Chapter 191: Everyone Suspects Tobirama, but Hiruzen Sarutobi Deduces Madara!
Hiruzen Sarutobi rested both hands flat against his knees, his spine rigid, his posture radiating unyielding authority. When he spoke, his voice was steady, resonant, and calm.
It was as if the forbidden jutsu portfolio he had just laid claim to were nothing more than routine, elemental nature transformations.
Yet the operational reality was completely different.
Techniques like cellular activation and tissue regeneration were manageable; they could easily be filed away under the umbrella of breakthrough medical research and advanced trauma rehabilitation.
The negative emotion energy conversion protocols powering the Zero-Tails, however, were virtually impossible to explain away cleanly.
Negative emotions were not an infinite baseline resource within an enterprise. To harvest them at scale, the mind instinctively drifted toward the calculated, systematic generation of trauma and despair.
Furthermore, no functional human being willingly chose to become a hollow vessel stripped of joy, sorrow, and natural emotional feedback.
Negative emotion served as the primal spark of resistance when an individual was subjected to oppression; it was never without structural meaning.
"Hiruzen, you must weigh your words with extreme care before you speak," Mito Uzumaki warned, her voice hardening with severe, matriarchal gravity.
To Tobirama's eyes, seated quietly nearby, the tone was an exact mirror of the administrative interrogations and lectures she used to level at him decades ago. It felt like watching operational history loop in real time.
"Even though you hold the office of Hokage, the foundational intent behind any research initiative is carved into its architecture; it cannot withstand the scrutiny of history."
"Stashing these manuals within the Scroll of Seals does not guarantee that the shinobi of this village will remain ignorant of them indefinitely. Today, Orochimaru and Hiruko command the R&D division. But what about thirty years from now? Fifty years from now?"
"You must consider your historical legacy and your administrative standing!"
A bead of cold sweat traced a silent path down Orochimaru's neck.
The Living Corpse Reincarnation...
An absolute forbidden art engineered to seize the physical hardware of another living host to achieve biological immortality. It was a jutsu steeped in pure, unmitigated malice that could never be rehabilitated through modern PR.
If Lady Mito discovered that he, Orochimaru, had been the primary architect who compiled that grotesque research...
Orochimaru knew with absolute certainty that this formidable, unpredictable widow of the God of Shinobi would place him under intense counter-intelligence surveillance. From that moment on, his institutional runway would be permanently compromised.
He understood Mito's terrifying weight all too well.
This was an operational titan whom even the founding patriarch of the Tobirama faction could never openly cross. Tobirama and Mito were structural peers, and even with the executive authority of the Hokage seat, Tobirama had frequently found himself at a complete loss when dealing with her.
Against her, Orochimaru occupied a position of utter administrative vulnerability.
Inside Seisui's vessel, Tobirama kept his head bowed, maintaining total silence.
Even though Mito had just hoisted a massive, career-ending liability onto his legacy's shoulders, Tobirama remained acutely aware that in this life cycle, his operational designation was Seisui Uchiha. A junior operative had zero standing to interject in an executive summit of this scale.
Deep within their shared chakra core, Izuna Uchiha's spiritual matrix was nodding vigorously, laughing with boundless, vindictive glee: "As expected of Mito! Truly the only woman in the Warring States era who ever forced me to tread lightly!"
"Brilliant minds arrive at identical conclusions! She and I have reached complete operational alignment! I knew from the start that this had to be Tobirama's doing. That scoundrel's psychological baseline has been warped since childhood!"
"Always strutting around looking cold and detached, who knows what depraved, suppressed madness festers beneath that poker face!" Izuna sneered, indulging in the most malicious profile analysis he could conjure.
Tobirama kept his expression locked down like cold iron.
Now was hardly the operational window to engage in a petty ideological spat with Izuna. He could only endure his eternal rival unleashing maximum DPS from the VIP spectator seats of his own subconscious.
Yet setting aside his historical reputation from his previous life, what truly occupied Tobirama's focus at this moment was Hiruzen.
Even if he simply conceded the point, it wouldn't truly matter, Tobirama reflected quietly.
At worst, my historical standing takes a temporary beating. The identity of Tobirama Senju is just a name belonging to a dead man, a historical marker. There is no strategic necessity for Hiruzen to stand his ground and absorb this storm alone.
The truth will eventually surface on the historical ledger.
Yet even as he reasoned it through with clinical detachment, a profound wave of warmth surged through Tobirama's chest.
Living on the village streets as Seisui, he had personally observed his historical favorability metrics steadily declining across the civilian population.
Initially, he had felt a flash of irritation. But over time, he had made peace with it. Had he not navigated this exact cycle during the Warring States? The shinobi world's comprehension of his strategic reforms had always operated on an upward, spiral trajectory.
Yet theoretical detachment was one thing; witnessing Hiruzen Sarutobi's unyielding, ferocious determination to defend his mentor's honor moved Tobirama deeply.
He felt, with absolute clarity, that the single most brilliant executive appointment he had ever made was designating this disciple as his successor.
The man could shoulder an entire mountain without bending.
Refusing to yield even an inch of ground before Lady Mito was an administrative feat Tobirama had never managed during his own tenure.
"Lady Mito."
Hiruzen drew a breath, his cadence measured and deliberate. "During the first twenty-five years of my executive administration, I operated with hesitation and structural weakness. Because of that, I failed to integrate Konoha's strategic assets with total efficiency, leading the village through numerous institutional detours."
"During that protracted period, I contemplated evasion. I considered retracing the hardline operational roadmap Grand-Sensei Tobirama once pioneered, attempting to engineer extreme forbidden jutsu to secure an asymmetric tactical edge for Konoha once more."
"Under the crushing weight of executive pressure, I lost my ideological orientation. The Living Corpse Reincarnation and the foundational prototypes of the Zero-Tails were byproducts born of that period of vulnerability. However, because they proved utterly irreconcilable with Konoha's practical conditions and the true Will of Fire, I permanently shelved them."
