Chapter 14.3- One Thousand Hands

Tobirama Senju was a stern man. This was not a realisation by any means. A single look at his face showed that for all the world to see. But what most people did not realise was that that attitude disappeared at the door when it came to family. It was part of the reason why I was so certain that I wouldn’t be in any trouble at the end of the day. I even doubted he would care about some experiments. And I was right. He listened to Sakumo with a keen ear and then asked the man to excuse us so he could have a conversation with me in private.

“It was sloppy to get caught doing something like that in the field. What would have happened if there was a fifth Jounin hidden in the darkness. It’s stupid to play with your enemies” was all he said on the matter. And then his attention turned to something else.

“Do you want to be Hokage one day?” He asked me out of nowhere.

“I have never really thought about it, Granduncle” I lied through my teeth. The position was a death sentence. I needed to be strong enough to survive the war that I knew was coming, and all the things that could come after that, but I didn’t want to be Kage. It came with too much attention. The wrong kind of attention, as well. Strength invited challenge, and there was no position that showed as much strength at that of the Leader of The Hidden Leaf Village, the Hokage.

“You should. It is my legacy. The village my brother and I built will one day fall to you to inherit” He said plainly. There was no hesitation in his voice. There was no room for uncertainty. That was how Tobirama Senju spoke. He said a thing, and that thing was. He expressed no doubts, brokered no disagreement, and tolerated no variance from his words. A simple, but severe man in most respects.

“Yes, Granduncle” I replied. It was what marked most of our conversations. ‘Yes Granduncle.’ Shorirama do this. Shorirama do that. Shorirama not that way, this way. ‘Yes Granduncle’ in reply to all that it was simple, if a bit tiring. Always agreeing.

“Good. Now come and let us discuss” He said, pointing at the seat in front of him. I took the seat, settling into the familiar position. I’d been here often. More often than any other person, I would wager.

“Iwa is angry.” He started. I said nothing. Such conversations were not new. Tobirama needed a sounding board often, and if there was one thing a past life as a lawyer had given me, it was good listening skills.

“The kill squad you encountered is the fifth of its kind that have been caught operating within our borders.” He dropped the bombshell with a cold tone. I sat ramrod straight in my seat. No. It wasn’t possible. I still had seven years before the war could happen.

“So why haven’t we declared war?” I asked, not doing much to hide my shock- even if the cause was not what Tobirama would expect.

“Because peace was my brother’s dream. They are angry, and I am tolerant of their anger for the time being. I killed the most promising Jinchuriki their village has ever seen. Even sealing the tailed beast away and allowing them take it to seal into a new jinchuriki did little to assuage their anger. They tried to demand a life for a life, and it was only my brother’s voice in my ear that prevented me from removing the fence sitter’s tongue from his impetuous skull” He said.

“They wanted to kill me?” I asked, shocked.

“I doubt they believed the suggestion would go anywhere. Every Shinobi in this village would see Iwa burn a million times before letting them touch a single hair on your head. No. You are the legacy of Hashirama. You are Konoha’s future. I gave them concessions. Gold, money, trade, missions. I gave them all that, and still they remain angry.”

“So what are we going to do?”

“About their anger? Nothing. I believe in my brother’s dream, but I am not him. I can not offer more than I already have. I will not. Instead, we must prepare for war”

“How are we going to do that?” I asked.

“The academy is already on a wartime curriculum. All Jounin-sensei are training their students on a fast tracked course to get them to the level of being able to operate on their own as three man cells capable of causing havoc to our enemies. Even more, our barrier team is being overhauled and the same is happening at the hospital.” He said, leafing through files on his desk.

“But there is one thing that I have the feeling we will need for the war to come”

“What?” I asked.

“Iwa will not come alone. Ohnoki might be an idiot, but he is not reckless. They will come with the aid of Kumo, and maybe even Suna and Kiri. None of the other villages like us very much right now. Even sharing the profits from the Genin Exhibition was insufficient to make up for the fact that only Konoha nin ended up making it to the last two stages” He glossed over the fact that he’d killed an Iwa genin, and I’d apparently killed one from Kumo.

“So what can we do? Make allies with the minor villages?”, he scoffed at the suggestion.

“Nothing so foolish. There is nothing the minor villages could offer us. Do you remember your Greatgrandfather?”

“Butsuma Senju? He was dead when I was born, so there’s nothing to remember”

“I was asking if you remembered your lessons about him, but that matters little. I doubt this would have come up in any of your lessons. My father had an obsession with the Sage of Six Paths. The legends go that he fathered both our clans, the Uzumaki clan, and the Uchiha clan. Beyond that, most people only know that he was the founder of ninjutsu and had the mythical Rinnegan. But my father was not satisfied with that information. He found writings on a set of tools that the Sage had made himself. Creations of unbelievable power. He believed that even one of those would allow a D-ranked shinobi to fight on the level of S-ranked one.”

A/N; Going, going, still going.