The dawn arrived, as it always did, a silent, impartial painter brushing the sky with hues of hope and new beginnings. But inside the sealed chambers of the Hokage, the air was thick with the ghosts of a future tragedy. Rohan awoke to the familiar, tender ache in his limbs, a sweet, lingering testament to the fierce and loving dominion of his queen. It was a weakness he had come to cherish, a physical echo of the profound emotional bond that had become the bedrock of his new existence. Yet, this morning, the usual serene contentment that accompanied his waking was absent, replaced by a heavy, somber stillness that had settled over the room like a funeral shroud.
He turned his head on the silken pillow. Tsunade was awake. She had been for hours. She sat in the chair beside the futon, not looking at him, but staring at the far wall, her gaze distant and haunted. The formidable, eternally youthful Hokage, the goddess of war who could shatter mountains, looked small, her shoulders slumped under the invisible weight of his prophecy. Jiraiya sat on the floor opposite her, his usual boisterous energy completely extinguished. The Toad Sage, the legendary spymaster, looked old, weary, his face a mask of grim contemplation.
Rohan's words from the previous day hung between them, a poisoned dagger suspended in the air.
Sasuke Uchiha will soon abandon his friends, his teacher, and his home. He is going to defect from Konoha.
The silence was a living thing, suffocating and profound. It was Tsunade who finally broke it, her voice a low, ragged rasp, devoid of its usual authority.
"Tell me," she commanded, her honey-gold eyes finally turning to him, and in their depths, he saw not the fire of a leader, but the desperate fear of a guardian about to fail her charges. "Tell me everything. Every detail. Every step that leads to this… failure. Do not spare me."
Jiraiya's head snapped up, his gaze locking onto Rohan with a desperate intensity. The fate of his student's student, the last of the Uchiha, the future of Team 7—it all hung in the balance.
Rohan sat up, his movements slow and deliberate. He met their gazes, his own sky-blue eyes filled not with the detached knowledge of an observer, but with a deep, shared sorrow. "I will tell you, Tsunade-sama. I would have told you regardless. That is why I am here—to be your eyes, to show you the snares that lie hidden on your path so that you may avoid them." He paused, his expression softening with a profound empathy. "But I must ask you to listen not just as a Hokage, but as a student of history. For this story does not begin with Sasuke's choice, but with the choices made by this village long before he was ever born."
Tsunade flinched at the subtle rebuke but nodded, her jaw tight with resolve. "Speak."
And so, Rohan began to narrate. His voice was a calm, lyrical current in the sea of their tension, painting a picture of a future so vivid, so detailed, that it felt like a memory being recalled.
"It will begin with frustration," Rohan said softly. "Sasuke's progress, remarkable by any standard, will feel like stagnation to him when measured against the explosive, unpredictable growth of Naruto Uzumaki. His defeat at the hands of his brother, Itachi, will have planted a seed of desperate inadequacy in his heart. He will crave power, not for conquest, but for vengeance, a hunger so all-consuming it will blind him to the bonds he has forged."
He described the arrival of the Sound Four, Orochimaru's elite bodyguards, their whispers of power like serpents in the ear of a desperate boy. He spoke of the Cursed Seal, a font of dark, borrowed power that would offer a tantalizing shortcut to the strength Sasuke craved.
"They will come for him under the cover of night," Rohan narrated, his eyes distant. "And he will go with them. Not because he is evil, but because he is a child, broken by trauma, who believes this is the only path to achieving his life's singular, terrible purpose."
He then detailed the formation of the retrieval team. "You, Tsunade-sama, will be forced to make an impossible choice. With the village's Jonin ranks stretched thin, you will entrust this S-rank mission to a team of Genin, led by the newly-promoted Chunin, Shikamaru Nara. A boy of prodigious intellect, but a reluctant leader, forced to send his friends into mortal danger."
He listed the names, each one a fresh blow to the two Sannin. "Naruto Uzumaki, driven by his unbreakable bond with his rival. Neji Hyuga, the prodigy seeking to defy his fated destiny. Choji Akimichi, the gentle giant whose loyalty knows no bounds. And Kiba Inuzuka, with his faithful companion Akamaru. A handful of children sent to hunt four of Orochimaru's most powerful, curse-mark-empowered lieutenants."
