Chapter 139: Izuna's Conclusion: "Seisui is the child of the Uchiha and the Senju? What a nightmare!"
Izuna and Tobirama (as Seisui) stood in the mental space, locked in a long,
heavy silence.
The atmosphere was thick with a shared, crushing weight. For Izuna, the future
looked bleak. The Third Hokage was the student of his greatest enemy, his
brother Madara had left the clan in a fit of rage, and the Uchiha were
officially "The Clan that Attacked the Founder."
We're trapped, Izuna thought. Konoha is just a slow-motion execution for my
people.
Tobirama, meanwhile, was conducting a private self-audit. He realized that if he
had been more thorough in his first life—if he hadn't allowed the Gold and
Silver Brothers to ambush him—he could have mentored Hiruzen properly. The
"Monkey" wouldn't have had to spend twenty years struggling to find his footing.
I left Saru with the crown but no instructions, Tobirama realized. It's only
now, after his recent transformation, that he looks like a real Kage. I failed
him as a teacher.
It was a strange, haunting symmetry. Two men who looked nearly identical,
standing on opposite sides of a mental mirror, both drowning in a sea of "What
Ifs."
Is this boy mourning my defeat? Izuna wondered, looking at Seisui's grim face.
What is this idiot regretting now? Tobirama mused, staring at the ghost.
"The clan must be suffering," Izuna sighed, his eyes filled with a rare,
spectral apology.
"Hiruzen Sarutobi is the student of that silver-haired bastard. Combined with
the 'trap' of the Police Force, our combat readiness is being bled dry. In
another ten years, the Uchiha won't even have the strength to hold a kunai, let
alone stage a revolt."
"It's a checkmate."
Izuna looked at Seisui. The boy was barely thirteen, yet he carried the
spiritual pressure of a Three-Tomoe master. He looked like a masterpiece of
Uchiha potential that had been forged in a furnace of stress.
"Madara was barely opening his eyes at your age," Izuna noted. "For the pressure
to force you into a Three-Tomoe awakening so early... it's no wonder you have a
'Bloodline Sickness.' To lead a clan against the legacy of Tobirama Senju at
thirteen is a task for a god, not a child."
Izuna rubbed his temples, his brain spinning with Warring States-era strategies.
But national systems and Hidden Village bureaucracy were alien to him. The old
"Kill them all" logic didn't work in a village of ten thousand allies.
"The situation isn't as desperate as you think," Seisui said, letting out a
sharp, calculated cough to maintain his "fragile" image.
"The Third Hokage recently dismantled the restrictions on the Police Force. He's
returned two-thirds of our fighters to the standard mission rotations. We're
finally seeing the outside world again."
Izuna's eyes widened. "Why? Why would the Second's student do that?"
"I knew Tobirama Senju. He was a cold-blooded master of human psychology. If his
student is loosening the leash, it's not out of kindness—it's a scheme! There
must be a hidden blade behind that smile!"
Izuna's mind raced. "Tell me... who is the candidate for the Fourth Hokage? Is
it someone from our clan?"
"No," Tobirama said. "The frontrunner is Orochimaru, the Hokage's personal
student. The other contender is Danzo Shimura, the Assistant."
Izuna let out a cold, bitter laugh. "I knew it! The student-teacher system!
Tobirama realized that bloodline inheritance is unpredictable, so he built a
system where the 'Ideology' is passed down instead. It's more durable than a
clan. He's found a way to rule from the grave!"
Tobirama feigned a look of deep thought. "You make it sound like a bad thing. Is
it?"
Izuna paused. He was a strategist; he couldn't deny the elegance of the system.
"From a management perspective? It's brilliant. Governing a conglomerate of
clans is different than running a family. You need a unifying 'Will' that
transcends blood."
"Seisui, listen to me," Izuna said, his tone becoming instructional. "I despise
Tobirama Senju with every fiber of my being. But a warrior who ignores the
enemy's strengths is a corpse. We must study him. We must learn his
'Professionalism.'"
"Most of our kin believe the Uchiha are strong because of the Sharingan. They're
wrong. The eyes are just a tool. If you rely on the 'Cheat Code' of the
bloodline, you hit a ceiling. Lord Madara was a god because he mastered his
forms before he used his eyes. He used the Sharingan to accelerate his growth,
not to replace it."
"You must become a master of all forms. You must be a threat even if your eyes
are closed. Use the Sharingan to steal the world's secrets, then make them your
own."
Tobirama smirked.
Finally, some common sense, he thought. Back in the day, Izuna was a 'Naturally
Evil' lunatic who loved to mock my lack of a Sharingan. Now he's telling me to
'Study the Enemy'? Rebirth has done wonders for his humility.
"So..." Seisui said slowly. "You're saying I should learn from the Second
Hokage?"
"I'm saying you should become 'Uchiha Tobirama,'" Izuna said with a grim,
serious face.
