Naruto, Madara is my girl.

Leaves hissed softly in the breeze overhead, but the group kept moving fast across the trees, boots snapping against bark. No one dared to slow down-every step was part of their escape.

Hiruzen chewed another ninja pill and scanned the forest ahead. There was no chatter, no wasted breath on scenery. They were running for their lives.

Halfway through the afternoon, one by one, they pulled to a halt on a wide branch. Their chests rose fast with each gasp. There wasn't enough strength left in any of them to keep pushing without rest, and if the enemy caught up now, they wouldn't be able to fight at full force. They'd be slaughtered.

"Hokage-sama," the red haired ninja broke the silence with his usual direct tone. He looked toward the man in blue armor, whose white hair didn't show fatigue, but whose jaw stayed clenched hard. "What should we do now?"

Tobirama didn't answer immediately. He hadn't planned on walking into this mess, just another council trip turned ambush by the Hidden Cloud's fucking Gold and Silver Brothers.

He rubbed his knuckles into his thigh once as frustration built up behind his stoic expression.

"My eldest brother just died, and they dare to test Konoha now?" Tobirama's eyes narrowed to cold slits. "When did we become so easy to bully?"

Beneath his words ran fury, but Hokage or not, he couldn't show panic. The moment he did, everything else around him would collapse, especially faith in leadership.

"They're twenty strong," he said after focusing outward again. "Elite force from the Gold Horn unit."

Glass lenses glinted nearby as the woman with them tracked that number and hissed through her teeth.

"There's only seven of us."

"We're fucked…" Hiruzen pounded his fist into the bark below until it cracked beneath it.

"If only that man were alive…"

"Who?" someone asked, turning toward him.

Sarutobi straightened up and met their questioning stares without hesitation.

"Lord Senju Akira. tactics, strategy, battlefield decisions. he was called the God of War for good reason. If it were him standing here… we might have had hope."

Tobirama's fingers tightened near his side, but he said nothing as the group nodded solemnly in agreement.

"He probably would have seen this shit coming before we left," Hiruzen added. "He always did."

Some turned toward Tobirama again out of reflex, the man who trained them, but none dared speak directly about it again after that silent rebuke earlier.

"Enough!" Tobirama cut in flatly this time. "Irrelevant talk changes nothing. Do any of you actually have suggestions now?"

Their silence answered for them.

Tobirama's thoughts flicked forward, if he died here along with these future leaders, Konoha would have no one left to hold it together. The clans would fracture along old lines the second they sensed weakness.

He ground his jaw and started to speak.

"I'll do it."

Everyone looked toward Hiruzen immediately as he stepped forward from the group.

"I'll act as decoy, it's obvious one of us has to do it, so I'll draw them away while you run."

"Don't be fucking stupid!"

Danzo snapped first, his face twisted halfway between anger and disbelief.

"I was literally about to raise my hand, dumbass, you trying to look cool now?"

Even with Danzo slapping his arm away, Hiruzen grinned thinly without stepping back.

"You've always known I'm stronger than you, stay alive and lead them when I'm gone."

Danzo's nostrils flared-but he said nothing else either. The mood shifted fast from tense into brutal confrontation with plain reality: someone here had to die.

And none of them were ready to accept the others doing it first.

Tobirama glanced at each face closely, from Danzo to Hiruzen to Koharu-then toward his own clenched fist again. He hated this bullshit, and he hated that they were even considering dying before him, especially when Konoha couldn't afford their loss either.

He didn't speak again until he already began weaving hand signs at full speed.

"If you're willing to offer your lives for mine, i won't waste what's left of my reputation," he said tightly. "Don't move."

With one final seal, chakra flared beneath them and raced into the bark below where it traced out symbols fast as lightning across the surface.

Thwomp!

Wood splintered apart as a coffin rose from the center of the glowing mark-thick characters carved into its surface:

千

Sarutobi froze mid-breath, recognition sparking in his eyes even before the lid moved.

Bang!

It exploded open as if kicked from inside, the slab launched across the clearing and struck hard against another tree trunk before spinning off uselessly into dead leaves.

Thud-step-step-

Footsteps echoed inside the smoke and dust rising from the rupture point. Cracks spiderwebbed around the opened earth beneath it-and somewhere deep inside-the sound of breathing rose above the silence of every ninja waiting to see what emerged from that cursed box.

Tobirama turned toward them, but said nothing. He couldn't bring himself to justify it, not for this man, not even now.

Everyone else stared unblinking as Akira Senju stepped out casually through settling dust-with ceramic-like cracks tracing under his armor's surface-and smiled like nothing had changed since death touched him last.

Confidence poured out of every inch of his stance-as if being dead had only been another annoying delay in his day.

"Now who the fuck fucking woke me up, don't they know that the great Akira is sleeping?"

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