At night.
Kakuzu slipped out of the village and made his way smoothly to Tobirama’s underground laboratory.
“You’re too slow, Teuchi.”
Tobirama had been waiting at the entrance for quite some time.
“You’re too impatient, Lord Tobirama.”
Kakuzu wasn’t late.
After three years of cooperation, he had earned Tobirama’s trust.
Together, they were secretly conducting human experimentation.
As expected, the jutsu at the heart of their work was, in all likelihood, Edo Tensei.
With Kakuzu’s help, research had accelerated considerably.
Yesterday alone, they had achieved another massive breakthrough.
Completion couldn’t be far off.
This was a forbidden jutsu capable of resurrecting the dead.
No wonder Tobirama, usually so calm, sounded this excited.
At Kakuzu’s reminder, Tobirama reined himself in.
“Let’s go.”
The two entered the laboratory one after the other.
Everything looked exactly as it always did.
Bottles and jars lined the shelves, filled with specially formulated liquids preserving limbs and organs from multiple creatures, including humans.
“Who’s there?”
Tobirama suddenly snapped his head toward a dark corner of the lab.
Kakuzu followed his gaze.
A figure stepped slowly from the shadows.
It was Hashirama, dressed in casual clothes looking grim.
Kakuzu had known exposure was inevitable.
He just hadn’t expected it this soon.
“Brother!?” Tobirama’s expression shifted.
“Tobirama, so it really is you,” Hashirama said, voice tight with anger.
“And Teuchi, you’re actually conducting human experimentation here!
No wonder people have been vanishing from Konoha Prison.
They’re all here, aren’t they?”
“Brother, this isn’t what it looks like-” Tobirama started.
Hashirama cut him off with a sharp wave of his hand.
“No need to speak further.
Tobirama, I don’t oppose your research into forbidden jutsu.
But human experimentation?
That crosses a line.”
Hashirama had tacitly allowed forbidden jutsu research.
Human experimentation, however, was beyond the pale.
The only relief was that none of the subjects came from Konoha.
As Hokage, he could still contain this.
“I’m destroying this place.
Tobirama, do you have anything to say?”
“I…” Tobirama glanced around, then shook his head.
“No.”
His life’s work, obliterated in an instant.
Any researcher would feel that ache.
“Good.” Seeing Tobirama offer no resistance brought Hashirama some measure of relief.
He pressed his palms together.
“Wood Release: Deep Forest Emergence!”
Thick tree roots erupted from the ground in an instant.
They surged upward, bursting through the ceiling, branches crushing everything in the laboratory.
Tobirama grabbed Kakuzu and activated the Flying Thunder God.
It was easy to imagine everything in the laboratory turning into nutrients, absorbed by the giant tree.
Hashirama stepped out from the trunk, his face blank as he looked at the two.
“Teuchi, why are you humoring Tobirama’s nonsense?”
Hashirama shifted his gaze to Kakuzu.
Kakuzu tensed instantly, feeling like prey targeted by a dinosaur.
‘What a terrifying guy.
Those idiots in Takigakure actually sent me to kill this monster.
They were definitely sending me to my death.
Good thing I didn’t agree at the time.
Otherwise, I couldn’t guarantee I would have escaped with my life after defeating a Wood Clone like in canon.’
“Brother…” Tobirama started, but a glare from Hashirama made him clamp his mouth shut.
They say one thing subdues another: Tobirama countered Izuna Uchiha.
Izuna countered Madara.
Madara countered Hashirama.
And Hashirama countered Tobirama.
A truly interesting four-way dynamic.
Kakuzu forced himself to stay calm.
“Because I believe this is necessary.
No one would complain about having too much power to maintain peace.”
“Maintain peace?”
Hashirama paused, looking at Tobirama.
‘Was that the reason?’
Tobirama was also taken aback.
He researched Edo Tensei purely to increase his own power and Konoha’s.
At least, his original intention wasn’t to maintain peace.
“Regardless, there is peace now.
You are forbidden from researching this jutsu any further.”
Hashirama brought no guards, nor did he wear the Hokage’s ceremonial robe.
He clearly intended to downplay the incident and let it go.
“Tobirama, Teuchi, do not conduct human experimentation again.”
“I understand.”
“Understood, Lord Hokage.”
Any further research on Edo Tensei ended there.
Hashirama took even the duplicate records on the spot and led Tobirama away.
Kakuzu returned to his quarters.
After ensuring no one was around and no surveillance remained, he lifted his clothes.
A clearly sutured wound marked his abdomen, the suturing material consisted of Earth Grudge Fear tentacles.
