Regarding Akatsuki, his strategy was simple in principle and brutal in execution: weaken them as much as possible before their side ever had to face a fully realized Rinnegan Madara—and above all, never corner Obito or Black Zetsu prematurely.
If they were forced to act early, it had to be decisive.
Either Obito died, or Nagato was captured.
Anything less would be disaster. A prolonged clash would only give Akatsuki time to regroup and counterattack, and once momentum shifted, there would be no pulling it back.
As for Black Zetsu… that thing had only ever been successfully sealed under the combined force of Six Paths—Chibaku Tensei and Ōtsutsuki Kaguya. Attempting a clean surprise attack on it bordered on fantasy.
For now, it was better to focus on what could actually be controlled. As long as the overall situation remained stable and they weren't caught off guard, there would always be room to maneuver.
"Roshi."
Tsunade's voice cut through his thoughts.
"Hm?"
"Thanks for the hard work."
This time he didn't bother with polite deflection. He accepted it plainly.
"Hmm."
Tsunade's brows snapped together. "What do you mean 'hmm'?"
"'Hmm' means," Roshi replied calmly, finally looking up from the documents, "I have indeed worked hard."
"I'm the one sitting here every day drowning in paperwork!" Tsunade slammed her palm onto the desk and leaned forward, glaring across at him. "You disappear for months at a time!"
"You are the Hokage, esteemed Lady Tsunade," he said evenly. "I'm just a humble Jonin. An ordinary Konoha ninja."
"Who begged me to come back in the first place, you bastard?!"
"I've already begged and still have to grovel," Roshi replied without missing a beat, "then all my effort was wasted."
"You—!"
The office door opened gently. Shizune stepped in with a tray of late-night snacks, took one look at the atmosphere, and sighed inwardly.
"Lady Tsunade… Roshi… perhaps you should take a break—"
"Silence, Shizune!" Tsunade barked. "I'm not letting this guy off today!"
"…Yes," Shizune answered reflexively, freezing in place.
By then Tsunade had already stepped onto the desk. In a blur, she seized Roshi by the collar and lifted him clean off his chair.
Dangling in midair, Roshi looked past her shoulder toward the doorway.
"At a time like this, Shizune," he said calmly, "it's better to move than to say 'yes.'"
Shizune pressed her lips together, said nothing, stepped back with the tray, and quietly shut the door.
A soft click sealed the room.
A moment later came the muffled sounds of furniture colliding.
The night was long.
And yet, it passed in an instant.
Konoha Year 57 arrived in a swirl of noise and change. Roshi officially began his leave and returned to the Senju home, burying himself in experiments.
Anko transferred into Anbu, assigned to the same squad as Yūgao and Hayate.
As for Akatsuki, once the year's most urgent affairs were settled, Jiraiya departed the Village again to continue his investigation.
This time he wasn't alone.
Uchiha Shisui and Hyuga Iboro accompanied him.
After months of fruitless waiting around Enjin and confirming no further contact would come, Shisui finally stepped away from the Anbu interrogation facility.
He had waited for the enemy to move.
Now he would go to them.
The problems between the Village and the Uchiha could still be resolved—as long as no external force interfered. That meant finding the true enemy and keeping them occupied, even if all he could do was drag their attention away from Konoha.
He would not allow them to shatter this fragile turning point.
The two Hyuga assigned to Enjin's guard detail were also reassigned. The Hyuga clan was stretched thin; their missions this year were especially heavy.
Konoha's upper leadership had already hinted to Hiashi that the police force would continue recruiting Hyuga members. The likely outcome was clear: Hiashi would become Deputy Captain of the Police, serving as a counterbalance to the Uchiha.
It was both political necessity and compensation.
Because when the Hidden Cloud incident came to its climax…
Konoha had chosen to sacrifice the Hyuga.
—
Seventeen was the age when Uzumaki Naruto defeated monsters, saved the Ninja World, and dragged Uchiha Sasuke back to Konoha.
At seventeen, Roshi spent most of Konoha Year 57 buried in the experimental forest behind the Senju home.
This year's tree-breeding project had finally produced results.
After countless rounds of screening, hybridization, and Wood Release-assisted cultivation, he obtained a mother tree that came close to his ideal. Its wood conducted Chakra with unusual stability, and its life force far surpassed any previous specimen.
But it was also the product of impatience.
The plant's vitality had been overdrawn.
It stayed lush for less than two months before irreversible decay set in. The leaves dulled, the bark cracked into dry, withering lines, and the trunk began to collapse from within.
Before the tree completely disintegrated, Roshi forcibly preserved a final branch that still contained a faint spark of life, sealing it with a jutsu.
He carried it straight to the Hokage Office.
"What do you want? I'm busy. If you have nothing important, leave."
Tsunade didn't even look up. Her pen continued scratching across the document, impatience dripping from every word.
Roshi walked to the desk and set the sealed branch beside a mountain of paperwork.
"I need you to help prepare a nutrient solution," he said calmly. "Otherwise my six months of leave will have been a waste."
Tsunade's eyelids finally lifted.
She glanced at the branch.
