“YES! FINALLY! LET’S GO! GET BENT, OBITO! YOU ONE-EYED MORON! I CAN DO IT, TOO! WOOOHOO!”

Ren, wearing only his shorts, exclaimed excitedly as he watched like a little, wide-eyed kid how his hand was repeatedly phasing through the katana’s blade.

Intangibility was his bitch from now o-!

“Ren?” Hinata’s soft voice interrupted his thoughts and made him turn toward the door, only to see her wearing her thin nightgown that didn’t leave anything to the imagination as it showed her curves perfectly.

“What are you doing so early in the morning?” Hinata asked and cutely yawned as she slowly approached him while rubbing the sleep out of her eyes with her hands.

It made Ren remember the ‘fun’ they had yesterday evening, and he involuntarily smiled. When the girl finally reached him, she instantly cuddled closer to his chest, sleepily hugging him, and he snaked his free arm around her shoulders while she nestled her cheek against his collarbone.

“Morning, Hinata. Ino’s still sleepi-?” Ren started asking, and his mind, just for a split second, wandered toward the amazing feeling of having her breasts pressed against his abdomen.

It was barely a moment. A blink of an eye. As Ren lost his focus, the intangibility seal he was using failed while the katana was still stuck in his arm in an area a bit above his wrist.

Two objects found themselves sharing the same space, and only one could prevail.

Naturally, the katana was the favorite in the exchange. Ren’s hand was cleanly severed from his forearm, with blood splashed onto the ground alongside the katana.

“Son of a b…!” Ren cursed in surprise as the pain hit him and he stared in a numb disbelief at his now handless arm.

Alright. That was not supposed to happen. So, maybe the intangibility seal needed a little bit of tweaking before it could be usable. But for now, Ren had more important issues.

Fortunately for him, the agony did not last long as Hinata instantly sprang into action and turned in Ren’s embrace, her fingers quickly striking tenketsu of Ren’s injured arm to stop the blood flow and numb his nerves.

With this quick first aid done, she threw Ren a very unamused look, making him visibly cringe.

Her meaning was conveyed through her eyes. She might have as well just called him an idiot out loud for doing something this dangerous and not using a shadow clone for it. Ren could just sheepishly smile at her in return because… she kinda had a point there.

“What would you do without me?” With a fond sigh, Hinata used a chakra string to get Ren’s severed hand from the floor, and unsealed a special thread and a needle, intent on stitching the severed limb back.

Ren chuckled and ruffled her hair in the exact way he knew she loved, “Your help is appreciated, and it is definitely handy. Showing in front of the Hokage without a hand would be just awkward.”

Hinata slightly smiled and blushed a bit, but didn’t react beyond that as she fully focused on treating Ren’s injury. Her medical chakra flowed into the thread, and she, with a practiced ease, started to sew the hand back to the forearm while also stitching the flesh, bone, arteries, and nerves back together with her chakra.

“Love you, girl.” Ren muttered as he slowly felt the numb pain coming from his arm subside.

…

Waiting in the lobby in front of the Hokage’s office, Ren inspected the stitches on his forearm and smiled with a fond sigh. He could still feel the comforting hum of Hinata’s medical chakra permeating the thread.

His arm was fine. It was fully healed. The reason why he still had the stitches… well. It was a bit embarrassing.

When Hinata finished her healing, Ren might or might not have used her momentary distraction as she gave his hand a last inspection with her eyes and chakra to slide the top of her nightgown off her shoulders.

He also might or might not have started to fondle her breast with his healthy hand.

She was just so sexy when she was in her doctor mode, and Ren kinda couldn’t, didn’t want to, help himself.

And while it earned him an exasperated look from Hinata, and a small, huffy complaint that she was still a bit sore from yesterday, the smile on her face told Ren everything he needed to know.

Two hours and a whole lot of dicking later, Hinata was pushing him to the shower to prepare for his meeting with the Hokage, and the stitches in his arm were kind of forgotten at that point.

“The Hokage will see you now.” The secretary told Ren, and he nodded at her in understanding as he stood up and entered the room.

