Senju Tobirama spoke with unshakable confidence.
The former Hokage easily sensed the ruthlessness embedded in the verdict; the cunning of that difficult Uchiha brat Uchiha Jin stunned him, leaving him basically pessimistic about the Village's future.
There was nothing he could do!
The monster was not only overwhelmingly strong—his political methods were so vicious they made Tobirama's heart tremble.
Almost the instant the verdict came down, Tobirama knew that, barring accidents, the Village would become a complete Uchiha domain.
Yes!
Back when he had been Hokage he, too, had tried to remake Konoha into a Senju Village.
But, alas—
He had underestimated Hidden Cloud's Gold and Silver Brothers, derailing Konoha's succession plan.
Had he not been so reckless, had he not died on the Cloud battlefield, he could have spent another decade grooming Senju Nawaki; once the boy matured he would have handed the Village to the Sandaime, Hiruzen Sarutobi.
Perhaps by then he himself would be dead, but a grown Nawaki backed by the Senju Clan's terrifying dominance would have left Hiruzen zero room for schemes—he would have ended up a mere placeholder Hokage.
Let Nawaki become the Fourth, and given the Senju's strength, time would have let them crush the Uchiha and rule Konoha outright.
Yes!
The Ninja World is no ordinary realm of history; might is right, and the Senju bloodline produces large numbers of elite Jonin every generation, plus one or two fearsome prodigies.
With each passing year the Senju's grip on Konoha would only tighten; as long as they kept the Uchiha in check, the Village would eventually become the clan's private preserve.
Did anyone really think Tobirama suppressed the Uchiha simply because they were extreme, because they had killed his three younger brothers, because of age-old hatred?
Hmph—nonsense!
It was so his descendants could rule Konoha forever.
He had long since sensed the world's underlying logic: the Senju bloodline's inherited strength would never suffer the dynastic decline seen in Flower Country's history, so he forged a system designed to keep the Uchiha down.
Keep them crushed, make them docile as sheep, deny them every path to power, and sooner or later the Senju would be Konoha's kings.
Apart from the Uchiha, no other clan or Civilians had the qualifications to challenge the Senju.
Even if later Senju descendants knew nothing of politics, in a world that worshipped strength it simply didn't matter.
Power was enough.
But, alas—
His reckless death on the Cloud battlefield turned the stop-gap Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi into the Village's true power, and the man was ruthless: he wiped out the Senju and Uzumaki clans along with every potential rival inside Konoha. Had Hiruzen really succeeded in destroying the Uchiha, the Sarutobi-led four-clan alliance would have occupied the very throne Tobirama had prepared for the Senju.
That was why, after being summoned back by Edo Tensei, Tobirama felt anger—but not utter rage.
Put him in Hiruzen's sandals and he would have done exactly the same.
In the end…
The Senju simply hadn't had enough luck!
He had lost by one move; he could hardly blame others.
A soft sigh escaped him.
Seeing the way everyone looked at him, he pondered a moment and began to speak again.
"The point system is vicious!"
"Before, even under Village-wide pressure, the Sarutobi-led four clans were a solid block."
"But with this point system they will be split from within."
"After embezzling the Village's coffers for so many years, imagine how fast those four clans have grown."
"Bear in mind: with enough money, descendants multiply quickly."
"Even if each clan has only ten thousand members, four clans mean forty thousand."
"Under Uchiha Jin's rules only the top hundred earn one point; the remaining thirty-nine thousand nine hundred get nothing."
"The difficulty of earning enough points for a sentence reduction is obvious—only a handful will ever manage it."
"Meanwhile…"
"To win a reduction they'll compete against each other; unity will be impossible."
"Human nature is selfish, and once rivalry starts internal cohesion collapses. In time they'll sink to commoner status and cease to threaten the Village."
"To avoid later purges, many will abandon their surnames; the so-called Four Great Shinobi Clans will evaporate."
"On the flip side—"
"Uchiha Jin hasn't merely dismantled the Sarutobi alliance; he's gained at least forty thousand unpaid laborers."
"Under the point system they'll labor desperately for credits, and when war comes they'll fight just as desperately on the battlefield…"
"Understand: even if those forty thousand only farm, yearly grain output will soar."
"Not to mention mining, road-building, medicinal herbs—run it well and the income will rival the Daimyō's own taxes."
"And here's the cruellest part: the likes of Hiruzen Sarutobi face the harshest punishment."
"Not even death will free them."
"They'll toil as Edo Tensei corpses, watching their clans split and dissolve until every last member falls to commoner status."
"What is that? Eternal damnation with no hope of rising again!"
"Death itself is nothing—a blink and it's over."
"But a hundred years of forced labor means witnessing your clan vanish from history; for Hiruzen and the rest, that torment will be worse than death."
"So now do you see?"
"That evil little wretch Uchiha Jin—this so-called humane system?"
"It's sheer hatred for Hiruzen and the others. Compared with Uchiha Jin's viciousness, the methods I once used to check the Uchiha were child's play!"