"It's not impossible," Hiruzen stated. A tiny, utterly un-Hokage-like part of him preened at the synchronized look of scandalized shock that bloomed on the faces of Koharu and Homura and Danzō.
Sometimes, the simplest joys were watching your lifelong friends realize the world had shifted under their feet.
He knew the core issue. They understood, intellectually, the power that Azula and Mito, along with their clans, wielded.
They just refused to accept it, like stubborn shinobi denying they'd pulled a hamstring until they face-planted during tree-walking practice.
But he was the Hokage, Tobirama-sensei's chosen successor.
His job was to see the entire board, even when the pieces started moving on their own and glowing with terrifying chakra.
A quiet, internal sigh echoed in his mind. Realistically, I'll probably have to pass the Hat in… five years or so.
By then, Azula will be nineteen. The youngest Kage in history, yes, but with the bearing of a veteran. Perhaps I could start grooming her now? Make her the jōnin-sensei for Shinosuke's team?
Unlike Danzō and the others, he knew for sure what kind of person Azula was, and he knew the next Hokage was simply impossible if not her. So he planned a five-year plan.
The mental image was almost charming: his earnest, by-the-book son being whipped into shape by a fiery Uchiha prodigy who probably saw the shinobi guidelines as mild suggestions.
Then reality intruded. He gave a minute shake of his head, the motion lost in his pipe smoke. No, she's no longer just a prodigy; she's the Head of the Uchiha Clan. Having her babysit genin, even my son's team, would be an insult wrapped in a political disaster.
The heavy silence was finally shattered, not by Danzō's scheming murmur, but by Koharu's sharp, school-marmish tone.
"Hiruzen, this isn't merely about their capability to throw a fit," she said, as if discussing unruly children rather than the village's most potent human weapons. "This is about the very authority of Konoha! The system was established by the Shodai himself! If we allow a clan to make unilateral decisions, to come and go as they please, what does Konoha even stand for? A particularly well-defended campground?"
"You know as well as I do that Tobirama-sensei would never have tolerated this. He would have had them in his office for a frank discussion about the chain of command before anything."
Ah, there it is, the Tobirama Card. Played not with subtlety, but with the blunt force of a kunai to the conscience. It hit its mark with practiced ease.
Hiruzen knew she was right. In Tobirama-sensei's Konoha, this situation would have been resolved with icy efficiency and absolute authority.
But that was the crux of it, wasn't it? He had trained, he had grown stronger, but he would never be his sensei. He led through consensus and weathered loyalty, not unyielding command.
"Koharu," he said, his voice dropping into the deep, resonant tone that usually made even Anbu operatives think twice.
It was his 'I-am-your-Hokage' voice, and he used it sparingly. "Do not attempt to pressure me. My decision will come after I have all the information, confirmed and cross-referenced. Kagami and Tsunade are due to report shortly. We will hear their account. Until then…"
He didn't need to finish. The finality in his voice hung in the air, clearer than any smoke signal.
They understood: push further, and the famously patient Hokage might just decide his next Fire Release technique needed testing in a small, Hokage-shaped space.
Danzō, ever the pragmatist when direct confrontation failed, gave a derisive sniff.
"Very well. Let us table the domestic… problems," he said, dripping with condescension. "What of Kumogakure's provocations? How do you intend to deal with those cloud-headed brutes?"
Hiruzen leaned back, steepling his fingers. This, at least, was a more straightforward puzzle. "I am considering dispatching the Uchiha and the Senju to the Land of Lightning as a show of force."
"But they just returned. I need to understand their current state, their morale, before I send anyone. We cannot treat them as simple pieces on a map anymore."
In ordinary times, his strategy would have been different—spread the missions, use more civilian-born shinobi, keep the great clans, the Uchiha especially, carefully balanced and contained.
But Azula Uchiha was not a piece to be contained. She was a wildfire in human form, and trying to suppress her would only get you burned.
Better to point the wildfire at your enemies. Hiruzen was wise.
His long-term plan was shifting.
Suppression was out.
Cautious, strategic alignment was in.
If he could foster at least a working loyalty from these revitalized clans over the next five years, then when the inevitable happened—when a nineteen-year-old Azula inevitably took the Hat—he might still have a role to play.
Not as her commander, but as her advisor. He could use his seniority and the support of other clans to gently steer her away from any… excessively enthusiastic decisions.
Because, let's be honest with himself, he thought as he watched Danzō stew, the idea of Azula with the absolute authority of the Hokage was thrilling and utterly, bone-chillingly terrifying in equal measure.
He trusted her power. He trusted her loyalty to Konoha, in her own way. But he didn't yet trust her judgment not to set the world on fire just to see if the flames could dance.
•••
After making things clear, the meeting started involving 'long-term strategy'. Hiruzen and the ensuing ten-minute 'discussion' had been less of a dialogue and more of a verbal minefield, while still waiting for Tsunade or Kagami.
