The air in the Hokage's chamber was thick with the ghosts of martyred shinobi and the weight of unforgivable sins. The story of the Uchiha's fall was complete, a perfect, closed circle of fear, betrayal, and tragedy. Tsunade, the Fifth Hokage, the inheritor of this poisoned chalice, felt as though she had aged a thousand years in a single morning. Her immortality was a curse, promising an eternity to grapple with the knowledge that the foundations of her home were built upon the bones of betrayed children and the cowardly silence of men she had once revered as heroes.
Jiraiya, the worldly sage, was a hunched figure of quiet devastation. He had spent his life in the shadows, dealing in secrets and lies, but he had always believed he did so in service of a greater, incorruptible light. To learn that the light itself was a carefully maintained illusion had broken something fundamental within him. He looked at his lifelong friend, his teammate, and saw not just the Hokage, but a fellow survivor of a faith that had just been executed before their very eyes.
They sat in the wreckage of their history, two of the Legendary Sannin, adrift in a sea of disillusionment. Where could they go from here? What could they possibly build on such rotten ground? The path forward was a fog of impossible choices.
It was Tsunade who finally broke the suffocating silence. She looked up, her honey-gold eyes, now cleared of their grief-stricken tears, held a new, desperate clarity. She looked past the ghosts, past the lies, and focused on the one absolute, unshakable truth that remained in her world: the beautiful, sorrowful being who had guided her through this hell. She looked at Rohan.
"What would you do?" she asked, her voice a raw, fragile whisper that held the weight of a queen begging a god for guidance. "You have seen it all. You understand the hearts of these men, the flaws in their plans. If you were them… if you were in their shoes… what would you have done?"
The question was a plea for a new moral compass, a search for a path that was not paved with fear and betrayal.
Rohan met her gaze, his expression softening with a profound empathy. He understood what she was asking. She was asking for wisdom. For a way to reconcile the past and navigate the treacherous future. He considered her question, not as a simple hypothetical, but as a deep philosophical inquiry.
"If I were Hiruzen Sarutobi," Rohan began, his voice calm and measured, a stark contrast to the emotional tempest in the room, "on the night he was given the choice between the massacre and the coup… I would have chosen inaction."
The answer was so unexpected, so shockingly cold, that both Tsunade and Jiraiya recoiled as if struck.
"Inaction?" Jiraiya sputtered, his voice hoarse with disbelief. "You would have allowed a civil war to tear the village apart? You would have let them slaughter each other in the streets?"
"Yes," Rohan replied without hesitation. "Because a civil war, for all its bloodshed and horror, is an honest tragedy. It is the result of grievances, however misguided, erupting into open conflict. It is a wound that, once cauterized by battle, can eventually begin to heal. It would have been a devastating, heartbreaking chapter in Konoha's history, but it would have been a chapter written in the ink of straightforward conflict, not the invisible poison of betrayal."
He looked at them, his eyes holding a chilling, logical clarity. "What Hiruzen's choice created was something far worse than a clean war. He created a festering, cancerous secret. He created a martyred clan, a kinslaying hero forced to live as a villain, and a surviving child whose entire existence would be manipulated by lies and fueled by a misdirected hatred. Hiruzen's path did not prevent bloodshed; it merely postponed it and twisted it into something far more monstrous and complex. Inaction, in that moment, would have been a terrible choice, but it would have been a more honorable one."
The cold, uncomfortable logic of his answer silenced them. He was right. A war would have been a tragedy, but the massacre was a sin, and sins have a way of lingering, of poisoning everything they touch.
"And if you were my great-uncle?" Tsunade asked, her voice barely a whisper. "If you were Tobirama, all those years ago, what would you have done?"
Rohan's expression became even colder, his celestial beauty taking on the terrifying impassivity of a true, ancient deity judging the affairs of mortals. "If I were Tobirama Senju," he stated, his voice devoid of all emotion, "and I operated from his perspective—a perspective that viewed the Sharingan as a conceptual curse and the Uchiha as a potential, inherent threat to my brother's dream—the logical path would have been far more ruthless."