"The only reason you uncovered these techniques today is because I personally affixed my executive signature to them when depositing the files into the Scroll of Seals."
Hiruzen looked Mito dead in the eye. "Had I wished to conceal their existence from your sight, you would never have uncovered a single trace of their records, let alone any junior shinobi in the village."
"Therefore, by archiving these forbidden architectures within the Scroll of Seals under my own name, I harbored zero fear of the truth coming to light."
Hiruzen's tone shifted, brimming with raw, unvarnished sincerity: "In this manner, future generations of shinobi may review my administration as a mirror of caution. They will understand that a village must pursue balanced, multi-dimensional development. Otherwise, leadership risks spiraling into ideological obsession and self-inflicted institutional damage."
"I hold no fear of public friction tarnishing my historical metrics. If the day comes where I fall in the line of duty, I will follow the precedent set by Lord Hashirama and Lord Tobirama, donating my mortal vessel and every personal research log to the village. My greatest hope is that the scars of my operational journey may serve as a strategic roadmap for those who inherit the mantle."
"Furthermore, this will demonstrate to the entire community that even a Hokage is prone to operational missteps. That realization will ignite greater initiative and upward mobility among our junior shinobi, permanently dismantling institutional stagnation like 'the sacred ancestral traditions can never be altered.'"
Throughout this grand soliloquy, Hiruzen kept his spine ramrod straight.
These words flowed from his genuine ideological convictions.
Hiruzen fully intended to scale the absolute summit of individual combat potential; he had zero intention of squandering this lifetime's access to transcendent shinobi force.
Yet toward the village he had governed across decades, his emotional investment was absolute.
Whenever an executive actively deployed capital and drove systemic reforms, which Kage in history had ever escaped public controversy?
To exhaust oneself attempting to curate a surgically sterile, flawless historical monument was something Hiruzen neither desired nor respected.
Furthermore, framing the narrative this way provided an unassailable cover identity for his escalating, god-tier combat growth. Any terrifying new jutsu he manifested down the line could simply be attributed to previously uncompiled forbidden arts, currently pending formal documentation for the Scroll of Seals.
Orochimaru stared at Hiruzen's towering silhouette, exhaling a long, trembling breath of admiration.
This was his Sensei.
Only now did Orochimaru truly grasp the profound strategic foresight behind Hiruzen's decision to list his own executive signature on the Living Corpse Reincarnation upon its initial development.
Sensei had anticipated this exact crisis from the very beginning.
My personal reputation remains far too fragile, like a sapling still taking root, Orochimaru thought, a fire blazing within his chest. I could never withstand the devastating political tempest and public backlash that the Living Corpse Reincarnation carries. But Sensei is entirely different.
With Sensei's overwhelming capital, the shinobi of this village will never raise an objection. A minor controversy like this cannot shake his administrative authority in the slightest. At most, the leadership council will assume he is merely providing diplomatic cover for the Second Hokage.
Once again, Orochimaru felt the profound, shielding warmth of Hiruzen's mentorship.
To be honest, I never truly feared the public fallout, Orochimaru mused inwardly. A bit of historical controversy is meaningless. Sensei simply refused to let me endure the bitter structural burdens he had to shoulder in his youth.
Even though the Living Corpse Reincarnation was entirely his own engineering, Orochimaru found himself harboring a quiet sliver of resentment toward the revered Lord Tobirama.
Departing the geopolitical board so abruptly back then had forced his Sensei to navigate such agonizing, impossible trade-offs. Having briefly tasted the sheer administrative exhaustion of leadership himself, Orochimaru felt acutely qualified to comment.
If Grand-Sensei Tobirama had established cleaner operational redundancies back then, the early friction between Sensei and me would never have materialized, Orochimaru resolved silently. I must redouble my operational output to support Sensei's administration.
As Hiruzen finished speaking, Danzo sat frozen, his single visible eye wide with sheer shock.
From the opening moments of this summit, Danzo's internal processing had been locked in a complete system crash.
Who could have anticipated that Lady Mito had assembled the senior leadership just to accuse the Second Hokage of being the shadowy mastermind orchestrating hostile raids against the village?
The sheer scale of the revelation had pushed Danzo's cognitive load into total overload.
Worse, Mito's deductive logic had thoroughly convinced him. As an operative who had spent decades managing the Root division, Danzo had long abandoned the civilian luxury of requiring an unbroken evidential chain before taking action.
A single plausible direction of inquiry was more than enough to justify an operational file.
The Flying Thunder God. Unregistered repulsive force arts. Cellular activation and Eight Gates technical data. Intimate, structural mastery over Uchiha combat doctrine. Open contempt toward the historical legacies of Hashirama and Madara.
The Zero-Tails negative emotion energy architecture. Abandoned Soragakure technical portfolios. The deployment of the Edo Tensei. And the objective reality that every hostile action had miraculously yielded massive strategic assets for Konoha's rapid expansion.
The evidentiary links pointing to Tobirama were stacked higher than the Hokage Monument.
It was practically an exact psychological and operational profile of the Second Hokage.
With this many corroborating data nodes, standard Root operating procedure would have dragged a suspect into the interrogation chambers for high-priority extraction ten times over.
It truly is Lord Tobirama...
In truth, I completely understand his operational calculus. Hiruzen's leadership is undeniably brilliant, but his governance remains far too noble, far too public. He cannot mobilize extreme, asymmetric methods to rapidly consolidate external resources for Konoha's dominance.
Yet why did Lord Tobirama never establish backchannel communications with us?
Wait... this is the trial! This is an unannounced crucible designed to test the tactical synergy between Hiruzen, myself, and our lineage master! Just like Hiruzen used to do, he is running an external pressure test to evaluate the village's defensive readiness!
Danzo smashed his fist firmly into his open palm, the entire puzzle falling into pristine alignment within his mind.
No one understood Tobirama better than he did.
This operational methodology—submerging oneself into absolute darkness and utilizing extreme, uncompromising leverage to force the village toward rapid ascension—resonated with Danzo on a profound, visceral level.
