Chapter 190: The Truth Behind the Mastermind Has Only One Answer! Hiruzen Sarutobi Takes the Fall for Everything!
Orochimaru flipped through the technical manual in his hands, his brow furrowing deeper with every page.
How could this possibly be an entire turn-key technical suite?
Everything was laid out in exhaustive detail: design blueprints for the winged flight suits, the operational principles and scheduled maintenance protocols for the airborne fortress, schematics for the aircraft carrier platforms...
Even the energy conversion schematics and structural diagrams for using the Zero-Tails—a high-density cluster of negative emotion chakra—as an operational power core were completely documented.
"Hiruko, take a look at this."
Orochimaru handed the manual over to Hiruko, a look of hesitation crossing his face that had not been seen in years.
Hiruko took the sheaf of documents. Once he skimmed the contents, he joined Orochimaru in profound, deadpan silence, both assuming the posture of The Thinker.
What on earth was the operational logic here?
This was the strategic equivalent of Konoha deploying its entire military vanguard to wage total war against a rival hidden village, only to casually leave the Scroll of Seals sitting wide open on a folding table in an abandoned forward camp.
Did this make any sense whatsoever?
"Do you think it is a trap?" Orochimaru asked cautiously, thumbing through yet another technical binder.
"It does not appear fabricated," Hiruko answered, his tone laced with doubt. "There is no tactical ROI in them deceiving us like this. It defies basic game theory. Furthermore, if these assets ever enter actual factory pipelines, our production lines will not follow the documentation blindly anyway; our R&D division would recalibrate and verify every tolerance parameter regardless."
Neither Hiruko nor Orochimaru could be classified as conventional humanitarians by any operational standard.
Within Konohagakure, their public relations profile was pristine. Thanks to their pioneering development of prosthetic limbs, industrial-utility scrolls, and diverse public-welfare assets, they always maintained pleasant, approachable smiles whenever greeting village civilians and active-duty shinobi.
Beyond Konoha's borders, however, Orochimaru was cataloged across the bingo books as an S-rank extreme hazard, while Hiruko was universally branded as a ruthless ambush specialist who struck from the shadows.
Yet today, both elite researchers wore the dazed, thoroughly bewildered expressions of honest technicians confronting an impossible data anomaly.
They had witnessed every deployment scenario imaginable in the field.
They had never witnessed an enemy force hand over their entire proprietary tech stack on a silver platter.
"We need to brief Sensei immediately," Orochimaru murmured, massaging the bridge of his nose. When an asset acquisition went this smoothly, corporate instinct screamed that an unseen trap was waiting in the blind spot. "There are deeper variables moving under the surface here. We must conduct a thorough operational post-mortem."
Hiruko gave a solemn nod. "Go ahead. I will proceed with the ordinance disposal and site-clearing protocols per Lord Hokage's direct orders."
Hiruko had assumed that reverse-engineering, decompiling, and securing Soragakure's tech assets would require an arduous, protracted campaign.
"You always execute Sensei's administrative directives so faithfully," Orochimaru observed with a slight smirk. Not keen on disputing the hazardous disposal assignment, he turned and strode out of the subterranean installation.
Meanwhile, on the surface, Hiruzen Sarutobi stood with his brows locked in deep concentration, turning over that fleeting trace of the Reanimation Jutsu he had caught moments earlier.
The implications behind that signature were staggering.
A high-tier entity capable of evading Mito Uzumaki's complete sensory sweep—forcing her to saturate the airspace with Tailed Beast chakra just to achieve AoE suppression—had been maintaining real-time surveillance over Konoha while airborne and utilizing the reanimation protocol.
This individual was undeniably linked to Soragakure's hostile corporate raid.
"Sensei, what is weighing on your mind?" Orochimaru inquired as he approached, noting the heavy lines etched across Hiruzen's forehead.
Hiruzen gave him a concise summary of the reanimation chakra signature he had intercepted.
Orochimaru froze, his expression tightening into a sharp scowl.
Why was every data point crossing their desk today so deeply bizarre?
Hiruzen drew his pipe from his vest, tapped down the tobacco leaf, and exhaled a dense, rolling cloud of smoke. The white plume drifted languidly into the crisp air, mirroring the impenetrable fog shrouding Soragakure's sudden assault.
Orochimaru stood beside him in silence, matching his mentor's contemplative rhythm. But gradually, the solemnity on the snake-sannin's face cracked, his features twitching as pure, unadulterated realization struck him. His golden slitted eyes widened in sheer astonishment.
"Sensei... I have a field report that might correlate with this."
Orochimaru cast a sweeping glance across the immediate perimeter. Once he confirmed that no Anbu operatives or patrol units were within earshot, he relayed the inexplicable discoveries pulled from Soragakure's command bunker.
Hiruzen puffed steadily on his pipe, one rhythmic draw after another, his internal executive monologue running at maximum capacity.
What kind of absurd operational report was this?
Local Soragakure assets near Konoha elected to terminate their own enterprise via self-destruction, but thoughtfully left behind their entire aerospace R&D portfolio for Konoha's portfolio expansion?
Cross-referencing their verified intelligence: Soragakure had an anonymous entity operating as its strategic backer, while an ancient shinobi operating with Grand-Sensei Tobirama's tactical playbook had been monitoring Konoha's defensive response.
Whether these two entities were a single individual was something Hiruzen could not verify with absolute certainty just yet. But their operating methodology shared the exact same operational DNA.
Especially after this latest Soragakure raid, Hiruzen finally pinned down why this whole affair gave him such intense, ridiculous deja vu.
Someone was treating this entire geopolitical theater like an MMORPG.
Some shadowy high-level NPC was forcibly assigning high-stakes world quests to Konohagakure and its Hokage. Manage to clear the raid encounter, and the quest engine dumped high-tier tech rewards directly into your inventory.
Greetings, adventurer! Today's campaign has begun!
The only caveat was that this gamemaster was utterly ruthless. There were no checkpoints or save states; failing the encounter meant catastrophic collateral damage, civilian casualties, and severe infrastructural fallout.
