“What did you just say?
Lord First possessed ultimate power but zero wisdom?”
Hiruzen Sarutobi’s brain went entirely blank for a moment.
The citizens of the Leaf Village—and indeed the entire shinobi world—generally regarded the First Hokage, Hashirama Senju, with profound respect, awe, and near-religious worship.
The children of the Leaf, especially those born in the village, grew up steeped in the legacy of Hashirama Senju: the legendary titan who pacified a chaotic era and brought the bloody Warring States Period to an end.
Every child held the First Hokage in absolute reverence.
“Little Hinata, Lord First was a legendary hero who ended the chaos of the Warring States era, transitioning the shinobi world from an era of scattered clans into the era of hidden villages,” Hiruzen said, looking at Hinata in utter astonishment.
“He is a hero worthy of immense respect.
Why do you look down on him as merely a brute who possessed only raw strength?”
He wanted to know why Hinata’s evaluation of the First Hokage was so absurdly low.
Even if she admired the Second Hokage, that respect should naturally extend to Hashirama as well.
Furthermore, Hiruzen felt an obligation as Hokage to correct her warped perspective.
Walking alongside Hiruzen along the edge of the glassy lake, Hinata listened to his speech, then pointed a small finger back at herself.
“I read it in our history textbooks.
It says Lord First established the Leaf Village so that children would never have to go to the battlefield again.”
“Yet this village has already fought three Great Shinobi World Wars, and countless children have lost their lives on those battlefields.
Shinobi in our village graduate at twelve and are thrown straight into war.
And Kakashi, the village prodigy, was sent to the front lines before he was even ten years old.”
“Shouldn’t Lord First be considered a total failure then?”
Hearing those sharp words, Hiruzen’s expression froze completely.
Aside from the First Shinobi World War, he had personally led the Leaf Village through both the Second and Third Shinobi World Wars.
Hinata’s words were practically pointing a finger directly at his nose and cursing his entire life’s work.
“That…
that has nothing to do with Lord First.
That was all my failure…” Hiruzen shook his head, a deeply complex, pained expression surfacing on his aged face.
Shinobi graduated as genin at age twelve, but wasn’t a twelve-year-old still a child?
In the shinobi world, the formal threshold for adulthood was twenty.
“No, this isn’t Hokage Grandpa’s fault either,” Hinata said, shaking her head as her clear white eyes shifted toward the exposed roots of a nearby oak tree.
“Look.”
Hinata jogged over to a patch of dirt at the base of the trunk.
Perplexed, Hiruzen stepped over and squatted down beside her to look where she was pointing.
He saw two distinct colonies of ants locked in a violent, chaotic war.
“There are two ant colonies fighting right under this tree,” Hinata squatted on her heels, pointing at the two anthills.
“To protect their colony from being destroyed, every single ant swarms out.
The big ants fight, and the small ants have to fight the other colony too.”
“It’s the same for the other colony, because if they don’t fight, their home disappears.
If the anthill is destroyed, every ant, big or small, dies.”
“So, Hokage Grandpa isn’t wrong for wanting to protect the Leaf,” Hinata turned her head, looking up at Hiruzen, who was crouching beside her to observe the ants.
Hearing this, Hiruzen felt a profound jolt deep in his heart.
To be entirely honest, throughout his long reign, plenty of critics had condemned him for sending children to war.
Their strongest weapon had always been the founding philosophy of the First Hokage.
Hiruzen had no counterargument for it, choosing instead to bear the guilt in silence.
He had never imagined that a six-year-old girl could strip away the historical romanticism and see the raw, ruthless reality of the problem straight from a few lines in a school textbook.
A sudden wave of emotional shock washed over Hiruzen.
She truly is the heir to a grand clan.
That phrase had been true for Itachi Uchiha back then, and it was equally true for Hinata Hyuga right now.
When Itachi was seven, Hiruzen had praised him for possessing the foresight and mind of a Hokage.
Now, looking at six-year-old Hinata, she was no less terrifyingly perceptive.
“If that’s the case, what does any of this have to do with Lord First?” Hiruzen asked, a glint of genuine encouragement surfacing in his eyes.
He wanted to hear the rest of her logic.
“It’s very simple.
Lord First was once the largest, strongest ant in this entire forest,” Hinata pointed at the fighting ants, her tone calm and razor-sharp.
“He could have easily crushed both colonies and merged them into a single, unified anthill, completely eliminating this senseless conflict.”
“Yet he chose not to do it.”
Hiruzen’s face remained utterly impassive, devoid of any expression.
He couldn’t find a single word to refute her.
The reality was precisely as Hinata had described.
Back then, if Hashirama Senju had used his absolute, godlike power to forcefully unify the entire shinobi world and suppress all dissent beneath his boot, countless wars could have been avoided entirely.
Even the most oppressive peace would have been infinitely better than decades of endless bloodshed.
Across the three world wars that had ravaged the land, the Leaf, the Cloud, the Mist, the Sand, and the Stone had lost innumerable lives.
If Hashirama Senju had unified the world…
If Hashirama Senju had possessed true grand ambition…
Regrettably, there were no “ifs” in history.
Yet these were words Hiruzen Sarutobi could never, and should never, utter aloud.
Recognizing that discussing Hashirama’s philosophical failures was stepping onto exceedingly dangerous ground, Hiruzen smoothly pivoted the conversation back toward Tobirama.
“Then why do you admire the Second Hokage so deeply?”
“Because Lord Second was simply far too incredible,” Hinata answered without a moment’s hesitation.
That blunt response made Hiruzen let out a soft, amused chuckle.
If his teacher were still alive to know that decades after his sacrifice he had gained such a passionate little fan, the old man would probably be grinning from ear to ear in his grave.
“Lord First couldn’t accomplish anything without relying on his absurd brute strength, but Lord Second accomplished countless great things even without that kind of overwhelming power,” Hinata stated, her eyes shining with dramatic zeal.
“Take his famous Flying Raijin Jutsu and the Mutually Multiplying Explosive Tags—he created those entirely from scratch out of thin air!”
“The textbooks say the Academy was established by Lord Second as well, while Lord First was basically just a figurehead principal who sat around.”
Looking at Hinata’s animated face, Hiruzen found himself completely lost for words once again.
He couldn’t find a single flaw in her argument.
“Uh…
well, Lord First wasn’t completely useless,” Hiruzen coughed lightly, trying to save face for his grand-master.
“At least…
at least his core philosophy resonated with countless people.
That was the foundation upon which the Leaf Village was built in the first place.”
Hinata seemed to realize she had trashed the First Hokage a little too hard, scratching her cheek awkwardly as she mumbled, “I guess…”
Hiruzen let out a long, silent sigh in his mind.
Philosophy?
No, what Hashirama Senju possessed was absolute, world-bending power.
Back then, establishing the Leaf Village with mere philosophy and no power would have been a hilarious joke.
He finally understood why Hinata held the Second Hokage in such high esteem.
Tobirama Senju had not possessed the godlike invincibility of his older brother Hashirama, nor had he possessed the natural genius for five-element transformation mastery that Hiruzen himself held.
He could have comfortably lived out his life under Hashirama’s absolute protection, yet through sheer intellect, pragmatism, and unyielding will, he had transformed himself into the pinnacle warrior of the Senju Clan, standing second only to Hashirama.
That was the fastest man in the shinobi world—the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju.