Tobirama eventually transported Danzo, Hiruzen, and Shinsuke back to Konoha using his own Flying Raijin.
He had, of course, marked several key locations across the village during his lifetime, old safeguards that now proved invaluable.
Before leaving, he swiftly handled the aftermath.
He recalled all remaining Root and ANBU operatives, issued orders to suppress information, and crafted a convincing alibi for the chaos, ensuring Konoha's regular forces in the area, still nominally under Ryusei's command, would not find and spread anything unusual.
He even sent word to Fugaku's southern Uchiha corps to keep them calm and contained.
When the work was done, he said nothing.
His expression was stone-cold, unreadable.
The silence around him was heavy enough to crush.
Danzo and Hiruzen didn't dare to meet his eyes; both could feel the disappointment radiating from him like cold steel.
Hiruzen, meanwhile, was bleeding inside.
The losses were staggering, not just the loss of a few Edo Tensei and the death of Hisamichi, but his own son, barely clinging to life.
And worst of all, Ryusei still lived. Not only had they failed to eliminate him, but it backfired in the greatest way possible for Hiruzen.
With Tobirama's sudden return, Hiruzen's authority had effectively vanished overnight.
He wasn't the Hokage anymore, not in any real sense.
Tobirama's intellect, power, and legacy eclipsed him completely.
But what unsettled him most was the look in his former master's eyes, the faint, cutting suspicion and even anger, which was very rare for him.
Tobirama knew something. He didn't need confirmation; the mere possibility that Hiruzen had been involved in Nawaki's death was enough to poison everything between them.
For Tobirama, the disappointment ran just as deep.
These were his chosen successors, the men meant to uphold his vision, and now, looking at them, he saw only decay and betrayal.
No one spoke a word as Tobirama activated the seal.
In the next instant, they vanished from the battlefield and reappeared within Konoha's walls, the weight of failure following them home like a shadow.
However, the moment they reappeared atop the Hokage Mountain—one of Tobirama's old Flying Raijin marks—his expression changed completely.
The usual calm in his eyes hardened into something cold and grim.
He didn't need to sense it to know something was wrong.
From that height, the Hyuga compound was clearly visible below—its elegant walls now broken and scorched, smoke still curling from collapsed roofs.
Fires flickered through the wreckage, and the faint sound of crying carried up through the wind.
Bodies lay scattered across the courtyards, pale robes stained dark.
Tobirama's jaw tightened. "The Hyuga…" he muttered.
He closed his eyes and extended his chakra sense.
Amid the chaos, one thing stood out: a trace of chakra unlike anything he had ever felt before.
It was ancient, alien.
His frown deepened as he widened his sensory range, pushing his perception across the entire region.
The primary source was already retreating, its chakra trail fading fast into the distance.
But then, for a brief moment, he caught another, an equally heavy, suffocating presence emanating from the other side, deeper within the Land of Fire.
Two distinct signatures. Both powerful. Both unnatural.
It felt similar to the one near the compound, yet not identical.
And then, just as quickly, it vanished, as though it had never been there.
Danzo swallowed hard. "What happened here?"
Tobirama didn't answer immediately. His voice, when it came, was firm and clipped. "Danzo, Hiruzen—you'll coordinate containment. No one leaves the village. Double the patrols. Root and ANBU will sweep every sector for survivors or witnesses. Shinsuke, you'll assist them."
They nodded without protest; none dared question him.
Tobirama turned his gaze back toward the burning compound. "I'll investigate personally," he said, and in the next instant, his figure flickered out of sight—leaving only the sharp crack of the Flying Raijin behind as he descended into the wreckage below.
A few hours later, Tobirama, Hiruzen, Danzo, Koharu, and Homura sat together inside a private room in the Hokage Building.
The atmosphere was suffocatingly heavy.
No one spoke at first—there was too much to process.
The investigation was complete.
The truth was worse than any of them expected.
A single, unidentified attacker had broken into Konoha and struck only the Hyuga clan.
He had massacred every Main Branch member present, stolen dozens of their Byakugan, and then vanished as quickly as he came.
Dozens of Side Branch members who had tried to defend their masters were also dead.
The Hyuga, once one of Konoha's great pillars, had been nearly halved in strength overnight.
