Chapter 180 - 178: Tobirama And Mito

"But even then, it doesn't resolve my problems." Hisashi quickly pulled himself back from the beautiful fantasy Danzō had painted.

His biggest, most pressing issue was time. Azula seemed hell-bent on dealing with the Caged Bird as quickly as possible, and she wasn't the type to let grass grow under her feet while her enemies dithered.

Danzō nodded, completely unbothered. "Indeed, that future has nothing to do with your current situation. But didn't you ask me earlier what Orochimaru was doing at my office?"

Hisashi felt his eye twitch. He didn't like Danzō's word games, didn't like the way the man always seemed to be leading him down paths he hadn't chosen.

But he remembered the beautiful vision of a puppet Hokage and two shadow rulers controlling the strongest village in the world, and he swallowed his pride with only a little bit of bile. "What I mean is, do you have any ideas on how to deal with her right now? Something that will make her back off and let the Hyuga clan continue living in peace?"

'The Hyuga clan living in peace?' Danzō thought, keeping his face perfectly still. 'You mean so you can continue lording over your branch family in peace.'

Out loud, he said, "I do have a plan concerning your situation."

He paused, as if carefully considering his words, though in truth he had rehearsed this exact pitch hours ago. "First, you have to let things blow out even bigger."

"You have to make sure everyone in the village knows you are against the change she wants to make. If your stance is publicly known, she can't move against you quietly. Any action she takes will be seen as the Hokage crushing a clan's right to self-governance. She'll be forced to negotiate instead of dictating terms like a tyrant."

But Hisashi quickly shook his head. "Doing so would only make me her main target, and no matter how you look at it, whether it's her raw strength or the way her mind works with all those strange ideas, Azula is not someone you want to be targeted by."

He had thought about this plan before, many times in fact.

But if she couldn't deal with him privately, couldn't she simply deal with him publicly? And of course, anyone with a functioning brain knew Danzō wanted to use him as a shield, something Hisashi was even more unwilling to accept.

'When the village was founded, how could a mere member of the Shimura clan dare to stand so high in front of me? And yet here we are.' For Hisashi, the whole situation was only becoming more humiliating by the minute.

"Oh, it seems you're even more afraid of her than I expected." Danzō's voice carried the faintest edge of a taunt. "But this is even better. What I just told you is only the first part of my plan. The Hokage can ignore her critics inside the village. She can dismiss the elders, the traditionalists, even the other clan heads if she's determined enough. But she cannot ignore the Daimyō."

In truth, Danzō held nothing but disdain for the Daimyō, his ministers, and his entire court of silk-robed parasites.

He couldn't understand why someone weaker than a random Genin got to be the one in control of the entire Land of Fire, with the power to interfere in the affairs of the village whenever it suited him. It was an absurdity that had never sat right with him.

But now, that absurdity was about to become his trump card against Azula. "The Fire Daimyō still holds formal authority over all shinobi operations in the Land of Fire. If he publicly expresses concern that the Hokage is overstepping her mandate, interfering in sacred clan traditions, destabilizing the social order, she will have no choice but to pause and reconsider her position."

Danzō believed, with reasonable confidence, that Azula was not the kind of person who would tolerate someone like the Daimyō sitting above her forever. Sooner or later, she would deal with him. But for now, the Daimyō was still the nominal head of the nation, and she couldn't openly defy him without consequences.

According to the insider Danzō had cultivated in the capital, the reason the Daimyō had approved Azula's appointment in the first place was because of her age.

He thought a teenage Hokage would be easier to control than a Hiruzen who had grown craftier with every passing year.

When Danzō first heard that reasoning, he had wanted to call it what it was: complete and utter bullshit. But regardless of the Daimyō's original foolishness, the man surely wouldn't want to see her succeed too easily now.

Hisashi, who had been listening to Danzō's so-called plan with every intention of dismissing it entirely, found himself pausing. This might not be such a bad idea after all.

"Does that mean you have connections in the Daimyō's court?" he asked, because this was the crucial question. If Danzō could actually deliver on this, then the plan was worth a real chance.

"Yes," Danzō affirmed without hesitation. "Do you know Fukuyoshi? He is the Daimyō's closest confidant. Let's just say I have a very good friendship with him. He'll put in good words for you when the time comes."

Hisashi did happen to know of Fukuyoshi, who was indeed the Fire Daimyō's most trusted advisor. He found himself genuinely impressed by Danzō's network. Slowly, piece by piece, the man was revealing connections that were far deeper than Hisashi had expected.

He didn't reply immediately. He closed his eyes, turning over the different possibilities in his mind, weighing what he was willing to accept against what he was willing to risk.

"Okay." After a long deliberation, he made his choice, and this time his voice came out firmer, more resolute. "I don't believe I can't deal with an Uchiha teenager who isn't even old enough to drink."

Danzō was deeply satisfied. 'Finally, a good pawn who can draw her attention. At least she won't have time to destroy the village's structure while I'm still assembling power.'

"Good," he said promptly, not letting his satisfaction leak into his voice. "I'll contact Fukuyoshi immediately. By the time she realizes what's happening, she'll be surrounded on all sides."

If things went well, the Hyuga would take the brunt of Azula's attention while Danzō operated freely in the shadows. If things went badly, Hisashi would burn alone. Either way, he, Danzō, will win.

•••

•••

The internal conflict brewing in the village, at least the cold war between Azula and the Hyuga elders, was visible to the shinobi who paid attention, but it hadn't yet reached a point where ordinary life was affected.

Konoha was still lively, and with all the promotion about the new cooperation between villages, most people were simply happy and looking forward to the future.