Who else across the entire historical registry could possibly possess this exact operational blueprint, save for the First Darkness of the Shinobi World, Konoha Operative 003, Second Hokage Tobirama Senju?
No other entity possessed the requisite historical depth or executive mindset.
Still, Hiruzen's filial devotion toward Lord Tobirama rivals my own, Danzo reflected, looking at his old rival with sudden, profound respect.
A liability of this magnitude would crush any executive into political ruin. Yet Hiruzen stepped forward to absorb the Second Hokage's dark legacy without a single second of hesitation.
Damn it, Hiruzen... you have outmaneuvered me on the moral high ground once again!
Danzo was genuinely humbled. To think Hiruzen's capacity for absorbing institutional blame exceeded even his own.
The crisp crack of Danzo's fist striking his palm drew every eye in the chamber directly toward him.
Gathering his resolve, Danzo spoke with deliberate weight: "I have a perspective to submit."
"Hiruzen, there is no need for you to dig your heels in on this matter. The mastermind is undeniably Lord Tobirama!"
The moment the words cleared his lips, Tobirama's expression turned utterly pitch-black.
He was going to have to enforce severe disciplinary protocols on Danzo the next time they met in the Root facility.
If the shadowy hostile roaming the continent was truly him, then who was the operative actively running the Root's internal firewall and kicking Danzo's rear end every single day, forcing him to optimize his administrative output?
A ghost?!
Catching the microscopic twitch in Seisui's features, Hiruzen's gaze shifted with profound, helpless sympathy.
My brother, it is not that I failed to shield your flank this time...
The board is simply out of my control.
May fortune favor you down in the Root division from now on...
"However, we must align our core perspectives on one critical variable," Danzo continued, clearing his throat to project administrative authority. "Lord Tobirama's operational methodology may lack conservative restraint, but every single strategic initiative he has executed thus far has directly advanced the village's core interests. He has custom-tailored a series of healthy external contradictions to accelerate Konoha's military readiness."
"Consider the data: from the skirmish with Yashiro to the Amegakure incursion and this Soragakure raid, which engagement failed to aggressively propel Konoha forward? Therefore, Lady Mito, when you claim Lord Tobirama has fallen into heresy, I must formally reject your assessment."
"This is simply an alternative, high-yield manifestation of the Will of Fire!"
"Where the light shines, darkness must inevitably follow. A tree requires both flourishing leaves and deep, unyielding roots to achieve true stability. Looking back, even Lord Hashirama relied upon Lord Tobirama to execute the ambiguous, covert operations necessary to maintain state security, did he not?"
Catching the increasingly hostile scowl on Seisui's face, Danzo's mind flashed, and he hastily extended a diplomatic olive branch toward his favored voting bloc: "Furthermore, Madara Uchiha once fulfilled a similar functional role in the early days. His initiatives in capturing the Tailed Beasts and projecting absolute deterrence against rival hidden villages yielded massive geopolitical returns, even if his later actions spiraled into ideological extremism."
"Lord Tobirama unquestionably maintains strict command over his operational parameters. But that control remains contingent upon Konoha continuously scaling its strength."
"This is a classic Warring States pressure test. Lord Tobirama subjected Hiruzen and me to these exact crucibles throughout our youth. I understand his strategic psychology completely."
"The administrative office of Hokage simply constrained Lord Tobirama's operational genius!" Danzo concluded, his tone carrying immense historical reverence.
In Danzo's view, Tobirama's current off-grid deployment represented the true, uninhibited realization of his strategic potential. The Hokage seat was far too restrictive a bureaucratic cage.
Danzo's grand analysis left the entire chamber stunned into silence.
Yet for Warring States veterans like Mito and Elder Isshin, as well as an R&D mind like Orochimaru who had previously drafted similar contingencies, the logic hit with undeniable resonance. Even Tsunade wore a look of troubled contemplation.
With Danzo's interjection, the deductive loop was completely closed. Everything made terrifying, cohesive sense.
The brat truly is Tobirama's disciple; he inherited every ounce of that man's dark pragmatism, Izuna evaluated with begrudging objectivity from within Seisui's vessel. What he laid out matches my own strategic read: as extreme as Tobirama can be, his trials are always engineered to balance acute tactical threats with massive developmental dividends.
He is deliberately injecting crisis into the village to prevent the populace from stagnating in soft, self-satisfied peace. Moreover, orchestrating these conflicts through foreign entities diverts the intelligence divisions of rival hidden villages, ensuring they remain blinded to Konoha's internal evolution until it is too late to mount a coalition...
Tobirama had completely abandoned any desire to speak.
Looking at the board with absolute, detached logic, he had to admit that if he had miraculously survived the First Great War in secret, he might very well have deployed this exact operational strategy.
He was beginning to undergo an existential crisis, wondering if he had inadvertently engineered an autonomous soul-split technique in his past life—some high-tier derivative of the Second Tsuchikage Mu's fission jutsu—and forgotten about it.
It felt like staring into an uncanny, distorted mirror.
Lady Mito let out a long, heavy sigh. Danzo's uncharacteristic, ironclad conviction in her presence had visibly moved her.
Suddenly, the miniature Nine-Tails manifested on her shoulder, crossing its front paws with supreme indifference and offering a biting critique: "From my operational perspective, this mummy-looking brat isn't wrong. Hashirama's grand vision sounded lovely on paper, but it had zero connection to market reality!"
"Spend five minutes auditing historical records and you'll realize mutual understanding across this continent is a statistical impossibility. The correct play is to dictate the tactical tempo, forcing hostile villages to march into their own liquidation on our schedule!"
"I formally endorse Senju Tobirama's operational model! Feel free to register your public complaints against me!"
The Nine-Tails delivered its verdict with complete, shameless transparency.
Speaking its mind with absolute directness was its newly adopted Ninja Way. After all, Konoha's new governance framework explicitly granted chartered rights to local Tailed Beast assets.