“Ah, Ren. What can I do for you today?” Hiruzen Sarutobi looked from the documents on his table with a small, grandfatherly smile and greeted Ren.

“Lord Hokage.” Ren said back in a greeting and approached the table. Inwardly, he felt a bit amused when the hidden ANBU around the room tensed as he got close to their Kage.

It was almost cute. In a ‘Little cubs guarding the big bad lion’ kind of way.

“Here. I’d like to submit this.” Ren put the documents he was holding on the table and inwardly snickered as Hiruzen’s face, just for a tiny moment, fell when he realized it was yet another bunch of paperwork. But his grandfatherly mask was back in the blink of an eye.

He reached for the document on top and glanced through it before his eyebrow rose.

“You want to establish a clan?” He asked Ren, who sat down in the chair opposite Hokage’s desk.

“Yes. Having the advantages of a clan status is tempting.” Ren admitted.

Konoha was built on its clans. Not only the big ones but also the small, insignificant ones. They had a lot of leeway, protection, and bona fide preferential treatment of many kinds.

Everybody wanted to form a clan.

The problem was…

“And I reckon you are aware of the main requirement?” Hiruzen asked, now properly curious about what Ren was going to do about that.

The reason why so many civilian ninjas stayed as such, instead of forming their own clans, was that it wasn’t so easy. A clan needs to provide some sort of service to the village outside of its ninjas serving in the village’s army.

Every clan did that.

Well, the Senju and Uchiha were an exception, but they were founding clans and owned a massive amount of land within Konoha. Land that was rented out. Technically, that was a service to the village, too.

Every clan had something that they contributed to the village, and if Ren wanted to establish a clan, he would need something like that.

Knowing this, Ren unsealed a Secrebo and put it on Hiruzen’s desk. “This box can produce exploding tags. I am willing to give it to the village in exchange for the clan status.”

And that was that. Hiruzen gave Ren a peeved look, and Ren just smirked. He knew he had the old man. The thing about running a military was that supplies were always in high demand.

Ren didn’t need to give the village something world-breaking. Exploding Tags, such an elementary thing, were always needed. There was never enough of them. Giving Konoha a Secrebo that could create them was fine.

The village could not and would not push other seal makers out of the market. But it would now gain the ability to produce as many exploding tags at unbelievable speeds and basically at the material cost.

This would make stockpiling them for a possible future war an easy thing. Exploding tags had decades of shelf life. The village wanted to have massive amounts of them stockpiled, but with the demand for them, that was easier said than done.

Hence why Ren’s ‘contribution’ was something Hiruzen could not really refuse.

“And I guess you have the necessary approval of two major clans too.” Hiruzen hummed as he leafed through the documents.

And indeed, Ren had the approval of the Inuzuka, Yamanaka, Nara, and the Akimichi clans. Nobody was going to refute his clan appointment with that kind of backing behind him.

Frankly, Ren thought it was outrageous that he needed existing clans to ‘allow’ him to get a clan status. It opened the door for so much exploitation and power abuse that it wasn’t even funny.

Even if some poor civilian schmuck spends his entire life trying to get a clan status. Even if he was technically qualified. Without connections, he would still be fucked. Because the clans would not let him join their exclusive club of privileged assholes.

But Konoha was built on the shoulders of its clans. This was simply how things went in the village. Ren had an easy time because he had said connections. But others were not so lucky.

“You came prepared.” Hiruzen said with a frown.

“Of course, I did.” Ren barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

It was better not to leave things such as this to chance when Danzo was lurking around. For all he knew, his request might get misplaced if it was not foolproof.

“I’ll approve it.” Hiruzen said and looked Ren directly in the eyes, “But Ren. As the head of a new clan, remember that neither I nor my advisors like it when somebody goes behind our backs.”

Ren raised his eyebrow at Hiruzen, and seeing that he needed to be more direct, Hiruzen decided to elaborate.

“The Akimichi clan approached the Daimyo with a proposition to help with construction issues. The Daimyo leaped at the possibility.”

Ren’s eyes instantly gleamed at that as he realized why Hiruzen seemed so annoyed at being presented the Secrebo. The man knew it was Ren who told Choza to directly go and propose that to the Daimyo if the Hokage is not amenable.