Witnesses described a tall figure surrounded by a strange greenish chakra mode, like it was armour, his body parts could also enlarge and twist unnaturally.
His power overflowed—dense, vibrant, alive, and he could animate constructs and puppets made from any nearby material, bending wood, metal, and even corpses to his will.
Tobirama had recognized it immediately: an advanced, almost divine form of Yang Release.
The attacker hadn't said a word.
He had simply acted—methodical, precise, unrelenting.
Every Main Branch member left in the compound had been wiped out, including all the elders.
Even when Homura and Koharu had mobilized nearby shinobi, it wasn't enough.
The man's puppets tore through them, plucking Byakugan one after another as if harvesting them from a field.
But something else had happened.
When the attacker tried to break into a deeper chamber below the compound, he had been repelled by another powerful, unknown force.
A burst of energy, similar to what Tobirama had sensed upon arriving at the scene, an ancient, oppressive chakra signature that didn't belong to the invader, but was very familiar to the Hyuga essence Tobirama was familiar with.
It seemed the Hyuga had been guarding something of their own, something even Konoha's leadership hadn't known existed.
Whatever it was, it had saved what remained of the clan.
The implications hung in the room like a storm cloud.
Danzo spoke first, voice low. "So the Hyuga… had secrets of their own."
Tobirama's eyes narrowed. "Apparently so. Secrets strong enough to eventually repel that kind of power, even in that kind of situation, or the intruder simply got what he wanted. Either way, the Hyuga may have inherited far more than we ever realized. We'll need to dig deeper into history to understand why they truly joined the Leaf in the first place, perhaps."
No one replied.
Hiruzen's hands trembled slightly, resting on the table.
Not only had they failed against Ryusei, but now they had a new mysterious, almost otherworldly enemy—one powerful enough to tear through Konoha's defenses alone.
The other villages would hear of this soon.
They'd see weakness, chaos, and smell blood in the water.
Konoha's previous momentum in the war could be gone, and it would not finish that fast as they optimistically thought until now.
"This could shift everything," Koharu said quietly. "If the other nations think we're vulnerable—"
"They will." Tobirama interrupted flatly.
His tone left no room for argument.
But even as he spoke, his mind was elsewhere.
He had already decided—it was better not to punish Hiruzen or Danzo.
Even if they had truly killed Nawaki, now was not the time.
Konoha couldn't afford more instability.
He would find a scapegoat if needed or bury the truth completely.
He needed them both for now.
Especially since he intended to summon his brother next.
He could not let him have even a silver of doubt.
It was all for the greater good in his opinion.
Just like countless other sacrifices Tobirama had to make during his reign in the past as well.
Hashirama's strength and presence would stabilize the village and its defense after they summoned him next, at least temporarily, right away, while Tobirama handled plans for what came next in the long term himself.
The war wasn't lost, not yet—it had simply changed shape.
Ryusei was still alive, a new mysterious enemy had emerged, and the Hyuga's secrets had surfaced.
Tobirama would adapt.
He always did.
He was already planning his next steps—reviving the old Shinobi Research Division he'd created during his lifetime, developing those new jutsu, now already halfway there in his mind, and preparing the village for a new kind of warfare.
The world had evolved in his absence, and so would he.
The others remained quiet as Tobirama stood, the faint glow of chakra already forming around his hands.
His eyes gleamed—not tired or burdened, but alive.
He remembered the day he died—the Kinkaku Force, twenty to thirty elite Kumo jōnin, and his final sacrifice to save his subordinates.
Back then, it had felt like the right time to go.
He'd been weary, ready to pass the torch to the next generation.
Now he realized what a mistake that had been.
The village had rotted from within.
The ideals he'd built—discipline, efficiency- had decayed into weakness and corruption.
But not anymore.
He had returned to restore Konoha to its rightful shape, and this time, he would do it his way.
Hiruzen would remain Hokage for appearances, but Tobirama would be the true hand guiding the village from the shadows.
For the first time in decades, he felt invigorated.
His mind was sharp, restless, alive with possibilities.
This new era was filled with powerful shinobi and strange techniques, but he would outpace them all.
The legendary jutsu he had once created was only the beginning.
Now, Tobirama Senju was back—and he intended to make the world remember what true brilliance looked like.