Orochimaru flipped through the technical manual in his hands, growing more confused with every page.
How was this actually a complete set?
It covered everything—from flight-wing ninja tools and the operating principles and maintenance of aerial fortresses, to the structural blueprints of aircraft carriers...
There were even detailed schematics for something called the "Zero-Tails," a mass of negative-emotion chakra, including its energy conversion principles and internal structure.
"Hiruko, take a look at this..."
Orochimaru handed the manual to Hiruko, wearing an expression of hesitation he hadn't shown in years.
After reading it, Hiruko fell into silent contemplation alongside him.
What was all this supposed to mean...?
It was the equivalent of Konohagakure mobilizing its entire army to wage war against another hidden village... while casually leaving the Scroll of Seals sitting out in the middle of camp.
How could that possibly make sense?
"Do you think it's a trap?" Orochimaru asked hesitantly as he flipped through another manual.
"It doesn't feel fake..."
Hiruko replied uncertainly.
"They have no reason to deceive us like this. It doesn't make sense. Besides, even if these technologies are put into production someday, nobody would follow these blueprints exactly. They'd inevitably need to be adjusted, tested, and refined."
From any perspective, neither Hiruko nor Orochimaru could be considered "good people" in the traditional sense.
Inside Konoha, however, both enjoyed an excellent reputation.
After all, they had developed prosthetics, storage scrolls, and countless other inventions that benefited ordinary people. Around villagers and fellow shinobi, they always wore warm smiles...
Outside the village, though, Orochimaru had always been considered an extremely high-priority threat.
Even Hiruko's reputation was one of being "devious" and "an expert at ambushes."
Yet today, both brothers wore the stunned expressions of honest men whose worldview had just been shattered.
They'd seen all kinds of things before.
But this?
This was something else entirely.
"We should report this to Sensei..."
Rubbing his temples, Orochimaru couldn't shake the feeling that things had gone too smoothly.
"There's definitely something hidden beneath all this. We need to go back and reconstruct everything carefully."
Hiruko nodded seriously.
"You go ahead. I'll carry out Hokage-sama's orders and continue the bomb disposal operation."
He had also expected dismantling, analyzing, and recovering the Sky Village's technology to be a long and difficult process.
"You're always so obedient when it comes to Sensei..."
Orochimaru raised an eyebrow but didn't argue over the job before striding away.
...
Meanwhile, Sarutobi Hiruzen frowned deeply as he pondered the traces of Impure World Reincarnation he had discovered.
There was something seriously wrong here.
Someone powerful enough that Uzumaki Mito couldn't fully detect them—and who had to be driven out through wide-area attacks using Tailed Beast chakra—had been monitoring Konohagakure while flying through the sky and using Impure World Reincarnation...
That clearly had everything to do with the Sky Village's attack.
"Sensei, what's wrong?"
Seeing Hiruzen's troubled expression, Orochimaru spoke up.
Hiruzen briefly explained what he had discovered regarding the Impure World Reincarnation.
Orochimaru froze, his brows knotting together.
Why had everything today become so bizarre?
Hiruzen packed more tobacco into his pipe before taking a long draw.
A thick cloud of smoke drifted into the air, like the impenetrable mystery hanging over the Sky Village attack.
Orochimaru stood silently beside him, thinking it over as well.
But after starting with a grave expression, his face suddenly twitched.
A look of complete shock filled his eyes.
"Sensei... there's something I need to report."
He carefully looked around to make sure no one else was nearby before explaining everything that had happened at the Sky Village.
Hiruzen continued taking one puff after another from his pipe.
What in the world is this...?
'The Sky Village civilians near Konoha decided life wasn't worth living anymore, blew themselves up, and generously shared their aerospace technology with you?'
Based on everything they knew so far, a mysterious individual stood behind the Sky Village and had instigated the war.
There was also that Warring States-era shinobi who fought in a style deliberately reminiscent of Tobirama-sensei and had been watching everything from the shadows.
Hiruzen couldn't say with complete certainty whether they were the same person.
But their methods were uncannily alike.
Especially after this Sky Ninja incident, Hiruzen finally realized where that strange feeling of déjà vu had been coming from all along.
So that's what this is...
It's like someone's playing a game.
A mysterious NPC kept forcibly handing quests to him—the Hokage—and to Konohagakure.
Complete the quest, and there would be rewards.
"Adventurer, today's journey begins~"
The only difference was that this particular NPC was much harsher.
If you failed the quest, there was no restarting.
You would suffer real losses.
Hiruzen suddenly felt a headache coming on.
His years of experience told him that, with the Sky Ninja's technology now laid bare before them, one thing could already be confirmed:
The mysterious powerhouse's mental state had clearly become somewhat obsessive.
