Chapter 181: One Powerhouse After Another
"Hm..."
Sakura glanced sideways at Tobirama, genuinely puzzled. He'd been openly delighted thirty seconds ago. Now he was sighing like the weight of the world had landed back on him.
"As expected. The Uchiha are exactly what I remember."
His enthusiasm had drained away just as fast as it arrived.
He still disliked the clan, that much hadn't changed. But the satisfaction had run its course, and underneath it was something more sobering — the actual consequences of a thousand-year rivalry ending this way.
The Uchiha had been the Senju's most serious adversary across the clan's entire history, and their combat capability had never been in question. That was precisely why Tobirama himself had taken on a student from that clan — Kagami Uchiha. In his own planning, Kagami had been positioned to eventually lead the Uchiha clan with Tobirama's backing.
That hadn't worked out. Tobirama had died. Kagami had died not long after, in the same war.
And now the entire clan was a historical footnote. Reflecting on any of it felt somewhat pointless at this stage.
The Uchiha's collapse also meant Konoha's overall combat strength had bottomed out at a historic low.
"Sakura."
"Hm?"
"Given Hiruzen's trust in you, I assume you understand the circumstances that led to the clan's destruction. If you were Hokage — or if you were the Uchiha clan head — what would you have done?"
He studied the girl who had pulled him out of the Pure Land. Tsunade's strength. Hiruzen's summoning technique. Shikkotsu Forest's lineage of training. And now Hiruzen had handed her Impure World Reincarnation itself.
This girl was clearly Hiruzen's most trusted student. Possibly his successor.
Sakura considered the question for a moment.
"That's not a hard problem, actually." Her tone stayed even. "If I were Hokage: co-opt some, suppress the rest. Take the loudest, most defiant voices, manufacture charges, public execution in the street — make an example of them. Take the ones who stayed quiet and cooperative, and give them status, real authority, enough to feel secure."
Tobirama nodded along. Kill the chicken to scare the monkeys, then buy loyalty with genuine benefits. Standard, effective, and entirely dependent on having enough raw strength to actually enforce it and keep the remainder suppressed afterward.
She wasn't finished.
Something sharper crossed her eyes.
"If I were the Uchiha clan head, on the other hand—"
She paused.
"With the village leadership grinding the clan down, and the clan itself boiling toward an actual coup—"
Tobirama's expression cooled at that.
She's saying the Uchiha were already preparing to revolt.
Behind them — quietly, without either of them noticing the approach — Hiruzen and Jiraiya had arrived.
And behind those two, a third figure.
Itachi.
Seven hours earlier.
"Now what do we have here."
"Came out for some firewood and found you instead."
Itachi heard Jiraiya's voice and felt whatever was left of his composure crack entirely.
"Wait — stop."
"I'm an ally. I'm undercover. I need to see Hiruzen."
"I'm Konoha's mole inside Akatsuki."
He knew Jiraiya was a different category of threat from the others he'd run into tonight — Hiruzen's student, technically Orochimaru's peer, but fundamentally a different kind of person. And in his current condition, the idea of outrunning Jiraiya wasn't worth entertaining.
Better to go through him directly to Hiruzen than get hauled to interrogation and processed like an ordinary captive.
Jiraiya looked at the man in front of him — barely upright, visibly running on nothing — and didn't take the claim at face value.
"If that's true, seal your own chakra. I'll take you to the Hokage."
Itachi managed something close to a bitter laugh.
Did he even have chakra left to seal at this point?
Hiruzen's group arriving hadn't escaped Tobirama or Sakura's notice. What surprised Sakura was Itachi himself standing among them.
She kept talking anyway.
"If I were the current Uchiha clan head, facing exactly this kind of internal-external pressure—"
Her mouth curved, cold.
"I'd send someone to one of the other villages. Iwa, Kumo, Suna — any of them."
Tobirama's brow furrowed at that.
Defecting? Trying to run the clan elsewhere?
Hiruzen, who knew this particular pink-haired girl far better, felt a headache forming. That wasn't where this was going. If the plan were simply "defect," it wouldn't be her plan.
"Send someone to do what?" Tobirama asked, flat.
"Do what?" Sakura looked at him like he'd asked something painfully obvious. "Use the Sharingan to release their jinchūriki, obviously. Start a tailed beast incident."
Tobirama blinked.
Then it landed.
Of course.
Hiruzen, internally, was already mourning the conversation.
My dear protégé. Saying this in front of me is one thing. Saying it in front of the Second Hokage is another. And there's a literal Uchiha standing right here listening.
"Why would you release their tailed beasts?" Jiraiya, several steps behind on the logic, was completely lost. Itachi stood silent, listening to all of it without expression.
"When internal conflict can't be resolved cleanly, the standard move is to manufacture an external one." Sakura kept going, unbothered. "If the Uchiha and village leadership can't fix their problem internally, then as clan head, I'm not going to sit around waiting to die."
"Trigger a tailed beast incident in a rival village. Make sure it 'accidentally' leaves traces pointing back to Konoha."
"Leadership suddenly has zero attention left for internal politics. That buys the clan breathing room."