"Steal his innovation. Steal his logic. Use his own 'Forbidden' path to restore
the Uchiha's glory. If it's for the sake of the clan, there is no shame in using
a bastard's tools."
Tobirama almost lost his composure. I'm already Uchiha Tobirama, you idiot!
"I'll... give it a try," Seisui said, hiding his amusement. "I suppose I do have
a bit of a knack for jutsu development."
"Wait," Izuna said, the topic shifting. "You mentioned the 'Spirit of the
First.' Does Lord Hiruzen really claim to follow Hashirama rather than
Tobirama?"
"He does. Even Lady Mito has publicly endorsed him as the true heir to the
First's spirit."
"Mito?! Mito Uzumaki is still alive?!"
Izuna staggered. "She was ancient when I was a boy! How is she still
breathing?!"
Tobirama explained the concept of a Jinchuriki—a term that didn't exist in
Izuna's era. He described the sealing of the Nine-Tails and how Mito was using
its chakra to sustain her life.
"I see... she's turned the Demon Fox into a life-support battery," Izuna mused,
his voice full of awe. "She was always a terrifying woman. Hashirama's Wood
Style and Mito's Sealing... together, they were a biological singularity."
"You must be careful around her, Seisui. Her sensory range is planetary. If she
detects my presence within you, she'll know you're 'cursed.' We need to find a
way to mask my frequency."
Tobirama nodded. I'm way ahead of you, Izuna. I already built a 'Masking Seal'
into this vessel's sub-dermal layer. I'm not letting my sister-in-law catch me
playing house with your ghost.
"And Hiruzen..." Izuna hummed. "If he truly follows Hashirama's path, then the
Police Force reform might actually be sincere. It's a gamble, but a
'Hashirama-style' Kage is the only leader an Uchiha can actually coexist with."
Tobirama felt a rare sting of jealousy. Everyone loves the big brother, but no
one respects the guy who balances the budget and writes the laws.
"Let's talk about you, Seisui," Izuna said, his eyes narrowing. "Who were your
parents? If you look this much like me, you must be from my direct line. Perhaps
a child from one of my... 'unofficial' visits to the capital?"
Tobirama smirked. Here we go.
"I told you, I don't know. I was a slave in the Grass. A 'Chakra-Battery' for a
black box."
Izuna's expression turned into one of soul-deep sorrow. "The Kaguya and the
scavengers... they turned a 'Blessed Son' into a tool."
"Child... let me see you. Truly see you."
"Maybe I can untangle the mystery of your blood."
Tobirama opened his arms, inviting the scan. He wasn't afraid. Between Elder
Isshin's "Divine Restoration" and his own "Spirit-Splicing," his current
biological and spiritual data was a perfect, seamless lie.
Izuna activated his Mangekyō. He performed a deep-tissue, spiritual scan of
Seisui's chakra pathways.
Tobirama also watched Izuna's eyes, marveled by the raw, unpolished power of a
"Pure" Mangekyō. It lacked the clinical stability of his own research, but the
"Soul-Output" was staggering.
Wait... Izuna froze mid-scan.
His Sharingan began to spin with a frantic, vibrating frequency.
He felt a signature he recognized. It was his own—the jagged, "Naturally Evil"
Uchiha fire.
But wrapped around it... woven into the very marrow of the bones and the
structure of the soul... was a colder, sharper, and deeply familiar energy.
Tobirama Senju.
Izuna's spirit began to tremble. He pulled his chakra back, his face a mask of
total, world-ending shock.
He looked at Seisui—at the boy with his face, his eyes, and his potential.
He did the "Uchiha Math." He looked at the forty-five-year gap. He looked at the
"Senju Software" running on his "Uchiha Hardware."
In Izuna's mind, there was only one possible conclusion. It was a conclusion so
scandalous, so blasphemous, and so "Uchiha" in its melodrama that it defied all
common sense.
"I... I understand now," Izuna whispered, his voice cracking with a mix of
horror and a weird, twisted pride.
"I spent my life fighting that silver-haired bastard. I told Madara that an
alliance would destroy us. I warned everyone that the Senju would swallow our
blood."
"But I never imagined... I never dreamed he would be this thorough!"
Izuna looked at Seisui with tears in his eyes.
"Child... it's a tragedy! A tragedy of the highest order!"
"I don't know how it happened! I don't know when they met! But the data doesn't
lie!"
"Seisui... you are the descendant of a secret, forbidden union!"
"You are my grandson, yes... but your other grandfather... YOUR OTHER
GRANDFATHER IS TOBIRAMA SENJU!"
"That bastard actually 'conquered' our line in the most literal way possible! HE
CUCKOLDED THE ENTIRE UCHIHA CLAN!"
Tobirama: "..."
Wait. WHAT?!
☆☆☆
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