'That's probably the biggest compliment I've ever heard her give.' Tajima held her gaze, letting the thought settle.
With Azula, it was simple: she didn't do outside influence. She moved her own way, and you either existed in the periphery or you didn't.
For her to admit that without him, her entire personality wouldn't even be the same shape it was now was huge.
Tajima believed his daughter. She might keep him in the dark, that was just her style, but she wouldn't stoop to lying, especially about this.
"But if that's true," he asked, then stopped himself with a shake of his head. "No. I already know that answer. The real question is… why don't you trust me? Your father."
For a solid second, Azula genuinely wondered if she was asleep. 'This had to be a dream, right? Some weird fever hallucinations?'
'Is this really my father?' She squinted, trying to make the pieces fit. 'Or is this what they call a midlife crisis? Though, from what I remember, that usually involves buying a stupid horse or something, not getting all emotionally vulnerable.'
Her father wasn't like this. And it wasn't just because he was Uchiha, though that certainly didn't help. It was just how people were in this world, guarded.
"What's actually going on?" She sidestepped the question entirely, zeroing in on the root. "Why are you asking me this?"
Deep down, she was already connecting dots. She just needed him to confirm it.
And he did.
"You awakened your Mangekyō Sharingan," Tajima said. "Days ago. You didn't tell me nor did you tell your mother."
Azula raised an eyebrow and gave him a look that practically screamed that's it?
"Yeah, I did," she admitted. "After my fight with A. Don't tell me that's what this is about?"
In the ninja world, that kind of thing was actually taboo. Ninja combat was information warfare, plain and simple.
The more you knew about someone's abilities, the better your odds of walking away alive. And the reverse was true too, which meant every shinobi worth their salt kept their techniques locked down tight.
"Exactly," Tajima said. "Do you think I don't deserve to know?"
Azula shook her head. No, he deserved to know, but that wasn't the issue.
"Then why didn't you tell us?" he pressed. "I'd really like to understand."
Sure, a ninja was supposed to stay secretive about their jutsu. That was basic survival.
But the Mangekyō Sharingan was a whole different thing.
For Tajima, this wasn't just about his daughter's new trump card, it concerned the future of the entire clan.
The Mangekyō was the Uchiha's ultimate power, the thing that separated legends from footnotes. Once she had it, he could give her his own eyes as a final gift, and the Eternal Mangekyō would walk the earth again.
Only then, once those eyes were in her skull, would he finally feel at ease. Because that was the moment she'd truly stand at the peak of the ninja world.
All alone.
Azula's brain clicked straight into gear. The reason she'd kept quiet was simple: her plan wasn't his plan, and she knew it.
She let out a sigh. "There's a bunch of reasons, but the main one is that Mito-sensei's working on a technique that'll help me even more. I figured I'd tell you after that wrapped up. That's it."
And then it hit her. Tajima wasn't angry, not really.
He was... bored.
After the war, after all the fighting, he didn't have a clear role anymore. Being home with nothing to do, no real control over anything, it was probably eating at him.
That kind of void made a man think stupid thoughts.
'If that's what's going on in your head, old man, you're gonna have your hands full.' Her sudden smile after she finished talking sent a genuine shiver down Tajima's spine.
But his focus snapped back to Mito fast enough. What kind of technique was the woman cooking up that Azula thought it was worth delaying the awakening of the Uchiha's ultimate power for?
At this point, Tajima had fully realized he'd let himself get swept up in pure melodrama.
Part of him wanted to dig a hole and bury himself in it, but he knew better than to show that on his face. If he did, his authority as a father was gone forever.
Though honestly, after Azula had found him like this, he figured he'd already lost a chunk of it.
So after her answer, silence settled between them. For Azula, it was comfortable. For Tajima, it was mortifying.
"By the way," Azula spoke up again after a while, her tone completely casual. "After the meeting wrapped up, I had a private chat with Hiruzen. We came to an agreement. He stepped down, and I'm the new Hokage. Fourth of the name."
She dropped the news like she was telling him what she'd had for lunch, not mentioning the single most influential position a ninja could theoretically climb to.
"So," She spoke without letting him process the news. "Prepare yourself old man, you may likely become my advisor, and probably come back to the police force, but either way, you are really going to be busy again."