Hiruzen felt a throbbing headache setting in behind his temples.
Decades of operational experience told him that, looking at the pristine technical assets left in Soragakure's vault, this mysterious heavyweight was operating under intense ideological obsession. It was not purely an enterprise of wanton destruction; rather, it functioned as an aggressive, quasi-benevolent trial testing Konoha's organizational mettle.
"Who fits this profile?"
Hiruzen combed through his mental registry of historical powerhouses. After a moment's reflection, an ironic, self-deprecating chuckle escaped him. "Orochimaru, you know... this operational style bears an uncanny resemblance to my late father."
"Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the patriarchs of that entire era operated under that exact mindset. They took perverse pleasure in subjecting their clansmen and youth to brutal trials. Pass the crucible, and you were elevated as the clan's peerless treasure; fail, and you were discarded as useless overhead."
"My father was marginally better than his peers, but not by much."
"Ah, the charming pedagogical philosophy of the Warring States period," Hiruzen muttered under his breath, venting an old grievance from his youth. "Regardless, the figure orchestrating Soragakure's assets from the shadows is unquestionably a high-ranking veteran of the Warring States era. With this deployment, he has once again exposed a fraction of his operational signature."
Hiruzen's expression darkened.
To possess working deployment schematics for the Edo Tensei meant having direct, indisputable institutional links to Grand-Sensei Tobirama.
Did that mean the culprit was most likely an ancient Senju clansman?
Alternatively, an Uzumaki elder was equally plausible. At its foundational architecture, the Reanimation Jutsu was an intricate synthesis of summoning contracts and high-grade fuinjutsu, and the Senju and Uzumaki had maintained continuous operational data-sharing throughout the pre-village era.
Orochimaru observed his teacher, his gaze wandering slightly.
A Warring States veteran of exceptional pedigree?
Orochimaru evaluated the dynamic. His bond with Hiruzen went far beyond standard organizational hierarchy; though formally mentor and disciple, they operated closer to father and son, grounded entirely in positive reinforcement, high autonomy, and institutional sponsorship. It bore zero resemblance to the brutal Spartan conditioning of the Warring States.
I have to speak plainly, Orochimaru resolved internally. I cannot allow Sensei to remain blind and carry the political fallout for this.
Stepping in closer, Orochimaru lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Sensei... the Second Hokage, Lord Tobirama... back in the Warring States era, he held the highest executive authority within the Senju clan, did he not?"
"Naturally. While Grand-Sensei Tobirama operated as the second-in-command on paper, he was the chief operating officer managing every strategic decision, including personnel training, supply-chain logistics, and field command."
Hiruzen had not yet connected the dots of Orochimaru's deduction, adding with a faint smile, "Except on matters concerning Madara, where Lord Hashirama retained absolute veto power."
Orochimaru let out a long, deliberate hum.
"Sensei, are you entirely certain that the jutsu architecture you witnessed earlier was the Edo Tensei?"
"Without question. While its reconstitution velocity was significantly accelerated compared to historical documentation, I could never mistake the underlying algorithmic structure of that technique."
Hiruzen confirmed the observation with absolute confidence. He possessed the structural literacy to decompile jutsu mechanics at a glance; it was only in recent years that he had truly begun to justify the industry moniker of the Professor of Ninjutsu.
"Then tell me, Sensei," Orochimaru murmured with quiet intensity. "Across the entire shinobi world, aside from yourself, Lady Mito, and me... who else possesses the clearance and technical capacity to execute the Edo Tensei?"
"No other active assets in the village possess that knowledge. It seems our analytical conclusions align." Hiruzen nodded, visibly gratified by his pupil's sharp deduction.
Orochimaru paused, slightly taken aback. "Sensei, shall we reveal our conclusions on the count of three?"
"It is undoubtedly a rogue Senju or Uzumaki legacy operative who went off-grid during the founding period or the Warring States era," Hiruzen stated flatly.
"It is the Second Hokage himself. He never perished in the First Shinobi World War; he went deep underground to operate as a shadow entity," Orochimaru stated simultaneously.
Hiruzen stared at him, his pipe freezing halfway to his mouth.
How in the world had this boy leaped to Grand-Sensei Tobirama?
He was the Second Hokage of Konohagakure!
Hiruzen had momentarily overlooked an immense cognitive blind spot in his own logic. He knew with absolute metaphysical certainty that Tobirama Senju was alive because he personally managed the transfer protocols that bound Tobirama's soul into an Izuna-derived Uchiha vessel named Seisui.
However, that classified top-secret operational asset was sealed beneath countless layers of state security.
Elder Isshin had inadvertently poured a fresh slab of structural concrete over the cover story, fully integrating Seisui as an ancestral Uchiha prodigy. At this point, even if Seisui stood on top of the Hokage Monument and screamed to the heavens that he was Tobirama Senju, the general public and clan leadership would simply laugh it off, assuming the kid was playing an elaborate historical prank honoring his late grand-uncle.
"What utter nonsense are you spouting, boy?" Hiruzen demanded instinctively.
The deduction was absurd on its face.
"Sensei, I realize this hypothesis is psychologically difficult to accept, but the entire forensic audit matches the data profile!" Orochimaru insisted. Feeling a pang of sympathy for his mentor, he swiftly wove a subtle hand seal, deploying a localized soundproofing and chakra-dampening barrier around them.
From Orochimaru's perspective, his grand-master's strategic conduct was entirely rational within extreme boundaries.
The man was merely running extreme pressure-test simulations to gauge Konoha's strategic resilience, while utilizing unconventional logistics channels to funnel cutting-edge military IP directly into the village's asset portfolio.
It was not impossible to understand.
At the very least, Orochimaru found the operational logic thoroughly relatable.
Years ago, back when severe ideological friction existed between himself and Hiruzen, Orochimaru had contemplated during late-night lab sessions whether he might eventually have to defect from the village, leveraging extreme external pressure to force Konoha's stagnant gears to turn. Stagnating within institutional rot was simply a prolonged, comfortable corporate liquidation.