Rohan's narrative then plunged into the heart of the desperate, running battle through the forests of the Land of Fire. He described each confrontation with the heartbreaking clarity of a firsthand witness.
"The first to fall behind will be Choji," he said, his voice laced with sorrow. "He will face Jirobo, a man whose brute strength is a mountain. To defeat him, to allow his friends to press on, Choji will be forced to consume the three secret colored pills of the Akimichi clan. The green spinach pill, the yellow curry pill… and finally, the red chili pill. A technique that grants a hundred times one's normal strength, at the cost of one's own life force. He will win. He will shatter the earth-style prison and defeat his foe. And you will find him at death's door, his heart having stopped, his life saved only by the timely arrival of your medical team and the sheer, stubborn will of his own spirit."
Tsunade's hands clenched into fists, her knuckles white. A child of her village, forced to the brink of death.
"Next will be Neji Hyuga," Rohan continued, his gaze turning to Jiraiya. "He will face Kidomaru, a spider-like shinobi whose webs are as strong as steel and whose intellect is a match for Shikamaru's. Neji, the genius of the Byakugan, will find his sight rendered useless by Kidomaru's cunning. He will be pushed to his absolute limit, his body pierced by multiple arrows. In a final, desperate gamble to find a single blind spot in his enemy's defense, he will allow himself to be struck by a fatal blow, channeling his own chakra through the arrow to cripple Kidomaru's internal organs. He too will be left for dead, his life hanging by the thinnest of threads, saved only by a miracle of surgery performed by your own hands, Tsunade-sama."
The room grew colder. Two of Konoha's brightest young stars, nearly extinguished.
"Kiba and Akamaru will face the two-headed demon, Sakon and Ukon. Their teamwork will be flawless, their attacks ferocious, but they will be outmatched by an opponent who can merge with their body and attack from within. In a desperate act of self-preservation, Kiba will be forced to stab himself to drive the enemy out, severely wounding both himself and Akamaru."
"Shikamaru, the leader, will face Tayuya of the Demonic Flute. It will be a battle of pure strategy. His brilliant mind against her powerful genjutsu. He will succeed in capturing her with his Shadow Possession, but he will lack the offensive power to finish the fight. He will be on the verge of being overwhelmed by her curse mark's second state when help arrives."
Rohan paused, letting the tension hang in the air. "Because you, Tsunade-sama, will have made an alliance with the new Kazekage of Sunagakure. Reinforcements will arrive. The Sand Siblings."
A flicker of surprise crossed Jiraiya's face. An alliance with the Sand, so soon after their betrayal during the Konoha Crush?
"Temari will arrive to save Shikamaru, her wind scythe felling the forest to defeat Tayuya. Kankuro will save Kiba, his puppets trapping and killing Sakon and Ukon with poison. And then there is the final battle of the chase… Rock Lee, having just recovered from your miraculous surgery, will arrive to intercept the final member of the Sound Four, Kimimaro, the last of the Kaguya clan."
Rohan described Lee's drunken, chaotic dance of battle, a whirlwind of unpredictable genius that momentarily stunned even the deadly Kimimaro. "But it will not be enough. Lee will be on the verge of defeat when the final sand sibling arrives. Gaara of the Desert."
He painted a picture of the epic battle between two kekkei genkai users: Gaara's ultimate defense of sand against Kimimaro's ultimate offense of bone. A battle that would turn the forest into a desert wasteland of sand and bone spikes. "Gaara will win, but not through his own power. Kimimaro, in his final, desperate lunge, will succumb to the fatal illness that has been consuming him his entire life. He will die inches from his target."
Rohan fell silent for a moment, gathering himself before describing the final, heartbreaking confrontation.
"And that will leave only Naruto and Sasuke. They will meet at the Valley of the End, the historic site of the battle between Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha. It will not be a battle between shinobi, but a desperate, violent clash between brothers. A plea screamed through fists and jutsu."
