"Were you two planning this together?"
After a long silence, Sarutobi finally looked up, glancing at the Raikage, then at Yukika.
So what, now tossing the ball to this old man will magically solve everything?
In the office, the three of them locked eyes—each waiting for the other to make the next move.
But…
Now that he thought about it—maybe this was an opportunity.
A glint of calculation flashed in Sarutobi's eyes.
"Alright, Yukika."
Narrowing his eyes slightly, Sarutobi turned to the troublesome youth standing before him.
"No matter what happened, the fact remains that emissaries from the Hidden Cloud are now dead. As the saying goes—let us respect the dead."
Respect the dead?
Wasn't this just a thinly veiled attempt to use the Hidden Cloud's loss to pressure the Senju clan?
The meaning behind "respect the dead" was obvious—Sarutobi was trying to shift the initiative back to the Raikage, to let him speak first.
Yukika scoffed coldly, waiting for Sarutobi to finish. The old man's tactic was clear.
Unlike the Hyuga Clan in future years, who chose silence after being attacked and waited obediently for the Hokage to respond, Yukika chose to go on the offensive.
And that difference was everything.
If you're bullied and stay silent, you're not seen as the victim—you're treated as the perpetrator. You lose the narrative, and with it, the initiative.
It was laughable.
That time, Sarutobi had actually forced Hyuga Hiashi to commit suicide, using the excuse that Konoha didn't have the strength to continue fighting.
Sure, Konoha was weak back then. The Legendary Sannin had either betrayed the village or left. The Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, was dead. The Nine-Tails had wreaked havoc.
So the Hidden Cloud had chosen the perfect time to press its advantage.
But even then, Sarutobi—as the Hokage—did absolutely nothing. He stood by and let a loyal member of his village be sacrificed, and didn't even pretend to resist.
Is that really what a Hokage should do?
Preaching about how sacrificing one person protects the entire village—how noble. But didn't Hyuga Hiashi count as "someone from the village" too?
If you can't protect your own people, what's the point of the village even existing?
And now, once again—
Yukika had every reason to believe that, when faced with similar pressure, Sarutobi would once again side with the Raikage and push the Senju clan into a corner.
And the motive behind that pressure? The reasoning?
Simple and clear.
They all wanted the Two-Tails.
The very beast that Yukika had risked everything to retrieve.
If the Raikage thought Yukika had only figured out the first two steps of his plan, he was gravely mistaken.
The moment Yukika saw Hidden Cloud shinobi appear within the Senju compound, he already knew exactly what the Raikage was after.
Kushina Uzumaki. Yugito Nii.
In the original timeline, the Hidden Cloud had indeed tried to capture Kushina once before.
That time, Minato Namikaze had sensed something was wrong and saved her just in time.
Based on the timeline, this current attack wasn't far off from that original incident.
And considering Orochimaru had already taken out the Eight-Tails' Jinchūriki in an earlier mission, it didn't take a genius to realize the Hidden Cloud was now short one suitable Jinchūriki.
Yukika had seen through everything.
No matter what the Raikage said next—no matter how he tried to twist things or pin the blame on Yukika—he had no fear.
In fact, he was waiting for the Raikage to make his next move.
"…These men were indeed mine."
With a sorrowful expression, the Raikage finally let out a sigh.
"They didn't die on the battlefield—but on the road toward peace. How tragic."
"As their leader, I have failed them."
"Because I completely—"