That discarded contingency plan aligned remarkably well with the persona of Tobirama Senju that Orochimaru had pieced together from historical records.
Of course, the modern Orochimaru would never bring up that dark chapter of his psychological profile. Defecting was technically an option, but scaling an enterprise from within, backed by the limitless political capital and institutional funding of his Sensei, provided an infinitely broader operational runway.
"Where does the data match?"
Hiruzen snapped with rare urgency, his composure slipping. "How could you harbor such unfilial suspicions toward Grand-Sensei Tobirama? Mind your tongue, Orochimaru! You will maintain professional reverence toward your lineage master!"
Hiruzen took immense pride in his ethical administrative record.
He had dragged Tobirama out of the Pure Land to function as Konoha's premier black-ops R&D contractor. Even though their strategic partnership was mutually lucrative, he could not allow the venerable former Hokage—his own master—to shoulder a corporate liability and PR nightmare of this magnitude.
Regardless of whether Soragakure's raid served as an unconventional tech-transfer delivery vehicle, civilian infrastructure had taken direct kinetic fire. The hostile raid was an objective historical fact.
If this narrative leaked, it would incinerate Tobirama's historical legacy overnight.
Hiruzen had to admit that as his own administrative approval ratings, political capital, and public prestige had skyrocketed across the Land of Fire, Tobirama's historical stock had undergone a quiet, steady market correction.
The dominant public consensus among the civilian base was that Konoha had lagged behind in its modernization drive simply because Tobirama had liquidated his own life capital far too prematurely, forcing an excessively young Hiruzen Sarutobi to assume executive leadership and spend decades neutralizing internal institutional drag and structural debt.
Naturally, conservative Uchiha elders like Homura viewed it differently—they loudly grumbled that Tobirama had died several decades too late. In their eyes, Hiruzen should have taken the corporate helm at age eighteen, and Konoha's golden age would have arrived twenty years ahead of schedule.
"Sensei, please calibrate your emotional state. Remain objective," Orochimaru urged, his chest tightening with genuine empathy.
Sensei is far too noble, too bound by interpersonal sentiment, he thought.
An airtight evidential chain sat directly in front of him, yet Hiruzen actively denied the data purely out of personal loyalty to his deceased mentor. Orochimaru refused to believe that an executive intellect as formidable as the Hokage's had failed to spot such an obvious pattern.
Remembering his own past defect-and-rebuild contingencies, Orochimaru looked at the visibly distressed Hiruzen and felt an overwhelming urge to deliver a sharp, disciplinary slap to his own face.
He had been utterly ungrateful.
I must redouble my operational output for Sensei's administration, Orochimaru reaffirmed to himself. Besides, that old contingency was merely a passing strategic thought. Even if I had gone rogue back then, I would have set up an independent laboratory in the neutral zone; I would never have initiated a kinetic strike against the village or raised a hand against Sensei.
Clearing his throat, Orochimaru laid out his forensic audit with meticulous care. "Sensei, consider the progression. If our only variable were the Edo Tensei, I would readily concede your theory that a reclusive Senju or Uzumaki operative was responsible."
"However, look at the historical timeline. Consider the unidentified hostile who ambushed Amegakure and breached Yashiro Uchiha's sector. We have conducted multiple inter-departmental security reviews on his tactical profile."
"First, during the Yashiro engagement: the target displayed intimate architectural familiarity with Uchiha clan combat protocols. His mastery across ninjutsu, taijutsu, and genjutsu was absolute. He treated a senior Uchiha enforcer like a patriarch disciplining a novice academy recruit."
"At the time, internal security hypothesized the suspect was an ancient Uchiha rogue. Yet in retrospect, does Grand-Sensei Tobirama not match every single one of those tactical metrics?"
Orochimaru methodically connected the forensic nodes: "Then came the Amegakure incursion, where the target openly demonstrated proprietary repulsive force sealing arts combined with the Flying Thunder God zero-latency displacement protocol."
Hiruzen's processing capacity stalled.
Since transmigrating into this shinobi reality, this marked the very first time an operational briefing had completely derailed his situational awareness.
He held an unassailable factual anchor: Tobirama Senju was currently walking the earth as Seisui Uchiha.
Yet setting that classified variable aside, why did Orochimaru's deduction sound so horrifyingly plausible?
"Let us continue down the audit trail; two data points might be written off as circumstantial anomalies," Orochimaru said soothingly, managing his teacher's emotional bandwidth step by step. "Yet inside Soragakure's central archives, beyond securing an exhaustive aerospace R&D portfolio under absurdly frictionless conditions, I discovered their proprietary energy grid: a classified jutsu synthesizing negative emotion chakra."
"Furthermore, we recovered their cellular activation and tissue regeneration manuals, which explicitly carried technical annotations highlighting their utility in mitigating kinetic recoil and internal biological damage from the Eight Gates Released Formation. And mere moments ago, Might Dai deployed the Seventh Gate right before our eyes."
Orochimaru glanced toward the far edge of the clearing.
Might Dai was currently sprawled out across the scorched earth, laughing boisterously at the sky, celebrating the village's decisive defensive victory. However, having unsealed the Seventh Gate of Wonder, the catastrophic metabolic backlash had left his muscular architecture utterly depleted, leaving him paralyzed on the grass awaiting emergency medical extraction.
"Hold on a moment..."
Hiruzen's expression perfectly matched the stunned bewilderment previously worn by Orochimaru and Hiruko in the subterranean vault.
After a long pause, he managed a strained rebuttal: "That still fails to confirm Grand-Sensei Tobirama's involvement. It is entirely plausible that Soragakure's chief executive possessed an independent research interest in cellular biology and the Eight Gates."
"Orochimaru, you have reviewed the village's restricted historical archives. You know full well that the popular rumor claiming Grand-Sensei Tobirama invented the Eight Gates is entirely baseless historical fabrication. He never added that technique to his portfolio."
Hiruzen fought tooth and nail to clear Tobirama of this escalating liability.
His master's public standing was already shaky; he could not let his historical record be permanently vandalized.