Throughout its vast, immortal lifespan, the Nine-Tails had often reflected on the ancient war between Asura and Indra—the catastrophic divergence that had shattered the original Ninshu and birthed the modern shinobi clan structure.
During that ancestral conflict, the Sage of Six Paths had personally petitioned it to back Asura.
That biased old man had directly transferred a massive portion of his personal chakra reserves while tethering the collective chakra of the people into Asura's core, barely managing to overpower Indra's raw martial dominance.
Evaluating it objectively, the Nine-Tails felt that Indra's refusal to yield, even unto death, was entirely rational.
Had it been in Indra's sandals, it wouldn't have submitted either.
The pursuit of pure mutual understanding was far too idealistic. To genuinely stabilize the geopolitical landscape, an executive needed Hiruzen Sarutobi's dual-track framework: Asura's collective-welfare institutions on one flank, backed by Indra's absolute, unyielding martial force on the other.
Why force a binary choice when integrating both yield curves was demonstrably superior?
Having spent months absorbing Hiruzen's published treatises on the Will of Fire, the Nine-Tails occasionally caught itself thinking that if it ever crossed paths with the Sage of Six Paths again, it would aggressively debate the old man into the ground.
Every figure in the chamber, save for Hiruzen, stared at the Nine-Tails in utter bewilderment.
The Third Root of Konoha?
When did that corporate transition occur?
The Nine-Tails' natural vocabulary—casually throwing around terms like "for the village" and "the Will of Fire"—was profoundly disorienting.
If this trajectory continued, the administration would likely issue the beast an official Konoha shinobi registration number, and it wouldn't be surprising to see it appointed to the Konoha High Commission down the line.
Through its immense chakra capital, the beast had already delivered staggering returns to the village: monitoring external malice, providing core chakra to reinforce the village defensive barriers, and facilitating the development of Shio Uzumaki's status as a stable Jinchuriki candidate.
Furthermore, wandering through Konoha's commercial districts in its compact fox form, the Nine-Tails was no longer viewed as an apocalyptic terror. It had unexpectedly cultivated a massive, affectionate civilian fanbase.
It possessed an undeniable public approval baseline.
"Hiruzen, there is no strategic need for you to shoulder Tobirama's liabilities alone," Mito urged gently, her heart aching at the Hokage's protective stance. "I know the profound bond you share with your master, but we must align our policies with operational facts."
"Just as Danzo outlined, Tobirama's methodology was standard practice during the Warring States era; he has simply scaled the framework from an intra-clan dynamic to an inter-village theater."
"Rest assured, this intelligence will be classified at the absolute highest clearance level. Only the village's executive core will ever know Tobirama's involvement."
Mito spoke with patient, soothing diplomacy. She simply could not bear to watch Hiruzen's pristine, righteous public profile be permanently stained with forbidden arts to shield Tobirama's memory.
It was entirely unnecessary.
Hiruzen remained silent, shaking his head slowly as his mind raced.
He produced his pipe, packed the fresh tobacco leaf with methodical precision, and began puffing away in rhythmic isolation, thick plumes wrapping around him.
The leadership council could afford to indulge in this convenient delusion.
Hiruzen Sarutobi could not.
He held absolute confirmation that the entity operating in the field was not Tobirama. That meant the target's operational restraint could not be guaranteed.
The hostile had played by these structured engagement rules this time, but who could promise he wouldn't deploy indiscriminate, apocalyptic force against Konoha during the next campaign?
Anchoring an entire village's security policy to the assumed stability of an unknown, ideological fanatic was the height of executive negligence.
Yet Danzo's earlier defense of Tobirama had struck an unexpected spark in Hiruzen's deductive core. Through the drifting smoke, the Hokage pushed his cognitive processing to maximum capacity, desperately hunting for the hidden algorithmic link.
"If that is your final stance, Hiruzen, then we must proceed to the definitive verification protocol."
Mito signaled Orochimaru with a brief, decisive glance.
Understanding the directive instantly, Orochimaru stepped forward with the sealed vial containing Tobirama's genetic sample. Channeling his chakra, he deployed the summoning matrix of the Edo Tensei, using the bound Soragakure prisoner as the living medium.
A swirling shroud of ash-grey soil erupted, enveloping the screaming prisoner as the summoning formula expanded across the floor tiles.
Then, with an abrupt, hollow snap, the chakra framework fractured and dissolved into nothingness.
The verification test had failed completely.
The Reanimation Jutsu could not connect to Tobirama Senju's soul.
Tobirama stood quietly in the corner, his mouth twitching under extreme internal strain.
Attempting to reanimate him through a corpse was utterly redundant—he could achieve the exact same operational result simply by taking two steps forward and standing beside the prisoner himself.
"Hiruzen, what is your assessment now?" Mito asked softly.
Her internal logic mirrored Izuna's.
Certainly, Tobirama possessed the technical genius to implement countermeasures preventing his soul from being summoned via the Edo Tensei.
Yet an infinitely more probable reality was that an active, living soul could not be summoned from the Pure Land because it was still logged into an active physical server in the living world.
Another piece of ironclad evidence locked into the chain.
Hiruzen exhaled a thick ring of smoke. His tactical processor operated in hyperdrive, auditing every single mechanical parameter of the Edo Tensei framework.
"Sensei, it is time to lay down this burden," Orochimaru urged quietly.
"Sensei, Grand-Uncle Tobirama's actions are driven by his dedication to the village, even if his operational methods are extreme," Tsunade offered, her brow furrowed with deep concern. "Our priority should be formulating strategic countermeasures for his next move, rather than disputing his involvement."
"Hiruzen, Lord Tobirama's strategic design is sound. Cease this pointless resistance!" Danzo declared.
"Lord Hokage, I share Assistant Danzo's assessment," Elder Isshin concurred respectfully.
Tobirama opened his mouth slightly, sorely tempted to tell Hiruzen to simply drop the issue and let him take the fall.
There was zero ROI in fighting an uphill battle against an entire room of unified executives.
