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-Year: 13.4, Age: 9.4-
"Have you lost your mind, brother?" Tobirama calmly asked as he raised the file in his hand, one eyebrow quirked upwards. "Iwa kills my nephew. Attacks our family, puts us under the crosshairs of every Daimyo out there, orphans your granddaughter, threatens our very future and your... your solution-" He gave his brother a dark look, his teeth almost grinding on themselves. "Is to task me with baby-sitting duty!?" He slams the file onto the table. "Again, brother, have you lost your mind?"
His brother's expression didn't budge. Not one bit.
Tobirama instinctively had to restrain himself from lashing out, if only verbally, at that fact.
"If it's any consolation," His brother started speaking, a faraway look growing on his face. "I can mark it an S-rank babysitting mission? If that'd make it easier to swallow?"
Tobirama had half a mind to try to send his brother into an interrogation just for that. He was clearly losing it.
Perhaps the burden had broken him.
"...Every word..." He grit his teeth. "Every blasted word out of your mouth is not helping your case right now."
Hashirama shrugged at him.
His fingers twitched in response.
"Dismissed." His eyes narrowed as he whispered the word out, his gaze quickly turning towards the corner in the room. "I said, you're dismissed." The detail, after his brother's confirmation, quickly disappeared out of sight and hearing. He turned back towards said brother, and made to speak before he found himself beaten to it.
"Iwa, wasn't responsible for what happened-"
He opened his mouth again, yet was quickly cut off.
"-with the Daimyu incident at any rate." A beat passed as Tobirama's eyes narrowed. "I am not denying their involvement with my son-"
"Then why aren't we preparing for war?" He calmly questioned, his eyes narrowing again as anger bubbled within his chest. "Why-" He shook his head.
"War?" His brother questioned with a raised eyebrow. "Do you want to throw children at them? See what sticks? Is that what you mean?"
"Children?" His expression furrowed. "We have-"
"Oh, I wasn't aware our ninja corps were immortal." His brother gave him a deadpan look. "My bad, I was under the impression they were just as fleshy and bony as the rest of-"
"Brother-"
"No, Tobi, I agreed to your forcing the academy to graduate some of its classes early, I never agreed to give out battlefield promotions to the ones that survived." His brother let out a sigh at him, and for a brief moment, guilt rapidly filled him as he took in the utter stress that quickly marked itself on the man's face. "I am not saying you're wrong about preparing for war..." He watched the man shake his head. "Sage knows nothing can stop it... But I don't want to be known... I don't want Konoha known as the one that instigated it-"
"Iwa did that when they-"
"No, the Daimyo did that."
"You can't be certain-"
"Terrified men don't lie with their last breath," A beat passed. "And that man was terrified, beyond reason and hope. He had no reason to lie-"
"You don't know that!" He cut his brother off, frustration bubbling up faster and faster with every word.
"And would I have, if I'd let you go through with your experiment?" He tensed the slightest bit. "Hm? Do you think he would've sung a different song then?"
After a brief moment of staring, of gauging his brother's expression, Tobirama found himself belatedly realizing that... His brother looked, almost... Almost resigned for some reason? Which he certainly hadn't been when he'd caught him half-way through that... Ordeal. No. That had been msotly anger and disappointment.
"Heh," His brother's sudden snort brought him out of his musing. "Oh forget war, maybe Konoha should be known for fucking-" He flinched at the word, "-with the dead themselves. That's much better. Hells while we're at it, why don't bring back my son and ask him what dishes he ate from? Or- Or, better yet, we bring back our dearly beloved father so he can see the fruits of his labors!" There was an almost mad glint to his brother's eyes at that, one that had Tobirama faltering the slightest bit- To the point he almost took a step back. "See that all of two out of his beloved children survived! Maybe he'll finally give us a fucking hug for it even!" His brother slammed his hands on the desk. "Take this for what it is- Take the stick up your ass, brother, and go try to teach those children how to survive the war you're so insistent on starting!" The man finished, his face a fair distance away, though it felt marginally smaller as he slowly settled back down onto his seat.
The two of them fell into an uncomfortable lapse of silence, one that felt almost suffocating yet... Oddly enough, a tad relieving.
He wasn't sure what to make of that.
"...Is this a punishment then?" He asked after a brief moment. "Proof that even the Hokage's own brother can't escape the horror that E Ranks are?" He let out a humorless snort, though it certainly wouldn't hurt to paint it as such a picture. If anything it might even help push Konoha's seriousness on insubordination, of any kind.
"I did offer to make it an S Rank mission."
"...You were being serious?" He questioned, utterly baffled, and rather caught off-guard even. "...Once again, have you lost your mind?"
His brother shrugged at him again.
