Naruto: The Shameless Uchiha Tycoon

The fallout from the riverbank incident was swift, brutal, and entirely hilarious.

Itachi, possessing a mind that absorbed information like a sponge, had taken Ren’s defamation campaign to heart. The very next day, during a formal clan gathering, the two-year-old prodigy had walked up to the Uchiha head treasurer and politely asked if the Police Force provided life insurance policies with compound interest.

The treasurer nearly had an aneurysm.

By sunset, Ren was summoned to the main hall.

He knelt on the tatami mats beside his dad. Across the low wooden table sat three senior Uchiha elders, their faces twisted into identical expressions of profound disgust.

”This has gone far enough, Fugaku,” the center elder hissed, slamming a fist onto the table. ”We turned a blind eye to your eldest son’s incompetence. We accepted that he was a lost cause. But now, he is actively poisoning the well!”

”He is corrupting the second heir,” the elder on the right spat, glaring at Ren as if the eight-year-old were a walking plague. ”He is dragging Itachi down to his own useless level!”

His dad kept his posture rigid, his jaw clenched so tightly the muscles jumped. ”Ren is merely... misguided. I will double his discipline—”

”No need, Dad,” Ren interrupted smoothly.

He didn’t bow. He didn’t cower. He simply sat up straight, folded his hands in his lap, and looked directly at the elders.

”You are absolutely right,” Ren declared, his voice ringing clearly through the tense room.

The elders blinked, completely thrown off guard. His dad turned his head, staring at him in shock.

You want to get rid of me? Ren thought, hiding a massive, victorious grin behind a mask of solemn contrition. Let me help you pack my bags.

”I am a terrible influence,” Ren continued, nodding enthusiastically. ”I am lazy. I lack the Will of Fire. I am a fundamental detriment to Itachi’s development as a weapon of this clan.”

”Ren, silence,” his dad warned, his Sharingan threatening to activate.

”Therefore,” Ren plowed ahead, completely ignoring his father, ”I propose a mutually beneficial agreement. A legally binding clan contract.”

The center elder narrowed his eyes. ”What kind of agreement?”

”I will completely stay away from Itachi during all official training hours,” Ren offered, laying out his terms like a seasoned negotiator. ”I will not interfere with his shuriken practice. I will not block Shisui. I will not talk to him about 401(k) matching or unpaid overtime.”

Ren leaned forward, resting his hands on the table.

”In exchange, the clan officially writes me off. You legally stop forcing me to train. No more dawn taijutsu. No more academy prep. No more expectations. You ignore me forever, and I let you have your prodigy.”

The room fell dead silent.

The elders looked at each other, silent conversations passing between their dark eyes. To them, Ren was already worthless. Wasting clan resources and instructors on a boy who actively refused to learn was inefficient. Trading that wasted effort to secure Itachi’s untainted development was, from a cold, militaristic standpoint, an absolute bargain.

”Agreed,” the center elder said flatly.

”Elders, wait—” his dad started, his voice laced with humiliation.

”The decision is made, Fugaku,” the elder snapped, dismissing the clan head entirely. They looked at Ren with nothing but contempt. ”You are free to rot in your own mediocrity, boy.”

Ren didn’t flinch.

Call it whatever you want, Ren thought, standing up and brushing off his knees. The safest place in a spy village is beneath contempt.

He turned and walked out of the room. His dad was humiliated, but Ren was absolutely delighted. He had just negotiated his own legal freedom.

Two Years Later

The freedom, as it turned out, was agonizingly short-lived.

For a brief, glorious period, Ren’s life was peaceful. The elders completely ignored him. No one forced him to attend morning training. No one shoved wooden kunai into his hands. Aside from his dad occasionally glaring at him across the dinner table, he was entirely left to his own devices.

Then, just a few days after he celebrated his tenth birthday, the sirens rang.

The border skirmishes that had been bleeding the hidden villages for years finally boiled over into a full-scale, violent conflict. Sunagakure officially declared war on Konoha, wildly proclaiming that the Leaf had assassinated the Third Kazekage.

Ren stood on the engawa, listening to the deafening wail of the village alarms.

Idiots, Ren thought, looking toward the western horizon. Konoha didn’t touch your Kazekage. Sasori turned him into a human puppet. But hey, who is going to believe a ten-year-old?

He couldn’t say a word. And in this era, being ten years old did not offer him any protection.

In the peaceful, nostalgic era of Naruto’s generation, kids enjoyed a comfortable, six-year Academy curriculum full of pranks and basic theory. Not here. In the militaristic meat grinder of the Third Shinobi War, ten was not a kid. Ten was a fully-fledged ninja.

Kids in this era graduated at eight, maybe ten if they were slow. They were handed a forehead protector, pushed to the front lines, and often didn’t even return as corpses.

The war officially consumed the continent. And true to his worst fears, shortly after the sirens rang, his dad dragged a four-year-old Itachi to the battlefield just to show him the mountain of dead bodies. Ren had tried to stop it, but as a ”disgraced” son, he had absolutely zero authority to override the clan head’s parenting.

He could only watch as the war dragged on, chewing through the village’s youth.

Two Years Into the War

By the time Ren turned twelve, Konoha’s manpower was strapped to the absolute breaking point.

The Sannin were fighting legends, but the sheer volume of casualties on the Iwa and Suna fronts was unsustainable. The village was bleeding dry.

Ren walked through the grim, heavily rationed streets of Konoha, keeping his head down. A piece of paper fluttered in the wind, catching on a nearby notice board. He walked over, pulling it flat against the wood to read the bold, black ink.

MANDATORY EMERGENCY GRADUATION EXAMS.

ALL ELIGIBLE YOUTHS REPORT TO THE ACADEMY.

An emergency decree.

The draft had officially reached the bottom of the barrel. If you could hold a kunai, if you could mold even a thimble of chakra, the village was going to slap a headband on you and throw you into the mud.

Ren stared at the notice. His heart hammered against his ribs, but this time, it wasn’t out of panic.

As the eldest son of the Uchiha patriarch, there was absolutely no way he could legally back out of showing up. Draft dodging was treason. He had to walk into that Academy room and face the proctors.

But he didn’t have to pass.

For twelve years, he had painstakingly built a flawless resume of absolute garbage. He had endured the mockery of his entire clan to establish a very specific reputation.

Today, that decade-long plan was going to face its final, ultimate test.

He wasn’t fighting an enemy ninja. He was fighting the bureaucracy of a death cult.

Ren ripped the notice off the board, crumpling it in his fist.

I am not dying in a trench for you people, he swore to himself, turning his back on the Hokage monument and walking toward the Academy. Watch me fail.