"We cannot falsely attribute strategic liability to an innocent soul," Hiruzen stated, his voice cutting through the chamber like tempered steel. He tapped his pipe against the ceramic tray, extinguishing the embers.
"A failed reanimation protocol confirms nothing. Setting aside the reality that Grand-Sensei Tobirama routinely engineered classified administrative safeguards into his forbidden arts, have you all forgotten the precise circumstances of his final campaign? He was ambushed by the Gold and Silver Brothers deploying the Treasured Tools of the Sage of Six Paths!"
"The sealing capabilities inherent to the Sage's armaments possess absolute soul-suppression parameters. It is entirely plausible that his spiritual matrix was permanently sealed, preventing his consciousness from returning to the Pure Land in the first place!"
Danzo, Mito, and Orochimaru parted their lips in unison, their expressions locking into identical looks of dumbfounded disbelief.
Tsunade, Isshin, and Izuna shared the exact same stunned paralysis.
Even Tobirama nearly broke his operational cover.
What an astonishing display of executive spin!
To pivot the forensic audit all the way back to the Sage's Treasured Tools from the First Great War... the man's narrative rehabilitation skills are boundless!
"Furthermore," Hiruzen continued, rising to his feet and commanding the room's absolute attention, "every single one of you has fallen victim to a massive cognitive blind spot."
"You conclude this operative is Grand-Sensei Tobirama simply because he mimics his strategic posture and deploys jutsu architectures remarkably similar to his portfolio."
"Is Grand-Sensei Tobirama truly beyond replication?"
"For an elite apex entity seeking to mirror an adversary whose combat doctrine he studied for decades, executing such an operational facade is trivial."
Hiruzen locked eyes with Danzo: "Danzo, your earlier analysis provided the crucial insight. You noted that both Madara Uchiha and Grand-Sensei Tobirama once carried the village's darkest burdens on behalf of Lord Hashirama, correct?"
Danzo nodded instinctively, caught off-guard.
"Orochimaru, you are fully briefed on Fugaku's clinical trials, yes? To assist the village in high-risk Kekkei Genkai adaptation, he intends to anchor the Transcription Seal: Izanagi into his ocular architecture, automating a reality-rewriting resurrection to mitigate surgical failure."
"That is correct," Orochimaru admitted hesitantly.
Hiruzen's voice grew measured, tracing the contours of an ancient battlefield: "My mastery of sealing arts is moderately comprehensive. If a Transcription Seal is charged with peerless, god-tier ocular chakra, its delayed activation threshold can easily be extended far beyond ten minutes—it could theoretically trigger days after the host's physical termination."
"Given Lord Hashirama's personality and his profound bond with Madara, would he ever have performed an invasive forensic autopsy on Madara's corpse? Never. He refused to permit Grand-Sensei Tobirama to even touch the remains, burying Madara in an undisclosed location that not even Lady Mito was privy to."
"Now, evaluate the relative combat power: with all due respect to Grand-Sensei Tobirama, as formidable as he was, he could never bridge the chasm separating him from Madara Uchiha."
"For an apex predator to mimic the tactical habits of an operative slightly below his tier—especially when armed with the Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan and exhaustive forbidden knowledge—is mechanically effortless."
"The Uchiha clan has maintained an intimate familiarity with the Edo Tensei since the founding era. I have no doubt that the brothers Madara and Izuna invested significant bandwidth into decompiling and countering that exact jutsu. Furthermore, Madara once served as Konoha's co-founder and supreme military commander; he held unrestricted clearance to the Scroll of Seals."
"As for the high-yield space-time displacement resembling the Flying Thunder God, and those unregistered repulsive force jutsu... my hypothesis is that following his catastrophic defeat against Lord Hashirama, the sheer psychological trauma stimulated Madara's ocular pathways, awakening entirely new, transcendent ocular abilities."
"Tell me: does any operative alive today possess documented data on Madara's original Mangekyou abilities? Throughout the entire Warring States era, no living soul ever logged his specific ocular techniques. The common consensus was that his eyes merely provided passive multipliers to jutsu potency, chakra density, and the absolute stabilization of the Susanoo."
Hiruzen turned his gaze toward Seisui, directing the inquiry straight at Izuna's dormant consciousness.
"This..."
Izuna's spiritual matrix was reeling in utter chaos.
"Brother never actually unlocked an active, named ocular ability... but his foundational synchronization with the Susanoo was godlike from the moment he opened those eyes. I always assumed his ocular power was purely passive..." Izuna murmured, his operational certainty thoroughly destabilized.
How did the crosshairs suddenly swing around to lock onto my brother?!
My brother was pure, proud, and uncompromising! He would never operate as a cowardly, deceitful mastermind pulling strings from the sewer!
Seisui offered a stiff, subtle nod toward Hiruzen, confirming on Izuna's behalf that historical records held zero data on Madara's specific Mangekyou techniques.
Indeed, no one knew what Madara's active ocular abilities were. The consensus had always assumed they were passive multipliers.
Tobirama was equally floored.
How on earth did this audit drag Madara into the frame?
While Tobirama had frequently weaponized selective framing and tactical disinformation to undermine Madara's political capital during the founding era—standard psychological warfare to secure diplomatic leverage—watching Hiruzen forcefully dump this colossal, multi-layered liability directly onto Madara's legacy was a masterclass in aggressive narrative offloading that left even the Second Hokage breathless.
"Do not mistake my intent. I harbor zero institutional prejudice toward Madara Uchiha, nor am I attempting to slander a founding patriarch of Konoha to shield Grand-Sensei Tobirama," Hiruzen stated, proactively anchoring his political baseline to reassure Elder Isshin.
Hiruzen's administrative record was spotless; his systemic empowerment of the Uchiha clan was a matter of public record.
The expansion of the Military Police Force, the integration of Uchiha assets into the border patrol divisions, the high-profile platforms granted to their prodigies, authorizing Seisui to study the Flying Thunder God—every policy had yielded immense, tangible returns for the clan.
