001 - Dying Is Hard
Konoha Year 47.
It had been one month since the death of the Third Kazekage.
By the river, rain poured from the sky in heavy sheets, thunder cracking again and again overhead.
Beneath a large metal-framed umbrella sat a young shinobi wearing a Konoha forehead protector, fishing as if the weather were perfectly normal.
"Yuto, the meeting is about to start. Stop wasting every day fishing!"
The shinobi who had come to find him wore a raincoat and sounded thoroughly annoyed.
"Who goes fishing in weather like this? Aren't you afraid of getting struck by lightning?"
With that, he vanished in a Body Flicker.
Yuto sighed and muttered under his breath, "If getting struck by lightning weren't the whole point, who would come out fishing in weather like this?"
He packed up his fishing rod, threw on his raincoat, and slowly started back toward the clan compound.
He had only walked about ten meters when a bolt of lightning crashed down and struck the umbrella by the river.
In an instant, the umbrella turned pitch-black. The canopy burned away completely, leaving only the metal ribs behind.
"Damn it. I left too early!"
Yuto Uchiha was just another soldier in the endless army of transmigrators.
There was just one key difference.
Strictly speaking, he was never supposed to die in the first place. His transmigration had been the result of a mistake by the Transmigrator Administration.
To compensate him, the Administration had arranged a special compensation package.
If he died by accident after transmigrating, he could return to his original world with at least a hundred million in compensation and a body full of supernatural abilities.
Even better, the payout depended on how he died. The more dramatic the death, the more money he would receive.
For example, if ten people experienced intense emotional turmoil at the moment he died, that would be one billion.
A hundred people meant ten billion.
Of course, if he died quietly and no one cared, he would only get a hundred million.
Suicide did not count either. If he killed himself, then he would simply be dead for nothing. No money, no second chance.
In other words, the only way to receive the compensation was to die because of a force beyond his control, such as a natural disaster or being killed by an enemy he genuinely could not defeat.
Deliberately holding back in battle also counted as suicide.
At first, he had wanted to chase a bigger payout too. But after a full year in this world, all he had managed to collect was a body full of injuries. Not once had he actually encountered a life-threatening situation.
His teammates, on the other hand, had been deeply moved by his habit of throwing himself into danger. After every mission, they trained like mad, and their strength rose at frightening speed.
They were no longer genin now. They did not even take missions with him anymore. Instead, they had gone off to lead fresh Academy graduates.
That left him in an awkward position.
With no team, a weak genin like him could only accept low-level missions with no danger at all. He had no chance of running into anything lethal.
At this rate, even dying gloriously had become impossible.
All he could do now was try to engineer encounters with possible accidents, like fishing during a thunderstorm.
This fishing trip had probably been the closest he had ever come to success.
Unfortunately, he had still managed to stay one step ahead of death.
Of course, the employee from the Transmigrator Administration had once told him he could simply enjoy life in the Naruto world.
But he had transmigrated into an Uchiha.
Worse, he was an Uchiha clan member who had never appeared in the original story.
Enjoy life?
Like hell.
Rather than die for some stupid reason during a mission, the war, the Nine-Tails attack, or the Uchiha massacre, it was better to get himself killed early and return to his original world to enjoy life as soon as possible.
He shook his head and left the river behind.
When he arrived at the clan compound, one of his colleagues from the Police Force told him the meeting was being held at headquarters. With no other choice, he turned around and headed that way instead.
He could not really be blamed for mixing up the location. Lately, all he thought about was how to die. Everything else went in one ear and out the other.
Strictly speaking, a weakling like him should not have been allowed to join the Police Force as an officer.
Most likely, Yuto's reckless mission style had caught Fugaku's attention, which was why the clan head had made a special exception and brought him in.
Deep down, Fugaku still leaned toward the village.
The way Yuto protected his teammates in the face of danger just happened to fit the Will of Fire that the Third Hokage was always promoting.
He was so done with it. Every day, he patrolled the village and dealt with nothing but trivial nonsense. It had seriously slowed down his progress toward getting himself killed.
Just as he reached the door of the Police Force meeting room, Yuto heard fierce arguing from inside.
He knew both sides of the argument well.
One was Fugaku, the Uchiha clan head and captain of the Police Force.
The other was not a member of the Police Force at all.
The Uchiha Grand Elder.
He found that a little strange. Why would the Grand Elder attend a Police Force meeting?
Hadn't he always hated the Police Force? He considered it a cage the village had built specifically for the Uchiha.
With that question in mind, he pushed open the meeting room door and quietly slipped into a corner to listen.
The Grand Elder's aged voice rang out first.
"Fugaku, the situation in the shinobi world is unclear. War is about to break out."
"At a critical time like this, the village is telling the Police Force to increase patrols. Isn't it obvious? They want to lock the Uchiha inside the Police Force and keep us from earning glory on the battlefield!"
Fugaku's reply sounded tired. He had heard similar arguments countless times over the past few days and no longer wanted to keep explaining himself.
"Grand Elder, the village is looking at the bigger picture."
"One of the Police Force's duties is guarding against spies. Precisely because war may break out soon, patrols must be strengthened to prevent enemy agents from entering Konoha and stealing information."
"Are you saying the Uchiha should not even do our own job properly?"
"Bullshit!"
The Grand Elder's voice shot up as he roared in fury.
"The Police Force hasn't been responsible for counterintelligence in years!"
"That bastard Tobirama Senju, the thief who stole the Hokage seat from the Uchiha, dumped all those missions on the Anbu long ago."
"And his disciple, Hiruzen Sarutobi, is even more sinister. He even took interrogation work away from the Police Force and handed it to some Interrogation Division that was only founded a few years ago."
"As I see it, Konoha can no longer tolerate the Uchiha clan. We may as well launch a coup early and take back the Hokage seat!"
There were quite a few hawks within the Police Force. The moment the Grand Elder finished speaking, people immediately responded.
"Yes, the Grand Elder is right. We should launch a coup!"
"I'm sick of the village pushing us aside. We should rebel!"
Seeing the crowd react so fiercely, Yuto's spirits lifted.
A coup was good.
A coup meant people would die.
Given the current gap in strength between the village and the clan, the Uchiha would definitely be crushed if they launched a rebellion.
After all, at most, the clan currently had only one person who possessed the Mangekyo Sharingan.
Fugaku Uchiha.
And the original story had never made it clear whether he actually had it or not.
As long as Yuto rushed to the very front during the coup, he would be the first to die.
And since he was a member of the Uchiha clan, he would be forced to participate in the coup. That definitely would not count as suicide.
If he died first and added a little performance before his last breath, the tears alone would come pouring in. Who knew how many times his compensation would multiply?
Yuto did a rough calculation. Given how emotional the Uchiha usually were, that had to be at least ten billion.
Even without supernatural powers, that would be enough for a life of obscene luxury.
With that thought, Yuto immediately jumped out from the crowd and shouted,
"A coup! We have to launch a coup!"
Feeling everyone's eyes turn toward him, he climbed straight onto the table.
"My fellow clansmen, do you know how much more we Uchiha pay for the same kilogram of rice compared to everyone else?"
"Three whole times as much! Three times!"
"Over the course of a year, the extra money the Uchiha clan spends couldn't even fit in a carriage!"
"So, my dear fellow clansmen, the coup must happen immediately!"
"I think the weather tonight is perfect. Let's start preparing weapons right away!"
Yuto's speech ended.
The room fell completely silent.
Not a single Uchiha followed up.
Yuto was shocked todiscover that the entire Uchiha clan was all talk and no action when it came torebellion.
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