The silence in the Hokage's chamber was no longer one of somber grief for a future foretold; it had curdled into something sharp, brittle, and dangerously tense. Tsunade stood, a magnificent, furious statue of righteous indignation, her eternal youth a stark contrast to the ancient, ugly history Rohan had just thrown at her feet. Jiraiya, ever the observer, had shifted from a posture of grim contemplation to one of stunned disbelief, his sage's mind struggling to reconcile the heroic tales of his village's founding with the venomous accusation that had just been uttered.
Rohan remained seated, a beacon of serene, sorrowful calm in the storm of their outrage. He did not flinch from Tsunade's blazing glare. He did not recoil from the weight of their combined disbelief. He simply met their fury with the quiet, unassailable confidence of one who holds the absolute, unvarnished truth. His sky-blue eyes were not filled with the malice of an accuser, but with the profound sadness of a physician about to describe the full, horrifying extent of a patient's disease.
"How dare you?" Tsunade's voice was a low, trembling growl, the sound of a tectonic plate groaning under immense pressure. "The Second Hokage, my great-uncle, was a man who dedicated his life to this village. He created the Academy, the ANBU, the very systems that have allowed us to prosper. To suggest he is the architect of the Uchiha's demise is a slander against the very soul of Konoha!"
"I do not slander, Tsunade-sama. I only illuminate," Rohan replied, his voice a gentle, unwavering counterpoint to her rage. "I do not deny Lord Tobirama's love for this village. In fact, it was the very depth of that love, twisted by his own experiences and profound fear, that led him to plant the seeds of a poison that would take generations to fully bloom."
He gestured for her to sit, a calm, respectful motion. "Please. You have asked for the truth. Allow me to present it. Judge its merits for yourself. The seal on my heart will attest to the veracity of my words."
Tsunade hesitated, her fists still clenched, her body vibrating with a furious energy. But the mention of the seal, and the deep, undeniable sincerity in Rohan's eyes, compelled her. With a sharp, frustrated sigh, she sank back into her chair, her posture rigid, her expression a mask of hostile skepticism. Jiraiya leaned forward, his face a canvas of conflict, his loyalty to his teachers warring with the undeniable truth he had already witnessed from this otherworldly being.
"The story of the Uchiha's fall does not begin with the night of the massacre, nor with the planned coup," Rohan began, his voice taking on the cadence of a historian reciting a tragic, forgotten epic. "It begins with a gesture of supposed goodwill. It begins with the founding of the Konoha Military Police Force."
"A gesture of goodwill?" Jiraiya interjected, his voice rough with disbelief. "It was an honor! The Second Hokage entrusted the law and order of the entire village to the Uchiha clan. He gave them a position of immense power and respect."
"On the surface, yes," Rohan agreed with a sad, knowing smile. "That was the public justification, the beautiful, gilded frame placed around the picture. The Uchiha were given authority, a vital role in the village's infrastructure. But you must ask yourselves, Jiraiya-sama, Tsunade-sama… what did this 'honor' truly accomplish?"
He let the question hang in the air, his gaze sweeping between the two legendary shinobi.
"It removed them from the front lines. It took the most powerful, combat-oriented clan in the village, famed for their prowess in battle, and relegated them to policing civilians and settling domestic disputes. It isolated them. It put them in a position where they were seen not as protectors of the village from external threats, but as enforcers against their own neighbors. Every citation they issued, every arrest they made, bred a small, quiet resentment among the populace. They were simultaneously given power and ostracized with it."
"That's a cynical interpretation," Tsunade shot back, though a flicker of doubt had entered her eyes.
"Is it?" Rohan asked gently. "Then let us look deeper, at the true, unspoken motive behind Lord Tobirama's policy. A motive born from his unique and terrifying understanding of the Uchiha's greatest power." He leaned forward, his voice dropping, drawing them into the heart of the secret. "Your great-uncle, of all people, knew the truth of the Sharingan. He knew that its ultimate form, the Mangekyou Sharingan, was not awakened through training or talent. It is born from trauma. It blossoms in the soil of profound grief, watered by the tears shed over the loss of a deeply loved one—a parent, a sibling, a cherished friend."
A chill snaked down Jiraiya's spine. He had heard whispers of this, rumors from his intelligence network, but to hear it stated as absolute fact was another matter entirely.
"Lord Tobirama feared the Mangekyou," Rohan continued. "He had seen its power firsthand in his battles with Madara Uchiha. He saw it as a curse, a power fueled by darkness that would inevitably consume its wielder and threaten the peace he fought so hard to build. And so, he devised a brilliant, terrible, and ultimately catastrophic solution. By creating the Police Force, he wasn't just giving the Uchiha a job. He was putting them in a gilded cage. He was ensuring they would rarely be sent on the A-rank and S-rank missions that carried the highest risk of casualties. He was attempting to sever them from the very cycle of loss and grief that would allow them to awaken their most powerful eyes. His policy was not a gift of power; it was an attempt at a conceptual neutering of the Uchiha clan's ultimate potential."
The revelation struck them with the force of a physical blow. Tsunade stared at Rohan, her face pale, her mind reeling. She remembered her great-uncle as a stern, pragmatic man, a brilliant strategist who was often criticized for his harsh views on the Uchiha. But this… this was a level of long-term, manipulative social engineering that was both genius and monstrous.
