The air in the Hokage's chamber was a fragile, crystalline thing, ready to shatter at the slightest vibration. Tsunade stood frozen, a magnificent statue carved from disbelief and dawning horror. The weight of Rohan's last words pressed down on her, a physical force that made the very act of breathing a conscious effort. Her great-uncle, a founder of their world, had, out of fear, set in motion a tragedy that would claim tens of thousands of lives. It was a truth so monstrous, so contrary to the heroic legends she had been raised on, that her mind struggled to accept it, even as the truth seal on Rohan's heart pulsed with its silent, unwavering affirmation.
Jiraiya, the ever-gregarious sage, was a portrait of somber stillness. The usual twinkle in his eyes had been extinguished, replaced by the haunted look of a man forced to gaze into an abyss he never knew existed beneath his own home. The tactical genius in him was reeling, not from the revelation of a single act of war, but from the sheer, horrifying, long-term consequence of a single, fear-driven decision.
Rohan watched them, his celestial beauty a stark contrast to the ugly history he was unearthing. His expression was one of profound, sorrowful pity, the look of a physician who has just delivered a terminal diagnosis and must now explain the slow, painful progression of the disease. He saw the denial warring with the dawning acceptance on Tsunade's face, and he knew he had to press on, to guide her through the next, even more painful layer of the truth.
"I know this is difficult to hear, Tsunade-sama," he began, his voice a gentle, melodic current in the turbulent silence. "You see the single, terrible act of your great-uncle and the catastrophic consequences it had. But you still see it as a mistake, a tragic miscalculation. You cannot yet see the deliberate, systematic malice that followed. You cannot yet see the ninety percent."
He held her gaze, his own sky-blue eyes filled with an unbearable sadness for the pain he was about to cause her. "But you will. I promise you, when our conversation is over, you will no longer question my math. You will be wondering, with all your heart, if I was wrong. You will be wondering if it was not ninety percent Konoha's fault, but one hundred percent."
Tsunade flinched as if struck. The audacity of his statement was a direct challenge to her very soul, to her loyalty, to the Hokage's hat she had so reluctantly accepted. "That is impossible," she whispered, the words a desperate prayer against the encroaching darkness. "This village… my grandfather's dream… it cannot be that corrupt."
"A dream can be corrupted by the nightmares of those who claim to protect it," Rohan replied softly. "Let us return to the Konoha Military Police Force. We have established Lord Tobirama's primary, secret motive: to place the Uchiha in a gilded cage, to sever them from the cycle of loss and grief on the battlefield that would awaken their Mangekyou Sharingan. It was a plan to control their ultimate power. But your great-uncle was nothing if not thorough. He was a master of laying plans within plans, and the Police Force had a secondary, equally insidious purpose."
He paused, letting them absorb the idea of yet another layer of deception. "On the surface, it was an honor. But what is the practical, social reality of being a police officer, day in and day out? Think of it not as a shinobi, but as a civilian. The police are the ones who give you citations for minor infractions. They are the ones who break up your late-night parties. They are the ones who arrest your neighbors for public drunkenness or petty theft. They are the face of authority, the enforcers of rules that people often find inconvenient."
Rohan's gaze swept between them. "Tell me, Jiraiya-sama, in all your travels, in all your research into the hearts of men, have you ever found a village where the common folk genuinely, universally love the police? Or are they, at best, a respected necessity, and at worst, a source of resentment and mistrust?"
Jiraiya's face went pale. He, more than anyone, understood the delicate social fabric of a village. He understood the power of public perception. He had never considered the Uchiha's role in this light. They had always just been the police. It was a fact of life in Konoha. But Rohan was right. The role, by its very nature, was designed to create friction, to build a wall of alienation between the Uchiha and the rest of the village they were sworn to protect.
"It was a masterstroke of social engineering," Rohan continued, his voice heavy with a grim admiration for the sheer, cold brilliance of the plan. "The Uchiha, once heroes of the battlefield, were transformed into the stern-faced disciplinarians of the street corner. Every argument they settled, every fine they levied, every time they had to use their authority to maintain order, they chipped away at the goodwill they had earned. They were being deliberately cast in the role of the 'other,' a clan set apart, not above, the rest of the village."
"This served to weaken their combat power, you might think," Rohan said, anticipating their thoughts. "But no. That was never the primary goal. The Uchiha were still formidable. This is where Lord Tobirama's second plan, the true long-term gambit, comes into play. It was a slow, political strangulation, designed to take place over generations."
He leaned forward, his expression intense. "Consider the pieces he had put on the board. The Uchiha were now largely denied the chance to awaken their most powerful dojutsu. They were also being systematically alienated from the general populace, their public image slowly tarnished by the very nature of their duties. What is the inevitable political consequence of this?"
