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Tobirama adjusted the sleeves of his uniform while listening to Mito's account. The Hokage's office, normally a space for calculated decisions and meticulously planned strategies, now seemed too small to contain the revelations about his grandnephew.
Tap, tap, tap. The Second Hokage's fingers drummed on the dark oak desk, his face an impenetrable mask of concentration. Only the slight furrowing of his white eyebrows betrayed the storm of thoughts raging in his mind.
"And you're absolutely certain these were the boy's exact words?" he asked, his deep voice cutting through the air like a sharpened ice blade.
Mito nodded, her eyes red from crying on the way there. "Every word, Tobirama. It's as if... as if he could see beyond what he should."
"Hmpf." The sound escaped involuntarily from the Hokage's lips. "It wouldn't be the first time a Senju has displayed peculiar abilities."
The open window let in a breeze carrying the scent of the forest and the distant murmur of the village. Konoha grew each day, ignorant of the storms forming on the political horizon of the shinobi world.
"Hashirama failed," Tobirama repeated his grandnephew's words, testing them like one tests the edge of a kunai. "Interesting choice of words for a child."
Mito approached the window, her steps as light as always. Years of carrying the Kyūbi had taught the woman to move with an almost ghostly grace.
"What worries me isn't just what he said, Tobirama, but how he said it. Those eyes... they aren't the eyes of a child."
Tobirama stood up, clasping his hands behind his back. His shadow, cast by the evening light, stretched across the room like an omen.
"Nawaki is right," he finally declared, breaking the silence that had settled between them. "Even now, the Village of Thunder tests our border. At the same time, the Raikage wants to sign a peace agreement, which I strongly suspect is a trap."
Mito turned abruptly, her eyes widening. "You're not considering..."
"I will go with my guards to this meeting," Tobirama completed, without hesitation in his voice. The decision had been made long before this conversation.
Mito's face paled, the wrinkles around her eyes deepening with concern. "You will die?" The question came out more as a statement than a doubt.
Tobirama nodded, an almost imperceptible gesture. "Yes, I will go there, and most likely what will follow is the Second Shinobi War."
"My goodness..." Mito let slip, an expression so rare on her normally composed lips that it almost made Tobirama smile. "So you already knew? Everything Nawaki said..."
"Not everything," Tobirama walked to a map spread on a side table. With a gesture, he invited Mito to approach. "But I've had my suspicions for some time. Come, let me show you the real situation of the elemental nations."
The map Tobirama unrolled was different from the official maps that decorated the walls of the Academy or the Hokage Tower. This one contained handwritten notes, markings in different colors, and lines connecting seemingly unrelated locations.
"You see," he began, his finger tracing the border between the Land of Fire and the Land of Lightning. "The tension here isn't new. Fzzzt! Like electricity in the air before a storm."
Mito observed the Hokage's indications with attention. Tobirama's meticulousness had always been legendary—every detail, every possibility calculated with surgical precision.
"The peace that Hashirama established at the first Kage meeting was more fragile than wet paper," he continued, his finger now circling the location where the meeting with the Raikage would be held. "It was believed that distributing the tailed beasts would balance power, but..."
"It was a mistake," Mito completed, her heart tightening as she remembered the responsibility she carried within herself.
"A mistake for which we now pay a very high price," confirmed Tobirama, his red eyes reflecting the light of the setting sun. "Unfortunately, I wasn't the Hokage at that time. I tried to warn my brother, but you know how he was..."
"Stubborn as a mule when he believed he was doing the right thing," Mito smiled sadly, remembering her deceased husband.
"Exactly." Tobirama closed his eyes for a moment, as if he could see Hashirama right there, with his confident smile and his unshakable faith in the future. "Hashirama's problem was never his heart, but his naivety. He truly believed that everyone shared his desire for peace."
Mito observed Tobirama's normally impassive face soften momentarily with the memory of his brother. It was rare to see him like this, almost... human.
"It was always easier for you to see through people, wasn't it?" she asked, adjusting a strand of white hair that had escaped from her traditional bun.
Tobirama opened his eyes again, his countenance immediately regaining its usual hardness. "It's not a matter of ease, Mito. It's a matter of necessity."
Silence fell between them again, filled only by the occasional tinkling of scrolls being handled by assistants in the corridor and the distant noise of the village.
"What about Nawaki?" Mito finally questioned, returning to the subject that had brought her there. "What do we do with a boy who seems to know too much?"
Tobirama crossed his arms over his chest, his gaze lost beyond the window, in the direction of Hokage Mountain where only two faces still watched over the village.
"We observe. We guide. And, if necessary, we prepare."
"Prepare for what?" Mito felt a shiver run down her spine.
"To carry the weight that his grandfather and I couldn't bear to the end."
Night had already fallen completely when Tobirama dismissed his advisors. The strategic meeting for the journey to the Land of Lightning had stretched for hours, each detail meticulously planned.
Except for the detail of his own return, of course.
Chirp-chirp-chirp. Crickets sang in the garden of the Senju compound, as Tobirama walked silently toward a small pavilion away from the main house. The place where he used to train with Hashirama when they were children.