"Sensei, we must evaluate this dataset with cold objectivity," Orochimaru sighed, shaking his head. "Consider the operational reality: why would the supreme leader of an aerospace syndicate abandon his core competitive advantages—flight mechanics and heavy artillery—to invest his personal R&D budget into cellular regeneration frameworks tailored specifically for forbidden taijutsu?"
"That represents a completely disjointed operational vertical! It defies all market logic!"
Hiruzen remained stone-faced. He was painfully aware of how corporate logic worked: an unbroken evidential chain could construct an impeccably sound hypothesis that was nonetheless factually dead wrong.
Reality had zero obligation to follow elegant deduction; real-world variables were frequently absurd beyond belief.
How could he possibly explain to his pupil that Shinnō, despite being the CEO of Soragakure, was simply a medical fanatic with an eccentric personal obsession with forbidden taijutsu hardware?
"It could easily be attributed to personal eccentricities," Hiruzen argued, his administrative defense sounding increasingly threadbare. "Look at your own portfolio: though your primary research vertical is ninjutsu architecture, you frequently deploy capital into biological engineering and host modification, do you not?"
Orochimaru offered a dry, dismissive smirk.
How could an operational non-entity like Shinnō be measured against the scientific genius of himself and Lord Tobirama? The man lacked the processing bandwidth to cross multiple R&D verticals.
"Sensei, within the Second Hokage's restricted research journals you granted me clearance to review, there are detailed theoretical margin notes analyzing the kinetic yield and physiological constraints of the Eight Gates. You are fully aware of this."
Hiruzen's face darkened instantly. He felt a sharp surge of retrospective regret for granting Orochimaru unrestricted security clearance to Tobirama's classified research archives.
The boy possessed far too much deductive bandwidth for his own good.
"Furthermore, regarding Soragakure's negative emotion chakra protocol—which they designated as the Zero-Tails—I audited its core mechanical theory. Its baseline architecture matches the early prototype blueprints documented in Grand-Sensei Tobirama's research journals with staggering fidelity."
"It is, for all intents and purposes, a mature derivative built directly upon his legacy IP."
Orochimaru cleared his throat softly. "Sensei, one match is a statistical outlier. Two or three might be dismissed as bizarre coincidences. But we are currently tracking five, six overlapping variables, capped off by the live deployment of the Edo Tensei."
Hiruzen stood frozen, a rare sense of intellectual dislocation washing over him.
He performed an internal sanity check. He personally verified that he had deployed Orochimaru's Living Corpse Reincarnation to anchor Tobirama's consciousness into Izuna's physical clone. His memory of the event was crystal clear.
After an agonizing silence, Hiruzen vented another massive cloud of smoke into the sky.
"Setting aside this chain of statistical anomalies, Grand-Sensei Tobirama lacks any coherent strategic motive to execute such a campaign!" Hiruzen asserted with iron authority. "This is not his work. Period."
"Sensei, how can you claim he lacks motive?"
Orochimaru clicked his tongue, shaking his head in mild exasperation. "Have you forgotten the extreme bureaucratic constraints imposed on Grand-Sensei's research pipeline during the founding era? He was the Hokage, yes, but he was also an elite researcher driven by intellectual curiosity. Did you not instruct me yourself that shinobi and Kage are, at their core, human beings driven by individual desires?"
"Consider the strategic yield: had Grand-Sensei not forced the issue from the shadows, would Soragakure's leadership ever have initiated a hostile raid against Konoha? Given your executive disposition, our administration would never have authorized an unprovoked preemptive strike against their sovereign territory at this stage of our economic development."
"Going through formal diplomatic and military channels would have delayed asset acquisition by years."
Orochimaru's eyes flared with brilliant deductive inspiration. "I once reviewed historical archives from the Warring States era, where veteran mercenaries referred to Grand-Sensei Tobirama as the 'First Darkness of the Shinobi World.' When viewed through that lens, the entire operational architecture locks perfectly into place!"
"You, Sensei, stand as Konoha's public Luminary—the benevolent Face of the village. Grand-Sensei Tobirama operates as the submerged Root, executing the morally ambiguous, high-yield black operations necessary to aggressively accelerate Konoha's strategic expansion. The institutional synergy between the Face and the Lining ensures long-term hegemony!"
Hiruzen let out a dry, helpless laugh.
There was a reason Orochimaru was his premier R&D asset.
The man's lateral thinking was peerless; give him three disconnected data points, and he would construct a grand, self-consistent unified field theory of geopolitical statecraft.
"Sensei... does that mean you validate my hypothesis?"
"Your deductive logic is remarkably constructed, but I reject your conclusion entirely!" Hiruzen countered sharply, his voice dropping into commanding Hokage resonance. "Orochimaru, Grand-Sensei Tobirama's Will of Fire was forged and validated through the fires of the Warring States! He would never deploy such reckless, extreme operational methods against his own home. He gave his life on the battlefield to ensure the survival of his students—including this humble disciple standing before you!"
"Your hypothesis is built entirely on circumstantial shadows and coincidental correlation. You possess an excess of high-level village intelligence, and you have forcefully stitched disparate data points together to fit a preconceived narrative."
"This internal audit terminates right here. You will not utter another word of this theory to anyone."
Hiruzen's tactical processing unit worked at maximum capacity, mapping out potential leak vectors across the village hierarchy.
Realistically, the only personnel capable of synthesizing this exact deductive leap were the high-tier minds within the R&D division—Orochimaru, Hiruko, and perhaps Tsunade. The rest of the shinobi corps lacked the requisite access to classified technical logs.
So long as he maintained a tight operational lid on the laboratory heads, systemic rumors would be contained.
Hiruzen felt a deep, lingering exhaustion.
Between Jiraiya's complete lack of political discipline and Orochimaru's unyielding irreverence toward historical authorities, his disciples possessed a terrifying lack of basic filial piety toward their administrative grand-master.
This insubordination had to be suppressed. Proper professional hierarchy had to be enforced.
Orochimaru parted his lips, hesitating.