"...Regardless of that..." He let out a sigh. "Are you going to tell me that... You're willing to let Iwa get away with it?"
"Iwa gets away with nothing."
He blinked at that.
"There is no winning for them for what they did." His brows furrowed again, and his earlier feelings diminished as he took in the utter seriousness that swept over his brother's face. "It's as you said- They were the only ones who had the means, the time, and the necessary...cloud of doubt, to attack the Daimyo. The only thing they missed was a reason to- Well, a more definitive reason at any rate, than scathing under a Daimyo's order."
"But the Daimyo won't see it that way- He'll blame it on us and-"
"-Let him." Hashirama shrugged. "I've no issue with honesty and truth."
"...What?" His gaze narrowed. "What are you saying, brother?"
"Exactly what it sounds like-" His brother snorted. "The Daimyo won't accept the idea that his own Kage would take one of his own missions as an opportunity to attack him. It's too risky and far too stupid to bite the hand that fed you, so he'd never believe it, instead, he'll blame it on us. Just as Iwa knows the impossibility of Konoha retaliating against the Daimyo, both because the timing of it was actually impossible, and because they'd never think to attack ours themselves." A beat passed. "The Daimyos are untouchables after all."
Processing everything, Tobirama found himself frowning again. "Which is all the more reason to believe that Iwa did it-"
"Yes. It is." His brother chuckled. "I imagine they must be very confused about it all." A beat passed. "At worst, Mu understands why the man that attacked his entire village, lost to me." Tobirama, for a brief moment, froze.
He'd been with his brother the entire day... There would've been... Could he have..?
He wasn't sure how to even feel about all that. According to the report he'd gotten, the Daimyu's kid had died minutes after their scapegoat had started screaming which meant... Had his brother known beforehand? Or... Was Tobirama just that far behind? Was the gulf that big?
"At best?" Hashirama snorted. "At best, his own Kage-nomination breaks down because Mu doesn't know how, or why, one of his own supporters had decided to go so rogue as to attack the hand that fed them." Hashirama tilted his head at him. "If Mu wants to take that hat next, he can choose to claim it... But the moment he does, he's likely to gain an enemy in his own Daimyo. Not to mention he'd have his own village live under an impossible lie. His own future would be in the palms of our hands." His brother shook his head. "But if he doesn't claim it... And everyone assumes it's us... Then starting a war falls down on him the moment he does gain that hat."
And then, Tobirama saw it. He understood.
Konoha had time... And the more time that passed in uncertainty, the bigger their advantage was.
If Mu took credit, they could cut his legs off from under him whenever they saw fit. If he didn't, every waking moment that passed raised the level of fear that swept through their entire country, at the sheer possibility that Konoha could target them next.
They had time- And Tobirama dimly realized, as his gaze slowly looked down towards the file, that he needed to make sure they had a team that could manage it.
Sure, given enough time, he could probably manage it himself but... He grit his teeth. His position made that an impossibility all on its own. His brother was asking him to pass that... Kind of power down to someone else, someone not tied to them. An unknown.
And what better of an unknown than one molded by him? What better way to trust that power, than to instill loyalty along with it?
His brother... Was right.
"...Did you do it?" He questioned after a brief moment.
His brother let out a chuckle. "Put 'em through a test to see if they're worth teaching or not."
Ah.
He hadn't been ordered to teach a bunch of academy students. He was offered the chance to.
Hm.
Perhaps he'd jumped to a conclusion when he first heard of the ludicrous idea.
"I'll tell you later on that day, okay?"
He nodded, wordlessly, even if he'd already begrudgingly accepted the fact that if anyone could pull off that impossible feat, it was his brother and his brother alone.
With a sigh, he calmly opened up the file and was proven almost immediately correct when he noticed the fact he was getting the best that class had to offer.
His gaze lowered down the file, briefly noting the fact the girl was in the absolute middle of her class's ranking, which though somewhat disappointing, wasn't entirely unsurprising. She wasn't from a known clan, and considering the number of her classmates who were? The middle there would've been a much higher score elsewhere-
And then his gaze landed on the third, and Tobirama simply couldn't help the twitch on his face as he took in the Dead Last ranking it came with.
"Is this a joke?" He questioned, his gaze stuck on the smug moron holding a certificate of sorts that highlighted the very same ranking! "The Dead Last, of the class? Who if any of these notes are to go by is-"
"Tobi, I am going to stop you right then and there." He blinked at his brother's words and looked up, before blinking again at the utterly serious look on the man's face. "If you manage to teach Danzo Shimura anything, literally, anything at all... I'll give you a free pass to do anything you want."
"...What?"
"You know what, fuck it, you teach that brat anything and I'll just name you Hokage."
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