Not in a destructive sense.
Rather, it was an obsession born from subjecting Konohagakure to a series of tests that were neither wholly benevolent nor wholly malicious.
"Who could it be...?"
Hiruzen searched through his memories.
After a moment, he couldn't help chuckling.
"Orochimaru... now that I think about it, this style actually reminds me a little of my father."
"Or rather, people from their generation were often like this. They loved testing their clansmen and children through harsh trials. If you passed, they'd treasure you like the most precious thing in the world. If you failed..." He shook his head. "...they'd cast you aside without a second thought."
"My father was better than most."
"But only a little better."
He sighed.
"Ah... Warring States parenting."
Even Hiruzen couldn't help complaining about the era that had raised him.
"In any case, the mysterious figure hiding behind the Sky Village must be a shinobi from the Warring States Period—and someone who once held considerable status."
"He has exposed another small piece of his identity."
Hiruzen's expression darkened.
Anyone who knew the Impure World Reincarnation had to be closely connected to Tobirama-sensei...
Which meant there was a high probability they were a member of the Senju Clan.
Though there was also the possibility of an Uzumaki.
After all, the essence of the Impure World Reincarnation was a combination of Summoning Technique and Fūinjutsu, and during the Warring States Period, the Uzumaki and Senju had freely shared their knowledge.
Orochimaru glanced at his teacher, his eyes wandering thoughtfully.
A Warring States-era shinobi with considerable status...?
He thought it over.
The relationship between him and his teacher needed no explanation. They were master and disciple in name, but father and son in practice. Hiruzen had always raised him through wholehearted encouragement and support—a style of education that couldn't have been further removed from the Warring States or the shinobi of that era.
'I can't let Sensei keep taking the blame for this...'
Orochimaru stepped closer and lowered his voice.
"Sensei... the Second Hokage, Tobirama-sama—he held quite a high position within the Senju Clan back then, didn't he?"
"Of course. Tobirama-sensei was technically second-in-command, but in reality, he made nearly every important decision. Education, logistics, battlefield command... everything concerning the clan was handled by him."
Hiruzen smiled, failing to grasp where Orochimaru was headed.
"The only exception was anything involving Hashirama-sama and Uchiha Madara."
Orochimaru slowly nodded.
"I see..."
"Sensei, are you certain what you saw was the Impure World Reincarnation?"
"Without question. It wasn't exactly the same as the version I'd seen before—the reconstruction was much faster—but I know the structure of that technique. There's no way I'd mistake it."
Hiruzen answered with complete confidence.
He could see the internal structure of techniques, which was why he was so certain.
Only now did Hiruzen finally feel he truly deserved the title of "Professor of Ninjutsu."
"Then tell me," Orochimaru said quietly, "other than you, me, and Mito-sama... who else in the shinobi world knows the Impure World Reincarnation?"
"No one else in the village does."
Hiruzen nodded with satisfaction.
"So you came to the same conclusion I did."
Orochimaru blinked.
"Sensei... then shall we say the answer together?"
"The culprit must be a Senju or Uzumaki shinobi who left the village during its founding or back in the Warring States Period."
That was Hiruzen's answer.
"It's the Second Hokage. He never died—he simply went into hiding..."
That was Orochimaru's.
Hiruzen froze.
How in the world did you arrive at Tobirama-sensei?
Come on—that's the Second Hokage!
Hiruzen had overlooked one crucial detail.
From beginning to end, he had always known Senju Tobirama was alive.
After all, he had personally reincarnated him into an Uchiha body...
But that secret would remain buried forever.
By sheer coincidence, Isshin had even poured another layer of concrete over it.
At this point, even if Seisui suddenly jumped out and claimed to be Tobirama himself, everyone would just laugh it off.
What's with this kid pretending to be his own grandfather now?
"What are you talking about, you brat?" Hiruzen asked instinctively.
It was simply too absurd.
"Sensei, I know it's hard to accept... but everything fits."
A trace of reluctance flashed across Orochimaru's face as he hastily erected a simple soundproofing and isolation barrier.
Truthfully, Orochimaru didn't think the Second Hokage's actions were all that unreasonable.
At worst, Tobirama was using rather extreme methods to test Konoha's resolve while delivering resources in an incredibly awkward way.
That wasn't impossible to understand.
At least, Orochimaru felt he could understand it.
Several years earlier, when he and Hiruzen had been at odds, Orochimaru had once entertained the thought that, if things truly came to it, he could defect from the village one day and use forceful means to become the windmill that would set Konoha back in motion.
If the village continued to sink into decay, then Konoha was simply dying a slow death.
In Orochimaru's eyes, that line of thinking aligned perfectly with what he imagined Senju Tobirama would do.
Of course...
