Chapter 66.1- One Thousand Hands

I looked at him. Really just looked at him. He was thin, in a way that shinobi never were. Sure, we had the advantage of chair also most shinobi were far from the bulk massive effigies that passed for physically fit in my first world, but even the average genin had layers upon layers of coiled muscle laying beneath their skin. All of that wasn’t gone, don’t get me wrong. But enough of it was— canibalised by the healing sleep seal to keep him alive and help him recover from the mess hat had been his insides when he had been brought here— that it was noticeable. He was lesser.

“I could” I said, stepping closer. He tensed. I noted the anbu agents hidden in the ceiling tense as well. I wondered if they knew that jumping into this if I decided to act would do nothing but seal their deaths. They probably did. But they would act regardless, that was what it meant to be anbu. I could respect it at least.

“Will you?” He pressed.

“No. No, I will not Sarutobi Hiruzen. Ay’s done a good enough job of that already” I said, gesturing to his present state.

“Not Hokage-sama. Your impertinence knows no bounds truly.”

“Let us be honest with ourselves, Hiruzen. Dispense of the bullshit. Even you aren’t delusional enough to believe that you will continue on as Hokage like this. I know Chunin that would have no trouble gutting you like a pig right now” I said. He coughed, once, twice, thrice, before he reached a shaky hand to the glass by his side. If I were a better man, I might have helped. But I wasn’t. I watched him spill the water on his sheets as he struggled to bring it to his lips. His arm, so thin that it was all skin and bone barely managed to reach up to his lips and he drank the water greedily, like a man in the desert.

“A temporary weakness, I assure you. I will be back at my best sooner rather than later” He said.

“We both know that’s far from the truth” I challenged, watching him with a raised eyebrow.

“Tsunade has told you then”

“She’s my cousin.” I said.

“Of course. Loyalty to family over loyalty to Kage. One of your Granduncle’s failings. He failed to instill in either of you the will of fire” He said, a damning indictment.

“Does Tsunade know you think so little of her?”

“Forced in this place, forced a prisoner of my own head, I can see my own failings as surely. I was her sensei and I failed to instill it in her, assuming that Sensei would have done it. He never did. To the both of you, your personal bonds, your connection with each other, your family, your friends, matters more than the village. That is why you would make a terrible Hokage, Shorirama Senju. You do not burn with the will of fire. I look at you, I drink you in. Cold. That is what you are— cold” He said, coughing at the end.