•••
•••
After Azula left him, Hiruzen spent his last day as Hokage buried in work, scrambling to wrap up and polish whatever he could before the clock ran out.
The fallout from that busy day hit the village like a wave the very next morning.
"What's with all the fuss today?" Pretty much everyone in Konoha woke up with that exact question rattling around their skulls.
Banners had sprouted up all over the place overnight, each one declaring 'A New Era for the village.'
Vague enough to make people squint, but flashy enough to grab attention. The kind of thing that screamed something big is happening without actually telling you what.
The sharper minds, especially the ones who'd been in yesterday's meeting, started connecting dots real fast. This had Azula's fingerprints all over it.
But then there was Hiruzen, still sitting pretty in the Hokage's office, perfectly fine and looking way more relaxed than he had any right to be.
He'd even ordered a pause on all new missions for the day, which only made the rumor mill spin faster.
A few minutes later, the summons went out. Every clan head in Konoha, no matter how small their outfit was, got called to the Hokage's office.
And it wasn't just them.
The Jōnin Commander, the head of the village's barrier and sealing team, anyone with a shred of influence found themselves marching toward that tower.
On top of that, word spread like wildfire that Hiruzen wanted the villagers themselves to gather in front of the Hokage Tower.
By now, anyone with half a brain had at least a rough sketch of what was coming.
"Hiruzen refuses to see us!" Hōmura stormed back to Danzō and Koharu, his face twisted with so much fury he couldn't even meet their eyes.
Koharu repeated the words like they tasted sour. "Refuses to see us? He's about to make a call that could drag this village straight into the ground, and he won't even look at us?"
Behind their calm masks and the fire in their eyes sat pure panic.
Danzō had spent the whole night scheming, trying to come up with a way to counter Azula, maybe even leash her somehow, only to wake up this morning and find out Hiruzen had flipped the whole board.
He was starting to regret storming out of their little meeting yesterday in a huff. 'If I'd just stayed...'
He couldn't even finish the thought. He knew that if things went sideways today, walking out on that meeting might end up as the second biggest regret of his miserable life.
As Hokage advisors, they had their own office in the tower for exactly this kind of situation, though truth be told they barely ever used the damn thing.
But even tucked away in there, they could still hear it. Thousands of villagers packed together right outside, buzzing like a kicked hornet's nest.
Then, just a few minutes later, the crowd erupted. A collective roar that hit the sky like they'd all hit some kind of shared peak. The kind of noise that made the walls tremble.
The three of them didn't need a play by play. That sound meant exactly one thing. Either Hiruzen or Azula had stepped out, because those were the only two people in the whole village who could command that level of excitement.
And judging by the chakra signature they felt through the walls, it was Hiruzen..
•••
It was indeed Hiruzen, and looking out at the sea of people who'd shown up, all buzzing with excitement just at the sight of him, he felt a small pang of something bittersweet.
Azula appeared beside him a moment later, and the crowd's energy spiked even harder. It took over a full minute for the noise to die down, and that was after he'd already signaled for quiet twice.
Then silence finally settled, strange and heavy, blanketing thousands of villagers who moments ago had been screaming their lungs out.
"People of Konoha," Hiruzen spoke, letting chakra carry his voice far beyond what his lungs could manage. "Today we stand together to witness a new era for this village."
His amplified words rolled out across every corner of Konoha that wasn't sealed off by barriers.
"It has been almost four decades since the founding of the village," He spoke as he recalled that time, when he was still very young as his clan moved to Konoha. "During these years, so many things have happened."
"All of us have lost people dear to us, friends and family who used to wake up with, I've lost my father, my teacher, the first Hokage, we've participated into two wars, there are so many damages, yet we stand here today still strong, to create a future for those that'll come after us, and I'm happy to announce that after a decade leading the village, I've accomplished my mission."
"I've managed to hold back against all enemies and protected the future of Konoha and today, these peoples no longer represent the future of the village, they are the present. They are Azula Uchiha, Tsunade Senju, they are Orochimaru, Jiraya, Sakumo, Shikoku... some are already at the top of the ninja world like you already know while some are almost there."
As he was speaking, everyone can already see that future because all these he mentioned have more or less have some feats at such a young age.
'Konoha is really blessed,' that was the sentence in their head.
(END OF THE CHAPTER)