Jiraiya's expression went through several stages of disbelief.
"You — do you understand the consequences of that?! That starts a war!"
He said it before he'd really thought it through.
"And?" Sakura looked at him. "Without it, war wasn't already coming?"
Jiraiya had no immediate response to that.
She had nothing but patience for idealists in theory, and Jiraiya was a genuinely good teacher — but sometimes too naive for the room he was standing in.
"Triggering a rival's jinchūriki doesn't just weaken them — it immediately compresses internal conflict to its lowest possible priority. Then you escalate border tension on purpose, push toward open war."
"With an external threat that severe, even leadership and the clan, if they're not completely brain-dead, set their differences aside."
"Crisis solved. And regardless of how bad the war's casualties end up, with Konoha and the Uchiha's combined strength, the clan never reaches actual extinction — which is exactly where things ended up this time."
"And the war is useful in a second way. Every voice in the clan opposing me — every internal political rival — gets a battlefield assignment. Convenient."
She turned to look directly at Hiruzen.
"If the Hokage at the time had sharp enough instincts, he'd have recognized exactly what was happening. And he'd respond the same way — send his own political liabilities, the people stirring conflict between leadership and the clan, off to the same war. Heroic sacrifices, all of them."
"Even if the underlying tension between leadership and the clan never fully resolves, that buys at least a decade of stability."
"Whatever happens after that is a problem for whoever's still standing."
She glanced at Tobirama, who was clearly turning the framework over in his head.
"That's the version where I'm the clan head."
Tobirama rubbed his jaw, reassessing the girl in front of him entirely.
He'd assumed her value was primarily combat — raw strength, summoning, lineage. He hadn't expected this level of structural thinking about leadership and crisis management.
This one is genuinely interesting.
"If you're triggering a rival village's jinchūriki, you'd need someone capable enough to actually pull it off. Who in the clan, besides the head himself, could carry that?"
He was testing the plan's internal logic, unwilling to let a sloppy assumption slide even in hypothetical.
"There were two," Sakura said. "One of them is standing right there."
She looked, deliberately, at Itachi — silent, trembling almost imperceptibly.
So that's it.
That's it.
That's what this was.
Father. Mother. Izumi—
I—I—I—
Itachi's head dropped slightly. His jaw was locked.
Why is she telling me this.
This is proof. Proof that everything I did was wrong.
Proof that I'm exactly the kind of fool I tried not to be.
Why is she telling me this.
Why.
Just let me die quietly at Sasuke's hand. Was that too much to ask?
Tobirama followed Sakura's gaze.
This is the boy who erased the Uchiha clan?
He'd been about to claim him for the Senju line an hour ago. The framing felt slightly different now.
"Besides him, there's also Uchiha Shisui. Both Mangekyo users. Either of them could have made a jinchūriki incident happen without much difficulty."
She looked at Itachi — and there was something in her eyes, brief and unmistakable, that wasn't sympathy.
"But if your first instinct, when a problem appears, is just to remove the person who caused it — without ever considering whether the problem itself could be solved—"
"What separates a person from an animal is precisely the capacity for mercy."
Tobirama reflexively pushed back.
"We're shinobi."
"Shinobi are still people."
Sakura cut him off without raising her voice.
"Would you kill an infant in a cradle?"
He went quiet.
Jiraiya, beside him, was watching Sakura with an expression that had shifted into something he hadn't expected to feel.
He'd assumed, going in, that this girl operated purely on cold calculation — whatever achieves the objective, no hesitation. He was reconsidering that assumption in real time.
"You don't leave the roots..."
The words came out shaking. Itachi.
He needed to prove something. That what he'd done had been correct. That he hadn't been wrong.
I was right.
"Then explain why Sasuke is still alive."
!!!
It landed like something physical. Itachi's head snapped up, staring at Sakura's calm, unmoved expression.
Sasuke.
Sasuke.
Why is Sasuke alive?
Because of me.
Because of my own selfishness.
Me?
Who am I?
Where am I?
What did I actually do?
Father. Mother.
Was I right?
What did I do?
Itachi staggered a step backward. The composure he'd carried for years — flat, unreadable, untouchable — had collapsed into something raw. Fear. Shame. Panic. Grief, all arriving at once and finding nowhere to go.
"Are you saying — I was wrong?"
His voice shook as he looked at the pink-haired girl whose face showed none of the heat his own was carrying.
Calm. Detached. Older than thirteen years should produce.
"This is exactly the feeling I had when I first learned the full story behind the massacre," Sakura said, and her words landed like individual blades, each one finding the same place.
"If you were simply evil, this would be easy. Monsters don't need an explanation."
"But you did this — your father, your mother, the person you loved, your entire clan, every single one of them — under the banner of 'peace.'"
"Did you consider any other path?"
"Did you fight for your parents' lives?"
"Did you ask for help?"
"Did you ever go to Hiruzen and actually tell him what was happening?"
"If you'd killed everyone — including Sasuke — I would actually respect that. Putting the village above blood, completely, no exceptions. That's at least consistent."
"You didn't do that. You used 'peace' as the justification to kill everyone, while carving out one exception to keep Sasuke alive."