Then a polite, precise tap-tap-tap on the heavy oak door happened.
In a room where the occupants were, at minimum, Elite Jōnin, the visitor's identity wasn't a mystery. It was a chakra signature as familiar as their own, yet one that now carried the subtle, acrid tinge of complicated history.
A comrade they'd bled with, laughed with, and trusted with their backs. A friend from whom politics had since carved a careful, cautious distance.
Hiruzen's face softened into a melancholic smile. "Enter!"
The door swung open to reveal Kagami Uchiha, his trademark gentle eyes taking in the scene: Hiruzen behind the desk, Danzō's back facing Hiruzen, Koharu and Homura positioned like stern, stone bookends.
Kagami's polite expression didn't falter, but his gaze flicked to Hiruzen for a micro-second, his look screaming, dripping with Uchiha-grade exasperation. You do realize this is the interpersonal equivalent of juggling explosive tags? One wrong glance and Danzō might re-classify me as a 'hostile entity.'
Oblivious to the telepathic critique, Hiruzen merely beamed wider, the picture of congeniality.
Koharu, subtly, let out a sound that was half-snort, half-sigh of profound disappointment.
"Hmph. It seems you still remember you hold a Konoha hitai-ate," she said, her voice dry.
Her tone and the slight downturn of her lips spoke of clear disdain, but to Kagami's finely-tuned ears—honed by a lifetime of navigating clan politics and unspoken grievances—there was an unmistakable, lingering… sourness.
Kagami thought, an internal sigh echoing in the vault of his mind.
The 'Remember That Time We Saved Each Other's Lives And Maybe Briefly Contemplated A Different Life' talk. Still not over it, I see.
He offered a small, wry smile. He was a top-tier Uchiha, one of the clan's three strongest, bound by duty and expectation.
Marrying outside the clan, even for something as frivolous as love, was a path closed to him. Some doors, once shut, were sealed with ancestral seal-work.
"Now, now, Koharu," Hiruzen interjected, smoothly playing the role of the diplomatic Hokage, though the twinkle in his eye suggested he enjoyed stirring this particular pot a little. "Kagami has been performing his duties for the village flawlessly."
It was true. Of all the Uchiha, Kagami was their bridge, their point of contact. He walked the tightrope between the clan's growing power and the village's administration with the perfect balance of a master.
Hiruzen valued that immensely.
The last thing he needed was for this critical, calm-minded ally to be driven off by his council's… less-than-tactful approach.
After all, Hiruzen reminded himself, taking a contemplative puff from his pipe, he is an Uchiha. Patient, but not infinitely so.
"There's no need for such formality, Hiruzen," Kagami said, gracefully taking the offered seat as if settling onto a bed of needles. "And even less need to waste time with preamble. You know why I'm here."
Despite his famed interpersonal skills, even he had limits. Sitting with a group of people who once shared your dinner and dreams, but now mostly shared looks of strategic suspicion, was an exercise in acute social discomfort.
Hiruzen nodded, the pipe smoke weaving lazy circles above his head. Danzō's eye was fixed on a point on the wall, his expression carved from granite. Homura gave a curt nod. Koharu looked away.
"I assume you've been briefed on events up to our departure from Konoha," Kagami began, his voice taking on the measured cadence of an official report. "Let me begin from our arrival at Uzushio. We made contact with Mugetsu..."
What followed was a tale so bizarre, so utterly unhinged from standard shinobi protocol, that even Danzō's perpetual frown deepened into a crevice of disbelief.
"…and so," Kagami concluded, letting the words hang in the smoke-filled room, "Azula and Lady Mito have elected to remain in Kiri for one month. A… stabilizing presence, as it were. The time is for Konoha to assemble a team of shinobi capable of ensuring the 'alliance' holds firm long after their… unique brand of diplomacy departs."
Silence descended, heavy and profound.
Hiruzen, who had weathered a Shinobi World War, his wife's anger, and the quarterly budget meetings with the Fire Daimyo envoy, looked as if he'd been lightly concussed.
This, coming from a man who'd once seen Azula try to "improve" a standard evasion drill by adding actual strange blue fire.
Homura was massaging his temples. Koharu had stopped pretending to be composed and was just staring into the middle distance, possibly questioning every life choice that led her to this moment.
But it was Danzō's reaction that Kagami, with a carefully concealed flicker of pure Uchiha satisfaction, enjoyed it the most.
Danzō, who always viewed the Uchiha clan as a problem to be contained, a variable to be controlled, now sat utterly still.
Kagami saw a flicker of something far rarer: despair. The kind of despair that comes from realizing that you may have completely lost your chance towards something.
"So," Kagami said, his tone perfectly, politely neutral. "About that deployment schedule for the reinforcement team to Kiri. I have a few suggestions."
(END OF THE CHAPTER)
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