He described the scene with lyrical, tragic detail. Naruto's desperate pleas, Sasuke's cold resolve. The raw power of the Nine-Tails' chakra cloak, a burning red shroud of rage and grief. The sinister transformation of Sasuke's Cursed Seal, turning him into a grey-skinned, winged demon. The final, cataclysmic clash of their signature techniques.
"Naruto will form a Rasengan, a sphere of pure, swirling chakra, the legacy of his father and his master. Sasuke will form a Chidori, a spear of black lightning, a gift from his teacher. They will meet in the heart of the valley, and the resulting explosion will shake the very foundations of the Land of Fire."
"In the end," Rohan's voice was barely a whisper now, filled with a profound sadness, "Sasuke will stand victorious. He will choose not to kill his friend, not out of mercy, but out of a twisted desire to follow a different path than his brother. He will leave a defeated and unconscious Naruto at the valley and continue on his path to Orochimaru, to the darkness."
He looked at Tsunade, at Jiraiya, their faces pale with shock and sorrow. "The mission will be deemed a failure. Sasuke will be gone. And every single member of the retrieval team will be brought back to the village hovering between life and death. You will save them all, Tsunade-sama. Your skill as the world's greatest medic will be the only thing that prevents a generation of Konoha's finest from being wiped out in a single day. But the scars… the scars will remain."
The story was told. The future, in all its grim detail, lay bare before them.
Jiraiya was the first to speak, his voice hoarse. "To know this… to see it with such clarity… it is a terrible burden. But it is a gift, Rohan. A chance to change it. We can stop this."
"Yes," Rohan agreed. "You can. And I will help you." He then lowered his head, his long, jet-black hair spilling over his shoulders. A profound, genuine sorrow filled his expression. "And for that grim future, for the pain it will cause your children… I offer my deepest apologies. I am sorry that you must bear witness to such a failure."
He looked up, and the sorrow in his eyes was now joined by a fire, a cold, clear flame of judgment that made both Sannin flinch.
"But I will not apologize for the root of the problem," he stated, his voice losing its lyrical quality, becoming as hard and sharp as a diamond. "I will not apologize for the truth. And the truth is that this tragedy, Sasuke's defection, Naruto's pain, the very existence of Orochimaru's curse mark… all of it is merely a symptom of a much deeper disease."
He took a slow breath, and his next words struck the two legendary shinobi like a physical blow, challenging the very foundation of their lifelong loyalty.
"The reason the Uchiha clan is no more, the reason Sasuke is a broken child consumed by vengeance, the reason Itachi Uchiha became a monster in the eyes of the world… that reason, that original sin, is a burden that belongs almost entirely to this village. The demise of the Uchiha clan was, at the very least, ninety percent Konoha's fault."
The accusation hung in the air, more shocking than any prophecy, more devastating than any jutsu. It was a condemnation of their home, their legacy, their very identity.
Tsunade shot to her feet, her chair clattering to the floor. The grief on her face was replaced by a blazing, indignant fury. "What did you say?" she demanded, her voice trembling with rage. "The Uchiha were planning a coup d'état! They would have plunged the village into civil war! Itachi's actions, however monstrous, were a necessary evil to prevent a greater catastrophe!"
Jiraiya, too, looked stunned, his face a mask of disbelief and dawning horror. "Rohan… that is a heavy accusation. The Third Hokage agonized over that decision. It was the darkest day in Konoha's history."
"Was it?" Rohan asked, his voice quiet but unyielding, cutting through their outrage. "Or was it merely the inevitable, bloody conclusion to decades of policy built on fear, segregation, and political exclusion? A tragedy engineered by the very men who claimed to be protecting the peace?"
He looked at them both, his celestial beauty made terrifying by the cold, clear certainty in his eyes. He was no longer just a consort, no longer just a source of power. He was a judge. And he had just laid the sins of their beloved village bare.
The somber atmosphere was shattered, replaced by one of raw, desperate tension. The future of Sasuke Uchiha was suddenly a secondary concern. The very past, the moral foundation of the Hidden Leaf Village, had just been called into question by a being who saw all.
"Explain," Tsunade commanded, her voice a low, dangerous whisper. "Explain why you condemn the village I have sworn to lead. Explain why Konoha is to blame for the Uchiha's demise."