Chapter 173 - Ch173. Consequences of the negotiation

Days slowly passed and Konan returned, almost glowing with happiness. The monetary payment was but one single thing among many she managed to negotiate and honestly, Konan thought this was the performance of her career.

To name a few results...

Konoha's ninjas were forbidden to enter the Land of Snow. If even one ninja belonging to Konoha was found within the territory of the Land of Snow, it would instantly become a matter between Daimyos of Snow and Fire and the Biri-Biri company would take the side of the Daimyo of Snow. And with it, the other countries.

The Hokage would disband the ROOT organization for good. Well... Rei didn't put much faith in Hiruzen of all people as he was almost sure Danzo would just screw with him anyway and keep ROOT active out of the sight but officially ROOT was supposed to not exist anymore.

The best part, however, was that all villages and countries now knew ROOT is 'disbanded' which basically meant that if even a single ROOT agent was caught and confirmed to belong to that organization from hence on, Konoha would be shit out of luck with their own Daimyo due to the diplomatic shitstorm it would cause. Sometimes, diplomatic pressure can be much more devastating than brute force.

At least, Danzo would have to be more discreet and careful in his operations from now on and as such, nothing would go as smoothly or quickly for him as it was up till now.

And since the massively overpriced payment was mainly compensation to the Land of Snow and the Yukimi clan, Konoha naturally had to compensate Yukigakure too since they were the 'main' victim whose founding clan was 'kidnapped'. Konan complained for days about how much nitpicking went into it. She knew exactly which techniques she had to ask for and by the end of the negotiation, copies of at least a hundred D and C ranked techniques were handed out into her hands to be given to Yukigakure. Within those, there were even some high-ranking ones such as Shadow Clones.

Sure, Tsunade brought the technique with her when she moved the Senju library into the mansion in Rei's dimension but now that Konoha 'handed' it over to Yukigakure, Rei can simply 'buy' the technique from Yukigakure and nobody can say he stole it from Konoha when the ninjas of his future village use it. After all, Shadow Clones was a strictly regulated and safeguarded technique of Konoha so having a foreign ninja using it would create some friction if there was no 'justifiable' reason for 'how' exactly it was possible.

As for the low-ranked techniques... of course, they would get to Yukigakure only after Konan made copies. Needless to say, these were all techniques whose presence lacked in the Senju library. They would surely be useful for someone after being put in the library of the new village.

Honestly, tricking Konoha with the discount for the Biri-Biri goods was just icing on the cake. Not a week passed after Konan returned when she received a missive from Hokage, requesting a bigger supply of goods in the Biri-Biri shops located in Konoha.

Reading it, Konan... simply blew a raspberry and with joyous laughter cut the supply by an additional ten percent.

Even after the Kyuubi incident, losing a lot of lives and having a part of the village completely demolished, Konoha was still considered the strongest and while there were attempts to usurp this place, they failed. Nobody could have guessed it would be a simple reimburs.e.m.e.nt and greed that would actually make Konoha fall from their grace.

Paying double their annual income in ten years timeframe... the budget for Konoha grew even tighter than it was before and many of the rebuilding projects slowed to crawl. The richest village was officially having financial problems and for the first time since its creation, the Fire Daimyo had to send monetary support to Konoha apart from the standard funding.

The higher-ups of Konoha became the laughing stock of the decade while the name of Na Kona became the equivalent of a devil who dethroned Konoha from its position of strongest via giving them a discount. Konan's alias sent shudders through the leaders of various countries and hidden villages even more than Madara's name.

After all, no matter how scary the legend Madara left behind was, Konan could make their life very unpleasant for a very long time very fast with a bright innocent smile.

After Konan's return, she was especially glad that Pakura and Rei became a lot closer even though it made her disgruntled that the thing that bonded them was their work in the village. Here she put so much effort into making them not talk or even think about work and they dared to completely ignore her!

The worst part... she could not even call Rei a workaholic because he just made sure to spend most of his time with her or her 'sisters' despite his heavy workload. It was as infuriating as it was flattering, really.

Tsunade, on the other hand, complained about Konan's negotiation in Konoha because the Fire Daimyo was writing one complaint after another.

At first, the guy was full of giddiness when he heard about the discount Konoha would be receiving. After all, the Biri-Biri didn't just deal with seals for ninjas. They had various luxury goods, electrical appliances, gadgets that made life easier... nobles and Daimyos simply loved having them and the Fire Daimyo most likely already saw himself with his new and cheaply-acquired goods.

But then, the supply to Konoha was cut and one very happy Daimyo became a very angry and unhappy camper. He literally camped his own desk in his office and spent his time writing letters to Tsunade who was the current head of the Biri-Biri company under her alias.

Needless to say, Tsunade was flabbergasted and exasperated, not knowing what to do. The Senju clan always had good relations with the royal family of the Land of Fire. There was a lot going on behind the scenes between the two and it had a lot of importance but on the other hand, the Fire Daimyo had no idea that the head of the Biri-Biri was a Senju. Plus weakening Konoha, as distasteful as it sounded in her mind, was a good step for keeping the world balanced. Somehow, the second Konoha lost its place as the 'strongest' hidden village, the other villages didn't descend into a frenzy and try to attack them.

No... the other Kages actually seemed content with the situation and just sat tight on their asses, focusing on developing the economy of their own villages. Heck, nobody was even arming up as the purchases of weapons dropped by five whole percent despite them being ninja villages.

In the end, the Fire Daimyo had to just suck it up and because Tsunade refused to budge.