Hearing the voices of the Nine-Tails and Mito...
Hashirama froze in place like a plant!
At that moment, the First Hokage's wisdom-filled brain began working at top speed, desperately trying to figure out how to handle this...
Isshin and Tenzō, who had been accompanying Hashirama on his tour of the village, exchanged a glance. Without needing a word, both immediately looked straight ahead and quietly began shuffling backward...
Even the fairest judge couldn't settle a family dispute...
And this was the First Hokage's family dispute!
Even Lord Third himself probably wouldn't be much help here...
Better leave these two monsters to sort it out themselves!
Hashirama naturally remembered Mito's voice.
But who was the one stirring things up beside her?
That was a little rude!
The young Nine-Tails didn't sound the same as its full-sized form, owing to the peculiar nature of Tailed Beasts as chakra-based lifeforms.
The full-sized Nine-Tails had a deep, heavy voice, while the young Nine-Tails sounded much more like a juvenile fox.
At first, Hashirama had even mistaken it for Senju Tōka...
And this was also one of the reasons the Nine-Tails was so popular in Konoha now.
Aside from generously handing out large quantities of Tailed Beast chakra...
Its change in appearance and voice had also played an important role in helping Konoha's villagers quickly accept the idea that 'Tailed Beasts aren't natural disasters.'
'Could that be Tōka? Is she still alive too? Or is she a new friend Mito made...?'
Hashirama's thoughts ran wild, and inwardly he couldn't help lamenting his predicament!
Why did Hiruzen have to make Konoha so wonderful?
'This is bad, this is bad...'
'Hiruzen clearly reminded me that Mito was still alive and really wanted to see me!'
In truth, Mito hadn't held it against Hashirama when he initially failed to come home and see her.
She knew Hashirama's personality. If he saw what Konoha had become under Hiruzen, of course he would be thrilled. It was perfectly normal for him to spend some time wandering around and taking everything in...
So she had given Hashirama plenty of time.
The problem was that Hashirama had been wandering around for a little too long.
Especially after passing by the Senju ancestral residence several times without even thinking to step inside and see her. That was when Mito finally started losing her patience.
If anything, Mito's sensory abilities were partly to blame. She could clearly sense Hashirama's movements, as well as the emotions in his heart whenever he passed the Senju ancestral residence...
There was nothing but pure excitement over how much better Konoha had become, without the slightest distracting thought...
'Forget it. It's not like this is the first time I've done this. I'll just apologize to Mito!'
Hashirama desperately tried to think of an explanation, only to suddenly remember that his wife apparently knew how to read minds. The two locks of hair over his forehead drooped as he turned around dejectedly.
But the moment he looked, Hashirama froze.
His gaze settled on the little fox perched on Mito's shoulder...
"Who are you?"
Hashirama stared directly at the Nine-Tails. "Why do you look so familiar? Have we met before?"
That immediately broke the Nine-Tails.
Did this bastard seriously not remember how it had ended up in Konoha and gotten sealed inside Mito?!
Mito couldn't help laughing at Hashirama.
There was no way she believed Hashirama's instincts couldn't recognize the Nine-Tails' chakra...
If he could say something like that with a straight face, then his unwittingly devious side was showing again...
"I'm the Nine-Tails!"
As the little fox spoke, it sprang from Mito's shoulder and launched itself straight at Hashirama's face!
Face-Hugging Fox Technique!
"Huh? You're the Nine-Tails?"
Hashirama flailed around trying to fend off the Nine-Tails' assault. Why had this fox started attacking him the moment they met?!
"Hashi—Hashi—Hashirama!"
The Nine-Tails gritted its teeth, curled its paws into fists, wrapped them in a trace of Tailed Beast chakra, and slammed three vicious punches into Hashirama's head!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Three crisp impacts rang out against Hashirama's skull.
With a powerful leap, the Nine-Tails—apparently worried Hashirama might retaliate—jumped straight back onto Mito's shoulder and shouted: "This absolutely wasn't me settling a personal grudge! I hit you for Mito's sake!"
"Do you have any idea how much she's missed you? Whenever she has free time, she looks at your pictures and reads the stories about you that Hiruzen collected from across the shinobi world..."
"I only hit you three times because you're the First Hokage! I showed you plenty of respect!"
The Nine-Tails made its case with complete conviction.
Isshin and Tenzō wore strange expressions.
Really?
Neither of them believed it...
The other Konoha shinobi watching didn't believe it either...
But Mito said nothing, so everyone else kept quiet as well and simply watched the scene with amused smiles.
The juvenile fox effect was still doing its job!
Watching a cute little creature throw three punches was completely different from watching a roaring monster do the same thing...
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."
Hashirama was momentarily stunned by the Nine-Tails' words, and a trace of bitterness welled up inside him.
