Masahiko planned to return to Konoha and fight as a group. Unexpectedly, just after he passed the border of the Land of Fire, he sensed a lot of familiar chakras.
"Right… The two brothers already declare war on Konoha, and they've already sent people to guard the borders… But I didn't expect Tobirama to come in person, which will save me the troubles of finding him."
"Transform!" Masahiko shifted back to his usual old form, then he flew to Konoha's army camp. With this, Namikaze Minato's arc has officially ended.
"Hey! State yourself! Get down and approach slowly!" The way the guards talked to Masahiko made him feels irritated.
He murmured, "Was my sense of presence in Konoha this low? These people already forget about their great ancestor…"
Right before Masahiko starts his rant, a familiar voice came shouting, "What are you doing? That's Elder Uzumaki Masahiko!"
"Elder Masahiko? Isn't he dead?"
"Yeah, I also heard about it?"
"Who dares to pretend to be him?"
"No… It must be him, the guy is flying, he's indeed Masahiko-Sama!"
...…
The more Masahiko heard, the more he got irritated, he took then a deep breath, and shouted, "Open the gate already!"
Ten minutes later.
Masahiko stood helplessly in front of the guards, who kept apologizing repeatedly.
"So, because I said that I'm going to see the world using a new identity, you thought that it will be more convenient to say that I'm dead instead of explaining how is this old man capable of such a thing, just… How did things turn out to be this way?"
Tobirama felt terrible, "I thought that since you've changed your name and went out to see the world when you go back, you will keep that identity, you know… because of your age."
Masahiko glanced at him, "I'm only 81 years old, and even if I live to 100, no one will really tell how old I'm. All the people from my generation are already dead. Maybe only a few people know my age?"
Suddenly Masahiko remembered another thing, "Speaking of which, no one thought of giving me a gift on my 80th birthday! Neither you nor Mito knows how old I'm too?"
Tobirama froze for a while, then he shook his head bitterly, and wanted to apologize to Masahiko.
"Is that so?" Masahiko interrupted, looking slightly sad, "Well, the journey wasn't great anyway, I've lost a disciple of mine, and I've come back here to ask for you help to destroy the enemy!"
"You've lost a disciple?" Tobirama looked puzzled, and soon he reacted to the other half of the sentence.
"Wait, help you? Your strength wasn't enough to avenge him by yourself?"
Masahiko sighed, "At first, there were only The Gold and Silver Horn Brothers. Later the Second Raikage joined in, plus a dozen Elite Jonin, and hundreds of Chunin and Genin, their all gathered in the land of the river…"
"The land of the river? And the Second Raikage is also coming?" Tobirama murmured, "I'm glad that you're back. Otherwise, it would have been really tough for our side."
Masahiko frowned, "Yeah I've wanted to ask about that too, where are the big cats, why did you bring these small kittens with you?"
Masahiko could sense that there's no-worthy Shinobi here; even their numbers were small.
Tobirama sighed, "Konoha has been stable for thirteen years, and the clans got used to it. They refused to participate in this war and didn't send any of their good shinobis. Some of them are okay, and some others decided to come on their own such as Uchiha Izumi." Tobirama paused for a moment, and looked at Masahiko, "As for the Uzumaki, only your disciple has joined us. Fortunately, with Kenichiro and some of the Anbu, we managed to form this small army…"
Masahiko's face got darkened, only Kenichiro came from the Uzumaki… Well, he doesn't really know, should he be mad or relieved…
"To be honest, we weren't prepared for such a war. Konoha will need some huge changes after this!" Tobirama said firmly.
Masahiko silenced for a while, "Is Kenichiro here?"
"I asked him to go out and collect intelligence… he should be back soon."
"He's already back." Masahiko sensed a familiar chakra approaching quickly.
"Lord Second," Kenichiro flash in, then he froze for a moment, "Sensei?"
"Sensei! I thought you…" Kenichiro burst into tears and rushed to hug Masahiko.
Masahiko is also stunned to what Kenichiro said, why are these people killing him nonchalantly? He clearly told Kenichiro he will be back before leaving Konoha.
It took Kenichiro a while to calm himself and remembered the purpose of his task.
"Lord Second! Kumogakure has withdrawn its forces from Land of the River!"
"Withdrawing?" Masahiko's mouth twitched, thinking, "What happened?"
They stayed there for a while and declared war on Konoha, but now they're withdrawing? What is their plan? They want Konoha to attack them first?
