A/N: Renamed Foundation to Root, and sorry for the delay! I'm dropping 10 chapters today, then starting tomorrow expect 2–3 chapters daily :) Happy reading!
Hiruzen Sarutobi drew on his pipe.
It was a long-standing habit. The smoke didn't really do anything for him anymore, not to his body.
At this point, it was more like a ritual.
"Authority," he murmured, "can be roughly summed up as how completely I can keep every faction and institution in the village under control…"
"The Hyuga Clan and the Uchiha Clan are nails. They have to be pulled." Hiruzen shook his head, then glanced down again at the report Sakumo Hatake had submitted.
It was about what Hizashi Hyuga had done yesterday, inside the clan compound.
"That kid's got a mean streak," Hiruzen said quietly. "I can use that."
Taken together with the intelligence they'd gathered and what Hizashi himself had said, that branch family was practically a ready-made base of support for him as Hokage.
It was hard to find a better group to unite with than the Hyuga branch house.
Even civilian ninja in Konoha had an absurd amount of freedom during peacetime. If they wanted missions, they took them. If they didn't, they stayed home and slept all day. Nobody could stop them.
The Hyuga looked like a great clan from the outside, but most of them didn't have anything close to that freedom.
It was like a feudal military bloc with a slave system hidden inside it.
I need to cultivate Hizashi, Hiruzen decided, a sharp glint cutting through his gaze. Let him make a real mess inside the Hyuga.
Not just an ordinary Anbu operative. I want him showing he can command a squad.
If Hizashi had that kind of standing, he'd have the leverage to slowly build influence within the Hyuga Clan, draw in other branch members who wanted to follow his example, and with that, their yearning for the Hokage's protection would only grow.
"As for the main house," Hiruzen thought, "leave them alone for now. They've been sitting up on that high horse for years. Let Hizashi's fire lick at them first. When they're desperate enough, then I'll sit down with them with a smile and talk."
Suppress first, then extend a hand. It never stopped working.
A gift on top of comfort was nothing compared to help in a blizzard.
As for where that "blizzard" came from… well. No need to ask.
"But where's the opening with the Uchiha Clan?"
"Hard to find…"
From Hiruzen's perspective, the Uchiha Clan and the Hokage building were separated by a brutal lack of trust.
And it wasn't one simple reason. It was everything stacked together.
The weight of history alone was a problem.
If he put himself in their place, if he'd been born into the Uchiha, he would've kept his distance from the Hokage's circle too.
What choice did they have? The mess between Tobirama Senju and the Uchiha had been a famous joke in the shinobi world since the Warring States era, all the way to the present.
It had spawned who knew how many little storybooks. Hiruzen had even heard that some sheltered nobles liked obsessing over it.
The fact that the Senju and the Uchiha had worked together to found the village felt surreal to him, even now.
It had been forced forward by two men, Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha. The rest of the leadership on both sides never truly reconciled. The hatred was real, and it stayed.
If you only looked at the beginning of the truce, it was almost elegant.
Madara demanded that Hashirama kill himself, and only then did they "reconcile."
It sounded harsh. It sounded ridiculous.
But Hashirama agreeing gave the defeated Uchiha something to step down onto without losing face. It gave Madara exactly the respect he needed.
It took two clans that should've been tearing each other apart, furious over Izuna Uchiha's grievous wounds and the dead piled behind them, and somehow made them stop and shake hands.
A retreat that was really an advance. Hashirama had taken the high road so completely it was hard not to be moved by it.
The problem was what came after.
Nothing was ever turned into a system. There were no rules strong enough to hold it together. It was all propped up by Hashirama's personal charisma.
Then Tobirama Senju took over, and the Uchiha Clan's hope in the very idea of "Hokage" collapsed. Then Kagami Uchiha died, and everything piled on top of everything else until it became what it was now.
The Uchiha problem had turned into a wall.
Take the Konoha Military Police Force, for example.
Anyone with eyes could tell it was policy created by the Second Hokage to restrain the Uchiha.
First, it kept them inside the village. They couldn't take missions as often, couldn't focus on training and combat. Instead they were stuck doing internal security work where real fighting was rare. Over time, their edge dulled. A lion with its fangs pulled.
Second, a single clan being made the face of law enforcement, combined with the Uchiha temperament, meant their reputation was doomed to rot. The village would resent them more and more.
And now, even if Hiruzen wanted to pull the Uchiha out of the police, it would be painfully difficult.
Because that position was the last stale piece of bread in their hands.
For them, the fear of losing what they had outweighed any desire to gain something new.
And Hiruzen's own identity made it worse. As Tobirama's student, he could hardly expect trust from the older generation of Uchiha.
In that situation, even the crudest method, forcing them to give up benefits, wouldn't accomplish much.
Between them, there was a chain of suspicion that couldn't be cut.
"To settle the Uchiha Clan," Hiruzen muttered, rubbing at his brow, "I need a communication bridge strong enough to stand under pressure."