He desperately wanted to suggest the most definitive, mathematically sound verification test available: simply attempt to execute the Reanimation Jutsu targeting Tobirama Senju's genetic material. If the reanimation protocol successfully pulled his soul from the Pure Land, the entire hypothesis was disproven on the spot.
If the reanimation protocol threw an exception and failed to initialize, it was incontrovertible proof that the user was still logged into an active physical server in the living world.
Yet Orochimaru suspected that even if the ritual failed, his mentor would somehow engineer a convoluted bureaucratic justification to absolve Grand-Sensei Tobirama of liability.
Corporate spin could rehabilitate any narrative.
After all, when high-level evidence pointed this directly at the truth, the Hokage had simply deployed executive authority to squash the investigation entirely.
When it comes to sensitive institutional legacy issues, the skies above Konoha can turn remarkably opaque, Orochimaru mused inwardly. Still, he understood the emotional calculus. It was simply the profound filial devotion between master and student clouding the Hokage's usually flawless administrative judgment.
Ultimately, Orochimaru chose institutional obedience and held his peace.
Hiruzen had just put on an apocalyptic display of physical dominance, casually deadlifting an airborne fortress out of the sky. If Orochimaru continued to aggressively litigate Tobirama's treasonous liabilities, he ran a very real risk of receiving a disciplinary, love-infused iron fist from his Sensei.
And that would hurt on an existential level.
"Since the universe has handed us this massive array of coincidences..." Hiruzen pivoted, steering the briefing back toward actionable administrative milestones, "our primary mandate is to leverage them for maximum ROI. We must exploit the architectural overlap between Konoha's existing infrastructure and Soragakure's captured technical IP, bringing mass production online within the village as rapidly as possible."
"Airborne superiority has historically represented a high-leverage combat vertical across the shinobi market, and an operational void in Konoha's tactical portfolio," Hiruzen commanded smoothly. "Submit your department's funding and material requisitions to the executive council without delay. The village treasury has authorized a zero-friction green channel for the R&D division."
"You carry an immense development burden on your shoulders, Orochimaru. Terminate these speculative distractions and focus your bandwidth on project execution."
Orochimaru straightened instantly, his expression turning thoroughly professional. "Understood, Sensei!"
State-sponsored, unlimited R&D clearance backed by a bottomless village budget.
Could there possibly be a more glorious corporate mandate in existence?
Hiruzen narrowed his eyes, casting his gaze upward into the clear blue expanse.
If Konoha's frontline shinobi could be fully outfitted with Soragakure's flight wings, the operational coverage radius of their patrol divisions would experience a multi-fold exponential leap. Integrating aerial assets with the sensory division would construct a three-dimensional early-warning firewall across the skies.
The security index of Konohagakure—and by extension, the entire Land of Fire—would be upgraded by several operational tiers.
Furthermore, in future large-scale theater engagements, the vast majority of enemy ambushes and terrain advantages would be rendered entirely obsolete. Even a standard Chunin, once certified in three-dimensional aerial mobility, would see their combat effectiveness index jump an entire bracket.
That was the undeniable strategic dividend of air superiority.
Then there is the airborne fortress itself, alongside their fleet carriers...
If Konoha can fully integrate these heavy transport platforms, our cross-border logistics infrastructure will see revolutionary optimization, drawing our corporate synergy with Amegakure closer than ever.
The thought of Amegakure brought a faint, satisfied smile to Hiruzen's lips.
Though the Land of Rain was geographically constrained, its perpetual precipitation had forced the nation to develop metallurgical processing and structural steel manufacturing capabilities that ranked among the absolute best in the shinobi world. The entire nation was an intricate labyrinth of industrial drainage infrastructure—a classic case of adversity driving specialized industrialization.
Now that the construction of large-scale hydrological dams had mitigated historical flood risks across the Land of Rain, the surplus industrial capacity and skilled labor pool could be immediately pivoted toward manufacturing airframes and precision components for Konoha's new flight wings.
I will assign Minato to manage the cross-border integration with Amegakure, Hiruzen planned. Nagato currently serves as the chief operating executive for the Rain, and he and Minato share formal fraternal ties under Jiraiya.
Furthermore, Minato has built excellent rapport with Hanzo, casually addressing him as an elder uncle during bilateral summits, much like Kimimaro's dynamic with Tenzo.
Hiruzen shifted his gaze eastward, looking toward the distant horizon where Kirigakure lay.
He wondered how Kimimaro and the other Kirigakure exchange students were faring under their overseas deployment. Beyond Kimimaro's steady progress, Hiruzen possessed a genuine soft spot for Kisame Hozuki—a grounded, remarkably earnest young operative.
During their occasional encounters during early-morning training circuits, Hiruzen would invite the boy to join him for breakfast, and Kisame would invariably scramble to pick up the bill with charming, flustered sincerity.
With Soragakure's heavy carrier platforms absorbed into our fleet, Konoha and Kirigakure are unlikely to cross blades on the battlefield for the foreseeable future.
Unless, of course, Iwagakure or Kumogakure choose to launch a preemptive campaign to disrupt Konoha's rapid economic expansion.
Even Sunagakure cannot be entirely discounted; those desert operatives are operating on starvation rations and pure desperation.
Hiruzen slipped into deep strategic contemplation.
Soragakure's massive incursion had generated vast aerial flight vectors that would inevitably be logged by rival hidden villages across the continent. The resulting geopolitical shockwaves and market reactions were unpredictable; Konoha's command structure had to draft contingencies for worst-case scenarios.
Nearby on the training grounds.
Might Guy came bounding across the debris-littered terrain, grabbing Obito and Kakashi by their shoulders and yelling with ecstatic fervor, "Did you see that?! That is my father! Might Dai!"
"He burned his Youth to defend the village, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Lord Minato and Big Brother Seisui to halt Soragakure's aerial blitzkrieg in its tracks!"
"My father's blazing Youth was the most magnificent spectacle in the world!" Guy cried, tears of hot-blooded pride streaming down his cheeks.
Guy had never dreamed that his father—once dismissively branded by the village as the eternal Genin who only handled lost-cat missions—would one day be inducted into the prestigious Roots of the Firmament, delivering such an immense, decisive contribution to the village's defense.