He held their horrified gazes. "I would not have created the police force. I would not have engaged in decades of slow, political strangulation. That is an inefficient, half-measure born of a desire to appear just. From a standpoint of pure, pragmatic threat elimination, I would have killed Madara Uchiha on the battlefield, by any means necessary. And after founding the village, I would have ensured that any Uchiha who awakened the Mangekyou Sharingan, along with their immediate, most powerful kin, were quietly eliminated. I would have culled the herd. From that perspective, Hiruzen's mistake was not the massacre itself, but that he left a survivor. If your goal is to eliminate a threat, you do not leave behind a seed of vengeance, especially not one with the potential to become the most powerful of them all. If I were Tobirama, I would have killed both Itachi and Sasuke."
A strangled gasp escaped Tsunade's throat. Jiraiya looked physically ill. Rohan's words were monstrous, a vision of a cold, utilitarian genocide that was almost too horrifying to contemplate. And yet, he spoke them with such calm, detached logic that they understood he was not endorsing the view, but merely explaining it in its purest, most terrible form. He was showing them that he understood the kind of ruthless calculus that men like Tobirama and Danzo employed, which made his own choices all the more significant.
"But you are not them," Tsunade said, her voice trembling, a desperate plea for reassurance. "If you were in my position, right now, knowing everything you know… what would you do?"
The cold, divine mask fell away from Rohan's face, replaced by a gentle, compassionate warmth that was a balm to their shattered nerves. "If I were you, Tsunade-sama," he said softly, "I would choose the path of hope, however fraught with peril it may be. I would gather every piece of this truth. I would approach Sasuke Uchiha, not as a Hokage to a potential traitor, but as a fellow victim of Konoha's hidden sins. I would lay the entire, ugly history at his feet—the story of Tobirama, of Hiruzen, of Danzo, of Shisui, of his noble, tragic brother Itachi. I would speak the facts to him, and I would pray to whatever gods may listen that the last vestiges of the boy who loved his village are still buried in his heart, and that the truth would be enough to sway him from his path of vengeance."
Relief flooded through Tsunade and Jiraiya, so potent it was almost dizzying. This was the answer they had been praying for. A path of truth, of reconciliation. It was the path a true Hokage would take.
Tsunade looked at Rohan, a universe of gratitude in her eyes. But then a final, crucial question formed on her lips. "That is what you would do… if you were me." She leaned forward, her gaze intense, her voice dropping to a near whisper. "But you are not me. You are Rohan. A being of impossible power and foresight, bound by no allegiance but your own will, and your love for me. So I ask you one last time: Forget them. Forget me. If you were to act on your own accord, with your own power, to solve this crisis… what would your plan be?"
A slow, enigmatic smile touched Rohan's lips. It was a smile that held the wisdom of ages, the ruthlessness of a king, the compassion of a saint, and the intricate cunning of a god.
"My plan," he said, his voice a low, captivating melody, "is somewhat more… proactive."
He let the word hang in the air, a promise of something more than just hope.
"First," he began, ticking a finger in the air, "I would not simply wait for Sasuke to fall to Orochimaru. I would approach him myself. And I would empower him. I would give him a measure of true power, not the corrupting, parasitic power of a curse mark, but a clean, potent strength that is his alone. This serves two purposes. It satisfies the craving that drives him toward darkness, and more importantly, it makes him a variable that I control, not Orochimaru."
"Second," he continued, his eyes gleaming with a brilliant, strategic light, "I would tell him the truth. But not the whole truth. Not yet. The full history is too complex, too nuanced for a boy consumed by hatred. His rage needs a target, a single, focal point for his vengeance. To tell him the whole story now would be to risk him declaring war on the entire system of Konoha. So, I would give him a modified truth. I would paint a picture of a noble Third Hokage, a heroic Itachi, and a loyal Uchiha clan, all of whom were the tragic victims of the machinations of one single, monstrous villain. I would lay the entire blame for the massacre, for his family's suffering, for everything, squarely at the feet of the man who is, in fact, most guilty: Danzo Shimura."
