Seeing that his eldest son, Hashirama Senju, and his second son, Tobirama Senju, were both alive and well, Butsuma Senju's mood settled a little.
Tajima Uchiha felt the same. Only after hearing that Madara and Izuna were also alive and well did he truly accept that he had been resurrected in the future, many years later.
But soon, they realized something was wrong.
From the Warring States Period to sixty years after the village's founding, even if Hashirama and Tobirama were still alive, they should be at least in their eighties! How could they possibly look this young?!
Besides, what had that blond brat just called Hashirama and Tobirama?
The First and the Second?
On the way here, they had said that the people who founded the ninja village, and the leaders who governed it afterward, were called Hokage.
Butsuma Senju looked at his eldest son. "Hashirama, who is the leader of this ninja village?"
"It used to be me and Tobirama, but the current holder of the position is the Fourth Hokage."
As he was speaking, the Fourth Hokage, Minato, returned from working overtime at the Hokage Tower. Since he habitually used the Flying Thunder God Technique, his sudden appearance nearly made the two Warring States Period ninjas draw their swords and leap away on the spot.
Looking at Kannabi Bridge Minato and the Fourth Hokage Minato...
Butsuma Senju could not shake the feeling that something was off. Even brothers should not look that alike!
Tajima Uchiha even checked with his Sharingan. They were indeed two separate people.
The Fourth Hokage Minato turned around and showed them the writing on the back of his Hokage robe.
"I am the current Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze."
"And this gentleman here," he said, pointing at Kannabi Bridge Minato, "is my former self, who crossed over from another parallel world through a certain special power."
Crossed over?
This brand-new concept was a little too much for the two ninjas from the Warring States Period.
"So, did you, Madara Uchiha, and Izuna Uchiha also cross over from the past?" Butsuma asked his two sons.
Tobirama said, "Our situations are different. Madara and Izuna were revived through the 'special power' the Fourth Hokage mentioned earlier. As for my elder brother and me, we were summoned from the Pure Land by someone using Edo Tensei Reincarnation, then revived through the Rinnegan."
The Rinnegan?! A special power?!
Tajima Uchiha asked, "Which one brought us back?"
Tobirama Senju got straight to the point. "It was because of that kid named Sasuke. His older brother made a wish to the Mission Scroll, hoping to fulfill his younger brother's wish. Sasuke's wish was to revive the Uchiha Clan, so the Uchiha clan members who once died are now being revived by the Mission Scroll at a rate of one per day."
He made it sound simple, but every word carried so much information that Butsuma Senju and Tajima Uchiha were left frozen in shock.
"What do you mean, 'revive the Uchiha Clan'?!" Tajima stared hard at Tobirama Senju, demanding an explanation.
It was already close to midnight. Minato Namikaze sent Obito, Sasuke, and Naruto away on the grounds that children should be in bed.
Butsuma Senju disapproved. In his view, raising young ninjas like this would make them too delicate and get them killed early on the battlefield.
As a father himself, the Fourth Hokage Minato said frankly, "This is no longer an age of war. Wasn't the reason we fought on the battlefield so that they could have a peaceful childhood?"
Butsuma Senju had no answer to that.
His ridiculous son was still cheering the Fourth Hokage on from the side.
"The Fourth is right! Dad! Only by letting go of hatred can children live without the fear of dying at any moment, unlike when we were young!"
Perhaps it was a reflex. The moment his eldest son opened his mouth, Butsuma felt his fists start to itch.
Tobirama understood the way his father and elder brother got along, so he pulled his brother behind him and spoke to their father himself.
He and Minato Namikaze used the Flying Thunder God Technique to bring everyone to the top of the Hokage Rock, where they looked down over the village.
"Whether or not you two accept this form of things, it was only after my elder brother and Madara Uchiha made peace and founded Konohagakure that the new order of one nation, one village came into being. The major ninja clans within the Land of Fire also joined Konohagakure one after another and became part of the ninja village."
It was nighttime, yet some of Konohagakure's streetlights were still on.
Even with only those lights, they could imagine how prosperous Konohagakure must be during the day.
There were all kinds of shops, a dazzling spread ranging from weapons and ninja tools to restaurants and general stores.
The two ninjas, whose minds were still stuck in the Warring States Period, were completely stunned!
This was...
The Konohagakure they had been talking about?!
"When the hundred clans of the Ninja World successively formed alliances and created the system of one nation, one village, it directly consolidated scattered combat power and put an end to endless internal warfare."
"That single act pushed the development of this ninja world forward by an entire stage," the Fourth Hokage Minato said. "After several generations of effort, it finally became the prosperous and stable place you see now."
Standing atop the Hokage Rock and looking down at the whole of Konohagakure, Butsuma Senju and Tajima Uchiha found it hard to believe that this was truly their ninja world.
Less than a hundred years had passed!
The difference between a ninja village and the ninja clans of the Warring States Period left the two Clan Heads, reborn into this era, utterly amazed.
"Since members of the Uchiha Clan will be revived one after another, we'll need to find people to renovate the Uchiha Clan compound afterward," Tobirama Senju discussed with the Fourth Hokage Minato.
"What exactly happened to the Uchiha?" Tajima asked again.
Hashirama let out a long sigh and immediately sat down cross-legged.
At one glance, Minato Namikaze knew this meant they were in for a long talk.
He quickly handed them several jugs of sake.
When Tobirama asked when he had gotten the sake, Minato replied, "I guessed it would turn out like this, so I bought some on the way over."
