrying away.

He went back to his office, sat down and began to think. After waiting for five minutes, the heads of all the other departments filed into his office.

"All right," he started after everyone had arrived. "I'm pretty sure you already know my name so let's get straight to the point. I've been appointed as the mayor of this town by General Mifune."

Everyone burst into applause until he raised his hand to silence them.

"That's enough. We have a big problem on our hands right now. Our town is out of money," he announced, causing an uproar in the crowd.

"Now, I know you're all worried, but rest assured, I've already discovered a method for us to make money!"

"How?" someone asked.

"My answer is simple—sugar! I have found a method to make sugar quicker and cheaper," he answered and then began to explain how to extract sugar from corn.

"Excuse me, Lord Takeda." A person raised his hand. "How are we going to pull this off? We don't have enough capital."

"Good question," he nodded to the man. "I only have one solution to that and that is to borrow."

Seeing as how they didn't understand what he meant, he went ahead to explain. "We are going to find a few wealthy people to invest in our company."

AN: I'm not going to go deep into financial stuff.

"All right, so I take it that everyone already knows what to do, right?" he asked, followed by nods from everyone. "We'll start tomorrow."

The following day he met several wealthy businessmen who were very interested in his plan. After hours of negotiations, they finally struck a deal. The equipment they ordered arrived two days later. He double-checked that everything was in working order before leaving the rest of the work to his father to handle.

A few days later, the sugar production factory was up and running. During this time, he did nothing but stay at home like a real NEET. If it wasn't for the system demanding him to train everyday, he wouldn't even set foot outside the house.

"Stop staying in the house all the time!" His mother kicked him out and slammed the door shut.

His mother was what you would call a yamato nadeshiko. A woman who was normally really kind and tolerant, but when she got furious, holy cow, she was terrifying.

Rubbing his sore butt, he picked up his katana and hobbled off to the dojo. Upon entering the dojo, he noticed Hino approaching him.

"There's someone here to see you," Hino whispered to his ear.

"Who is it?" he asked, curious.

"A Konoha ninja by the name of Hatake Kakshi," Hino replied.

"Hatake Kakashi?" He was surprised to hear that. What was he doing here?

It didn't take long for him to meet Hatake Kakashi, who resembled the character from the anime, with his signature silver hair and mask.

"So, you are the famous Hatake Kakashi; pleased to meet you. I wondered why the Copy Ninja wanted to see me today?" he asked.

Kakashi bowed. "I came here to bring gifts from Lord Hokage himself." He reached out to his pouch and placed a few scrolls on the table.

"Thank you for these gifts. Please send my regards to Lord Hokage. Is that all?" Shoji asked, knowing Kakashi wouldn't be here just to send him a few presents.

Kakashi blushed as he began to explain the reason he was for being here.

"Oh, I see, you're interested in the Breathing Style I taught. Sure, go ahead," he agreed. "But don't you know about the dangers of using it?" He gave Kakashi an odd look.

Kakashi was taken aback for a second. He'd never heard of anything like that.