He looked directly at Tsunade, the Hokage, the leader. "Power in a shinobi village is not just about strength. It is about prestige. It is about influence. It is about having a voice in the councils where the fate of the village is decided. And how is that prestige earned? Through meritorious service on high-ranking missions. Through the respect of your peers and the admiration of the public. Through having powerful members rise to the rank of Jonin, to ANBU captain, to positions on the Hokage's advisory council."
"The Uchiha were being cut off from every single one of those avenues," Rohan stated, his words like hammer blows against the foundation of their world. "Fewer high-risk missions meant fewer accolades, less fame, less prestige. Public resentment meant less political support, less chance of one of their own being popularly endorsed for a council position. It was a slow, creeping disenfranchisement. A deliberate erosion of their standing within the very village they had helped to found."
He fell silent, letting the horrifying picture he had painted fully materialize in their minds. He saw the dawning comprehension on Jiraiya's face, the look of a man realizing he's been playing checkers while his opponent was playing a game so complex he couldn't even see the board. He saw the denial crumbling in Tsunade's eyes, replaced by a sickening, churning dread.
"You do not have to take my word for it," Rohan said, his voice softening once more. "There is proof. Cold, hard, undeniable proof, written in ink and stored in your own archives."
He looked at Tsunade, his gaze unwavering. "I beg you, Tsunade-sama. Go to the village archives. Pull the official Konoha rosters. You have the authority. Look at the list of registered Jonin from the first decade of the village's founding. See how many Uchiha names are on that list. See their representation on the early councils, their roles as squad leaders."
He let that sink in before delivering the final, damning instruction.
"Then, pull the roster from the year before the massacre. The day before Uchiha Shisui was driven to his death and Itachi was forced to make his impossible choice. Count the names then. Count how many Uchiha were Jonin. Count how many held any position of real political influence outside of the Police Force they were corralled into."
His voice dropped to a whisper, filled with a profound, sorrowful weight. "You shall have your answer there, written in the stark, undeniable absence of their names. You will see a proud, powerful clan systematically squeezed out of the halls of power over the course of fifty years."
He leaned back, his part in this revelation complete. He had laid the evidence at her feet.
"Now tell me, Tsunade-sama," he asked, his voice resonating with a deep, philosophical challenge. "Do you dare say that if a clan is deliberately, systematically, and patiently denied its political standing, stripped of its voice, and pushed to the margins of a village that they helped build from the ground up… can they not be angry? Is a desire to reclaim their rightful place at the table, even if it manifests as a desperate and foolish plan for a coup, truly an act of baseless treason? Or is it the last, agonized cry of a people being slowly, methodically strangled?"
Tsunade didn't move. She didn't speak. She didn't have to. The archives were unnecessary. The rosters were irrelevant. Because she knew.
The memories came flooding back, unbidden. Her childhood, her time as a Genin, a Chunin, a Jonin. She remembered the faces in the upper echelons of the village. She remembered the council meetings she'd been forced to attend. She remembered the mission assignments. And in all those memories, the Uchiha were a faint presence. Fugaku Uchiha, the head of the clan and the police force, was a respected but distant figure. But other Uchiha Jonin? Other Uchiha in the ANBU command? Other Uchiha on the advisory council? They were practically nonexistent.
It had been a simple, unquestioned fact of her life. She had never thought to ask why. It was just the way things were. But now, Rohan's explanation cast a horrifying, deliberate light on that unquestioned reality. It wasn't an accident. It wasn't a coincidence. It was a pattern. A design. A fifty-year plan of political assassination, carried out not with kunai and poison, but with policy and public perception.
The full, monstrous scope of it threatened to overwhelm her. The village her grandfather had dreamed of, a place where clans would come together in peace, had been twisted by his own brother into a system of subtle, insidious apartheid. The Will of Fire, the philosophy she held so dear, had been used to justify the slow, methodical oppression of one of its own founding families.
Jiraiya, too, was silent, his head bowed. The horror on his face was profound. He was a man of the world, a man who understood the dark hearts of men and the brutal realities of politics. But he had always believed, with a fierce, unwavering loyalty, that Konoha was different. That Konoha was better. To learn that its history was built on a lie so deep, so patient, so evil… it shook him to his very core. He thought of his sensei, Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Third Hokage. Had he known? Had he been a part of it? Or had he, too, been a victim of the system Tobirama had created, forced to deal with the rotten fruit of a tree planted long before his time?
Tsunade finally looked up, her honey-gold eyes, once blazing with fury, now filled with a deep, shattered emptiness. The fight had gone out of her, replaced by a cold, sickening dread. She looked at Rohan, at this beautiful, otherworldly being who had offered her eternity, only to follow it with a truth that made that eternity feel like a curse.
"Continue," she said, her voice a hollow echo of its former strength. She had to know. She had to hear the rest. She had to understand the final steps that led from this slow strangulation to the bloody night of the massacre. She had a horrifying feeling that the story was only going to get worse.