Hashirama laughed and patted the Fourth Hokage on the shoulder, praising him for being as fast as Tobirama and having excellent foresight.
Butsuma took a small sip of sake and joked that Minato Namikaze was also a son-in-law of the Uzumaki clan, yet he had far better judgment than his own eldest son.
Hashirama pouted. He was unhappy, but he had no grounds to argue.
"Times really have changed. I never thought I'd share a drink with you," Tajima Uchiha said mockingly.
Butsuma Senju refused to be outdone and shot back that if Tajima wanted to fight, he could oblige him anytime.
To keep the two of them from actually fighting, Tobirama strategically guided his elder brother into changing the order of the story. They told it in reverse, starting with how Black Zetsu deceived the Uchiha, then how Madara Uchiha used Obito Uchiha in an attempt to destroy the entire Ninja World, and finally how both the Uchiha and Senju now had very few members left.
Even so, when they heard that the current members of the Uchiha Clan, the Senju Clan, and the Uzumaki Clan combined could be counted on one's fingers and toes, they still inevitably lost their tempers.
"The Senju merely integrated into Konoha through marriage alliances," Tobirama said. "As for the Uchiha's extermination, this old man..."
He remembered that although he had once lived to an age where he could call himself an old man, he had now been revived into his youthful appearance through Edo Tensei Reincarnation and Rinne Tensei. More importantly, calling himself an old man in front of his elder brother and father was somewhat unreasonable.
"As for the Uchiha's extermination, the direction I gave my students may have influenced them to some extent, but the more important cause was Madara Uchiha's mistake back then, when he brought the Nine-Tails to attack Konoha and caused heavy casualties!"
"Tobirama, don't say that. Madara was only deceived by Black Zetsu because he was too simple-minded."
"Big Brother, stop speaking up for him all the time!"
"But..." The First Hokage immediately wilted after being scolded by his younger brother. "But Madara is my best friend. Building Konoha together was a dream we cherished since childhood."
A man of one meter eighty-five curled himself into a tiny, wronged-looking lump...
Butsuma had long since gotten used to this sort of thing.
Tajima found it very hard to imagine that his eldest son's rival was this kind of guy. His expression was truly something to behold.
It was time for Minato to step in and smooth things over.
"In any case, because of Sasuke's wish, everyone has been revived. And since this is an era of peace, that's a good thing. From now on, you two can also receive Konoha identities and properly integrate into the village."
Tajima and Butsuma fell silent.
"In the Warring States Period, the average lifespan was only a little over thirty. Living to our age was already enough."
"If there really is a chance to be revived...
"It would be better to leave it to Kawarama and Itama."
Butsuma Senju's words instantly froze the First and Second Hokage in place.
That was the regret of their entire lives. It was precisely because they carried that regret that they kept pushing forward, holding on to their dream, hoping children in the future would no longer have to suffer what they had suffered.
"You still remember."
"What nonsense are you saying!" Butsuma Senju slammed a fist into his eldest son's head.
Who cared if he was the leader of a ninja village? With the alcohol rising in him, what Butsuma Senju saw was still that thick-headed watermelon-rind of a son. Whenever his hands itched, he would land a punch to vent.
His second son, Tobirama Senju, broke into a cold sweat beside them, embarrassed by the way his father and elder brother interacted.
After several rounds of sake, dawn began to break...
They had listened to the thousand-year history of the Uchiha Clan and the Senju Clan, only to learn it had all been a conspiracy manipulated by one pitch-black lump of mud. The best way to treat the Uchiha's Mangekyō Sharingan was actually the Senju bloodline, and the two bloodlines were descendants of the legendary Rikudō Sennin's two sons.
Butsuma Senju let out a long sigh. "Kawarama and Itama died at the hands of the Uchiha."
Tajima Uchiha glanced sideways at him. "Madara's other three brothers died at the hands of your Senju Clan."
Hashirama and Tobirama selectively avoided mentioning the matter of Izuna's death being inextricably linked to Tobirama.
After all, Tajima Uchiha and Butsuma Senju were Clan Heads who had weathered great storms. They quickly adjusted their emotions and began planning in their hearts how to rebuild their clans in this era.
For example, making each surviving clan member have three or four, or even four or five children. As some kind of KPI, that did not seem too excessive or too difficult to accomplish, did it?
By the time the sky had fully brightened, the first rays of Konoha's morning sun shone on the Hokage Rock.
Looking down at the village, they saw that before dawn had even broken, Jōnin instructors were already gathering at the gate with teams of young ninjas, preparing to leave the village for missions.
As the sky grew faintly bright, children heading to the Konoha Ninja Academy were already weaving through the streets.
Shop owners yawned as they opened their stores and began preparing for the day's work.
Wisps of cooking smoke rose from chimneys. It was almost as if Konoha's BGM were playing, a scene of prosperity, stability, and flourishing that no one in the Warring States Period would have dared to dream of.
Just seeing it gave the two old veterans of the Warring States Period a sense of peace. Having lived again, the nerves that had been stretched tight since the Warring States Period could finally relax.
They were originally considering whether to return to their lodgings first or take a proper look around the village their sons had built.
Then Minato Namikaze told them to get ready.
"Naruto's A-rank mission has been completed. I think you'll soon be going to another parallel world."
[Mission Rank: A-rank]
[Mission Details: Bring back the revived ninja.]
[Mission Status: Completed.]
The Fourth Hokage Minato said, "The era you're about to cross into...
"is probably the Warring States Period, the one you're all far more familiar with."
***
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