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Sarutobi Hiruzen had been Senju Tobirama’s first student. As the third son of the Sarutobi clan head and a mediocre student in the academy, being apprenticed to the brother of the Hokage, the third strongest nin in the village, was a shock. Later, after Homura and Koharu joined them and they formed an official team, Hiruzen would always feel closest to his sensei. So, when they were ambushed by the Kinkaku force, Hiruzen willingly volunteered to be the decoy. And when Tobirama-sensei disagreed and passed on the hat, he held his tongue.
Hiruzen didn’t let himself think back to his sensei’s sacrifice until days later. Finally, safe behind Konoha’s walls and the ceremony and hustle of his ascension to Hokage finished, he sat and cried. If there was one thing Hiruzen knew better than anyone in the Escort Unit, it was just how powerful Tobirama truly was. And he knew just how broken the man had been after his brother’s death.
Senju Tobirama had stopped the tide for a week just because he could. Almost every jutsu in the forbidden scroll was Tobirama’s invention. The man had gone toe to toe with Hashirama regularly. And, while age had slowed him and any shinobi could be overwhelmed by enough opposition, all Tobirama would have needed was one more person. Just one other that he could trust to fight at his back. Someone who’d been fighting with him for years. Someone who knew his style inside and out. Someone he’d trained from childhood. Someone like Hiruzen.
None of the others had seen the light fade in Tobirama’s eyes the day Hashirama died. Had been there when the man had gone impossibly paler in the middle of a kata as his brother’s presence had flickered out. Had listened to the man scream and cry and sob as he became the last surviving Senju brother.
Hiruzen, the man’s first student, had been there to hold his teacher in his sorrow, to pull the man to his feet, to take him home.
Years later, sitting in the seat that would always, always be his sensei’s, Hiruzen cried from sorrow, cried from pain, cried from relief, because that spark that had died with Hashirama had been in Tobirama’s eyes just before he left to meet his death.
If there was one thing Hiruzen knew that his teammates didn’t, one thing he would never (could never) tell them, it was that Tobirama knew how to survive and let himself die anyway.
Tobirama had been the most protective of the four Senju brothers. He’d given everything he had and more to keep his family alive. He’d given up his dream of a peaceful world, his childhood, his every waking moment. And, in the end, he’d been the last, had watched as everyone he held dear fell around him no matter how hard he fought, how much he bled and screamed at the world for just one more chance. And when he was left standing alone, he still had Hashirama’s dream to protect, to nurture, because he never wanted his pain to be for naught.
In this final act, Tobirama could die peacefully.
In this final act, Tobirama could see his family again.
In this final act, Tobirama would fulfill his purpose and finally protect those he held dear.
So, Hiruzen held his tongue and let him go.