He undid them and pulled a scroll from the mass of tentacles inside his stomach.
This was another set of research data on the technique.
He had made this secretly, even Tobirama didn’t know about it.
The power of Edo Tensei was unquestionable.
After all, aside from Truth-Seeking Orbs and Yin-Yang Release, no attack could inflict true damage on those reincarnated via Edo Tensei.
If he became proficient in it, it would undoubtedly become another trump card.
Naturally, Kakuzu wasn’t going to let it slip away.
Kakuzu had participated in most of the research process for Edo Tensei.
He knew the hand seals and the method to undo the jutsu clearly.
Furthermore, in his past life, he had witnessed the two crucial elements of Edo Tensei: * Medium: The deceased’s flesh.
* Sacrifice: A living person.
Practice is the sole criterion for testing truth.
Kakuzu decided to find time to test it out later, but definitely not anytime soon.
After all, Hashirama had just caught him by the tail.
This time, Hashirama let the matter slide only because Tobirama was involved.
Had Kakuzu conducted the experiment alone, Hashirama would have had no reason to spare him.
So Kakuzu could only wait.
Fortunately, he possessed a long lifespan, long enough to outlive the Senju brothers and Madara.
In the canon timeline, had he not been forced to join the Akatsuki, Kakuzu could have even outlived Kaguya Otsutsuki.
The next day, Tobirama remained confined to his quarters, no one knew the reason.
Hashirama ordered a bowl of ramen in the private room of Kakuzu’s shop, a clear hint that Kakuzu was not to take a single step outside for a month.
Under another’s roof, one must bow one’s head.
Right now, Kakuzu was at best stronger than one of Hashirama’s Wood Clones, he was no match for Hashirama’s main body.
He could only yield.
A month later, Konoha appeared as peaceful as ever on the surface.
Tobirama’s confinement lifted, and he headed straight to Kakuzu’s shop.
He ordered no food, merely venting his frustrations in the private room.
“Lord Tobirama, you’re finally out.
You should at least find something to do.” Kakuzu looked at Tobirama as if viewing an idler.
In times of peace, with no forbidden jutsu to research, no Hokage title to hold, and his older brother ignoring him lately, wasn’t Tobirama nothing more than an idler?
“But what else can I do?” Tobirama frowned, his mind entirely consumed by that forbidden jutsu.
“For example…
you could teach others,” Kakuzu said casually.
“Ninja from each clan have their elders to teach them.
They don’t need me.”
Current ninja relied entirely on family inheritance.
Even Kakuzu had been trained using his family’s method for raising death warriors.
In this era, almost no ninja came from entirely civilian backgrounds.
“You can teach civilians,” Kakuzu said.
“Civilians?” Tobirama’s eyes lit up.
“Teuchi, you really are smart.”
What did Konoha have the most of?
Civilians!
Teach them ninjutsu, turn them into combatants, and Konoha would have more ninja.
Wouldn’t its strength naturally increase?
The clever Tobirama immediately grasped the benefits.
He laughed loudly, left the ramen shop, and went to present his proposal to the Hokage.
“…”
Could it be that because of Kakuzu’s casual remark, the Ninja Academy, which was supposed to appear during the Second Hokage’s administration, was born ahead of schedule?
The next day, the Hokage called a meeting with the clan heads.
The large clans, like the Uchiha and Hyuga, and the smaller ones, like the Nara, Yamanaka, Akimichi, Hatake, and Sarutobi, all gathered in the conference room.
Even Madara, who had barely stepped out of his house in recent years, attended.
This made Hashirama very happy.
Tobirama only frowned before ignoring it, he had no way to interfere in this matter anyway.
“The reason I invited everyone here today is primarily to discuss the matter of the Ninja Academy.” Tobirama explained the concept and laid out a set of village supremacy theory.
“It is no longer the era of clans, but the hidden village era.
The true strength of Konohagakure is the true strength…”
The emergence of the Ninja Academy would break the clans monopoly on producing ninja, directly affecting the interests of certain clans.
Yet Tobirama spoke with absolute conviction, as though disagreeing with him constituted a massive taboo.
“This is boring.” Madara had zero interest in this.
He dropped the sentence and left the room.
He had no desire to discuss how to develop another batch of weaklings with a group of weaklings.
Madara’s unauthorized departure sparked hidden anger in Tobirama’s heart, he had always firmly believed Konoha would be better off without Madara.
But he displayed no anger, instead continuing to discuss with the remaining clan heads how to establish the Ninja Academy.
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