He stood as a genuine, undeniable hero of the leaf.
The fresh graduates from the Shinobi Academy, though newly minted Genin, had performed with remarkable tactical discipline throughout the engagement. They had secured civilian evacuation corridors, defended administrative structures, and waged coordinated defensive skirmishes against the airborne infiltrators who breached the barrier perimeter, racking up verified combat merits.
"Uncle Dai was incredible!"
Obito mirrored Might Dai's signature thumbs-up pose, his face brimming with heartfelt admiration. "I am going to learn from his dedication, build my strength, and protect both the village and Lord Hokage!"
Dai was currently resting on a portable medical mat, attended to by senior medical-nin. Soft tendrils of emerald medical chakra enveloped his limbs, slowly repairing the catastrophic micro-tears across his cellular architecture.
Hearing Obito's proclamation, Dai struggled to elevate his arm, flashing his gleaming teeth alongside a trembling thumbs-up: "Yosh! Obito-kun! I can see the brilliant radiance of your youthful spirit burning bright!"
"You will achieve greatness, without a doubt!"
Obito's eyes sparkled with unbridled excitement. "You hear that, Uncle Dai?! You really think I have what it takes to protect Lord Hokage?!"
Dai nodded vigorously, only to be gently but firmly pushed back down onto the stretcher by a stern medical-nin, who directed the transport team to rush him toward the Konoha Central Hospital for intensive cellular rehabilitation.
"I am going to protect Lord Hokage..." Obito muttered incessantly, still riding a massive wave of adrenaline.
To receive formal operational validation from Uncle Dai—a frontline hero of Konoha and an elite operative of the Roots of the Firmament!
It was not merely Dai's sacrifice that had ignited Obito's drive. Watching Hiruzen Sarutobi physically anchor an entire falling sky fortress, flawlessly weaving Boil Release and Ice Release to generate absolute kinetic dominance, had seared an indelible image into the young Uchiha's soul.
In that horrifying moment, as the colossal shadow descended like an apocalyptic meteor, Kakashi, Guy, and dozens of surrounding shinobi had felt the icy grip of despair.
That was not an attack a mortal shinobi was meant to intercept.
Yet their Hokage had held the sky on his shoulders.
"Lord Hokage declared it himself," Obito recited with profound conviction, echoing Hiruzen's public address. "He shields the village and protects our generation today so that tomorrow, we will possess the strength to protect the village and Lord Hokage! A shinobi's capabilities scale exponentially during their youth; we must maximize our golden development window to optimize our strength!"
"Optimizing your combat metrics is fine, but perhaps you should focus on surviving your immediate operational milestones first," Kakashi interjected, abruptly puncturing Obito's grand daydreams. "In three days, our squad commander—that blond menace, Minato Sensei—is subjecting us to our official genin survival assessment."
"Oh, come on!" Obito's face instantly went pale.
Following their formal academy graduation, Obito, Kakashi, and Rin Nohara had been assigned to Team Minato.
Meanwhile, Might Guy, Asuma Sarutobi, and Kurenai Yuhi had been placed under the mentorship of Hiruko.
"What is there to complain about?" Guy asked, tilting his head in confusion. "That is Lord Minato! Personally, I cannot wait to begin my advanced regimen with Hiruko Sensei! He promised to pass down his ultimate secret taijutsu techniques to me!"
"It is an exceptional placement on paper..." Kakashi sighed, dark lines forming under his eyes. "But the operational pressure is suffocating."
As the son of Sakumo Hatake, Kakashi possessed the political literacy to understand the immense institutional prestige of being assigned to Minato's squad; it marked them as the direct, fast-tracked inner circle of the Hokage's administrative lineage.
However, the sheer psychological trauma Minato had inflicted upon Kakashi during academy spar simulations over the past two years was simply staggering.
To be precise, Minato served as the collective nightmare for the academy's entire golden generation.
Kakashi and Obito had already held private strategy sessions: once Minato's future children were born and eventually entered the academy, Kakashi and Obito would likely be serving as senior Jonin instructors, at which point they intended to thoroughly "repay" their sensei through uncompromising, character-building training sessions for his kids.
Minato always hit the two of them the hardest during sparring. If they could not outfight the senior executive, they would settle the score with the future intern.
"Do not sweat it, Kakashi," Obito boasted, resting his hands on his hips and puffing out his chest. "I had a vision last night! I dreamed that I unlocked a space-time ninjutsu with an operational latency even faster than Minato Sensei's!"
"I became the supreme Sharingan master in the documented history of the Uchiha clan! Lord Hokage placed his hand on my head with absolute warmth and told me that I possessed the precise strategic profile to become the Fifth Hokage!"
Obito beamed with pride as he narrated his nocturnal delusions.
The sheer, oppressive dominance of the Flying Thunder God was something Obito and his peers had tasted firsthand during academy combat drills, leaving the entire cohort acutely aware of the god-tier status of space-time ninjutsu. Every young shinobi harbored wild fantasies of mastering it one day, and an idealistic hothead like Obito was naturally the most susceptible.
"You? Unlocking a space-time technique? Better yet, a space-time technique superior to the Flying Thunder God?" Kakashi raised an eyebrow, letting out a dry, mocking chuckle.
There had to be a reasonable ceiling on self-delusion. Did the idiot truly believe the Uchiha clan's Sharingan was an omnipotent administrative override code?
"Still... we must prioritize our physical and tactical optimization," Kakashi conceded, his visible eye turning serious beneath his mask. "The village and Lord Hokage are constantly driving forward, braving every storm to secure our development environment. We cannot afford to fall behind."
Recently, his father Sakumo had sat him down to discuss volunteering for high-risk curse-mark integration and Kekkei Genkai adaptation clinical trials, seeking to serve as an R&D test subject to unlock higher combat ceilings for the village's strategic reserves.
Initially, Kakashi had been deeply anxious regarding the medical risks.
Yet after witnessing the absolute heroism of Might Dai and the staggering power of Hiruzen Sarutobi, Kakashi understood his father's mindset.
