Ninja moved through the forest as fast as simple vehicles, and a strong shinobi like Senju Mori was faster still.
After parting ways with Uzumaki Chizawa, he soon reached the outskirts of the Hidden Leaf Village.
Mori did not hurry back into the village. Instead, he found a lakeside in the nearby woods and carefully "prepared his appearance."
He needed his return to cause the greatest possible stir across the Leaf.
He first took out the cuirass he had worn in the earlier battle and put it back on.
It was the best proof that he had "fought to reclaim the Hokage's body" in a life-and-death struggle with powerful foes.
From the front, anyone would see three savage claw marks running from the center plates over his abdomen to the rib plates on his right flank.
They were the marks Kinkaku had left on him while half-tailed-beast transformed.
Mori then drew a jar of blood from the sealing scroll and carefully poured it over himself, especially across those three claw marks and all over his back.
The grime and dust from the long road already played their part; no extra touch-ups were needed.
Last, he took Senju Tobirama's body out of the sealing scroll and tied it tightly to his back with a rope.
When he was done, Mori sat still for a moment. After the blood dried a little, he rose, stepped to the water's edge to check his reflection, studied himself closely, then dipped a few drops of lake water and dripped them into his eyes.
The clear foreign sensation made him blink hard. After a brief discomfort, his eyes turned bloodshot, and a few tears slid down the bridge of his nose.
Only then did Mori nod in satisfaction, pick up the Basho Fan, and stride toward the Hidden Leaf.
…
By late afternoon, the village felt like a great beast licking its wounds at dusk, silently radiating grief.
After Sarutobi Hiruzen and the others brought back unprecedented bad news, the two chūnin guarding the gate met anything approaching the village with unusual vigilance.
So when a shambling figure emerged from the distant treeline, they straightened at once, hands slipping into their pouches to grip kunai.
Shock quickly replaced caution.
As if seeing the impossible, their throats tightened, a short, startled gasp escaped, and one cried out in a trembling voice:
"That's… Jōnin Mori? And on his back—that's the Hokage!"
"The Hokage!"
"It's Jōnin Mori! He brought the Hokage back!"
With that shout ringing to the sky, the deadened air seemed to revive in an instant as countless people surged toward Mori.
He walked slowly, every step heavy. He ignored the commotion; all of this was within his calculations.
He had timed it precisely, arriving at the gate at sunset when the streets were most crowded, to let as many people as possible witness the scene.
He was the only actor on this stage, every detail a prop he had set.
In his right hand he gripped the red-and-white Basho Fan. Its feral shape and vivid colors drew eyes at once.
It was his trophy, a symbol of great power, silently declaring the terrifying enemies he had defeated.
His left arm pressed a huge sealing scroll to his side. Villagers and shinobi who didn't know better might assume it held something important.
Intelligence? Other Six Paths tools? Or the bodies of Hidden Cloud shinobi?
Mori knew the truth: after taking out the fan and Tobirama's body, the scroll was empty.
He kept it with him to echo the garb of the First Hokage.
Long black hair, red cuirass, a giant scroll always at hand, the crest of the Senju…
In wartime, with the Hokage newly fallen, this image could grant immense reassurance and a familiar comfort drawn from memory.
Mori was certain that, at this moment, the same thought flashed through countless minds—'If only Lord Hashirama were still here.'
That was exactly the effect he wanted.
As the villagers and shinobi closed in, Mori straightened his chest to display the huge, charred-edged raking wounds on his armor to every eye.
No extra words were needed. This was the most direct, shocking "medal."
Of course, the true centerpiece was the body of Senju Tobirama on his back.
Secured with rope, the Second Hokage's head hung over Mori's shoulder, his face pale and lifeless, eyes closed and turned forward.
The ashen features and disheveled white hair struck every onlooker to the core, smothering the rising cheers into silence.
"It's the Second!"
"Lord Second… sacrificed himself?!"
"Look at those wounds… What did he go through?"
"Didn't they say Lord Hiruzen and the others already returned? Why is it a Senju bringing the Hokage back?"
"Does that mean the rumors in the village…"
As whispers spread, news that "Senju Mori has brought the Hokage back" drew the village's real heavyweights to the gate.
Led by Sarutobi Hiruzen and Shimura Danzō, the Hokage's disciples arrived, followed by the senior jōnin and core members of the great clans—Uchiha, Hyūga, Senju, and the Ino–Shika–Chō trio.
Faces that usually gathered only for the jōnin confidence vote now converged, unbidden, at the village gate.
The murmurs did not fade before such figures; the swelling crowd only made the buzz grow louder.
Every hushed comment was a poisoned barb for Hiruzen and the rest as they arrived.
At the sight of his teacher's remains, Hiruzen turned deathly pale, nearly lost his footing, and his eyes filled with raw grief and guilt.
Danzō's single eye also flashed with sorrow, then narrowed as it swept over every detail on Mori and then the still-murmuring crowd.
His face darkened at once, shadowed enough to drip water.
Before their teacher's body, Mitokado Homura and Utatane Koharu showed deep pain as well, though a thread of doubt and unease ran beneath it.
Of the five, only Akimichi Torifu was most sunk in gloom. His usually placid, round face looked frozen, his whole bearing heavy with defeat.