Chapter 76: Master, You Will Become the New Izuna!
"Master... it's been a long time. I missed you."
"And I've carried a heavy sense of guilt."
"I've often thought about how a shinobi as brilliant as you deserved a life that didn't end so abruptly," Hiruzen said softly. "The more I studied the sparks of genius in your journals, the more I felt the weight of that loss."
"So, I spent twenty years wondering... how could I make it right?"
Tobirama's expression softened.
On one hand, he was moved by his student's obsession. For twenty years, Hiruzen had been plotting a way to bring him back? That level of devotion was rare, even among the Senju. And the boy had actually succeeded.
On the other hand, there was a strange sense of... intellectual kinship.
Though the speaker was his student, the reversal of life and death had shattered their original hierarchy. In the eyes of the world, they were now contemporaries.
Most people believed Tobirama researched forbidden arts out of military necessity—for war and slaughter. While that was true, it wasn't the whole truth. Tobirama possessed a pure, borderline-manic passion for research itself. Every breakthrough was a release of the pressure he carried as Hokage.
In his entire life, only Hiruzen had looked past the "Forbidden" label and seen the pure joy Tobirama took in the act of creation.
Hiruzen watched his teacher's face and smirked internally. He had tailored this speech based on the marginalia in Tobirama's notes and his own understanding of a "workaholic" personality.
"If I brought you back just to put the Hokage hat on your head again, I'd be doing you a disservice. I know better than anyone how much that seat bleeds a man dry."
"But if I give you a new identity—one that isn't burdened by public ceremony—you'll have the freedom you never had. You'll have time for your research. You'll have time to... settle old scores."
"I think that would be a much better gift."
Tobirama looked at the tank. The "old scores" were floating right in front of him.
"Saru..." Tobirama whispered. "Dying for you was one of the few truly correct things I did in my life."
"Tell me more. What do you mean by making me the 'New Izuna'?"
Hiruzen nodded.
"You know as well as I do that the Uchiha problem is a structural failure. They don't trust the village because of our history. We can't guarantee their loyalty, and we certainly can't guarantee their mental stability once they awaken those eyes."
"Whether they pretend to follow the rules or genuinely try to help, the moment an Uchiha reaches the High Council, they become a variable. If their psyche snaps—like we've seen in the histories—the village implodes from the center while our enemies strike from the outside."
Tobirama nodded. Hiruzen's logic was ironclad. The Uchiha were the "Dead Knot" of Konoha. Every Hidden Village requires a core of stability; the Uchiha were the personification of instability.
"Geniuses like Kagami are too rare," Hiruzen continued. "And as much as I loved him, Kagami wasn't strong enough. He didn't understand the darkness of his own clan well enough to lead them."
It was a strange thing to say about an Uchiha—that he didn't "understand" his own people. But Tobirama agreed. Kagami had been a man of pure light; he lacked the visceral understanding of the Uchiha's hereditary madness. Because he was your student, the clan elders viewed him as a "token Uchiha" and kept him at arm's length. He never had the chance to truly influence the clan's core.
"Master, you probably believe the Uchiha are a ticking time bomb that eventually needs to be dismantled."
"But after twenty years in this chair, I can't accept that."
"The Will of Fire is a slogan for peace, yes. But if a leader doesn't actually believe in it, the slogan becomes the very thing that destroys the village's soul. If I say we are all family, I must act like it. I have to try every possible solution before I reach for the knife."
"I see the Uchiha as part of our fire. Lord Hashirama taught me that."
Tobirama felt a flare of irritation. Was Saru lecturing him? But the feeling passed quickly. He hated empty ideologues, but he respected a man who could produce results while maintaining his ideals.
"So I thought... how do I find someone strong enough to command the Uchiha, wise enough to understand their darkness, and loyal enough that I never have to worry about a coup?"
"In the entire history of the world, there is only one man: You."
"You understand the Uchiha better than any Uchiha alive. Your mastery of the Will of Fire is the foundation I build on every day."
"If you become their leader—if we work together, one in the light, one in the shadows—we can dismantle their resentment from the inside. We will perform a Spiritual Reform on the entire clan. We will 'brand' the Will of Fire into their very DNA until even the Sharingan can't shake it."
"You get a second chance at life. You get to finish your research. And you finally get the satisfaction of winning the war against the Uchiha by becoming their heart."
Tobirama exhaled a long, heavy breath, his red eyes shimmering with fascination.
What a monkey. What a Hokage.
Hiruzen was bold. He was dangerous. But he was undeniably effective.
Tobirama had spent his life fighting Izuna Uchiha. He had studied every habit, every sword-stroke, every vocal inflection of the man just to find a way to kill him. And Izuna had done the same.
Hashirama used to joke about it: "Tobirama, you and Izuna spend so much time obsessed with each other, you might as well get married and end the war that way!"
Tobirama had been furious back then, but he knew the truth: if he were given a Sharingan and Izuna's face, he could fool even Madara Uchiha himself. He knew the Uchiha "performance" better than anyone.
And the "Biological Masterpiece" in the tank was built for this. It used Izuna's DNA as the base, with Tobirama's own cells acting as the "Anchor" to prevent the Uchiha tissue from becoming cancerous. Under the catalyst of chakra, the two had already begun to merge at a cellular level.
With the materials Hiruzen had prepared—Hiruko's fusion tech and Kakuzu's threads—Tobirama was confident he could refine the vessel into something with god-tier potential.
"And the identity?" Tobirama asked, his red eyes glowing with a sinister, excited light.
The New Izuna Uchiha?
Initially, he had been repulsed. But as the "God of Research" processed the strategic beauty of the plan... he found the idea of conquering the Uchiha from the inside out to be intoxicating.
"The framework is set. We'll handle the details together," Hiruzen said.
"Some parts of your journals were incomplete, and I don't know the nuances of Izuna's personality..."
Hiruzen pointed to a scroll on the table—the intelligence on the Hidden Grass.
"This involves your first mission after your 'rebirth.' We're going to stage a rescue. We're going to give you a history that no Uchiha can question."
Hiruzen looked at his teacher and smiled.
"Are you ready to come back to work, Master?"
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