Chapter 37.6- One Thousand Hands

XXXXX- SHINOBI NO KAMI- THREE WEEKS INTO THE SECOND GREAT SHINOBI WAR

He took a deep breath and allowed his fire natured chakra to warm his body. He was starting to feel old already. Another war, and this one was being spent behind a desk instead of under a tent, waiting for the enemy so he could kill them with his own hands. No, instead, he was relegated to this role of sending his shinobi out to risk their lives instead of him. He knew his advisers were right- Konoha could not survive the morale blow of losing another Kage so soon. His life was worth more than he was right now, he was a symbol of Konoha’s strength and it was his duty as Hokage to make sure none dared to challenge that strength.

“You called for me, Sensei?” He turned away from the report he was reading and towards his student. Tsunade might not have been his favorite, not taking to ninjutsu the way he did or even the way her teammates had, but they shared a special body. Tobirama-sensei had been her Granduncle and the grief over his loss was a pain they both shared, which was why he was going out of his way to give her news of one of her last few remaining clan members.

“Your Cousin’s report has come through. He says his unit is confident that they can handle the situation with Suna and that reinforcements are not a priority at the moment” She furrowed her eyebrows, frown building on her face.

“What does he mean? I thought you sent 12 of them to delay the Suna invasion not to fight them. He can’t think that he and his classmates can take on thousands of shinobi on their lonesome” She said.

“I fear that is exactly what he is thinking. On your word, I’ll give the orders and the platoon that is being sent out to Rain will reroute to reinforce him at Kusa”

“That’s my platoon” She said with shock on her face.

“Yes. While Jiraiya and Orochimaru will miss your presence on the battlefield, they can do without you for the time being” He said, even as he hated the thought of splitting his team, he had to recognise that this was Tsunade’s family. She and young Shori might not even know it, but they considered each other more as siblings than cousins in a lot of ways.

“No no. I’ll go to Ame. If Shori says he’s fine then he’s fine. He’s a liar and a little shit, but I doubt he’d fuck up something this major” She said, and he nodded.

His advisers did not consider Shorirama Senju as a reliable leader or even shinobi, but there was a reason Hiruzen had chosen him. He’d watched the boy train with his students. He was a prodigy with even more potential than Orochimaru, and he hated losing even more than Hiruzen’s favourite. He’d fight till his last breath to keep Suna at bay simply because to do otherwise was to court defeat. Of course, that situation was far from ideal, and that was why he’d sent him out with his Graduating class by his side. So many clan heirs had been a mess to draft into what seemed a suicide mission to most, but the fact that the children themselves had been in favour of supporting their classmate had been enough to twist their parents hands into going along with it. He didn’t pick them to assert his position as kage as some might have theorized. He did it because he knew that any other set of Shinobi placed under Shorirama Senju’s command would be dead men working. His personal observations and the psyche evaluations were agreed on that.

He turned to his next report. The situation in the Land of Frost was developing quickly. So quickly in fact that Sakumo had already engaged the Two Tails Jinchuriki on two separate locations. Danzo’s spy network was also progressing nicely, he noted on the next report. The proposal was a good one, recruiting orphaned civilians from a young age to turn them into elite spies. It wouldn’t produce results in time to be useful for this war so they would have to rely on their existing intelligence apparatus, but he was confident that by the time the next war came around, they would be in possession of an intelligence advantage few would be able to comprehend.