Chapter 182: All These Ungrateful Students of Mine!
"Prophecy. Prophecy. Prophecy."
"Is that the only thing your brain holds onto?!"
"You watched a legendary, once-in-a-generation Dōjutsu walk out of your grasp with both eyes open!"
Hiruzen had spent decades cultivating the temperament of a calm old man, and that temperament was currently failing him in real time.
"Old man — heh — listen, Nagato, he must have had his reasons—"
Jiraiya gave him the same sheepish look he'd been giving authority figures since he was twelve.
He knew, technically, that what he'd done as a Konoha shinobi — and the Hokage's own student, no less — wasn't defensible. He just didn't have a better answer ready.
"Reasons?!"
"I don't care what his reasons were. Do you have any idea what this war has cost Konoha because of the organization he's leading?!"
"This is on you, Jiraiya!"
Jiraiya took the entire tirade without a single word of pushback, just nodding along miserably.
He was fifty years old. Being dressed down like a genin who'd skipped patrol, and he genuinely didn't dare argue back — partly out of guilt, partly out of real fear that the old man's blood pressure wasn't built for this level of fury.
"The Akatsuki member assigned to this operation with me was Sasori — a missing-nin from Sunagakure," Itachi said quietly, choosing this moment to keep things moving while Hiruzen was occupied.
"Sasori? The one whose parents White Fang killed?" Jiraiya, evidently constitutionally incapable of staying out of trouble, kept talking. "Chiyo's grandson?"
Hiruzen's stomach dropped slightly at the name.
"Hm? White Fang?"
That one Tobirama actually recognized.
He remembered a senior student during Tsunade's Academy years — Sakumo Hatake. Talented kid. Excellent with a blade.
"I'm not sensing his chakra anywhere in the village. Is he on a mission?"
Tobirama glanced out at the peaceful village skyline, scanning. Tsunade's chakra signature, by contrast, registered loud and clear.
"..."
Hiruzen went quiet.
"He's dead. Took his own life."
Sakura supplied this without elaboration — the same fact she'd pulled out of Danzō during their conversation at Root headquarters. Danzō's fingerprints had been on the slander campaign that destroyed Sakumo's reputation.
Tobirama's expression went still. The boy who used to enjoy swordwork, dead by his own hand.
"Monkey. Explain."
"Well, ah—"
Hiruzen struggled visibly for an opening.
There wasn't a clean way to say a teammate abandoned a mission, the village turned on him through rumor, and he ended his own life over it.
That wasn't an answer that survived contact with someone like Tobirama.
Tobirama watched Hiruzen fail to produce words and felt a vein in his forehead pulse.
The pattern was becoming impossible to ignore. Itachi. Obito. Jiraiya's negligence with Nagato. Now this, on Hiruzen's own watch.
I die for one decade, and this village turns into this?
"Danzō."
"Where is Danzō?"
Whatever Hiruzen's actual involvement in the Sakumo situation had been, this had all happened under his administration. That was not a detail that disappeared just because Hiruzen hadn't pulled the trigger personally.
There was a time to act, and a time to stay out of it — and the entire skill of leadership was knowing which was which. Indecision in a leader was the one failure mode with no acceptable excuse.
You were either fully hands-off and accepted the consequences, or you intervened decisively the moment you committed — no half-measures, no hesitation.
"Danzō..."
Hiruzen hesitated.
Tobirama's eyebrow twitched at the hesitation alone.
"What's wrong with Danzō. Is he dead too?"
Danzō wasn't dead. Sakura privately thought that was a shame, but kept it to herself, tugging instead on Tobirama's sleeve. He was tall enough that she had to reach.
Tobirama looked down at the pink-haired girl, swallowed his temper, and bent down to her level.
If there was one upside to this entire resurrection, it was getting a clear read on this particular girl's capabilities. On strategic and political judgment alone, she'd already out-thought Hiruzen in real time — and she was thirteen.
And Jiraiya, over there, was apparently cut from the same idealistic cloth as Hashirama, in the worst possible way.
Sakura leaned in and gave him a quick, low-volume rundown.
Whatever was in it made Tobirama's expression go several shades darker.
"Monkey—"
He had to physically restrain the urge to deal with Danzō personally, on the spot, and almost called for him to be brought in. Then he glanced sideways at Itachi, still standing silently nearby, and held back.
Itachi wasn't his student. Everyone else in this room was — Hiruzen, Tsunade by extension, Jiraiya, the whole direct lineage. Whatever needed to happen with Danzō, it stayed within the family.
"You're Uchiha Itachi, correct."
He turned to face the man directly, red eyes fixed on him.
"Yes... Lord Second."
Itachi showed no particular surprise at his appearance. Orochimaru had pulled the same trick against Hiruzen before. Tobirama's will operating somewhere inside Konoha's defenses wasn't shocking — he was, after all, the one who'd invented the technique in the first place.
"I have a reasonable picture of your situation. You chose this path yourself, and the consequences belong to you."
"It's not too late to reconsider."
Tobirama's arms stayed crossed. Even with his combat capability functionally throttled down to chunin-equivalent by the limited summoning, his presence carried real weight.
"Do I still have a choice?"
Itachi's smile was bitter.
"Compile everything you know about Akatsuki and hand it to Hiruzen. Then find Sasori and get him out of the village."
Tobirama glanced at Hiruzen, who nodded immediately — already planning the logistics of arranging a believable gap in the perimeter once this conversation finished.
"Wait." Itachi spoke quickly. "Sasori and I were sent here to locate the Two-Tails."
If he left empty-handed, Pain wouldn't accept it cleanly. One failed unauthorized visit already on record, and now a second mission with nothing to show — his standing in the organization would erode further.
"The Two-Tails?" Tobirama looked at Hiruzen, confused.
"I caught it," Sakura said, raising a hand.
"Good work." Tobirama nodded at her, satisfied.
Then he looked, deliberately, at Hiruzen, Jiraiya, and Itachi in turn.
Look at her. Now look at the rest of you.
What exactly has everyone else been doing?
Hiruzen felt the weight of seventy years pressing down a little harder. Even your own teacher could make you feel like a disappointment, apparently. Was this what people meant by grandparents always favoring the grandkids?
"The Two-Tails is currently sealed in the Uzumaki tower vault, under several layers of containment seals." Hiruzen waved a tired hand at Itachi. "Go. Report it however you need to."
He couldn't look at Itachi's red eyes much longer without his head starting to hurt.
Itachi gave a short nod and left without further comment. He'd already sensed this was about to become an internal Senju matter and an Uchiha had no business staying for what came next.
The moment Itachi was gone, Tobirama's expression sharpened.
"Hiruzen!"
"Bring me Danzō!"
Hokage Building. Council chamber.
Danzō walked toward the chamber, mildly puzzled by Hiruzen's sudden summons.
He'd already tried recruiting Sakura into his sphere of influence once, and she'd not only refused but mocked him for the attempt, which still grated. He wanted retaliation, but with her current standing in the village, smearing her now would be difficult — and she was thirteen, which limited the available angles considerably.
It wasn't as though he could accuse a thirteen-year-old of forming a faction—
He stopped.
Forming a faction.
His eyes brightened. He started running through her known associations.
Uchiha. Uzumaki. Ino-Shika-Cho. Tsunade. Jiraiya. Kakashi.
All of them clustered around one girl. That looked exactly like the kind of consolidated personal power base that the term "faction" was built to describe.
Danzō's enthusiasm climbed with every connection he traced, his expression cracking into something almost like a smile.
What he conveniently failed to register was the obvious problem with the framing.
That entire group had a much simpler name: the Hokage's own lineage. Hiruzen's direct line of students and their students. Accusing them of faction-building was functionally the same as standing in the open and accusing the sitting Hokage himself.
He reached for the door handle, pleased with himself, and pushed it open.
It struck him as odd that Hiruzen had called him to the council chamber rather than his office, but Danzō, riding his own good mood, didn't dwell on it.
Creeeak.
The old door's hinges produced a sound that set everyone's teeth slightly on edge.
Before Danzō could say anything, a figure barreled past him from behind with considerable urgency.
"Out of my way, old man!"
He didn't have time to step aside before Tsunade shoved past him bodily, crossing the threshold at a dead run.
She stopped. Stared.
Tobirama, seated at the head of the table, looked back at her.
"It's been a while, Tsunade."
There was a warmth in his eyes that he showed very few people.
"Who—"
"Who did this?!"
"Who used Impure World Reincarnation on my grandfather?!"
Tsunade's eyes had locked on the black sclera, the cracked lines spreading across Tobirama's face — unmistakable markers of the technique.
Sakura was already opening her mouth to confess, then took one look at Tsunade's expression and decided silence was the better tactical option.
Too slow. Tsunade had already spotted her.
She crossed the room and grabbed Sakura by the collar, fury fully unleashed.
"You absolute brat — after everything I've done for you—"
"You went after my grandfather?!"
Sakura, sweating visibly, attempted diplomacy.
"Lady Tsunade, let's talk about this calmly. Anger clouds judgment."
Tsunade was not in a listening mood. She looked entirely prepared to demonstrate exactly how much anger could accomplish.
"That's enough, Tsunade."
Tobirama caught his great-grandniece's wrist before things escalated further.
"Grandfather!"
Something in Tsunade cracked slightly — the genuine hurt under the anger surfacing for a second. Whose side are you even on right now.
And separately: who is "grandfather" supposed to be, exactly. Hashirama had once mistaken the pink-haired menace for his own great-granddaughter, and apparently the family delusion was now hereditary. She was fifty years old and unmarried, not someone's auntie figure by proxy.
"It's a misunderstanding, all a misunderstanding—"
Sakura had genuinely not factored Tsunade's feelings into the equation when she'd put this together, and the apology, at least, was sincere.
"Anyone who plays with forbidden things eventually gets played by them in turn. Including me."
Tobirama held Tsunade's wrist steady and turned his attention to the old man standing frozen in the doorway, watching all of this unfold.
Decades had passed. The handsome young man he remembered had become an elderly figure standing very still by the door.
"Danzō."
Tsunade let the matter with Sakura drop, for now, redirecting her glare instead — first at Sakura, then, with even more weight, at Hiruzen, who was doing an excellent job of pretending none of this concerned him.
If that pink menace dug up Grandfather, the old man definitely signed off on it.
Great. Get a new favorite student and suddenly the old one doesn't matter, is that it? You ungrateful old—
Whatever Tsunade's glare was communicating, it was apparently potent enough that Hiruzen produced a small, involuntary cough.
"Hm. Your color's poor, old man." Tsunade's smile had no warmth in it whatsoever. "Want me to loosen up those joints for you? Free of charge?"
"I happen to be quite skilled in that area."
Hiruzen looked at his student's expression and found himself entirely without a response.
That's precisely why I don't want your hands anywhere near my joints.
"Tsunade. Let's leave that for another time."
"And Sakura — her medical technique is actually quite good too, she could—"
He turned to gesture toward the spot where Sakura had been standing.
Empty.
...
Where did she go.
"Heh. Sakura's not around, so allow me to handle the filial duties myself~~~"
Tobirama's attention had already moved fully onto Danzō, his expression settling into something flat and unreadable. The earlier flare of temper had vanished entirely.
Anyone who genuinely knew Tobirama understood that this particular stillness was worse, not better, than open anger.
Danzō stood there sweating, every instinct from decades ago surfacing at once. In front of this man, he had never once managed to stand fully upright, even now.
"Te — teacher."
The words came out through gritted teeth.
"Shimura Danzō. Tell me — are you a shinobi of Konoha."
Tobirama's voice was quiet. The question landed like a hammer regardless.
"Yes! I am! I am a shinobi of Konoha!"
Danzō stared at the man in front of him, the realization fully landing now.
Impure World Reincarnation. That girl used it on the man I revere above everyone else.
That's not different from desecrating me personally.
"Then answer me."
"Explain Sakumo Hatake."
"Explain why you sat on your hands while the Hokage himself was in danger."
"Explain the destruction of the Uchiha clan."
"Answer me."
Tobirama's eyes had gone sharp and cold, his voice carrying real menace now.
His personal dislike of the Uchiha was genuine, but his strategic instincts had never wavered on the broader point: keeping the clan intact and balanced had always been the better outcome for Konoha. Losing them entirely meant Konoha had effectively cut off one of its own arms.
He didn't bring up the four thousand soldiers Danzō had sent to their deaths — that, after working through the full context, looked more like an intelligence failure than active malice. There was no benefit to Danzō personally in those casualties.
A person could be cruel. A person could be deceptive. What they could not afford to be was stupid.
The moment stupidity entered the equation, that was the full measure of the man — nothing more to extract.
Danzō, caught in the direct beam of Tobirama's interrogation, answered almost before he'd decided to.
"White Fang died by his own hand, after a slander campaign damaged his reputation."
"The Hokage was in danger, and I withheld Root's forces — for the greater strategic picture."
"The Uchiha — the Uchiha were preparing a coup. Eliminating them was a decision reached jointly by myself, Koharu, and Hiruzen."
Danzō had survived several decades as a political operator under men far sharper than himself, and that instinct kicked in fast enough to recover his footing even mid-interrogation.
Wait.
Koharu and Hiruzen were part of that decision too?
Tobirama turned and looked at Hiruzen, his head beginning to ache in earnest.
His students. Every single one of them.
What exactly had happened to all of them while he wasn't here to supervise?
"Bring me Koharu Utatane."
A voice rang out from somewhere unseen, bright with anticipation.
"I'll go get her!"
A familiar pink head poked out from around a corner, grinning.
That old woman snapped at me on the River Country front. I haven't forgotten that.
Hiruzen watched Sakura's enthusiasm for this entire unfolding disaster and felt something close to genuine regret.
I should never have handed her Impure World Reincarnation.
Less than twelve hours since summoning Tobirama, and the entire village leadership is on fire.
I asked you to research yang-release jutsu. This is what you give me?
He looked at Sakura's expression — sheepish, slightly guilty, entirely unrepentant.
This isn't really her fault, is it.
Tobirama had asked the question. Itachi had been standing right there. None of this had been engineered.
Both of them shared the blame equally. Neither one was getting out of this clean.
Before long, Koharu Utatane arrived in the chamber, hurried and out of breath.
The seventy-year-old woman took one look at the man seated at the head of the table and her first thought was that she had died.
Is that — is that my teacher? Standing there, after all these years?
Has my time come? Is he here to take me with him?
"Te — teacher... have you come for me?"
Tobirama's mouth twitched at the question.
"You're very much alive. I ask, you answer. Nothing extra."
He waved a hand, impatient.
Seeing this particular student again produced no nostalgia in him whatsoever. Just a deepening sense of exhaustion.
Kagami. If you'd lived — would you have ended up like this too?
Does time genuinely change people?
If it does — why am I still exactly the same person I always was?
Which means—
This is entirely the fault of these ungrateful students of mine.
☆☆☆
-> 20 Advanced chapters Now Available on Patreon!!
-> https://www.pat-reon.co-m/c/Hollowborn
(Just remove the hyphen (-) to access patreon normally)
If you like this novel please consider leaving a review that's help the story a lot Thank you