"The entire Uchiha clan — every life in it — was your entry fee."
"The price you paid to keep your brother safe."
Each sentence drove Itachi back another half-step.
Hiruzen smoked in silence, watching this unfold. He'd lived through the original events as the man in the chair. He hadn't been able to stop what happened, and as Hokage, some share of that responsibility belonged to him too.
Itachi wanted to argue. He wanted to say he'd tried — he'd gone to someone, asked for help—
He'd gone to Danzō.
The name reached his throat and stopped there.
Why did I go to Danzō.
Whatever had been holding him upright seemed to drain out all at once. Itachi went down onto his knees. He had never carried a strong will to live in the first place, and now something darker than resignation was surfacing.
"Predictable, given everything else about you." Sakura's voice stayed cold. "Can't solve the problem? Remove whoever caused it."
"Except this time, the problem you're trying to remove is yourself."
Itachi looked up at her. The smile he managed was hollow.
"You won't let me live. And you won't let me die either."
Tobirama watched with an expression that gave away nothing.
This boy is exactly as broken as the rest of them. Whatever generosity he'd extended toward "Senju Itachi" an hour ago had quietly withdrawn itself.
"Who said I won't let you die?"
Sakura's voice was flat.
"You want death this badly, go somewhere I don't have to look at it. If dying actually solved anything, humanity would have ended itself a long time ago instead of staying exactly this much of a mess."
The line left Itachi with nothing to say.
Jiraiya, listening, couldn't hold back.
"And the mess we're in now — isn't that partly because of you?"
Sakura turned a flat look on him.
"Without me, none of this would have happened? Try thinking that one through a bit further before you say it out loud."
Jiraiya shut his mouth.
"Fine." Itachi's voice had gone hollow. "Tell me what you want from me."
He had nothing left to argue with. Whatever judgment landed on him, he'd accept it.
"You keep saying everything was for peace." Sakura's eyes didn't leave his. "Your peace — was it Sasuke's, or Konoha's?"
Itachi went silent. Hiruzen, beside her, was reassessing the man in front of him with new eyes.
Hindsight made it obvious now, in a way it hadn't been before. When Itachi had asked him to look after Sasuke, Hiruzen had read it as a man torn between conscience and duty to the village.
What it actually looked like now was something closer to obsession. A specific, all-consuming devotion to one person, wearing the language of peace as cover.
"It's..."
"It's..."
"Sasuke..."
The word came out cracked, stripped of every justification he'd built around it for years.
"Sasuke is doing well right now." Sakura's tone shifted, marginally, toward something less surgical. "He's training hard. Studying hard. Working toward the day he can kill you with his own hands."
"But he isn't drowning in it. He has a life outside of that goal."
"Before he gets the chance to do it — your remaining life is going to be useful for something. Atonement, if you want to call it that."
"Everything you know. All of it. Now."
The ninja world right now was a tangled mess of moving pieces. Sakura needed Akatsuki's structure, personnel, and forward plans, and Itachi was sitting on most of it.
Itachi took a breath and started speaking, slowly.
"The night of the massacre — I wasn't alone."
"Someone else was there."
"His name was... Uchiha Obito."
Hiruzen and Jiraiya's eyes sharpened at the name.
"He's also responsible for the Nine-Tails incident thirteen years ago. The one that killed the Fourth Hokage."
...!
!!!
Both older men's composure broke entirely.
"Obito was Minato's student!" Jiraiya's voice came out as a shout.
Tobirama's expression shifted at this — a student turning on his own teacher, killing him.
Another one. Of course there's another one.
This clan really did deserve everything it got.
"Yes. What relevance does that have?"
Itachi looked at Jiraiya, genuinely asking.
"..."
Jiraiya stared at him, jaw working, too furious to find words immediately.
"Akatsuki used to operate under his influence, considerably. But since his identity came out, his authority's collapsed almost entirely. Someone else holds real control of the organization now — Pain."
Another unfamiliar name. Sakura listened patiently.
Then came the detail that broke Jiraiya's composure a second time: Pain carried the Rinnegan — the eyes of the Sage of the Six Paths.
"The Rinnegan?" Jiraiya's voice had gone tight. "That's Nagato's!"
Itachi had never heard the name Nagato. Only Pain.
"Nagato is one of three students I took on during my three years in Amegakure." Jiraiya, catching Hiruzen's confused look, forced himself through the explanation despite the dread climbing in his chest.
"What?!"
"Jiraiya! You took on a student carrying the Rinnegan, and you never brought him back to Konoha?!"
"Have I given you too much rope all these years?!"
Hiruzen's expression had gone past dark into something approaching volcanic as Jiraiya talked.
Tobirama gave Jiraiya a sideways glance.
Another one of these.
"Old man, hear me out — the Great Toad Sage gave me a prophecy. That one of my students would save the ninja world."
"That has to be Nagato. It has to be."
Jiraiya, attempting to explain himself, only made Hiruzen's expression darker with every word.
"Saving the ninja world apparently requires destroying Konoha first, is that right?!"
☆☆☆
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