"The older Uchiha are useless for this. It has to be someone new. A genius who leans toward the village, thinks on the same wavelength I do, and can build real influence inside the clan."
"Shisui's promising. Kagami's descendant, too. But he's still too young…"
"If I wait for him to grow into it… how many years will that take?"
"Sensei," Hiruzen thought with a weary bitterness, "you left me a pile of garbage. People say the one who tied the bell should untie it, but even if you were here, I doubt you'd do much better."
In Hiruzen's memories, Tobirama always told Kagami that he never discriminated against the Uchiha, that the Uchiha Clan were the ones with true love in their hearts, they just aimed it the wrong way.
Hiruzen had always thought that was something you said to a simple-minded man like Kagami.
If Hiruzen had been reborn as an Uchiha, unless Tobirama could be sealed inside his body so they could "talk" at length, he wouldn't have wanted to waste a single extra word on him.
Not because he didn't have arguments.
Because he didn't want to die to Flying Raijin Slice.
Hiruzen stared at the Hokage portraits in his office, eyes settling on Tobirama Senju's severe face, those red eyes that looked almost like an Uchiha's.
A thought slid through his mind.
This was the shinobi world. There were jutsu for everything.
Was it possible to bring his teacher back?
But not as Tobirama Senju.
As an Uchiha.
Hiruzen's hand closed into a fist.
He'd considered Summoning Jutsu: Reanimation before.
That technique couldn't fully recreate a shinobi at their peak, but Tobirama Senju wasn't just a shinobi. He was the greatest scientist the shinobi world had ever produced. For someone like him, a mind was enough.
And for Hiruzen, who wanted Konoha to build a "technology gap," a "technology hegemony," the desire for Tobirama's help was almost unbearable.
It sounded upside down, but it was true.
There were two problems.
First, in the state created by Summoning Jutsu: Reanimation, the body wasn't alive. It couldn't nourish the soul. Three or five days might be fine, but longer than that was like drying the soul out.
That was still his teacher. The Second Hokage of Konoha. How could he subject him to something that cruel?
Second was a blunt, practical reality.
Hiruzen wanted to develop Konoha. Diversify, move fast, make the village stronger with as much efficiency as possible.
But there was a premise he could not compromise on.
Konoha had to remain under his rule.
If Tobirama Senju himself came back, forget the difficulty of reviving him. Hiruzen knew the man too well. The Second Hokage would absolutely try to become Konoha's power behind the throne.
Not because Tobirama was addicted to authority, but because someone like him had an overwhelming sense of self. He would never sit quietly and watch others steer the ship.
And that would mean the power in Hiruzen's hands would inevitably bleed away.
For a Hokage who needed authority, that was unacceptable.
But if Tobirama was revived as an Uchiha…
Everything seemed to fall into place.
All he needed was a suitable identity, an orphaned survivor, perhaps. Or, if he was bold, he could claim it outright.
A descendant of Izuna Uchiha.
Tobirama knew Izuna well, didn't he? Wearing that mask shouldn't be difficult for him.
And with that, the best possible bridge between the Hokage and the Uchiha Clan would exist.
And Tobirama, reborn as an Uchiha, would be unable by nature to interfere too much with Hiruzen's authority as Hokage.
Because no matter what, Konoha's unified belief was the Will of Fire.
Given Tobirama's history with the Uchiha Clan, if the village learned that the Second Hokage had returned in an Uchiha body, it would plant something rotten in everyone's mind.
Killing people wasn't enough. Now you were stealing bodies too?
So if Tobirama was truly revived as "Tobirama Uchiha," then he could only live in Konoha as an Uchiha. He could never return to being the Second Hokage.
That secret would have to be buried forever.
Sensei, I'm the Hokage. You're just an Uchiha.
Even if he offered advice, it would stay advice.
The idea had started as a flicker, nothing more than seeing Tobirama's red eyes in the portrait.
But once it began, it ran through Hiruzen's head like a horse that had broken its reins.
He was already thinking through practical methods.
How to revive Tobirama Senju…
No.
How to revive Tobirama Uchiha.
In that instant, forbidden techniques flooded his mind. Soul techniques. Chakra techniques.
He stared at Tobirama's portrait like he could burn a hole through it.
Then he moved.
One step at a time, slow and deliberate, toward the Second Hokage.
And right then—
A knock sounded at the Hokage's office door.
Danzo Shimura stood outside.
Behind him were Koharu Utatane and Homura Mitokado.
"Come in," Hiruzen said, eyes still fixed on Tobirama's portrait.
By the time the three of them entered and saw Hiruzen standing like that, all of them froze.
Hiruzen… were you missing your teacher that much?
The moment stretched.
"Hiruzen, you…" Danzo finally spoke, breaking the strange silence.
Hiruzen turned his head. His gaze met Danzo's, and in his eyes was a coldness that sat alongside razor-sharp thought.
"Yes. Sorry to keep you waiting."
"I was thinking something over. Sit."
And the three of them just stared.
Hiruzen's posture. His tone. Most of all, that look in his eyes.
Why did he suddenly feel so much like their teacher?