He probably wanted to make things hard for Ren, but the gift of Secrebo made him unable to do so.

Some people might misunderstand due to their previous interactions, but Ren and Hiruzen were not friends. Ren would say they have respect for each other. But Ren was aware that Hiruzen was not exactly helping him.

After that ‘discussion’ about the Daimyo’s arrival he was dragged into a few weeks prior, Ren put a bit of thinking into Hiruzen’s intentions. And he didn’t like the conclusion.

The old man was basically using him to distract Danzo. Maybe from Asuma. Maybe from Naruto. Or maybe it was from something else. Ren had no idea. But while Ren didn’t think the old man was actively malicious or wished him ill, his intentions were not exactly friendly.

“With all due respect, Lord Hokage, that is Choza’s clan business.” Ren casually said, making Hiruzen’s frown widen as the two stared at each other and the tension in the room rose.

Because, yeah. Tough luck. Choza went behind his back? Well, maybe he should have been open to the suggestion of widening the mission roster in the first place, duh.

The Land of Fire has thousands of ongoing construction projects. Many of which are massive in scale. And this world has no construction machines. But you know what it does have? It has the freaking Akimichi clan.

Of course, doing construction work is beneath high-ranking ninjas. Why should the village accept easy money like that, right?

Honestly, Ren didn’t feel even a smidge of guilt for telling Choza to step around the Hokage and go straight for the Daimyo. And of course, the Daimyo was elated when such a possibility was proposed to him.

Hiruzen and his butt-buddies were just butthurt that he would not be benefiting from it.

Ren knew that Choza proposed it to them. Several times, in fact. But they refused. So, now that the deal between the Daimyo and the Akimichi clan is a clan business, they have no way of butting into it. And that grates on their nerves.

Idiots.

Hiruzen’s shoulders slumped in feigned vulnerability. “Ren, you need to understand that every moment an Akimichi spends on such a mission is not spent preparing and training. One such mission does not matter. But if this becomes the preferred pick for the Akimichi ninjas…” He trailed off, intent on giving Ren a lecture.

“Respectfully, who gave you that idea?” Ren asked as he crossed his arms on his chest.

Hiruzen pursed his lips as his mind strayed toward Homura, “Does it matter?” He asked.

“Of course it does. It’s a load of bullshit. You want to tell me that escort missions somehow prepare and train our ninjas?” Ren flatly asked, giving the Hokage a look, and while the old man kept his poker face, it was obvious he was somewhat speechless at the comparison.

Most escort missions were peaceful with no combat. They… really were nothing but a waste of time for ninjas. The only highlight was that the ninjas and the village were paid for them.

“And the Akimichi are all about strength. Lifting heavy objects while having to keep their gigantification up for long periods of time sounds like a good training to me.” Ren added, trying not to sound condescending.

But of course, the Hokage knew all this. That was not the point. It was about ‘face’. Hokage said no to this. And Ren with Choza disobeyed by not listening and going around him.

Seeing that there would be no agreement reached right now, Hiruzen let out a tired breath. “Nevertheless, I won’t appreciate any similar breach of my authority, Chunin Ren. That is an order.” He said and released a bit of his killing intent.

Ren… shrugged.

Compared to the killing intent of an enraged jinchuuriki like Yagura, who was also an S-rank ninja normally, the old Hiruzen’s killing intent was basically a toddler’s tantrum.

It lacked that Bijuu level of, ‘I killed thousands without even realizing it, tehee~’, weight to it.

“Okay.” Ren said, not really intending to upset the status quo again until Hiruzen either croaked or lost his position in a few months. He recognized that Tsunade would be a much more amendable Hokage as far as change goes.

It was not immediately obvious, but Hiruzen was a traditionalist for the most part. Once he was certain that a change was needed, he was quick to implement it. But he would resist it otherwise. The persuading part was the real challenge.

“Dismissed.” Hiruzen grumpily uttered after signing the documents and giving them back to Ren.

Taking them into his hands, Ren smiled.

He was now a proud member of Konoha’s newest clan.

The Yotsuba clan.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep