Pre-Chapter A/N: More chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio. Experimenting with two chapters a week, we'll see how long I can keep this up for.
"Do we have the votes?" I asked Uraume the question the first thing in the morning. Uzume was scheduled to arrive in a matter of minutes, and while she had delivered me my first political victory in these chambers, Danzo was not Hiruzen. Hiruzen was almost universally beloved by the clans. He was my granduncle's chosen, and that meant something. We had tossed some mud on his robes with the Danzo scandal, but the monkey was nothing if not a political animal. I had expected him to defend Danzo, insist on his innocence, try to preserve his legacy, but there was none of that. Hiruzen Sarutobi tossed his dead best friend to the wolves with no hesitation, and very little in the way of an apology. It was impressive.
So it meant his position was strong. Strong enough that I would probably have to give concessions if I wanted my coup to succeed. And my coup needed to succeed before I brought the war to an end. It was why the plans for dealing with Kumo just sat on my table unimplemented. Kumo were, at present, the biggest, baddest threat. If we put them down, then it was possible some of the clan heads could argue against the necessity of switching Kage. Hiruzen was definitely a more capable administrator—in peace times—than I was at present. He had the experience on his side. But me, I knew I'd make a lot of mistakes early on.
That was another reason why I needed to wait till I was officially Hokage to deal with Kumo. A win like that would give me leeway for half a decade worth of mistakes and missteps.
"We might. We just might," She replied with a shrug.
"Might? You've been making the rounds for over a week now, I would expect better than that considering all the time you spent."
"You were the one that ordered me not to directly broach the subject. All I dropped were hints and the clan heads took that as a cue that even we aren't sure of ourselves, and they're noncommittal. Uzume has your back. Same with the rest of our classmates that sit on the council, but we don't have a direct majority on our own," she said.
"Okay then. Who do you think would vote against us?" I tried.
"Definitely the Sarutobi and Shimura clans for one. The Onikuma clan has some old business with Hiruzen. I couldn't get the specifics, but they owe him. The Aburame are wildcards like always—seconding Danzo only to end up voting for you in the first vote just goes to show that it's impossible to tell what happens in their heads. The Inuzuka don't blame you for Kuro, but they also don't have much good to say about you either. The Fuma clan will do whatever will cause them the most in the moment. You said that we should not count on your cousin's vote, so we only have five assured votes. We hope Kizuru's aunt would vote with us, and the same with Choni's uncle but they are not assured," she said, laying out our cards.
"So for most people, it's just impossible to tell?" I asked with a sigh. She nodded.
"Five sure votes for us, three certain ones for Hiruzen. Then seven votes in the air that we can't tell how they'd land," I surmised our chances. She nodded again. It was clear that she didn't want to take the gamble either.
"Okay, so what do we do to stack the deck in our favour?" I asked.
"A medical report officially declaring that Hiruzen will never be able to be a shinobi again would go a long way."
"My cousin would never make us one. Not for the purpose of trying to coup the man. She's too loyal for that," I declined instantly. Tsunade would never fold to being ordered into line, and she was too politically powerful to be pressured into doing anything she didn't want to.
"And it's not like we could get someone else to step in and do it. Tsunade would break their backs before letting them touch him," I said.
"Good thing she isn't the head of the hospital then," Uraume had a smirk.
"That old coot? No chance she does that. Does she even leave her house these days?" I asked. The Head of the Hospital was a Nara, Nara Kagame, a woman in her eighties who had been chosen to set up the hospital in the first place, and now remained in the position more out of respect for her past achievements than what she was presently doing. She spent her days on frolics of her own and almost never involved herself in hospital business. Even back when my granduncle was Hokage, she'd been basically retired.
"She hangs around the Nara forest most of the time, but I think you have a good chance of convincing her to do the examination if you ask," she said, smirk building on her face.
"There's something you're not telling me," I accused. She had that look on her face.
"It's unconfirmed but there's gossip that she and your granduncle used to make the beast with two backs. Let's hope that some of her sweetness for him gets passed down," she said, and I felt the urge to puke in my mouth. Why the hell would she put that image in my head? Also, wasn't she like decades older than Granduncle had been? Oh Tobirama, you bad, bad boy.
"So you want me to try to take advantage of the fact that she might have been sweet on my granduncle to get her to examine her sitting Kage and release that report to me?" I asked.
"Precisely. You've got the plan more or less figured out then," she said. I narrowed my eyes even as the door swung open, admitting Uzume.
"Should I be worried?" She asked.
"About?" Had she heard Uraume's and I's discussion from the hallway?
"My niece. Why are she and the rest of your team for that matter attempting to scale the Hokage monument with only their left hands and legs respectively?" She said. I turned in that direction, activating my Byakugan to help me see across the distance even better. Lo and behold, all three of them were struggling to push themselves up the mountain with only half their limbs.
"Training. They felt they were each ready to learn a brand new jutsu so I'll teach the first to make it up the mountain," I said, knowing that I would end up teaching all three of them the same jutsu in the end. Maybe I'd add something bespoke for the winner but that was more dependent on my mood than anything else.
"I see," she said, good. She didn't have any ground to stand on to criticize my teaching of my students when she spent her time forcing her students to spar with a clone of her over and over again for hours. If they weren't getting so much stronger from it, I would have stepped in to stop it already.
"So…"
"So?" I asked.
"Kumo. I assume we have to go after them next, huh?" she said.
"Yeah. Their position in Frost isn't something I'm very comfortable about allowing to continue. We have to drive them out sooner or later, and sooner would definitely be easier than later."
"So why aren't we out there doing it?" she asked. She wasn't the only one with the question. Just letting Kumo train more shinobi was stupid and almost guaranteed to bite us in the ass, but I couldn't move for obvious reasons.
"We just need to clean things up a bit here, and then we can make our move."
"Clean what?" she asked, and it hit me then that Uzume hadn't been privy to a lot of my more recent scheming. In my defense, she wasn't really all that interested in talking politics or anything that didn't leave her the opportunity to punch something at the end.
"I want to be Hokage, 'Zume," I said, remembering the nickname she'd tried to take an ear off for back in the academy. She remembered it as well, eyes narrowing in my direction before she sighed.
"Yeah, we know, Shori. Everyone knows," she said.
"Well, I want to be Hokage before we fight Kumo," I specified.
"Are we going to kill Sarutobi?" Her voice lowered now as she stepped closer to us, plopping down on the chair before my desk. I gave her a look through narrowed eyes and sighed. Why was everyone in this world so murder-happy?
"No. No we aren't."
"We're going to coup him instead," Uraume finished for me and I sighed again.
Uzume looked at the two of us like she wasn't quite certain if we were insane or not.
"You guys do know he's in the hospital right? Bedridden? Only four Anbu guarding him? I can knife him for you if you want," she said, and to her credit, it was actually a genuine offer. One that I refused out of hand though. Killing the previous Kage wasn't a good way to secure the seat, and even if I got away with it, there was too much risk.
"No. No killing him. Hiruzen will live to see me build the village into something he never could."
"Then I've got bad news for you, Shori, if you want the job you've got to find a way to get rid of the guy before you. Is he going to abdicate? Is that the plan?"
"No. We can't even give him the chance to abdicate. He'd name anyone but me for a successor and I won't stand for that," I said.
"Okay, so what's your plan?"
"If the Clan Council vote for it with the right reason and the Daimyo approves it, the Hokage can be forced out of his position," I said.
"Do we have the votes?" I smirked when she mirrored my earlier phrasing. And somehow, the fact that she used 'we' rather than 'you' made me feel warm inside. It was the strangest thing.
"Not yet."
"Does anyone even like the Monkey?"
"He's the Hokage. They don't need to like him," Uraume said. Wasn't that the truth?
"Okay, run me through everything," Uzume said, and we began to bring her up to speed.
XXXXXXXXXX
Nara Kagame lived in a simple building. It was a bungalow. My Byakugan—I'd scanned the building before knocking—told me it had a single bedroom, and a meditation room as its only amenities other than the kitchen we presently sat inside. Looking at it, one wouldn't have been able to tell that this woman single-handedly invented most of the medicines Konoha used today, pioneered medical ninjutsu in the village, and set the standards for the Hospital when she founded it.
"You look very little like him, you know?" She said. Those were the first words she'd spoken since she'd ushered me in and began to make tea.
"I'm told I get my looks from my mother," I replied.
"Yes, yes, Hyuga looks. Hyuga men were always so delicious," she said, and I did my best to pretend she wasn't looking at me like a piece of meat on a slab.
"But those eyes. Those eyes are all Tobi. The darkness, the cruelty, the boundless curiosity. That's all him," she said, stepping closer and placing a wrinkled hand against my face. It took all my self-control to avoid relieving her of it. The smile that suddenly cut through her weathered face told me she noticed.
"Cruelty? My granduncle wasn't cruel. He was a good man," I wasn't sure I felt more uncomfortable with her words or her actions. She'd gotten very close now. I gained a temporary reprieve when she turned away laughing heavily. She laughed so heavily that she had to take two steps back to rest against the sink. And then the coughing began.
"I never in my life met a man crueler than Tobirama Senju. And I met Madara Uchiha in his heyday," she said between coughs. A hand pressed to her chest. I narrowed my eyes, tempted to activate my Byakugan as I got the feeling she was using some sort of jutsu, especially with how she straightened up in a matter of seconds, hale like nothing had happened.
"You're insane," I said once it was clear that she was no longer in danger of keeling over and dying in a second or two, and that was the truth. Either that or she was just not as well informed as I thought she was. Madara Uchiha. What I knew of him from canon was enough to make me feel a just trepidation at every mention of his name. What living in this world told me and the context it provided as to just what sort of man he had been in his youth—well, let's just say Hashirama was the only one who could somehow find a way to love him.
It had only been so easy to form Konoha because Madara had overseen either the destruction or the crippling of several of the powerful clans that called the Land of Fire home. Both the Kawashiro and Hoshikawa clans had been massacred down to the last child for daring to question the Uchiha. They were his allies. They were his fucking allies and he killed them for even the possibility of dissent. If she thought my granduncle was worse than that then she was a fool. And I found myself with little patience for fools.
"Believe what you will. I am the one who knew Tobirama in his youth. I saw him as he put his genius mind to play in jutsu after jutsu. I've seen you use the Hiraishin to jump over the place. Do you know how many prisoners of war he left stranded between the fourth and fifth dimensions when ironing out the kinks of that one? Or should I talk to you about Edo Tensei? You are his family, after all. You should know just what the two of us did to dozens of Iwa and Kumo shinobi we captured during the first war. The people that killed your father? Oh, their suffering was legendary. But that wasn't the worst of it."
"I care little and less for this trip down memory lane, woman," I growled. I would not sit here and allow granduncle's name be besmirched by this old hag. This relic of a bygone era.
"How impatient. Just like him. If you didn't carry the echoes of Hashirama's chakra so strongly, I would have begun to worry who birthed your father. We all know Tobi coveted Mito enough. He coveted everything Hashi had,"
"I'm leaving," I said, standing up. If this is all she had to offer, then I had wasted my time coming here.
"Don't be like that, young Shorirama. Tell me what brought you here," she said, with all the quiet assurance of someone who knew I needed them more than they needed me.
"I need you to examine someone for me and make a medical report addressed to the Konoha Clan Council."
"Ohhhh. How interesting. What mischief do you have planned now, my boy?"
"I'm not your boy," I shot back instantly. I did not like the familiarity with which she addressed me. The disrespect she had when she spoke of granduncle.
"I changed your diapers more times than I can count, boy."
"Are you going to help or not?" I asked with a sigh.
"Why not? I've been bored cooped in here all alone. Might as well get up to some Senju drama while I still have breath in me. So who's the target?"
"Hiruzen Sarutobi," I said the name and watched her expression. It did not shift, change or crack. Almost like she truly didn't care who the target was.
"Saru, huh?" she said, now there was a smile slowly building on her face. As if it had taken her seconds to hear what I said… or as if it had taken her seconds to figure out what I meant.
"So you want to be Hokage, boy?"
"What did I say about calling me your boy?"
"No idea. Can't remember," she said, and suddenly she was moving. In a matter of seconds, she had gotten to the doorway of her kitchen, before turning to look at me from where I sat dumbfounded.
"Are you coming or not?" she asked, and when it seemed I'd taken a second too long to answer, she just started walking away, the click clack of her cane against the wood being the only sound I heard. Even old as she was, she could still keep her bodily sounds at a low.
"Ughhh. I'm coming," I said, hurrying after her.
XXXXXXXXXX
Tsunade looked far from pleased. Far from pleased was actually an understatement. She looked like she wanted to punch something to the moon. It turned out that I wasn't the only one who Nara Kagame got a kick out of annoying to their wit's end.
"Just look at this file structure, girl. If I didn't train you myself I'd have been wondering how many brain cells you've got in that head of yours. Since I did train you, I know that there are only three of them and it seems two have gone missing in the heat," she said acerbically, even as I coughed behind her to hide the laughter that had forced itself out against my will. What the hell was that?
"I want all the files for Hiruzen Sarutobi," Nara said finally.
"What for?" Tsunade asked, going still. Even pissed off as she was, she could tell something was wrong. Her eyes flickered over to me, realization beginning to build.
"You can't be asking me to do this," she said next when the old woman didn't answer, instead looking through the cabinet. I knew the words were directed at me.
"I'm not. He's your sensei. That's why I got your boss to come in herself and do it. You won't be betraying him this way," I said, trying to assuage her concerns.
"I betrayed him when I told you in the first place," she said, sullenly. I struggled for a reply before I heard a sudden exclamation of joy.
"Gotcha," Kagame said, holding up a file with a very familiar name on it.
"I'm sorry, Tsu-chan," I said.
"No you're not," she replied instead, sullen rather than wrathful.
A/N: So we get the next steps of Shori's (far from) masterplan. Next five up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)(same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.