Had any other Hokage pitched this theory, Isshin would have instantly braced for a sweeping anti-Uchiha purge.
"The reality is that Madara has historically demonstrated this exact operational pattern."
"Look at the Final Valley engagement: does its structural model not share eerie parallels with our current crisis?"
"He manufactures an overwhelming external contradiction to force dynamic systemic change upon the village, generating massive theater shockwaves while carefully preserving the village's core assets. Just as Madara never actually unleashed the Nine-Tails to carpet-bomb Konoha's civilian sectors back then, our current antagonist operates under structured restraint."
Hiruzen's analytical framework gained unstoppable momentum.
"If the operative is Madara, the behavioral logic achieves total structural alignment. His relationship with Konoha has always been profoundly contradictory: he is simultaneously its founding father and its greatest dissident."
"Given his profound history with Lord Hashirama, entering an extreme, obsessive psychological state following their mortal clash and deploying these bizarre, convoluted trials against Konoha is entirely consistent with his character."
Following this string of crises, the suspect's profile had been narrowed down to an elite Warring States heavyweight who possessed intimate operational familiarity with Tobirama and commanded combat metrics equal to or exceeding the Second Hokage.
With Izuna confirmed to be sharing Seisui's vessel, only two individuals in recorded history met those exacting parameters: Madara Uchiha and Ashina Uzumaki.
Ashina Uzumaki held zero strategic interest in Konoha's internal governance; his life's operational focus had been entirely dedicated to perfecting the Myriad Seals Body Integration Mark.
And while the entire world accepted that Madara Uchiha had been liquidated by Hashirama at the Valley of the End, Danzo's earlier remarks and Fugaku's clinical trials had triggered a flash of inspiration, exposing this massive historical blind spot.
Madara might not be dead.
If Fugaku could engineer an automated resurrection via a delayed Izanagi, could the supreme titan of the Uchiha clan not achieve the exact same operational feat?
As for whether Hashirama would have detected the deception...
Recalling how Hashirama had sunk into profound clinical depression and perished shortly after Madara's fall, Hiruzen knew the answer. Hashirama's heart had died the moment he ran his blade through his brother's chest; he was in no psychological state to conduct a forensic audit on the corpse.
"This..."
"Hiruzen, isn't this deduction stretching probability a bit too far?" Mito blinked, thoroughly taken aback. The deductive architecture was undeniably elegant, but dragging Madara's ghost onto the board was something she had never anticipated.
That name had been treated as classified taboo for nearly fifty years. The modern Uchiha clan referred to him obliquely as the "Great Patriarch," universally avoiding his full name in official village records.
"Hiruzen, are you suggesting we execute an Edo Tensei audit on Madara's genetic material to verify his status?"
Mito hesitated, her brow furrowing. "To reanimate Madara, we would first have to summon Hashirama. Only Hashirama knew the coordinates of Madara's final resting place."
"And even if we reanimated Hashirama, he would refuse to disclose that location. In Hashirama's mind, he had already failed Madara once; he would never permit us to disturb his eternal rest in the Pure Land."
"Furthermore, when all the empirical evidence points so directly toward Tobirama, forcing Madara to carry the strategic blame for a Senju's actions would ignite a rage in Hashirama that no living soul could pacify."
Mito and Tobirama both recalled Hashirama's psychological state following the Final Valley.
The God of Shinobi had radiated an unprecedented, chilling killing intent toward anyone who dared express the slightest disrespect toward Madara's memory.
Mito shuddered to imagine it: if Hashirama were summoned only to discover that Hiruzen was attempting to unearth Madara's grave to absolve Tobirama of an attack on the village, the ensuing executive fury would be catastrophic.
Danzo, Orochimaru, and Tsunade sat in absolute silence.
Pinning Madara to shield Tobirama... firing into empty space to redirect institutional blame...
Hiruzen was essentially utilizing Madara's transcendent combat profile as a lightning rod to ground the operational liabilities surrounding the Second Hokage.
Because Hashirama's godlike stature was seared into the world's consciousness, society could not fathom that the God of Shinobi could commit a critical verification error in a mortal duel, failing to confirm whether his target was truly liquidated.
Elder Isshin exhaled a heavy breath, a wry, bitter smile touching his lips.
The Hokage intends to use the Great Patriarch to shield Senju Tobirama?
The Uchiha clan's public relations trajectory is going to take a severe hit...
Izuna was equally infuriated. In his eyes, his brother was incapable of such low-tier subterfuge. If Madara had a grievance with Konoha, he would march an army to the front gates in broad daylight under a blazing Susanoo, rather than hiding behind the legacy name of that wretch Senju Tobirama.
"Whether the operative is Madara or Grand-Sensei Tobirama is functionally irrelevant; establishing the hostile's exact identity is not our primary operational bottleneck," Hiruzen asserted, reclaiming control of the briefing.
"Because in either scenario, an apex powerhouse operating under extreme ideological obsession cannot be swayed by diplomatic rhetoric. Only overwhelming force and unyielding institutional resilience can compel them to recalibrate."
"Therefore, there is zero strategic value in disturbing Lord Hashirama's rest and destabilizing the leadership's morale."
Hiruzen laid down his executive mandate: "The investigation into the mastermind's personal identity terminates immediately. I am not confirming it is Madara; I am merely establishing it as a high-probability operational scenario."
"Our critical takeaway is this: the adversary is not necessarily Grand-Sensei Tobirama. Consequently, Konoha cannot operate under the assumption that the enemy will exercise tactical restraint. We must elevate our operational readiness and crisis response across all sectors."
"Furthermore, operating under the strategic assumption that the target is Madara Uchiha..."
Hiruzen paused, projecting his executive consciousness into the mindset of a Warring States extremist—Konoha Operative 002.
After a brief calculation, he narrowed his eyes and commanded: "We must dramatically reinforce the ideological integration of the Will of Fire across the Uchiha clan. Pay acute, proactive attention to the psychological development of talented Uchiha youth entering adolescence."
