Naruto got home, closed the door carefully, and only then let out the breath he hadn’t even realized he was holding. The house was quiet, clean, the way it always was—too small for a jinchūriki, too pin for a Hokage’s son, and yet still the only pce where he could breathe without feeling eyes burning into his back.

  He went straight to his room. He didn’t even properly take off his clothes. He sat on the bed as if the mattress were an anchor for his mind—a pce where he could finally put the chaos in order.

  The system interface appeared almost immediately, responding to his thoughts as if it were impatient.

  [Shop] [Categories: Weapons, Jutsu, Kekkei Genkai, Lineages]

  Naruto’s eyes widened at the options.

  There it was: a catalog of possibilities. A menu of power.

  He clicked on Kekkei Genkai without hesitation, and the list unfolded with an almost offensive coldness. The first item made his heart do a stupid little leap.

  [Sharingan (1 tomoe): 5000 points]

  Naruto froze for a second. Just stared.

  He had seen the Sharingan in action. He had seen the political and military weight of an entire cn revolve around those eyes. He had seen how history treated it like destiny—like a “blood privilege.”

  And now it was there, reduced to a single line of text.

  He cleared his throat, still staring.

  “System… how much is each point in ryō?”

  The reply came dry and automatic:

  [Each system point equals 1000 ryō]

  Naruto blinked.

  Once. Twice.

  The math formed in his head before he even wanted it to.

  Five thousand points… times a thousand… five million.

  It felt like all the air left his body at once.

  He fell back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling, his expression empty, as if some entity had reached in and yanked his soul out.

  'The fortune I just got is already being ripped away from me.'

  The silence of the room didn’t answer. It only confirmed it.

  Naruto stayed like that for a few minutes, unmoving, breathing slowly until shock turned into acceptance. And then, right after, irritation. Because he had an adult brain trapped in a small body, and he couldn’t afford to panic every time a big number showed up.

  He sat up again and rubbed his face with both hands.

  “Alright.” His voice came out low. “Compining won’t help. Better start pnning.”

  He looked back at the shop, mentally scrolling through the options, letting the prices hit his eyes like controlled blows. Some items were absurd. Others looked “cheap”—until he remembered that cheap, here, was still enough money to buy houses.

  He clicked through other categories again, just to understand the pattern.

  Weapons. Jutsu. Lineages.

  Everything had a price. Everything became a kind of currency. Everything could be bought—as long as he had the right fuel.

  And that brought up the most important part: the system wasn’t asking for money alone.

  It was asking for a choice.

  Naruto took a deep breath and organized the idea like he was writing on an invisible chalkboard.

  “Okay. I have two options.” He spoke to himself, like hearing it out loud would make it real. “The first is to buy a lot of points right now. The other is to make this money grow.”

  He leaned back, stared at the ceiling for a second, then faced the interface again.

  If he converted a huge chunk of ryō into points now, he could buy things immediately—advantages that, according to the system itself, would still be avaible in the main world.

  But points were exclusive to that world.

  And money… money was universal in that pce. Money was food. A roof. Bribes. Safety.

  The difference between being able to buy time… or having to beg for it.

  'If I convert too much, I’ll turn into a beggar with an invisible shop.'

  And beggar was a dangerous word in that world.

  Naruto closed his eyes for a moment.

  'Well… I’d have to be incredibly incompetent if, even with all my knowledge, I couldn’t invest this money and turn a profit.'

  But then came the part that actually mattered.

  'So what do I invest in?'

  He y there, still, while his brain ran through possibilities. In any world, investing was risk and reward. In Naruto’s world… it was worse. Because beyond financial risk, there was political risk. The risk of being noticed. The risk of becoming a target.

  He couldn’t open a normal shop with a sign and a smile. He couldn’t become an ordinary merchant. Everyone knew who he was—or worse, what he carried.

  Still…

  He needed structure.

  Money sitting still was money dying.

  After a few more minutes, the idea finally clicked into pce, simple and ugly the way most good ideas were.

  “I can set up a business focused on loans with interest,” he murmured, his voice almost satisfied. “For ordinary people, merchants, and even ninja. In that kind of business, the risk is there… but the profit is high too. And in the long run.”

  He imagined the flow.

  Merchants needed capital to buy stock, pay transport, cover losses. Ninja needed equipment, medicine, seals, tools. Missions paid—but not always quickly, and not always well.

  He knew how the world worked. He knew there were people living mission to mission, scraping by. He knew there were people sinking into debt quietly, out of shame, out of fear of looking weak.

  And debts are chains.

  Not chakra chains like his mother’s.

  Paper chains—signatures and desperation.

  The kind of chain that didn’t need strength to keep someone trapped.

  The kind of chain that became influence.

  But then reality came back like a simple rock to the face.

  “But there’s another problem…” Naruto sighed and looked down at his own small hands. “I’m still just a kid.”

  He could have the mind. He could have the knowledge. He could have the cold courage of someone who had already died once.

  But the body was the body.

  He couldn’t open a business. He couldn’t sign contracts. He couldn’t show up to meetings. He couldn’t knock on someone’s door to collect a debt.

  Naruto leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes.

  “I’m going to have to rely on the old man for this.”

  The words came out with a strange mix of need and contempt. Need, because Hiruzen was the “safest” bridge between him and the adult world. Contempt, because deep down, he still remembered everything Hiruzen hadn’t done for him.

  Even so… there was no other way.

  He opened his eyes again and stared at the interface like it was a map.

  'I don’t need him to do it out of kindness. I need him to do it because it’s convenient for him.'