"This brings us to the first great tragedy, the catalyst for so much of what was to come," Rohan said, his voice softening with sorrow. "It brings us to the death of Izuna Uchiha."
He looked at Tsunade. "You know the stories. The endless battles between the Senju and the Uchiha. The legendary rivalry between your grandfather, Hashirama, and Madara Uchiha. And at their sides, their beloved younger brothers—your great-uncle Tobirama, and Madara's brother, Izuna. Their duels were as legendary as their older brothers', a constant, deadly dance of water and fire. They fought for years. They wounded each other countless times. But for years, neither could land a decisive, final blow."
He paused, his gaze becoming sharp, piercing. "So I ask you, Tsunade-sama, Jiraiya-sama… why? Why, after years of stalemate, did one fateful day end differently? Why did your great-uncle suddenly succeed in killing Izuna, a single act that shattered the fragile hope for peace, drove Madara deeper into darkness, and almost compelled your own grandfather to commit seppuku to atone for his brother's actions?"
The question hung in the air, heavy and unanswered. They had always accepted it as a simple fact of war. One of them had finally made a mistake. One of them was finally faster, stronger.
"Because it wasn't just another day," Rohan whispered, delivering the final, devastating truth. "Lord Tobirama killed Izuna Uchiha on the very day that Izuna, having witnessed the death of a close comrade on the battlefield, awakened his own Mangekyou Sharingan."
Tsunade gasped, her hand flying to her mouth.
"Tobirama sensed it," Rohan explained, his voice a somber eulogy. "He felt the shift in Izuna's chakra, saw the new, terrible power blooming in his eyes. And in that moment, his fear overrode all other considerations. He saw not Izuna, his lifelong rival, but another Madara in the making. He saw another threat to his brother's dream of peace. And so, he struck with the full, lethal intent of his Flying Raijin Slash. He did not kill an enemy combatant. He executed a potential threat before that threat could fully manifest. It was a pre-emptive strike against a power he feared above all else."
Jiraiya slumped, the weight of this revelation crushing him. The heroic tales he had grown up with, of the Second Hokage's prowess, were now tainted with a dark, chilling pragmatism.
"But here," Rohan said, his voice laced with a bitter, cosmic irony, "is where a plan born of fear backfired so spectacularly that it would echo for nearly a century. In his desperate act to prevent the rise of one Mangekyou user, Tobirama inadvertently created something far, far worse."
"When Izuna lay dying, he gifted his newly awakened eyes to his beloved older brother, Madara. And the transplant of one Mangekyou into another Mangekyou user resulted in the birth of the Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan. An eye that possessed the power of the Mangekyou without the drawback of blindness from overuse. An eye that would allow Madara to challenge Hashirama at the Valley of the End, to fake his own death, to manipulate events from the shadows for decades, to orchestrate the creation of the Akatsuki, and to ultimately set in motion the Fourth Great Ninja War—a conflict that, in one of the futures I have witnessed, will lead to the deaths of over forty thousand shinobi from across the allied nations."
Rohan fell silent. The story was told. The first poisoned root had been exposed.
Tsunade was trembling. Not with rage, but with a deep, bone-shaking shock. Every word Rohan spoke resonated with the truth seal on his heart. This wasn't a theory. It wasn't a cynical interpretation. It was a historical fact, stripped of the heroic myths that had been built up around it. Her great-uncle, in a single act of fear-driven policy, had set in motion a chain of events that would lead to more death and destruction than he could have ever imagined. The weight of it, the sheer scale of the tragedy born from a single, secret decision, was suffocating. She felt a wave of nausea, a profound sense of disillusionment that struck at the very core of her identity as a Senju, as the Hokage.
"I… I understand," she finally managed to choke out, her voice barely a whisper. She looked at Rohan, her eyes filled with a dawning horror. "I understand the origin. The fear. The… mistake." She took a ragged breath, trying to regain some semblance of her composure, clinging to the last vestiges of her village's honor. "But that… that was a lifetime ago. It was a single act in a time of war. It was a terrible error in judgment, but it still does not explain your condemnation. It does not explain ninety percent of the fault."
Rohan's expression, which had been one of somber historical recitation, now softened with a deep, profound pity. He looked at this powerful, immortal woman, this queen he had chosen to serve, and his heart ached for the further pain he was about to inflict upon her.
"No, Tsunade-sama," he said gently, his voice a soft, sorrowful caress. "It does not. What your great-uncle did was plant a poisoned seed in the soil of this village out of fear. What I am about to tell you next is how the leaders who came after him—specifically, the man who was your grandfather's rival and your own sensei's mentor—watered that seed with suspicion, nurtured it with segregation, and allowed it to grow into the twisted, bitter tree from which the Uchiha massacre was the inevitable, rotten fruit."
He held her gaze, his own sky-blue eyes reflecting her dawning dread.
"You are right. What I have told you so far does not explain the ninety percent." He paused, and his final words landed with the gentle, terrible finality of a coffin lid being sealed.
"But I promise you, by the time I am finished, you will not be questioning my math. You will be wondering if ninety percent was far too generous. You will be wondering if the blame, in the end, was one hundred percent Konoha's."