"If I were Madara, I would view the structural stability of the Uchiha clan as Konoha's primary vulnerability. Like the reactionary clan elders of the Warring States, he would attempt to engineer acute crises to trigger their emotional volatility."
"Seisui, Elder Isshin—your department holds direct operational responsibility for this. Establish proactive psychological firewalls immediately."
Isshin and Seisui offered dazed, synchronized nods.
The Hokage's theoretical roleplay was so terrifyingly comprehensive it sounded like verified intelligence.
"Our broader military mobilization must also accelerate. Madara is a pure military hardliner; if his objective is to audit the village's overall capacity, combat readiness will serve as his primary testing ground."
"Prioritize mutual defense coordination with Amegakure. Under Madara's covert instigation, Iwagakure, Sunagakure, or Kumogakure could launch sudden, high-intensity preemptive strikes against our borders at any moment!"
"Effective immediately, Konohagakure enters an elevated state of emergency readiness. The R&D division must accelerate the reverse-engineering of Soragakure's aerospace IP. Medical chakra scroll production lines must operate at maximum industrial capacity, securing strategic reserves sufficient to sustain a prolonged theater war."
"Mobilize the village's contingency capital reserves. Maintain complete operational readiness for sudden external shocks."
"However, maintain perspective. Even if the hostile is Madara Uchiha, his combat metrics cannot possibly operate at their historical zenith."
Hiruzen issued directive after directive, his tone carrying the absolute weight of supreme military command.
Even though Mito opened her mouth several times to interject, Hiruzen did not pause.
He was the Hokage of this village.
Whenever existential strategic policy was on the line, Hiruzen would not compromise—not even for Lady Mito.
Because he held absolute knowledge that Tobirama was completely innocent, he refused to let the administration drift into passive complacency under the false assumption that the mastermind was an affectionate ancestral mentor running benign drills. Konoha had to mobilize with Madara Uchiha designated as the primary hostile benchmark.
Hiruzen could not verify the hypothesis with absolute certainty, but the operational probability was immense.
Just as the Nine-Tails had casually recounted during its fireside chats with the academy kids: Hashirama had utilized a Wood Clone to deceive Madara, securing victory at the Final Valley.
Was it not entirely plausible that Madara had engineered an equivalent deception to outmaneuver Hashirama?
Neither titan had ever managed a definitive, permanent victory over the other in their lifetimes.
If the operative truly was Madara Uchiha, that bloodline was infamous for wielding absolute, catastrophic violence. If Konoha failed to deploy ironclad countermeasures, the village would suffer devastating structural losses.
That was an outcome Hiruzen refused to permit on his watch.
"Lady Mito, do you have any structural objections to this deployment?" Hiruzen inquired calmly once the directives were logged.
Mito remained silent for a long moment before letting out a resigned sigh. "None. The village must execute the Hokage's administrative orders."
Though she remained convinced that Hiruzen was simply engineering an elaborate narrative to shield Tobirama—the master and disciple sharing an inherited institutional reflex for blaming Madara—she refrained from pressing the issue further.
In Hiruzen's gaze, she recognized the exact unyielding resolve Hashirama used to display. Once an executive reached that state of absolute conviction, further debate was a waste of organizational bandwidth.
Besides, whether the threat was Madara or Tobirama, the operational difference was negligible.
Though the two men held diametrically opposed personalities, Mito knew their external strategic postures aligned remarkably well: both were uncompromising military hardliners willing to push foreign entities to absolute extremes.
After all, both had served as the operational pillars standing behind Hashirama.
"Furthermore, in recognition of the Uchiha clan's exemplary performance during this engagement and their impeccable record in civil administration, I believe the time has come to officially redefine Madara's historical status and integrate it into our public education framework," Hiruzen announced thoughtfully.
"We will formally codify that Madara Uchiha was a co-founder of Konohagakure who delivered monumental contributions to the village's early infrastructure. His climactic duel with the First Hokage will be redefined as a high-level dispute regarding long-term developmental strategy, rather than treasonous defection—a tragic historical byproduct of Warring States cognitive constraints."
"Public bulletin boards and Academy textbooks will update their curriculum to feature an objective, predominantly positive profile of Madara, allocating an informational footprint equal to Grand-Sensei Tobirama's."
"We will validate the strategic foresight behind his opposition to the redistribution of the Tailed Beasts, and acknowledge the accuracy of his geopolitical forecasts regarding inevitable world wars."
"By leveraging the profound bond and tragic friction between Lord Hashirama and Madara, we will educate our young shinobi that whenever comrades face ideological divergence, their primary duty is to sit down, negotiate, and resolve the contradiction through dialogue."
"They must never resort to extreme, unilateral action, which serves only to harm the collective and enrich foreign adversaries."
The chamber descended into utter, stupefied silence.
Wait a moment...
Didn't you just spend twenty minutes arguing that the dangerous mastermind threatening the village might be Madara Uchiha?
To immediately turn around and elevate Madara's historical standing within the village's core ideological framework... what kind of contradictory corporate gymnastics is this?!
Hiruzen smiled faintly, offering no elaborate explanation, simply stating with executive finality: "Execute the directive."
Throughout his tenure as Hokage, Hiruzen had conducted exhaustive psychological analyses of historical powerhouses to master the terrain of the shinobi world, with Hashirama and Madara naturally serving as core case studies.
He had unlocked a universal psychological truth: all ideological fanatics shared an identical structural void—they were starved of emotional validation.
Not romantic affection, but institutional recognition, profound intellectual comprehension, and unbreakable, life-and-death bonds.
The Uchiha clan represented the absolute extreme of this psychological profile.
Therefore, in Hiruzen's calculation, if the shadowy hostile truly was Madara Uchiha, deploying this seamless public relations campaign would hardly cause the legendary ghost of the Uchiha to abandon his grand design overnight. If his deductions were accurate, an elderly Madara's cognitive algorithms would be highly volatile and unpredictable.
