More than fifty-four years had passed since Konoha's founding. The Uchiha, Hyūga, Sarutobi, and the Ino–Shika–Chō clans—countless clans with secret arts—still kept their traditions and pride alive. Only the Senju were different: the name survived mostly as rumor, a memory carried by those who remembered Tsunade wandering the lands.
The Senju were not destroyed so much as they chose to dissolve themselves—by Hashirama's will.
Senju Momoka remembered that moonless night as if it were carved into her bones. The air had been so heavy it felt like blood could be wrung from it. Candlelight threw monstrous, trembling shadows across the tatami; the whole room felt like a threshold between life and some other, bleached world.
Hashirama sat in the main seat. The familiar kindness in him was gone, replaced by a silence that pressed against the ribs. He still smelled faintly of blood and dust, but deeper than that was a weary sorrow, as if some part of his soul had been burned away. Momoka knew why—he had just ended Madara: friend, rival, the apocalypse folded closed by his own hand.
Tobirama stood to one side, silver hair catching the dim light like cold steel, his eyes sharp as knives. The night wind whispered through the crack of the door; the candle flame guttered, and shadows flickered like uneasy thoughts.
"After my elder brother steps down, I will take the mantle," Tobirama spoke into the hush, calm but unflinching. "Madara is dead; we cannot avoid this. Yet the danger that follows is subtle."
His gaze swept the assembly, finally finding Hashirama, then returned to the room with hard lines sharpening his words. "What difference will others see between a Konoha with the Senju perpetually at the head and the old 'Senju clan' itself? They will call Konoha 'the Senju village.' That suspicion will coil around our foundation like a poison vine. Other clans will lose heart; their will to build a shared future will rot away."
The candle flared, casting Hashirama's profile in alternating light and shadow. He lifted his head slowly; the eyes that had once been as green as a forest now seemed sifted with ash, emptied by a wildfire.
"What Tobirama says is true," Hashirama said hoarsely. Each word seemed to cut and scar. "I killed Madara… for the Village. When ideologies clash, even the deepest friendship and the greatest power can only end in ruin."
Pain threaded his voice—a grief that had strangled his closest friend—yet that very suffering had forged something else in him: a resolution as cold and inexorable as iron.
"We created this Village to end the endless slaughter between clans—to make sure children would not grow up in oceans of corpses like we did. This place must not remain the property of one clan. It must belong to everyone. It must carry everyone's dreams. That is the path I have chosen."
He drew a steady breath. "For the purity of this Village—so Konoha will not be seen as the Senju's private holding, so no suspicion can rot its root, so every clan can truly call it home—"
Hashirama's gaze fixed on Momoka. "For the Village, friends, brothers, and even… my own flesh and blood, if they threaten its future… may be sacrificed."
The words fell like a tide of ice. Momoka felt an almost physical presence press through the room: not violence, but the absolute, unbending authority of a man who had paid the highest price and found the price still not enough. Resistance before such will was not merely foolish—it was inconceivable.
Hashirama spoke with the quiet finality of decision. He had chosen the village system as the only viable future, and he would accept whatever it required—including the fading of his clan's name from prominence.
Tobirama continued without pause. "Therefore, we will dissolve the Clan." His voice was methodical, clinical. "This generation may keep the name, but the next will not."
He unrolled a thick scroll with deliberate care and read the terms aloud. "Those who choose to leave the clan and adopt a new name will receive compensation from the Clan's assets. Money, secret jutsu scrolls, land, tools—everything will be distributed under detailed regulations. Enough resources will be provided so any departing member can secure a livelihood and pursue personal development far beyond what the clan system could have afforded them."
The decree hung in the candlelit room: a formal unraveling of legacy, a promise of provision, and the end of a chapter written in blood and sacrifice.
The candlelight wavered, throwing shifting shadows across the room and painting the conflicted faces of those gathered.
Shock and anger had come first—but slowly, calculation replaced it. To abandon the proud name of Senju? It cut to the bone. Yet Hashirama's words carried a weight no one could deny.
And then there was the compensation.
Scrolls of secret techniques once guarded with bloodshed, wealth that entire generations had sacrificed for—now offered freely. On top of that, with both Hashirama and Tobirama holding the mantle of Hokage in succession, who would dare lay a hand on those who shed their clan name?
The reality was inescapable. Without a unified will or a leader bold enough to resist, faced with immense benefits, the shelter of future Hokage, and Hashirama's immovable conviction forged in blood and war, the will to fight dissolved like snow beneath the sun.
The younger members, especially, betrayed flickers of yearning in their eyes—longing to break free from the suffocating weight of tradition and taste a life unbound.
Momoka's gaze drifted between the two brothers as the low hoot of an owl echoed through the night—like a requiem for the clan's end.
The Senju chose the Village over the Clan, the dream of tomorrow over the glory of yesterday.
To erase suspicion of a "Senju Konoha." To win genuine trust from the other clans. To let the idea of the Village sink its roots into soil watered by sacrifice. To achieve this, they willingly dismantled the banner that had once shone with unmatched glory.
Momoka bowed deeply. Resistance was not only useless—it was unwise.
The age of clans had ended. In the era of the Villages, shedding the Senju name might grant ordinary members more freedom, more chances, more life. Hashirama truly believed in this system. He had even cut down Madara for it.
And so, the Senju would not be diminished by losing their name—for the Hokage was Senju Hashirama, and after him Senju Tobirama. Techniques and resources once won by blood could now be acquired with ease. From one angle, it was an easier, safer, more prosperous path—the future Hashirama had envisioned for them within the great family of Konoha.
Thus the proud Senju Clan faded like a tide, merging into Konoha's streets.
Some chose new surnames, scattering like seeds through the village. Others clung to their last shred of pride, keeping the Senju name but living quietly. Momoka belonged to the latter, as did Roshi's ancestors.
Yet whether they changed their names or not, all blended into the background of Konoha, as countless had before them. The Senju brothers allowed it in silence, leaving the clan's old residence in the hands of those last guardians—a faint consolation for history lost.
Now, only Momoka and Roshi lived there permanently. With time, their kin drifted away into assigned apartments or bustling districts, returning only during New Year or festivals—brief visits to remember old glory and share news.
Roshi's father had grown up on Senju stories and stayed in the house even after starting his own family. But when both his parents fell in battle, it was Momoka who raised nine-year-old Roshi. She watched him graduate from the Academy at eleven, nearly die at fourteen on the Kumogakure front, and then be dragged back from the edge of death by the power of Hashirama's cells.
Now, Roshi sat silently at her side, studying her profile as her thoughts wandered deep into memory. Only when she returned from that distant haze and gently motioned him away did he quietly rise, excusing himself and retreating to his room.