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"You made the right choice, Tobirama." Hashirama's voice bore new resolve.
"A clan like that isn't worth staying with. We'll have to find another path outside the compound—and one day, we'll save the Senju from what they've become."
Tobirama nodded. "Where do we go now, Brother? We can't remain anywhere under Senju control. If we do, Father's men will find us before long."
Hashirama frowned, not sure what to say.
"We could go to the Uzumaki," Itama suggested. "We'd have to cross the sea, but Father's people couldn't reach us there."
"No."
Tobirama rejected the idea at once. "The Uzumaki may not be as close to the Senju as they once were, but we don't know what agreement Father might have with their clan head. If they decide to send us back, we'll have nowhere left to run."
Hashirama nodded. "Tobirama's right. The Land of Whirlpools is too risky."
"Then what are we supposed to do? Become wandering shinobi? Everyone hunts missing-nin. Even the daimyō sends troops to wipe them out." Itama asked, his unease beginning to show.
"There's a better option."
Tobirama looked toward the distant east.
"We go to Konoha."
"..." Hashirama's eyes lit up. He had reached the same conclusion.
"Good! Tobirama and I are thinking the same thing." He turned toward his two youngest brothers. "What about you?"
Itama and Kawarama looked at each other.
"If our older brothers are going, then we're going too!" They answered together right away.
"All right. We'll rest for a bit, then keep moving. We should reach Konoha by morning."
..............
Early the next morning, Manji stood beside the window of his office, looking down over Konoha.
After years of growth, calling it a village didn't feel right anymore.
Konoha Had Become A City.
From above, the scale of it was striking—ordered streets, high walls, clustered neighborhoods, commercial districts, training grounds, and administrative buildings all spreading outward from the center.
Manji's expression shifted.
"That chakra feels familiar... Asura's reincarnation?"
He had sensed the presence as soon as it reached Konoha's main gate.
Manji didn't move to investigate. He stayed by the window and waited for his subordinates to report.
The wait didn't last long.
An ANBU operative appeared in the office and knelt. "First Elder, four children are waiting outside the village. They claim to be members of the Senju Clan and say they wish to join Konoha."
Manji nodded. "Bring them in. Have them come straight to me."
The ANBU operative hesitated. "First Elder, shouldn't we question them first? If the four of them were sent to assassinate you, or if—"
He stopped before finishing.
Manji considered the warning and found no fault in it.
To everyone in Konoha, he was a great statesman and strategist, but not a strong fighter. The ANBU were partly created to protect him, so being careful was part of the operative's duty.
Manji waved a hand. "They're four children. There's no need to make this difficult."
"Yes, First Elder."
The ANBU bowed and disappeared.
..............
Outside Konoha's main gate, the four Senju brothers stared upward in open amazement.
The gates towered over them like the entrance to a fortress.
Itama's mouth fell open. "THIS GATE IS ENORMOUS..."
"And look at the walls!" Kawarama clutched the edge of his clothes, unable to take his eyes off them. "I wonder what the village looks like inside."
Tobirama said nothing, but the tension around his eyes revealed how stunned he was.
The Senju compound was cramped, poorly maintained, and built without any sense of order. Konoha's walls and gates alone made their former home look like a collection of huts thrown together in the wilderness.
Seeing the difference made Tobirama question everything he had learned.
Hashirama stared at the massive entrance and sighed. "The Senju have kept themselves shut away for too long. Our people need to see how much the world has changed."
Before anyone could speak again, a shadow landed quietly on the road.
An ANBU operative stood before them in the village's standard uniform.
"You four—follow me. The First Elder has agreed to see you."
"..." The brothers looked at one another in confusion.
They had hidden the fact that they were Butsuma's sons and introduced themselves as ordinary Senju clansmen. Drawing attention from Konoha's leadership was the last thing they wanted.
Why would the most powerful man in the village ask to meet them personally?
Before they could figure it out, Konoha's heavy gates started to open.
The four brothers turned toward the widening entrance.
Their eyes widened.
Beyond the gates lay a world unlike anything they had seen before.
Clean stone streets ran through the village in straight, orderly lines. Buildings of different sizes stood in neat rows, connected by roads that stretched in every direction. Cherry trees grew along the streets, their pale blossoms adding color to the early morning.
Far away, Konoha's council building stood tall in the middle of the city.
It looked less like the headquarters of a shinobi clan and more like the seat of a nation.
It was still only four in the morning, so few people had taken to the streets. Even so, the village was already waking. Food stalls, restaurants, and dango shops had opened for the day, sending warm steam and the smell of cooking food into the cool air.
Everything around them felt peaceful.
Orderly.
Alive.
The four brothers stood at the gate, unable to hide their amazement.
Compared with this, the Senju compound felt poor and desolate.
"Maybe we should have let go of the past years ago... Maybe the Senju should have embraced Konoha from the beginning." Tobirama murmured.
The ANBU operative led them through the city.
By the time they reached the council building, all four brothers had slowed from exhaustion. The walk from the main gate had taken them more than a kilometer, even after traveling through the night.
Konoha's size was beyond anything they had imagined.
This place was nothing like a clan compound.
It was an entirely different way for shinobi to live.
..............
The four brothers followed the ANBU into the building and were taken to Manji's office.
They found the First Elder seated behind a desk, working through a stack of reports.
All four brothers grew tense.
Their hands hung awkwardly at their sides, and none of them knew whether they should bow, kneel, or wait to be addressed. As they stood there, each quietly studied the old man who had reshaped the Land of Fire.
'So this is Konoha's First Elder...' Itama thought.
He had heard that Manji was over a hundred years old. In an era when reaching thirty was considered fortunate, living for an entire century seemed impossible.
'He looks kind. Maybe he'll listen to us.' Hashirama studied the old man's face.
Tobirama saw something different.
The man behind the desk had changed the structure of the shinobi world almost single-handedly. His ability to govern Konoha had no equal, and his plans had brought the independent clans of the Land of Fire to the edge of collapse without requiring a major war.
But everyone said he was not strong in battle.
In the shinobi world, history belonged to the strongest. Great achievements were built through bloodline limits, armies, and overwhelming force.
Manji had done it through judgment, patience, and strategy.
Tobirama could not help but admire him.
Meanwhile, Kawarama was focused on something much more pressing.
'I'm starving...'
'Do you think the First Elder will give us something to eat? Whatever they were cooking on the street smelled amazing...'
Manji finished reading the document in his hands, set it aside, and looked over the four children.
"I heard that Senju Butsuma's eldest son, Hashirama, left the clan yesterday and took his three younger brothers with him."
He spoke slowly and calmly.
"I assume the four of you are Hashirama, Tobirama, Itama, and Kawarama."
The brothers' expressions shifted.
Their bodies tensed, and the anxiety they had tried to conceal became impossible to hide.
They had deliberately kept their identities secret to avoid trouble—yet they had barely stepped inside Konoha before Manji exposed them.
The four brothers understood something at once.
The old man before them was not someone they could deceive.
News traveled slowly in this age. What happened inside the Senju compound yesterday should not have reached Konoha by dawn.
But Manji already knew all the important details.
Konoha's intelligence network was frightening.
"There's no need to panic." Manji saw their alarm and waved his hand, still speaking calmly.
"You chose to come here of your own will. You left the Senju and placed your trust in Konoha."
His gaze passed over each of them before settling on Hashirama.
"I won't turn away that trust—and Konoha will not mistreat you."
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