  If Hiruzen helped, Naruto gained an adult “face” for the business. A middleman. An official or semi-official structure. Maybe even some kind of protection against the curious.

  And Hiruzen gained control.

  Because that was what the old man always chased: control.

  Naruto ran his tongue over his lips, thinking about how to phrase it without sounding suspicious.

  'Maybe it’s better to use the idea and the money… and leave the actual execution to someone else.'

  Someone chosen carefully.

  Naruto hadn’t decided that yet—and he didn’t need to decide now. First, he needed to organize what he had.

  He stood up and began sorting through everything he’d received, at least in his head.

  Money. A lot of it.

  Jutsu scrolls. Techniques. Fūinjutsu.

  All of it was power, but it was also responsibility, because anything stored carelessly could become a knife at his throat.

  He took part of what had been delivered and pced it near the bed in an order that made sense. It wasn’t perfect organization—he was still a child, and he had practical limitations—but it was enough to keep his mind from getting lost.

  As he did it, he kept gncing at the shop interface like it was a constant temptation.

  “Now I’m going to organize everything I received,” he said, more to keep himself on track than for anything else. “And tonight… I’m going to solve my other problem.”

  That other problem wasn’t money.

  It wasn’t the shop.

  It was that constant presence, that internal noise that sabotaged delicacy, bance, consistency.

  Kurama.

  Naruto clenched his fist without noticing.

  'I can have ninety-two million. I can have jutsu. I can buy items. But if the fox keeps interfering when I need control… I’ll pay for it the worst way possible.'

  He didn’t finish the thought. He didn’t need to.

  He already knew how that world punished mistakes.

  And because of that, the pn had to be complete.

  Money for resources. Resources for training. Training for power. Power to… survive.

  ————————————————————

  In the Hokage Tower, Hiruzen was organizing paperwork on his desk, trying to push away a headache that didn’t even have a name yet. The day had barely started, and still he felt as if he’d aged another year in the st few hours.

  The door smmed open brutally, as if the wood had no value at all.

  Hiruzen didn’t even need to look to know who it was.

  The air changed. It grew heavier.

  “HIRUZEN.” The voice was sharp. “Why did you withdraw an absurd amount of money and also take copies of multiple jutsu?”

  Danzō didn’t waste time. He didn’t ask like a civilized man. He accused like someone who had already decided he was right.

  Hiruzen took a deep breath and kept his hands on the papers, as if the gesture itself could be calm.

  'I gave him too much freedom. And now it’s too te to pretend I can take it back.'

  He raised his gaze, slow.

  “Danzō,” he said, with a patience already at its limit, “since when does the Hokage have to justify the decisions he makes?”

  The word Hokage nded like a clean punch.

  Danzō’s mouth tightened. For a second, the old warrior looked more like a man biting down on his pride than a leader of shadows.

  “Stop stalling, Hiruzen,” Danzō growled. “I know the jinchūriki came here today. And before he left, you took money and jutsu.”

  Hiruzen didn’t react outwardly, but something tightened inside him.

  'I have to admit, his ability to gather information is truly first-rate.'

  It wasn’t praise. It was a bitter fact.

  Danzō always knew things too early. He always had eyes where no one should have eyes.

  And the problem wasn’t just that he knew—it was what he did with what he knew.

  Hiruzen rested an elbow on the desk, his gaze hardening.

  “This matter doesn’t concern you,” he said, raising his voice just enough to cut through any attempt at intimidation. “And I won’t allow you to interfere.”

  Danzō took a step forward, his cane tapping lightly against the floor, as if he were marking territory.

  “Doesn’t concern me?” He ughed without humor. “You’re handing resources to a walking bomb. To a boy carrying the Kyūbi. And you think I’m just going to… watch?”

  Hiruzen felt the urge to snap back, but swallowed it. Anger was what Danzō wanted. Anger created openings.

  “You’re talking about a child,” Hiruzen replied, controlled. “A child who belongs to this vilge. And I am the Hokage.”

  Danzō narrowed his eyes.

  “You’re a soft Hokage,” he spat, low. “And that softness will destroy Konoha.”

  Fury simmered inside Danzō, visible in the way his fingers tightened around the cane. But he was also smart enough to know when he wouldn’t be able to pry anything loose.

  Hiruzen wasn’t going to yield.

  Not today.

  Danzō breathed heavily, and the silence between them filled with unspoken things: Root, secrets, old pns, war, corpses that still walked through both their minds.

  Then Danzō spoke, cold:

  “You’re going to regret this, Hiruzen.”

  He turned and left, smming the door hard, as if to make it clear he wasn’t “backing down”—he was only postponing.

  Hiruzen stared at the closed door for a few seconds. He didn’t look truly bothered by the outburst. It was as if it had happened many times before.

  Because it had.

  He rubbed a hand over his face and let out a long sigh, more tired than any paperwork had a right to make him.

  'Danzō won’t let go of this bone.'

  And that was what made everything worse.

  Because it wasn’t just about money.

  It was about Naruto.

  About the seal.

  About control.

  Hiruzen looked at the pile of work on his desk and, for the first time that day, felt that none of it mattered as much as a single decision.

  'I’ve failed him for far too long.'

  The old Hokage narrowed his eyes, as if trying to see beyond the walls, all the way to the small house where a four-year-old child had more pns than he ever should.

  “I’m going to visit Naruto today.”

  It came out like a decision—not a wish.

  And with that thought, he returned to work… but now every page felt heavier, as if the entire tower were reminding him that, somewhere inside the vilge, the future was learning how to count money—and how to buy power.

  (Early access chapters: see the bio.)