There was absolutely no doubt that his feelings for Mito were sincere.
But the truth was that there had always been things—and people—he considered even more important. So over the years, he couldn't exactly say that he had devoted himself wholeheartedly to Mito...
Mito, meanwhile, had given her entire heart to Hashirama. She had inherited her husband's Will of Fire and ideals, and even at her age, she was still giving everything she had to Konoha...
Along the way, Isshin and Tenzō had also subtly mentioned Mito's contributions. Yet every time Hashirama started thinking about how fortunate he was to have Mito, some new Konoha facility or policy distracted him...
There was really no helping it.
Whether it was Hanzō, Nakamaro, or Kakuzu, every 'Warring States-style shinobi' who came to modern Konoha reacted with the same amazement and emotion.
How could Hashirama be any different, when he regarded Konoha as part of his own body and the embodiment of his greatest ideal?
Hashirama stared straight at Mito.
Mito smiled softly and met his gaze.
A gentle breeze swept past. Sunlight spilled across the street, bathing the two of them in a faint, warm glow.
Hashirama suddenly scratched his head. At a complete loss for what to do with himself, he unconsciously brought his hands together, then stared at Mito's face and the silver strands in her hair before clearing his throat.
"Mito, you're still as beautiful as ever!"
Much like how he would sometimes make a 'shooting' motion when nervous, Hashirama would occasionally clasp his hands together as if forming a hand seal when he was with Mito...
Mito had been on the verge of laughing at the gesture.
But Hashirama's utterly straightforward words still made her heart stir. She rolled her eyes dramatically. "You're already this old, yet you still can't act your age!"
"What do you mean, old? It feels like barely two days have passed since I married you..."
"You haven't changed at all!"
Hashirama grinned foolishly. Somehow, a bouquet of flowers had appeared in his hands, and he held it out to Mito with both hands.
His expression turned serious.
"You've worked hard all these years, Mito..."
"The best decision I ever made in my life was marrying you."
"Thank you."
Even Mito's face showed the faintest trace of a blush at that moment. Doing her best to maintain her composure, she accepted the flowers with both hands.
"At least you know it!"
Mito lifted one shoulder, flicking the little fox onto Isshin's head.
Then she opened her arms toward Hashirama, and Hashirama immediately understood, pulling his wife into a tight embrace.
At that moment, even two old men from the Warring States era like Isshin and Tenzō—both cunning as foxes and men who had seen nearly everything the shinobi world had to offer—felt something indescribable rise within them.
A reunion across time itself!
Caught up in the atmosphere, Isshin and Tenzō seemed to grow younger. The two shameless old men put their fingers to their lips and started whistling.
The surrounding Konoha shinobi and villagers erupted into cheers, loudly chanting Mito and Hashirama's names.
For a moment, the entire scene was overflowing with excitement!
The Nine-Tails sat atop Isshin's head, staring directly at Hashirama. It sighed, then joined the surrounding shinobi in applauding.
There was really nothing it could do about Hashirama!
The Nine-Tails had painstakingly designed what should have been a 'sure-kill' situation, yet this vegetable had effortlessly escaped it with nothing more than 'sincerity is the ultimate weapon'?
Was this guy just pretending to be stupid every single day?!
'This is definitely not Asura's personality...'
'Asura really wasn't very bright. But Hashirama isn't just bizarre when it comes to his cells and Wood Release—his personality isn't the type to let himself get the short end of the stick either...'
'Everyone has misjudged him! Hashirama is craftier than anyone...' the Nine-Tails ranted furiously in its mind.
And yet, as the fox looked at Hashirama and Mito, the corners of its mouth somehow rose on their own, forming a warm smile.
Maybe it was because the Nine-Tails was part of Konoha too...
"All right. How long are you planning to keep hugging me?"
Mito pushed Hashirama away and nodded in satisfaction. "Go on and keep touring the village! I won't bother you anymore. There are some things that aren't convenient to discuss here..."
Mito needed to talk to Hashirama about what they were going to do about Tobirama!
But Tobirama's situation couldn't be discussed in public.
Partly out of consideration for Hiruzen, and partly because, even with Konoha's current openness, this was one of the few genuinely sensitive topics...
They could talk about Madara, but not Tobirama...
Hashirama scratched his head and chuckled. Then he looked toward the Nine-Tails and asked with a slightly foolish expression: "Didn't you sneak in three punches just now?"
The fur along the Nine-Tails' back instantly stood on end!
Oh no!
How had he counted them so precisely?
Worse yet, Mito had just sent this vegetable away from her side, leaving the Nine-Tails completely without backup!
Bad memories immediately surged through the Nine-Tails' mind...
Worst of all, although it was now a Konoha Council Member with considerable status in the village...
Senju Hashirama was the First Hokage—and Hiruzen's teacher!
