Step forward and refute me!
The clan members all lowered their heads and sighed softly.
Because what Senju Yukika said was the truth.
During both the First and Second Great Ninja Wars, the Senju Clan suffered devastating losses. The shinobi world had fallen into a repeating cycle:
War, then a brief period of recovery, only to be followed by more war.
People naturally believed that protecting their homeland justified their violence. And every other shinobi village held the same belief.
Everyone had their own reasons to fight. Every village believed their cause was just, and that the others were wrong.
This belief made each war bigger than the last, and more brutal every time.
So then... who truly represented justice?
No one could answer that question.
"Second," Yukika continued, his voice calm yet firm, "my great-granduncle spent his entire life believing that people could understand one another, and that mutual understanding would bring lasting peace. He even went so far as to distribute the tailed beasts—which rightfully belonged to Konoha, no, to the Senju Clan—to other villages during the Kage Summit."
"Although my grandfather later stopped him from giving them away for free and changed it into a transaction, the act itself was still a grave mistake!"
"One that ultimately led to the destruction of the Uzumaki Clan!"
This statement hit even harder than the last.
He had just laid the blame for the Uzumaki Clan's downfall squarely at the feet of the First Hokage.
At that moment, a figure slowly stepped into the ancestral hall.
Everyone's eyes turned toward the entrance, and a hint of awkwardness spread through the room.
It was Uzumaki Mito.
The First Hokage's wife.
It seemed she had come, perhaps out of concern that Yukika wouldn't be able to handle the pressure from the elders.
But given what he was saying now, her presence made things... complicated.
He was, after all, criticizing her late husband.
"Please, continue. Don't mind me."
Mito remained quiet for a long moment, then slowly walked to the edge of the hall, knelt down gracefully, and picked up an incense stick. Her eyes clouded with memory.
But Yukika noticed it clearly—a flicker of something unnatural in her gaze as she looked at Hashirama's memorial tablet.
Yes.
She understood it too.
Mito had lived long enough to see things clearly. Some truths had become impossible to ignore.
The Uzumaki Clan...
They had been natural jinchuriki.
They once lived peacefully, protected by the Senju Clan and empowered by their own strength.
But there was another reason for that peace—the rest of the world had no reason to target the Uzumaki. They weren't involved. They weren't a threat.
However, once every village had its own tailed beast and struggled to find suitable jinchuriki, their attention naturally turned to the Uzumaki.
Why should Konoha have such capable jinchuriki while the others didn't?
The distribution of the tailed beasts had been the spark—not the full cause, but certainly the trigger. To bring it up was valid, but Yukika wasn't accusing Hashirama of having malicious intent.
Yukika knew this well.
So he didn't linger on the topic of the Uzumaki.
Instead, he looked around at the clan members, their faces now a complicated mix of emotions, and sighed.
What he had said—the truth—was like a nail hammering away at their long-held beliefs.
Mutual understanding?
If you have no strength, why would anyone bother to understand you?
Soon after Hashirama's death, the First Great Ninja War broke out.
What people feared... was strength.
"And finally," Yukika said, turning to the next point, "about what Elder Third mentioned—the idea of fully merging into Konoha. On that topic, I want to show you all something."
He casually pulled a document from inside his robe—a list of statistics.