The current Orochimaru would never bring up that embarrassing chapter of his past.
Defecting wasn't impossible.
But staying by Sensei's side and building Konoha together had given him a future far broader than anything he could have found alone.
"What exactly fits?"
For one of the rare times in his life, Hiruzen sounded genuinely agitated.
"How could you think something like that about Tobirama-sensei? Orochimaru, watch your mouth! Show some respect for the Second Hokage!"
Hiruzen was, by nature, a kindhearted man.
He had already dragged Tobirama back from the Pure Land to work for him.
Even if the arrangement benefited them both, he couldn't let his teacher—the former Hokage—end up carrying such an enormous black mark.
Regardless of whether the Sky Ninja had handed over valuable technology, the attack itself had undeniably happened.
That alone would deal a devastating blow to Tobirama's reputation.
Hiruzen had to admit that, as his own prestige, reputation, and standing within Konoha continued to rise, Tobirama's public image had quietly been sinking lower and lower.
After all, more and more people believed that the only reason Konoha hadn't prospered sooner was because Tobirama had died too early.
As a result, Hiruzen had inherited the position while still far too young, forcing him to spend enormous effort dealing with internal conflicts and laying the village's foundations.
Of course, there were also old-school Uchiha like Uchiha En, who thought Tobirama had died too late.
He should've let Hiruzen take over at eighteen.
Once the Third Hokage arrived, everything got better.
"Sensei, calm down... please, calm down..."
Orochimaru felt a pang in his chest.
Sensei really is someone who treasures his bonds...
The most obvious possibility was staring him in the face, yet he rejected it out of loyalty to his teacher.
Orochimaru refused to believe that someone as capable as Hiruzen couldn't have reached such an obvious conclusion.
And when he remembered that he himself had once contemplated defecting from the village...
Seeing Hiruzen, normally so composed, become genuinely upset over the thought of slandering Tobirama...
Orochimaru suddenly felt like slapping himself across the face.
And he meant it.
I'm such a bastard...
Whew... I'd better work even harder for Sensei from now on. Besides, back then it was only a passing thought. Even if I had defected, at most I'd have secluded myself somewhere to continue my research. How could I ever have attacked Konoha or harmed Sensei?
Orochimaru comforted himself.
"Sensei, look..."
He carefully laid out his reasoning.
"If all we had was the Impure World Reincarnation, then as you said, it could simply be some reclusive Senju or Uzumaki powerhouse..."
"But think back to that unidentified shinobi who attacked Amegakure and fought Yashiro. We've analyzed his characteristics countless times."
"First, during the fight with Yashiro, it was obvious he was intimately familiar with the Uchiha Clan's techniques and fighting style. He had complete mastery of ninjutsu, taijutsu, and genjutsu, and the way he treated Yashiro was like an elder teaching a child."
"At the time, we thought he might have been an Uchiha. But looking back now... doesn't Tobirama-sama fit those characteristics just as well?"
Orochimaru continued his meticulous analysis.
"Then, during the incident at Amegakure, he demonstrated a repulsion-based forbidden technique and the Flying Thunder God Technique..."
The more Hiruzen listened, the more bewildered he became.
Ever since arriving in this world, this was the first time he'd encountered something he genuinely couldn't reason through.
His thinking had always contained one massive blind spot.
To him, Tobirama being alive was an established fact.
But if he set that fact aside...
Why did all of this suddenly sound so convincing?
"Now then," Orochimaru continued gently, mindful of Hiruzen's feelings, "even after matching those two points, the evidence still wouldn't be conclusive."
"But then we arrived at the Sky Village."
"Not only did we unexpectedly obtain a complete set of their flight technology, I also discovered that the Sky Village's energy source was a forbidden technique fueled by negative-emotion chakra."
"More importantly, there was also research on bodily activation and regeneration. It specifically noted that it could mitigate and compensate for the side effects of the Eight Gates Formation."
"And just now, Duy used the Eight Gates Formation."
Orochimaru glanced toward Might Duy.
At the moment, Duy was lying flat on the ground, laughing heartily as he celebrated the village's victory.
However, after opening the Seventh Gate, the Gate of Wonder, the backlash from the Eight Gates Formation had left him too weak to move. All he could do was lie there and wait for the medical corps to arrive.
"...No way..."
Hiruzen wore exactly the same stunned expression Orochimaru and Hiruko had displayed earlier at the Sky Village base.
After a long silence, he finally muttered, "Even so... that still doesn't prove it's Tobirama-sensei."
"Maybe the leader of the Sky Village was simply interested in physical enhancement and the Eight Gates Formation."
"Orochimaru, you've read plenty of old records. You should know that the claim that Tobirama-sensei invented the Eight Gates Formation is nothing more than a rumor. He never knew that technique."