Yet given the quintessential nature of the Uchiha—and Madara being the ultimate archetype of that bloodline—facing this level of public institutional reverence would inevitably introduce hesitation into his tactical execution. He would hesitate to strike too ruthlessly against a village actively rehabilitating his legacy.
It was etched into their biological hardware.
It was the ultimate implementation of the ancient diplomatic principle: never strike a smiling face.
Even if my operational hypothesis is incorrect, the strategic yield remains positive, Hiruzen reasoned internally.
Resolving Madara's historical liability was an inevitable policy milestone anyway. If we wish to achieve seamless, organic integration between the Uchiha clan and the village, this is a necessary structural step. Moving now simply allows us to capture dual dividends.
"Regarding the Zero-Tails architecture..."
Hiruzen turned his focus back to Orochimaru. "The Box of Ultimate Bliss provides an exceptional reservoir of negative emotional chakra. Initiate clinical trials to evaluate whether we can extract the dense negative chakra stored within the box and convert it into industrial energy to power Konoha's production lines and advanced research facilities."
"The village must accelerate its development velocity. You and Hiruko will carry the primary burden of this mandate. It will be demanding work."
Orochimaru's eyes lit up with predatory scientific enthusiasm.
His Sensei's boundless, lateral engineering vision never failed to deliver exhilarating breakthroughs.
"Understood, Sensei!"
Hiruzen nodded, rising smoothly. "The summit is adjourned. I shall take my leave, Lady Mito."
With that, Hiruzen strode out of the Senju estate, heading directly toward the Hokage Administrative Building.
Beyond completing his daily physical cultivation routines, he needed to draft comprehensive operational contingencies to counter a potential multi-front coalition strike from the three major hidden villages.
As for Kirigakure, Hiruzen excluded them from his immediate threat registry.
So long as the Third Mizukage possessed a functioning human brain, witnessing Konoha's captured airborne carrier platforms and receiving unfiltered situational reports from the exchange students would ensure Kirigakure maintained absolute military neutrality.
However, Hiruzen had overlooked a massive variable on the board.
Madara Uchiha's operational reach far exceeded his historical projections.
Backed by an inexhaustible sea of White Zetsu clones and the sinister consciousness of Kaguya's third son, the ancient ghost of the Uchiha—even in his withered twilight—commanded terrifying strategic leverage capable of completely reversing the geopolitical momentum of the shinobi world.
"Adjourned... everyone, return to your stations," Mito waved her hand with tired resignation. "Maintain strict operational secrecy regarding today's proceedings!"
Once the executives cleared the hall, Mito and the miniature Nine-Tails remained behind, conversing in low tones.
"Who do you believe it is, Kurama?"
"It's Tobirama, without question! Hiruzen merely fabricated that grand narrative on the fly to provide cover for his master, or perhaps to weaponize Madara's terrifying reputation to inject urgency into the village," the Nine-Tails scoffed, flicking its tails. The mere mention of Madara's name triggered an instinctive, deeply unpleasant itch across its fur.
"How could an egotist like Madara ever operate from the shadows, hiding his face like a sewer rat? It defies his psychological profile entirely."
"Even if he somehow survived to this era, he'd be an ancient relic on life support. A man's fundamental nature doesn't warp that drastically. Look at yourself, Mito—aren't you functionally identical to how you were during the founding days?"
Mito nodded slowly, finding comfort in the logic. "Indeed, it is statistically improbable. However, I foresee our administration will eventually be forced to reanimate Hashirama. The moment Tobirama begins deploying reanimated shinobi to 'pressure-test' Konoha..."
"When that happens, Hashirama's principles will not oppose the dead returning to the mortal coil; it will be the opposing side that shattered the natural order first. It will also grant Hashirama an opportunity to witness firsthand how magnificently Konoha has flourished."
The Nine-Tails let out a sharp, amused cackle. "Then I genuinely look forward to seeing that fool's face!"
Initially, the beast had harbored residual trauma regarding Hashirama's monstrous suppression.
Yet realizing it was now a chartered, protected asset of Konohagakure, a surge of vindictive excitement washed over it.
The Nine-Tails intended to unleash a blistering ideological tirade against Hashirama the moment he stepped out of the summoning casket.
Had Hashirama simply engaged it in open, egalitarian dialogue back then—deploying the Will of Fire rather than wooden dragons to negotiate mutual terms—centuries of catastrophic bloodshed could have been avoided entirely!
While subtle ideological currents shifted across Konoha's leadership, the broader shinobi continent maintained zero operational pause.
Kirigakure, Sunagakure, Iwagakure, Kumogakure, and Madara's covert network were all operating at peak capacity.
The tactical shockwaves unleashed by Soragakure's failed aerial blitz had visibly escalated geopolitical friction across every sovereign border.
Three months later.
Deep within the Mountains' Graveyard, Madara Uchiha had successfully finalized two brand-new high-tier combat puppets: the Gold and Silver Brothers.
"Accursed Senju Tobirama! You pathetic, defeated dog!"
Kinkaku and Ginkaku roared with feral, unbridled fury, only for Madara to dismissively flick his sleeve, suspending both titans upside down from the cavern ceiling, severing their sensory inputs with absolute chakra suppression.
They were merely mechanical assets awaiting deployment.
At that moment, White Zetsu A-Huo came bounding into the subterranean chamber, his voice bubbling with erratic energy: "Lord Madara! The rival hidden villages have initiated wartime mobilization! They are convening high-level security summits one after another!"
Madara offered a low, indifferent grunt. Everything was proceeding precisely according to his strategic roadmap.
White Zetsu A-Huo leaned in, practically vibrating with gossip: "Furthermore... your profile has been formally integrated into Konoha's official Shinobi Academy textbooks! And the operational reviews are overwhelmingly positive!"
Madara remained entirely motionless, utterly indifferent to mortal public relations.
A-Huo marveled inwardly at Lord Madara's transcendent psychological fortitude.
The very next second, however, the ancient titan's neck snapped around with terrifying velocity, his sharingan flaring with incandescent shock:
"You said what?!"
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