Kakashi was a generational prodigy, but his father had been the defining prodigy of the previous era. Sakumo could not bear to sit idly by, watching his operational relevance fade into that of a standard kenjutsu specialist while the world rapidly modernized.
Sakumo was a passionate zealot for the Will of Fire. As Konoha accelerated its golden age, he, like his son, refused to be left behind, demanding greater power solely to safeguard their collective home.
"Let us push our limits together, Obito," Kakashi said, drawing a steady breath. "Even if your space-time daydream sounds statistically improbable, considering we are studying directly under Minato Sensei, the probability is not entirely zero."
"For now, let us execute the immediate tasks within our capacity: assisting the sanitation and logistics corps in clearing the field."
"Yosh! For the glory of Youth and Hiruko Sensei's ultimate secret taijutsu, we clear this entire grid within ten minutes!" Guy roared with enthusiasm. "And for Kakashi's resolve and Obito's future space-time ninjutsu!"
Kakashi blinked slowly.
He suddenly registered a massive, glaring plot hole in Guy's energetic proclamation.
It was common knowledge across Konoha's military hierarchy that Hiruko was a pure, dedicated researcher. While his precise personal combat parameters were shielded behind administrative confidentiality, everyone knew the Hokage held him in immense regard for his engineering genius.
He was most certainly not a taijutsu specialist.
Hiruko Sensei's ultimate taijutsu? What in the world could that even look like? Kakashi wondered silently.
Kakashi's deduction was spot-on: Hiruko possessed virtually zero advanced taijutsu literacy.
Hiruko's definition of "ultimate taijutsu" involved ruthlessly fortifying Guy's young, hyper-resilient physical framework through cutting-edge biological supplements, targeted gene therapy, and advanced medical hardware from his R&D laboratories.
Hiruko's operational philosophy toward physical combat was delightfully brute-force: he had no interest in fancy martial katas, but he excelled at maximizing biological hardware stats.
Once Guy's raw physiological baseline was optimized to monstrous heights, the boy could simply return home and drill traditional forms with Dai until his technique caught up with his modified frame.
After all, Guy was his personal disciple—part of his very first teaching cohort. Hiruko calculated that if he showed excessive favoritism toward Asuma simply because the boy was the Hokage's son, it would reflect poorly on his professional integrity if Hiruzen found out. It would make him look like a petty political sycophant with zero executive vision.
Across the compound.
Danzo Shimura located Hiruzen amid the clearing operations.
Having executed a high-profile combat drop earlier in the day, Danzo was practically glowing with administrative triumph. For the first time in years, he felt the surrounding Konoha shinobi looking at him with genuine, unfiltered reverence rather than clinical wariness.
He had produced tangible operational results on the battlefield.
Even if his deployment contained deliberate theatrical PR calculations, the fact remained that he had been the very first executive to launch himself into the upper atmosphere to engage the hostile air fleet.
"Hiruzen, there is a zoning and infrastructure issue that requires your executive authorization," Danzo began, clearing his throat lightly. "During my aerial patrol, I observed that the collateral shockwaves from Soragakure's bombardment severely damaged the monumental statues of the First Hokage and Madara Uchiha at the Valley of the End."
"Lord Hashirama's monument must be restored immediately as a matter of state priority. The question is: how do you intend to handle the monument of Madara Uchiha?"
Hiruzen nodded thoughtfully, weighing the geopolitical nuances.
"Your tactical execution today was exemplary, Danzo. You carried yourself with the commanding presence befitting an Assistant Hokage—indeed, a future Hokage."
"Your Wind Release Chakra Mode genuinely took me by surprise."
Hiruzen led with his standard executive management technique: opening with high-value praise to secure alignment. "What is your departmental assessment on the matter?"
Danzo's chest swelled with pride, his posture instinctively straightening.
While Hiruzen's godlike physical display had rattled him to his core, the reality remained that when the Hokage required an elite operational partner to manage high-threat airspace, Danzo was the very first asset summoned to the line.
That alone validated his status as Konoha's undisputed second-in-command.
"My strategic recommendation... is that we restore Madara Uchiha's monument alongside the First Hokage's," Danzo offered, his tone carrying a rare note of hesitation.
It was a stance completely antithetical to his historical anti-Uchiha platform.
However, the organizational landscape had shifted beneath his feet: Seisui Uchiha was now his personal, highly prized disciple.
Furthermore, Danzo had established backchannel diplomatic ties with Elder Isshin and Clan Head Fugaku, frequently sharing premium sake and reviewing clan-village policy as close political allies.
In Danzo's long-term roadmap, the Uchiha clan had been successfully restructured into his core voting bloc for his eventual Fourth Hokage campaign.
"Restoration is entirely viable. The Yamanaka communications unit is currently feeding me real-time sector reports," Hiruzen noted, gesturing toward the specialized communication headset resting beside his collar.
Over short-to-medium tactical ranges, the integration of Yamanaka secret arts, high-density sealing formulas, and electronic transceiver arrays achieved a seamless telepathic network comparable to the White Zetsu hivemind.
"The Uchiha clan performed exceptionally throughout this crisis. Under the Military Police Force's command, they secured civilian sectors with absolute distinction, with numerous Uchiha operatives throwing their own bodies into the line of fire to shield fleeing civilians who could not clear the bombardment zones."
"Let us seize this public relations window to implement a structural redesign of the monument," Hiruzen reasoned, outlining his strategic vision. "Previously, the two founding titans stood facing one another, locked in the Seal of Confrontation. While historically accurate to their final conflict, that iconography is completely misaligned with the current cooperative partnership between the village and the Uchiha clan."
"I previously briefed the Uchiha leadership that whenever the political climate allowed, the administration would actively dismantle the historical liabilities associated with Madara's legacy. This presents the perfect strategic pivot."
"Recast both monuments: Lord Hashirama and Madara Uchiha!"
"Position their hands to form the traditional Seal of Reconciliation."
Danzo evaluated the proposal and found zero strategic flaws. "Understood, Hiruzen. Leave the infrastructure and PR rollout to me."