Hiruzen did everything he could to clear Tobirama's name.
A bad reputation was one thing.
But he couldn't let it turn pitch black.
"Sensei, we have to look at this objectively..."
Orochimaru sighed.
"Think about it. He's supposedly the leader of the Sky Village."
"He has an entire village's worth of advanced scientific research at his disposal, yet instead of studying any of that, he chooses to focus on bodily activation techniques?"
"Those are completely different fields. It just doesn't make any sense."
Hiruzen's face went blank.
He finally understood something.
Logic could construct a flawless chain of evidence...
But that didn't necessarily mean it pointed to the truth.
Real life didn't require perfectly consistent logic.
No matter how absurd something sounded, it could still happen.
How was he supposed to know why Shinnō, despite being the leader of the Sky Ninja, happened to be obsessed with bodily activation and the Eight Gates Formation?
"Maybe... it was just a personal hobby..."
Even Hiruzen's rebuttal was beginning to lose conviction.
"Look at you. You're devoted to scientific research, but you're also interested in modifying the human body, aren't you?"
Orochimaru chuckled.
How could Shinnō possibly be compared to either himself or Tobirama-sama?
The man simply didn't have the time or energy.
"Sensei, you allowed me to study the Second Hokage's forbidden technique notebooks."
"You know perfectly well that he left notes regarding the Eight Gates Formation."
Hiruzen's face darkened.
He was beginning to regret giving Orochimaru unrestricted access to Tobirama's research notes.
This kid's imagination runs way too wild...
"Furthermore, the Sky Village's forbidden technique fueled by negative-emotion chakra is called the 'Zero-Tails.'"
"I examined its underlying principles."
"They're astonishingly similar to the prototype described in Tobirama-sama's notes."
"You could even say it was developed directly from that prototype."
Orochimaru cleared his throat.
"Sensei, one coincidence is just a coincidence."
"So are two."
"Even three."
"But we're already at five or six."
"And on top of that, there's still the matter of the Impure World Reincarnation."
For a moment, Hiruzen felt dazed.
He silently confirmed to himself that it had indeed been he who had used Orochimaru's Living Corpse Reincarnation to bring Tobirama back to life in the first place.
He remembered correctly.
After a long while, Hiruzen slowly exhaled a thick cloud of smoke.
"Setting all these coincidences aside..."
"Tobirama-sensei still has no motive to do something like this."
His tone grew unexpectedly firm.
"It simply isn't him."
"Sensei, how can you say he had no motive?"
Orochimaru clicked his tongue and shook his head.
"You know better than anyone how tightly Tobirama-sama's research was restricted back then."
"Yes, he was the Hokage."
"But he was also a man with his own passions."
"Isn't that what you taught me?"
"Shinobi are people."
"And Hokage are people too."
"Besides, Sensei, think about it. If Tobirama-sama hadn't been pulling the strings, how could the Sky Ninja possibly have attacked Konoha? Given your personality, you would never have launched an offensive against them—not at this point, anyway."
"If things had been left to unfold naturally, who knows how long everything would've dragged on..."
Suddenly, inspiration struck Orochimaru.
"I once heard that some of the old-timers from the Warring States Period referred to Tobirama-sama as the 'First Darkness of the Shinobi World.'"
"If that's true... then everything falls perfectly into place."
"You're Konoha's light."
"And Tobirama-sama is the root hidden beneath the surface."
"He handles the things that can't be brought into the light—but that greatly advance Konoha's future. One in the light, one in the shadows. That's how something endures."
Hiruzen couldn't help but laugh in relief.
No wonder Orochimaru was such an outstanding researcher.
His ability to connect seemingly unrelated pieces of information was truly first-rate. He could find a connection between anything if he tried hard enough.
"Sensei... does that mean you agree with my theory?"
"It sounds plausible."
"But I reject it completely!"
Hiruzen declared sternly.
"Orochimaru, Tobirama-sensei's Will of Fire was tempered through countless battles. He would never resort to such extreme methods."
"He died protecting his useless disciple."
"Everything you've said is nothing more than baseless speculation."
"You simply know too much classified information about the village, so you've forced all those pieces together into one conclusion."
"We are not discussing this again."
As he spoke, Hiruzen quickly ran through everyone in the village who might come to the same conclusion.
In truth, it would probably only be Orochimaru, Hiruko, Tsunade, and the other senior members of the Research Department.
Everyone else... perhaps not.
As long as they stopped overthinking things, no major rumors should spread.
Hiruzen was running out of options.
How had two of his three disciples—Jiraiya and Orochimaru—both ended up showing so little respect toward Tobirama-sensei?
This wouldn't do.
They needed to learn proper respect for their elders.
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