"Are you sure?" After a while, Tobirama asked.
As soon as he said this sentence, a ninja came with a report letter from the Land of Hot Water.
It said: "Kumogakure had nothing with this declaration of war on Konoha. The Gold and Silver Horn Brothers acted on their own. After being persuaded by the Second Raikage, Kumogakure decided to retreat, hoping to continue to maintain a good relationship with Konoha.
"The Gold and Silver Horn Brothers got persuaded by the Second Raikage? What on earth is happening?" Masahiko whispered, feeling puzzled.
"Tobirama, let's go after them! As long as the two of us… no… with Kenichiro too, we can destroy them all!" Masahiko is still hell-bent on killing the Gold and Silver Horn Brothers.
Tobirama kept silent for a moment, and just when he was about to nod, an Anbu suddenly appeared.
"Lord Second! I have a report that Sunagakure is amassing their force, and they intend to cross the border and enter the Land of Fire to attack the village!"
"What? We need to go back!" Tobirama answer almost instantly, then the Anbu disappeared.
Tobirama looked at Masahiko, then the latter frowned, "Let's head back to the village, we'll deal with Sunagakure first, then the three of us will go to Kumogakure and kill the two brothers… Maybe I should call Yoriko too."
It wasn't as smooth as the first approach, Masahiko seemed inpatient…
If it's Hashirama, he will certainly be against the idea to launch a preemptive attack on Kumogakure. However, after a moment of hesitation, Tobirama still agreed. Obviously, he was unhappy about the fact that these two dared to declare war on Konoha.
Leaving some elite Jonin here, Masahiko and Tobirama led the shinobi forces back to the village.
Busy rectifying things for Konoha as Tobirama said, Masahiko waited anxiously for news from the Land of Wind.
As a result, two days passed, but there was no information about Sunagakure. Still, they got some other news.
Kumogakure suddenly declared war against Iwagakure, and the two are fighting now on the lands of Amegakure. Not only that, but the old rivalry between Iwagakure and Kirigakure has also sparkled again, and Kirigakure declared war against Iwagakure. Thus Kirigakure and Kumogakure are now preparing themselves to attack Iwagakure.
Masahiko looked dumbfounded the moment he heard the news.
"No… What the hell? Is Kumogakure that stupid? I obviously used Muu's look and attacked them with the Dust Release… Still, they got easily convinced with that? No dude! There's a big gap between my charming personality and that, Mummy! I didn't know that the Second Raikage is that stupid to nonchalantly declare war against Iwagakure without checking or asking about the situation first?" Masahiko convinced himself that he had nothing to do with it.
In the meantime, a Sunagakure messenger arrived at Konoha.
"So you want us to give up on 50% of the Land of Fire territory, and give it the Land of Wind, in order for Sunagakure to form an alliance with us. Otherwise, you will besiege us with Kumogakure?" Tobirama said.
The messenger replied with a severe and quite tough tone, "Yes, that's right!"
Tobirama turned to look to the three elders behind him, and nodded, then looked again at the Shinobi.
"The messenger must be tired; he already worked hard to deliver this message to us. He must have been running for quite a while."
The Shinobi froze for a moment, "Yes, it took me three days."
"Then you can go to the hotel to take a break, we need to discuss this matter further."
The messenger smiled arrogantly, then he got sent by an Anbu to escort him.
"Lord Second, are you willing to surrender our land? Aren't the Kumogakure forces already withdrawing?" The moment the messenger went out, Uchiha Izumi started running his mouth.
Tobirama glanced at him for a while but said nothing. Knowing him well, Masahiko thought that he's probably saying secretly: "You poor bastard Uchiha, do you think I'm that stupid?"
Hyuga Tenjin sneered, and Izumi looked at him disdainfully; the two looked like they're gonna start throwing punches at any moment.
Noticing the situation, Nara Shikaryu interrupted quickly, "Elder Izumi, Lord Second, is not thinking of giving up on our land, he just wants to drag the situation long enough for us to prepare the village and respond after we observed the situation in the Shinobi world carefully."
"Oh, is that so, Lord Second?" Izumi looked at Tobirama.
Tobirama sighed, "Yes, I have sent some people to investigate the real situation in Kumogakure. Also recently a small village near our lands became in a state of instability."
The three elders glanced at each other without saying a word.
Tobirama's face suddenly became more severe, "Now, the war is on the verge of breaking! Please focus on our situation, and let's discuss our strategy!"