Madara Uchiha was long dead and buried.
Since he was already terminated overhead, his legacy assets ought to be fully liquidated to serve the political stability of the living Uchiha clan. Whatever Madara's original ideological portfolio might have been, individual history had to yield to Konoha's overarching corporate solidarity.
Danzo reflected that ever since he had committed himself to an intensive study of Hiruzen's published administrative treatises, his perspective on clan integration had become remarkably progressive and enlightened.
Of course, the decisive variable remained Seisui.
What Danzo remained blissfully ignorant of, however, was that the peerless prodigy named Seisui was entirely a bespoke, precision-engineered operative constructed by Hiruzen Sarutobi himself.
Hiruzen surveyed the busy battlefield.
Once this crisis was fully processed, Konoha would absorb Soragakure's aerospace IP, capitalize on the massive public prestige generated by his public display of force, and convert this defensive victory into an immense surge in geopolitical market share.
Hiruzen felt a profound sense of anticipation.
Perhaps he could finally channel his internal momentum to weave the nascent Kekkei Genkai chakra filaments within his core, eventually braiding them throughout his physical framework like secondary meridians to permanently elevate his biological baseline.
His deep intuition told him that achieving this milestone would yield immense personal ROI.
However, as the Hokage mapped out his private cultivation and administrative roadmaps, he made a catastrophic miscalculation.
Hiruzen possessed the executive authority to muzzle Orochimaru and Hiruko. They were disciplined R&D professionals; while their lateral deductive capacity was dangerously hyperactive, they remained loyal subordinates who would never dare defy direct orders by attempting an unauthorized reanimation of Tobirama Senju.
Yet there was one supreme entity within Konoha's power structure who held zero regard for executive muzzles.
Furthermore, she understood Tobirama Senju far more intimately than any junior researcher ever could, possessing decades of high-stakes political warfare experience coupled with a terrifying, infallible sixth sense.
That person was Mito Uzumaki.
The very instant she detected the deployment of the Reanimation Jutsu in the upper atmosphere, Tobirama's profile had flashed across her mind, and the battle-tested instincts that had guided her through the Warring States began screaming alarms.
When the Mind's Eye of the Kagura was refined to its absolute zenith, it manifested an inexplicable, near-prophetic intuitive radar.
Mito's raw instinct was informing her that Tobirama Senju was, in all likelihood, still drawing breath.
However, Mito did not confront Hiruzen immediately. Instead, moving with quiet administrative authority, she accessed the village's classified Scroll of Seals under senior audit clearance, while concurrently requisitioning Soragakure's raw battlefield salvage manifests under the pretext of elder R&D oversight.
There, she flagged the Zero-Tails negative emotion chakra formulas and the cellular regeneration methodologies.
Yet none of these technical assets served as her primary smoking gun.
What captured the entirety of her focus was a forbidden, classified technique documented within the scroll under the title Living Corpse Reincarnation—an immortal soul-transfer protocol bearing the official development signature of Hiruzen Sarutobi himself.
Every disconnected variable locked into a terrifying, cohesive picture in Mito's mind.
Tobirama had never perished during the First Great War.
Several days later.
The ancestral Senju compound.
Gathered in the primary hall were the high-ranking R&D commissioners of the Konoha High Commission: Orochimaru, Hiruko, and Tsunade.
Sitting nearby were Elder Isshin and Seisui. Mito had explicitly summoned them under dual pretenses: first, because they served as the strategic conduit to communicate with Izuna's lingering will; second, because in Mito's eyes, the modern Uchiha clan had essentially become Tobirama's maternal in-laws, making them core family stakeholders alongside Tsunade.
When an internal scandal of this magnitude erupted, family leadership had to be present.
Danzo sat beside them, his expression severe.
Mito methodically laid out an analytical audit that mirrored Orochimaru's previous deductions with uncanny, terrifying precision.
Resting on the low table before her sat a heavily bound, chakra-suppressed Soragakure prisoner of war, flanked by a pristine glass vial containing a verified sample of Tobirama Senju's genetic material.
"Hiruzen..."
Mito spoke with profound, sorrowful gravity. "I know this reality is devastating for you to process. But you must steel your spirit."
"The shadowy mastermind who orchestrated the strike on Yashiro Uchiha and mobilized Soragakure's military assets against our home... is undeniably Tobirama."
"In the end, he lost his way and descended into heresy."
"Hiruzen, tell me the absolute truth," Mito pressed, her gaze softening with deep maternal sympathy for the disciple Tobirama had left behind. "This Living Corpse Reincarnation jutsu... it has existed within the Scroll of Seals for decades, has it not? Long before you assumed the mantle of Hokage."
"You deduced his survival years ago, didn't you? Yet to shield Grand-Sensei Tobirama's historical honor, you placed the dark stigma of this forbidden jutsu entirely under your own administrative name."
Mito looked upon Hiruzen with immense, aching heartbreak. She knew intimately that Tobirama had pioneered soul-research during the brutal heights of the Warring States, birthing both the Edo Tensei and forbidden soul-trapping arts.
Hiruzen sat utterly frozen, the silence stretching between them.
The entire operational board had collapsed into absolute chaos.
The classified reality that Tobirama Senju had been reincarnated into an Uchiha vessel had reached a point of absolute geopolitical sensitivity; it could never, under any circumstances, be revealed to a living soul.
Not even to Mito Uzumaki.
Drawing a slow, steady breath, Hiruzen Sarutobi straightened his spine, lifting his head with unyielding dignity.
"Lady Mito."
"The Living Corpse Reincarnation is my proprietary invention. The negative emotion chakra conversion protocols, the cellular activation and regeneration matrices—every single one of those forbidden techniques was developed solely through my private, unauthorized research initiatives."
Though every elite shinobi in the room felt their lips twitching in sheer disbelief at the absurdity of the claim, Hiruzen puffed out his chest, stepping forward to absorb the full, crushing weight of the liability:
"I am the sole architect behind every single one of those projects. It has nothing to do with Grand-Sensei Tobirama!"
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