Calm down!
Tobirama took a deep breath, trying to steady his emotions.
Facing Haru, this member of the Uchiha clan, Tobirama's brilliantly sharp mind began spinning at high speed.
Right now, he was incomparably weak. Less than a fraction of his strength remained. Forget using Flying Thunder God, even sensing spatial fluctuations was extremely difficult.
His chakra flow was sluggish, and all kinds of forbidden techniques were impossible to use.
Trying to defeat Haru with his own ability alone was basically nothing more than a fool's dream.
He needed help.
And he needed more information.
"Where is Mito? What did you do to Mito?!"
"Mito would never stand by and watch you kill Hiruzen Sarutobi!"
Tobirama's cold voice rang out as he tried to confirm Mito's situation. If Haru had killed Mito too, then dealing with Haru would become harder than reaching the heavens.
"Tobirama-sama, is that really how you see me?"
"Do you think I'd actually lay a hand on Mito-sama?"
Haru put on an innocent expression. He really had not done anything excessive to Mito, though slapping her face would need to be excluded from that statement first.
Hand on heart, Haru truly had never intended to kill Mito. If he actually killed her, the Senju clan would most likely fight him to the death, and Konoha's internal disaster would erupt immediately.
"Hmph. A brat born from the evil Uchiha clan wouldn't dare."
Tobirama's expression relaxed slightly. He truly had been afraid that Haru might have killed Mito too, even though the possibility was low.
But when the person in question was an Uchiha, he had to worry. The way an Uchiha's mind worked was different from normal people. Haru could not be judged with ordinary logic.
"Also, Mito-sama didn't try to stop me from killing Hiruzen Sarutobi either. She was standing right there watching."
That next sentence immediately changed Tobirama's expression.
"You evil brat, what nonsense are you spouting?!"
"Mito would never just watch as you killed the Third Hokage I chose!"
Tobirama immediately shouted in rebuke. He trusted his sister-in-law, Uzumaki Mito, deeply. He believed without question that Mito would help Hiruzen Sarutobi become the Third Hokage.
If something had gone wrong, then there was only one possibility.
The Uchiha brat standing before him had interfered.
"It must have been you pulling strings inside Konoha. You're nothing but a shit-stirrer inside the village. Mito would never disobey my final order!"
On that point, Tobirama had absolute confidence.
"Tobirama-sama, that comparison really isn't very good. If I'm the stick stirring the shit, then what does that make everyone else in Konoha?"
Haru's simple retort instantly darkened Tobirama's face.
"Shut up!"
"How dare you compare Konoha to something so filthy!"
The evil Uchiha brat truly was detestable. He had only used a figure of speech, and Haru had immediately climbed right up the pole with it, actually turning the life's work of him and his brother into literal filth.
"Stop dragging the conversation all over the place!"
"Tell me everything!"
"What did you do to Mito to make her watch as Hiruzen Sarutobi died?"
Tobirama did not want to waste words with Haru on pointless arguments. He urgently wanted to know exactly what Haru had done to make Mito change her mind and violate the final order he had left behind.
"I didn't do anything at all."
Haru spread his hands, making it clear that he would not take the blame for that.
He could clearly sense Mito's attitude. On the surface, she had supported Hiruzen Sarutobi becoming the Third Hokage, but in truth she had only treated Hiruzen as a chess piece, a chess piece used to test Haru.
"Impossible!!"
Tobirama's emotions wavered, and the rational calm he had only just recovered was beginning to slip again.
"Why is it impossible?"
"Were you really that certain about Hiruzen Sarutobi? Were you really that sure Mito-sama would support him becoming Hokage?"
"Don't forget, Mito-sama has a son. Senju Toma is no worse than Hiruzen Sarutobi in either strength or ability."
Haru fired back with a question. Just by thinking about it carefully, it was obvious who Mito, as a mother, would be more inclined to support.
"You... you..."
"Mito wouldn't be that narrow-minded..."
By the time he said that much, Tobirama no longer sounded confident.
If Senju Toma was involved, then Mito not supporting Hiruzen Sarutobi suddenly seemed understandable after all.
"Tobirama-sama, actually, I'm curious too. Why did you insist on choosing Hiruzen Sarutobi as Hokage instead of Senju Toma?"
"If you had chosen Senju Toma, I probably wouldn't have become Hokage so easily. I might even have needed to launch a coup to seize the position of Third Hokage from him."
Haru was genuinely puzzled. He really could not understand Tobirama's way of thinking.
From the perspective of an outside story, you could just blame it on the author's setup.
But to Haru, this world was real. These people were living beings with minds of their own.
If Tobirama had really chosen Senju Toma as Hokage at the last moment, then Toma would not have had the glaring weaknesses that Hiruzen Sarutobi did.
Hiruzen abandoning the Hokage and fleeing, ignoring his duty as the Hokage's guard, was a massive black stain that could never be washed clean.
Not to mention Senju Toma's background. He came from the Senju clan, was the heir to that clan, and had both a powerful clan force behind him and the political prestige the Senju had built up over two generations.
If Tobirama had simply left a final order and had Hiruzen Sarutobi carry the message back that Senju Toma was to become the Third Hokage, then Toma's succession would have been completely airtight, fully justified, and impossible to attack.
If Haru had still wanted to become Hokage under those circumstances, then the only route left would have been a coup.
And that would have multiplied the difficulty several times over.
A coup meant rebellion. Once Senju Toma inherited the office of Hokage, he could have directly ordered the Anbu and the other ninja clans of Konoha to move against the Uchiha.
For the Uchiha clan alone to defeat all of Konoha would have been pure fantasy. Haru would never do something that stupid. He would probably have stayed hidden, waited for the right chance to get Senju Toma killed, and then naturally taken the position himself.
But none of that had happened.
The successor Tobirama chose as Third Hokage had been Hiruzen Sarutobi.
"Hmph. What would an evil brat like you understand?"
"Everything I did was for Konoha. For Konoha's future."
"Someone like you could never understand."
Tobirama answered Haru's question with open mockery.
His attitude really was awful.
But Haru was not angry.
The fixed impression of Tobirama in his mind had already raised Haru's tolerance by several levels.
A few sarcastic remarks were practically nothing.
If Tobirama had not been under the control of Reanimation Jutsu, he would already have been fighting Haru to the death.
(End of Chapter)
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