"Overcatalyzed with Wood Release?"
"I rushed the screening process," Roshi admitted. "I wanted a viable specimen as fast as possible."
Tsunade extended a finger, brushed the branch, and quietly sensed the remaining vitality. Her eyes rolled upward in annoyance.
"This is a mess."
"It's a hybrid plant with no precedent. There's no reference material."
She leaned back in her chair.
"It's not impossible… but I'm the Hokage. I don't have time to babysit your botanical experiments like some idle Jonin."
Without a word, Roshi picked up a stack of documents, walked to the spare desk, pulled out a chair, and sat down.
Tsunade snorted.
"Now he knows how to behave…"
She twirled the branch between her fingers, already thinking.
"Fine. Until I solve this, you're staying here."
She stood, mood suddenly bright, and added with a sharp smile:
"—Like a normal ninja, Mr. Ninja."
The Fifth Hokage left the office in unusually light spirits.
The lowly Jonin buried himself in paperwork.
It was July.
And if one had to describe the Ninja World this year in a single word, it would be: lively.
After receiving a share of the profits from last year's joint Chunin Exams, Sunagakure couldn't resist trying to replicate the model themselves.
It didn't go well.
The Land of Wind's harsh environment offered almost no suitable viewing spaces outside the Village. Few outsiders were willing to travel that far for entertainment. Combined with the inevitable injuries from high-intensity matches and the resulting medical expenses, Sunagakure's final accounting was… disappointing.
By all reports, they barely broke even.
Meanwhile, Konoha and Kumogakure's combat exchange event was scheduled to begin in August. Publicity had already spread across multiple countries, drawing widespread attention and speculation.
Yet Hidden Mist—who had shown strong interest last year—remained unexpectedly quiet.
Aside from these increasingly commercial grand spectacles, the Ninja World was, on the surface, peaceful.
No major wars swept across the nations. Small skirmishes still occurred, but the great villages were clearly more focused on internal consolidation and their own development.
Especially Konoha.
Last year, twelve Uchiha from the Police Force had used genjutsu on the Daimyo in order to return to the Village. They were apprehended soon after. Using this incident as leverage, Konoha smoothly reassigned new personnel into the Police Force: an Inuzuka squad, a Hyuga Branch Family squad, and a team of civilian ninja.
The atmosphere inside the force inevitably grew tense.
Even the most moderate Uchiha had spent decades viewing the police force as their clan's domain and their default destination after graduation. Watching their numbers and influence steadily diluted was bound to create imbalance.
Fortunately, the Village as a whole was on an upward trajectory.
Since Tsunade took office, the external situation had improved year by year. The Four-Village Joint Chunin Exams last year had boosted morale, and a Konoha ninja—identity deliberately kept low-key—had taken the championship. More importantly, the Uchiha had clearly been in the wrong during the Daimyo incident. Fugaku publicly supported the reforms, and the clan genuinely benefited from new channels of advancement: Anbu recruitment, Academy positions, administrative roles.
There were problems. There were undercurrents.
But for now, they remained contained.
After finishing the most urgent stack of paperwork, Roshi found the Ninja Academy's latest batch of teacher applications mixed into the pile.
He flipped open the file and scanned the names.
This year, six Uchiha had applied again. Unlike the first year—when many capable clan members were squeezed out of the police force and left in an awkward limbo—this was already the third year of reforms. The remaining applicants were… ordinary. At most, one or two symbolic slots would be enough to maintain balance.
Two other names stood out.
One was Iruka Umino. After returning from the Kumogakure Chunin Exams last year, he had been promoted to Chunin thanks to his solid performance.
The other was Mizuki.
He had been a Chunin for several years. Roshi skimmed the notes: Mizuki had previously applied for Anbu and been rejected. This year, he had turned to education.
It wasn't a strange choice.
The Ninja Academy, as a department directly under the Hokage, was a comfortable landing spot for Chunin with little chance of becoming Jonin—stable pay, respectable status, and a path to seniority.
Under normal circumstances, he might have passed.
But Mizuki had already done something irredeemably stupid.
During a simple intelligence retrieval mission, he had personally killed his injured teammate. In the official report, the death was written off with a sloppy, almost insulting lack of detail—as if Konoha were some third-rate village without even basic investigative procedures.
Whenever a ninja died on mission—especially under abnormal circumstances—Anbu automatically reopened the case. That was standard protocol. It prevented staged deaths, defections, and internal betrayals.
Mizuki's apparent logic—the mission succeeded, casualties don't matter—was laughable.
This was no longer the era of Sakumo Hatake. Every trained ninja represented a significant investment of the village's resources. If a Chunin died fighting a superior enemy, that was tragedy. But eliminating an injured comrade to clean up a B-rank mission, and not even bothering to cover it properly…
It revealed exactly what Mizuki valued.
Not teamwork.
Not rules.
Not the Village.
Only the line on his résumé.
And his execution of even that selfish goal was clumsy.
Roshi picked up his pen and drew a quiet horizontal line through Mizuki's name.
Then he paused.
…In this timeline, had Mizuki still crossed paths with Orochimaru after that mission?
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