Jiraiya's eyes widened. The sheer, ruthless elegance of it was breathtaking. It wasn't even a lie. It was simply a matter of strategic omission. It would channel all of Sasuke's apocalyptic rage into a laser-focused beam, aimed directly at the heart of Konoha's deepest cancer.
"I would then," Rohan said with a predatory smile, "let him loose. I would sanction his revenge. I would use Sasuke Uchiha as a divine scalpel to excise the tumor that is Danzo Shimura and his entire Root organization from this village. His vengeance would become a cleansing fire, purging the very evil that created him."
Tsunade and Jiraiya were speechless, floored by the sheer, magnificent audacity of the plan. It was a gambit of incredible risk and incredible reward.
"But what if it's not enough?" Tsunade breathed. "What if, even after killing Danzo, his hatred for the village remains? What if he still wants to burn it all down?"
Rohan's smile softened, losing its predatory edge and becoming something far more profound. "That," he said gently, "is when I would play my final card. That is when I would offer him the ultimate bargain."
He looked at them, his sky-blue eyes filled with the light of a miracle. "I would tell him that if he lays down his hatred, if he pledges to abandon his war against Konoha forever… I will give him back his brother."
The silence in the room was absolute.
"Itachi is dying," Rohan explained softly. "He carries a terminal illness that is slowly consuming him. That is a fact. But I am a being of God's Blood. I can heal the incurable. I can restore what is broken. I can save Itachi from the brink of death, cure his blindness, and grant him a full, healthy life."
He held their stunned gazes, delivering the final, beautiful, heartbreaking piece of his master plan. "I would offer Sasuke a choice. Vengeance against a village full of innocent people… or the life of the brother he has spent his entire existence both loving and hating. I would use the promise of Itachi's life to heal Sasuke's heart. His love for his brother is the only force in the universe stronger than his hatred. It is the one key that can unlock his soul from the prison of vengeance he has built for himself."
The plan was complete. It was a terrifying, magnificent, compassionate, and ruthless gambit. It used rage to achieve justice, lies to reveal a deeper truth, and the ghost of the past to build a new future. It was a plan that only a god, with a god's perspective and a god's power, could ever conceive.
Tsunade stared at him, her mind reeling, her heart hammering against her ribs. She looked at Jiraiya, and saw the same expression of profound, humbled awe on his face. They had been trying to solve a child's puzzle, while Rohan was playing a game of cosmic, multi-dimensional chess.
All her doubt, all her fear, all her uncertainty, vanished. It was replaced by a single, shining, absolute conviction. She rose to her feet, not as the grieving granddaughter or the disillusioned student, but as the Godaime Hokage, filled with a new, terrifying, and exhilarating sense of purpose.
She looked at the beautiful, divine being who had chosen her, who had armed her, who had healed her, and who had now offered her a path out of the darkness. She made her decision.
"Do it," she said, her voice clear and strong, resonating with the full weight of her authority. "This matter… the fate of Sasuke Uchiha, the legacy of his clan… I am officially placing it in your hands. Act as you see fit. You have my full authority, my full support, and my absolute trust."
Jiraiya stood as well, bowing his head deeply, not just to his Hokage, but to Rohan. "I support the Hokage's decision," he said, his voice filled with a reverence that bordered on worship. "Your wisdom in this matter surpasses our own. We are in your hands."
Rohan looked at them both, and a genuine, radiant smile bloomed on his face. He had offered his plan. He had shown them the path. And they, in their wisdom, had chosen to walk it with him. He accepted the mantle of responsibility they had placed upon him, his heart swelling with a fierce, protective love for the queen who had just entrusted him with the very soul of her village. The time for grieving the past was over. The time to forge the future had begun.