If Hashirama decided not to listen to reason, then aside from Hiruzen and Mito, there probably wasn't anyone else who could stop him...
"You can't attack me!"
"I'm a Konoha Council Member! I've worked for this village and contributed my sweat and chakra!" With no other choice, the Nine-Tails could only place its hopes in the Will of Fire, speaking at breakneck speed.
"Mito and I established a partnership! I use my ability to sense malice to defend against spies from other villages and prevent the Research Department's core technology from leaking. I've caught more than a dozen elite enemy spies!"
"I also provide chakra free of charge to talented shinobi in the village. More than a hundred shinobi have received chakra from me—even your current body contains my chakra!"
"Especially that Uzumaki brat Naruto, who's part of the Hokage's line! I've taken particularly good care of him, helping him realize his potential from childhood and train in Uzumaki Ashina's Ten Thousand Seals Body Integration Seal..."
"Even the current Hokage recognizes my contributions! My seat on the Konoha Council is rock-solid!"
The Nine-Tails loudly recited its achievements.
"And that's not all! I also recruited the Three-Tails and Six-Tails for Konoha. Even that stinking tanuki ended up forming a deep partnership with Nagato because of me..."
Hashirama, who had been preparing to thoroughly ruffle the fox's fur, was left dumbfounded by the Nine-Tails' speech.
Wait...
Where had this kindhearted fox come from?
Hashirama had already considered it unimaginable that the Nine-Tails could reconcile with Mito and freely appear in the village without causing any trouble...
How had it also managed to contribute so much?!
Improving the quality of Konoha's shinobi, providing huge amounts of chakra, protecting the Konoha Research Department...
The way Hashirama looked at the Nine-Tails gradually began to change.
But the Nine-Tails kept going, as though it intended to vent all the grievances it had accumulated over the past several decades. There was even a hint of reckless abandon to it now.
There were plenty of people around, after all!
Even if Hashirama attacked, surely someone would hold him back... right?
"Back then, you sealed me away without even asking questions, then went on about how I was too dangerous!"
"If you ask me, you're the most dangerous one! Are those cells of yours even human? I bet even a Sage couldn't make sense of how they're put together. They're more ridiculous than a Tailed Beast!"
"Did I ever attack Konoha of my own free will? Uchiha Madara hypnotized me and trapped me inside his Susanoo to fight you! Then, just when I finally woke up, you beat the hell out of me..."
"You two got to enjoy your fight, didn't you? I was innocent..."
"Yeah, I hit you three times just now! So what?!"
The Nine-Tails finally poured out everything it had kept bottled up for decades right in Hashirama's face, and afterward, it actually felt much lighter.
As though a great weight had finally been lifted from its chest.
The surrounding Konoha shinobi listened with surprised expressions, nodding slightly.
Council Member Nine-Tails actually had a point!
But there hadn't really been anything anyone could do. Who could reason with the Shura of the Shinobi World?
That man simply didn't listen to reason!
Of course, Madara himself believed he was the most reasonable and fair-minded person in the entire shinobi world...
"I'm sorry, Nine-Tails."
Hashirama slowly walked over to Isshin, lifted the little fox in front of his eyes, and spoke with utmost seriousness in both his voice and gaze.
"What happened back then was my fault."
"I was wrong to seal you away so rashly. I apologize."
"I never imagined the Will of Fire burned so fiercely in your heart..."
"Forget three punches. I'd accept three hundred. Go ahead and hit me! I won't fight back..."
The Nine-Tails stared at Hashirama, completely frozen.
Only moments ago, it had been privately cursing Hashirama as devious and calculating...
Yet now that it was actually facing this kind of offensive head-on, all those thoughts seemed to have been flung straight out of its mind...
The Nine-Tails turned its head away, seemingly unwilling to meet Hashirama's unbearably intense gaze.
"Forget it, forget it. Having someone like Uchiha Madara as your friend couldn't have been easy for you either..."
"It's been almost fifty years. That's all in the past. I was only joking..."
"But there's one thing we need to settle!"
"If anyone comes after me in the future, you have to help me this time!" The Nine-Tails turned back and met Hashirama's eyes with a serious expression, its voice low.
Hashirama, however, didn't avoid the Nine-Tails' gaze in the slightest...
After all, this was only a Tailed Beast. Hashirama was already used to staring directly into Madara's Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.
Genjutsu didn't work on him, and when it came to being brutally straightforward and overwhelming someone with sheer sincerity, Hashirama was an expert himself.
It was always Madara who looked away first, never Hashirama...
One could only say that, aside from a certain someone, both Hashirama and Hiruzen were remarkably good at this particular tactic...
"I will protect you with all my strength and with my life, Nine-Tails."
Hashirama spoke solemnly.
"You're already part of Konoha, and more than that, you're one of the pillars supporting this village! You're a Konoha Council Member who has made outstanding contributions to the Will of Fire, admired and trusted by your comrades throughout the village."
"You're an even better Konoha shinobi than I am!"
"I'm the one who needs to learn from you. I hope you'll give me plenty of guidance from now on..."
Hashirama's voice was utterly sincere, and his gaze seemed almost infused with his overwhelming vitality. In an instant, the Nine-Tails found itself unable to withstand it.
It suddenly seemed to understand why Mito never stayed angry with Hashirama...
No one could handle this!
Isshin and Tenzō chuckled.
What a familiar sight...
Back when Hashirama had visited the Uchiha and Hyūga clans to recruit them into Konoha, he had probably looked much the same.
The God of Shinobi personally humbling himself before others...
Tenzō still remembered how, when Hashirama learned that his father—the Hyūga Clan Head at the time—had come to visit, he hadn't even stopped to put on his shoes. He had run barefoot straight out of the Senju compound...
'Everyone knew there might be something else behind it...'
'But when the God of Shinobi himself treated you that way, who could possibly remain unmoved? Besides, even someone like Father could never tell whether Hashirama-sama was genuinely like this or doing it deliberately...'
Memories surfaced in Tenzō's mind, and he smiled from the bottom of his heart.
Isshin, meanwhile, sighed inwardly.
'Great Clan Head, you really didn't lose without reason... The Mangekyō's dōjutsu and Susanoo may be powerful, but they really can't stand against Hashirama-sama's charm...'
"All right, all right, stop saying things like that. I get what you mean..."
The Nine-Tails was completely helpless against Hashirama's overwhelming emotional gravity. It wriggled free from his hands, jumped onto his head, and sat cross-legged atop the vegetable's hair.
"Come on. I'll show you around the village!"
"Isshin and Tenzō have been explaining the village's policies. Now I'll tell you about Konoha's shinobi—the Hokage's line, the promising talents among the civilians..."
"And Konoha's Tailed Beasts and their jinchūriki. Those are the areas I'm responsible for."
Hashirama let out an impressed exclamation and praised it from the bottom of his heart.
"Nine-Tails, you're amazing! I wanted to learn about these things before, but Tobirama never taught me. He just took everything on himself and handled it all..."
"Will you explain it to me?"
The Nine-Tails' tail unconsciously rose at the praise, and it snorted proudly.
"Hmph. If you ask me, you weren't a very qualified Hokage! What does Senju Tobirama know about education? Frankly, with a student like Hiruzen, even Uchiha Madara could've trained him into an outstanding Hokage..."
"Educational resources are one thing, but the most important factor is the students themselves. A truly promising talent can flourish even in barren soil. Senju Tobirama was simply absurdly lucky!"
"So what I need to do is make proper use of Tailed Beast chakra. Under the Hokage's guidance, and supplemented by your cells and the cursed seals developed by Council Member Orochimaru, we'll raise the overall quality of Konoha's shinobi..."
"In other words, the student pool I just mentioned. You understand?"
This time, Hashirama was genuinely stunned.
Wait...
Fox, you actually know what you're talking about?
Isshin and Tenzō couldn't help nodding slightly, privately acknowledging that the Nine-Tails had truly come into its own!
That skill of mentioning Lord Third Hokage at every opportunity—it had already mastered one of Konoha's core technologies...
No wonder the 'Tailed Beast faction' had so quickly become one of Konoha's major power blocs!
Its leader really was something else...
Only 'Uchiha Seisui,' standing behind Isshin and receiving special attention from Hashirama, wore an expression that seemed caught somewhere between composure and breaking point. Even the tomoe in his Sharingan seemed to tremble.
Was Hiruzen seriously the only person in all of Konoha who ever had anything nice to say about him?
This was too much!
"Hashirama is actually a pretty decent person," Izuna commented fairly.
"To have a younger brother like Tobirama and still turn out so well... It reminds me of how Hiruzen once praised someone for remaining true to themselves despite the environment they grew up in..."
Tobirama's face went blank as he retorted: "Hokage-sama said that in praise of Sunagakure's Sasori and Pakura! It was his assessment of how they were born in Suna yet weren't led astray by the Third Kazekage, and chose to avoid fighting during the war!"
"Child, you need to learn how to apply lessons from one situation to another..." Izuna said earnestly.
"Apply lessons?" Tobirama ground his teeth and muttered inwardly: 'Just wait! Soon I'll use up all your ocular power on the Box of Ultimate Bliss and send you straight back to the Pure Land!'
Tobirama had already decided to cut ties with the hopelessly outdated Izuna. He would combine Izuna's talent with Satori and gain more than just one or two enhancements from it...
Tobirama sincerely wished Izuna all the best in the Pure Land. He would make time to miss him every now and then...
All good things had to come to an end, after all!
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