Merchants were making deals they'd never dreamed of. Shinobi were taking missions with higher payouts than ever before. The streets were full of energy and optimism.

Tobirama, who had always been a specialist in reading people's emotions whether he admitted it or not, could see it clearly. The village was still Konoha, and only a little more than a decade had passed since his death, but to him, it was almost unrecognizable.

There were so many new buildings now. The Library, which hadn't existed at all in his time, the Anime Theater, whatever that was supposed to be, the Justice building, the renovated Uchiha compound, which had gone from a walled fortress to something that looked almost integrated into the village proper.

The Hokage Rock also had two new faces carved into it compared to when he was alive. The changes were simply staggering.

He had been scouting and learning new things every day since Azula had loosened his leash, and today, he was about to visit the last place he hadn't set foot in since being reanimated. It was also the place he was once most familiar with: the Senju Compound.

He changed his appearance to that of an ordinary Konoha villager, and he couldn't decide whether to be grateful or disappointed that the Senju Compound hadn't changed much compared to the rest of the village with the old buildings still here.

Finally, he reached a mansion where even from the outside, anyone could see the massive tree that shadowed the entire estate, the biggest in the village by a wide margin.

It was his brother's mansion, where his sister-in-law and his grand-nephew still lived, where his grand-niece should have been living instead of cohabiting with that... Uchiha.

"I felt your chakra the moment you appeared outside the Hokage mansion for the first time," a voice drifted toward him as he stepped inside. "I wondered when you would come to see me."

It was unmistakably the same voice he remembered, but Tobirama noticed immediately that Mito's voice was wearier than it had been, thinner somehow, like a blade that had been sharpened too many times.

When he saw her, saw how old she looked, it no longer felt strange that her voice had changed. What puzzled him was why.

Mito's vitality, her Uzumaki life force, should have kept her strong well into her old age. She should not have looked like this.

"I also thought you would feel my presence," he said, his voice as even and unemotional as it had always been. "But I didn't expect to find you in this state. What happened?"

From what he had gathered, Mito had traveled to Uzushiogakure alongside Azula and Tsunade not long ago, and even after her return, although she had been more reclusive than usual, no one had mentioned anything about her suffering a hidden injury that would drain her vitality like this.

"Oh, this is nothing." Mito waved a hand dismissively, her expression relaxed and genuine. "It's just the price I'm willing to pay for an experiment."

Tobirama studied her face. She wasn't forcing the calm nor was she distressed. He nodded, accepting her explanation.

It was hardly strange for an experiment to go wrong, and as long as the practitioner was willing to accept the consequences, there was nothing more to say. Judging from Mito's peaceful expression, whatever the experiment was, it had succeeded.

"Okay," he said. Then he was silent, feeling unexpectedly awkward, unsure where to begin.

The last time they had spoken, he had been alive and she had been young looking and the village had still been finding its shape as the war was nearing it ends. Now he was a reanimated corpse and she was an old woman and the world they had helped building had moved on without either of them.

Mito's first instinct was to offer him water, but she caught herself. His chakra was unmistakably that of an Edo Tensei body, and reanimated bodies weren't bodies in the normal physical sense.

"So," she said instead, as Tobirama sat across from her, "what do you think of the village?"

"Strange." The word came out before he could filter it. "It's only been a decade, but it's a completely different village from the one I remember."

Mito smiled at him, that same calm smile she had worn since he walked in. "The village has changed. But for the good, or for the bad?"

The question stumped him. "That's the problem. In my planning, the village was supposed to gradually become independent from the clans. The next Hokage would come from the civilian population. Everyone would have only one identity: being from Konoha, and nothing more."

He paused, and the old frustration crept into his voice. "Yet now, the clans have even more power than before. The Uchiha are practically running the village, occupying so many vital industries and positions. That isn't healthy for the village, especially in the long term."

This was his biggest objection to Azula's leadership, the thing that stuck in his throat every time he tried to accept what had happened. But he also had to admit the results, and he was too honest a man to deny them.

"To be fair, apart from her clan identity, she is genuinely qualified to lead. The woman I watched dominate the Kage Summit would never allow this village to lose. On that front, I have no complaints."

Mito knew all about Tobirama's plan for the next Hokage to be a civilian. He had discussed it with her, and it was the very reason he had refused to take Tsunade's father as his disciple.

From the beginning, he had decided that after him, the Hokage would not come from the Senju clan. She had never agreed with that reasoning, but she had understood it.

"I think you've lost sight of the most important part of the picture," Mito said gently. "Hashirama just wanted to create a village where children didn't have to go to war. Where they wouldn't watch the people around them die, the way you and he did when you were young, that was all."

She sighed, and for a moment her age showed through. "And yet, your grandniece graduated from the Academy at five years old and started doing missions, killing. So many children died during the First War, Tobirama. That alone proves the system my husband wanted to build was hollow from the very start."

"Whether it was you or your student who led, Konoha was only ever a military village. It forgot the reason it was created. I'm not blaming you," she added, and her smile softened. "I doubt anyone else could have done what you did. If it had been someone other than you who took over after Hashirama, Konoha probably wouldn't even exist today."

She looked at him with warm eyes. "Now, you've done what you had to do. It's time to trust the next generation, just like you trusted Hiruzen and the others back then."

"And I can assure you of one thing. My student doesn't care whether you're from a clan or not. She doesn't care about your reputation, your bloodline, or any of those things you used to obsess over. She only cares about what you've done and what you can do. If you have the ability, she wouldn't hesitate to make even an outsider from the Land of Fire the ANBU Commander."

(END OF THE CHAPTER)