"I know you're there, Nawaki," he said to the apparent emptiness. "You need to improve your concealment techniques if you intend to spy on the Hokage."
A slight rustling of leaves and then a small figure descended from a nearby tree, landing with the grace of a cat.
"Great-uncle," Nawaki greeted, a mixture of respect and curiosity in his childish voice. "I wasn't spying... just observing."
"Hmpf," Tobirama snorted, but his lips curved slightly upward. "Semantics."
Nawaki approached, his small steps cautious like someone approaching a wild animal. There was something in that child's eyes—a wisdom that seemed out of place, as if it didn't belong to someone so young.
"You're going to die," the boy declared bluntly, his eyes fixed on Tobirama's.
It wasn't a question. It was a statement. And that, more than any of Mito's accounts, made Tobirama look at his grandnephew with new eyes.
"We all die eventually," he replied calmly, sitting on the wooden step of the pavilion and indicating for Nawaki to join him. "Some of us just choose the moment."
Nawaki sat beside him, his little legs swinging without reaching the ground. "Why choose to die when you can still do so much for the village?"
The question caught Tobirama off guard. Not by the audacity of such a young boy questioning a Hokage's decision, but by the depth of understanding it demonstrated.
"Sometimes, Nawaki, the sacrifice of one protects many," he finally answered, looking at the stars that were beginning to dot the night sky. "That's what it means to be Hokage."
"Is it worth it?" The boy asked, his voice suddenly deeper, as if something beyond his age was speaking through him. "You will die, Sarutobi will take over, and yet the war will come. Danzo will grow in power, manipulating shadows. The Root will spread like weeds under Konoha's soil, and more blood will be shed in the name of peace."
Tobirama felt a chill that had nothing to do with the night breeze. "How do you know about Root?"
The boy blinked, as if awakening from a trance. For a moment, he seemed confused, then shook his head. "I don't know... the words just came to my mind."
"Nawaki," Tobirama turned completely to face his grandnephew, "is there something you haven't told anyone yet? Something about... visions, perhaps?"
The boy's eyes widened for a second, a flash of surprise crossing his face. But soon his expression returned to normal.
"I have strange dreams," he admitted, lowering his gaze to his own hands. "I see things that haven't happened yet. People I've never met."
"What kind of things?"
Nawaki remained silent for a moment that seemed to stretch infinitely. The sound of the crickets seemed to have increased in volume, filling the night with their incessant serenade.
"I see wars. Deaths. An endless cycle of hatred and revenge," he finally replied, his voice almost a whisper. "And I see possibilities... different paths we could follow."
Tobirama nodded slowly. "The Senju have always had a deep connection with nature and chakra. Some say this allows us to perceive... nuances that others cannot."
"Great-uncle," Nawaki broke the silence that followed, "if I told you I know how to prevent the next war, would you listen to me?"
The Second Hokage felt his heart accelerate. How many times had he and Hashirama discussed ways to establish lasting peace? How many sleepless nights, poring over maps and treaties, seeking a path that would avoid more bloodshed?
"I would listen," he answered honestly. "But I would also question how a boy of such a young age could know such a secret."
Nawaki smiled, a smile that seemed to carry an understanding far beyond his years. "It's not a secret, great-uncle. It's just something many refuse to see."
"And what would that be?"
"The true nature of chakra and the cycle of hatred it perpetuates."
Tobirama felt his breath falter for an instant. Those words... they sounded like something the Rikudō Sennin himself would say.
"Nawaki," he began cautiously, "where did you get this idea?"
The boy raised his eyes to the starry sky, as if seeking answers in the constellations.
"From dreams," he murmured. "Dreams where I see wars, pain, and an endless cycle of revenge. And at the center of it all, a man with golden hair who believed in peace through understanding, not power."
Tobirama closed his eyes, absorbing his grandnephew's words. There was something there, something deep and significant that escaped his immediate understanding. Something that perhaps, just perhaps, could change the course he had foreseen for Konoha and the shinobi world.
"I'll tell you a secret, Nawaki," he said after a long moment of reflection. "Great shinobi aren't those with the most jutsus or the most chakra. They're those who can see beyond the immediate horizon."
The boy watched him intensely, drinking in every word.
"And you, my nephew, seem to see very far," Tobirama completed, placing a hand on the small shoulder. "Tomorrow, before I leave for my mission, we'll talk more. I want to hear about these dreams in detail."
Nawaki nodded, his small face illuminated by a smile that, for the first time that night, seemed truly childlike.
"Thank you, great-uncle!" he exclaimed, jumping off the step. "You won't regret it!"
Tobirama watched the boy run back to the main house, his light footsteps echoing in the silent night. For a brief moment, he allowed himself to imagine a future different from what he had planned—a future where perhaps he wouldn't need to sacrifice himself, where peace could be more than an ephemeral dream.
But then reality returned to weigh on his shoulders, and the Second Hokage stood up, his countenance returning to its habitual seriousness.
"We shall see, Nawaki," he murmured to the night wind. "We shall see."
The path that would lead him to the Land of Lightning was already traced in his mind, as was the sacrifice he would make for the village. But, for the first time in a long time, Tobirama Senju felt something he had forgotten how it felt.
Hope.