In the underground depths of Kageyama's back mountain, Tobirama and Orochimaru stood inside a laboratory sealed on all sides by iron walls.
Before them knelt a death-row prisoner, his hands bound behind his back and tightly wrapped in iron chains.
"Lord Tobirama, rest assured. He is a death-row inmate from Konoha Prison, a rogue ninja with the blood of several villages within the Land of Fire on his hands."
"Even if it fails, it does not matter."
Tobirama looked at the prisoner before him, whose mouth had been tightly gagged and whose fearful eyes revealed his desperate struggle to break free. He could not help but frown.
"Does Tsunade know about this? With her personality, she could never agree to something like this." Tobirama's tone carried a hint of interrogation.
Orochimaru merely stared coldly at the prisoner before him, without the slightest trace of emotion, as though the man were livestock.
"That brings up what Teacher Sarutobi and Danzo's group did."
"If it were the Tsunade of the past, she certainly would not have agreed."
"But after seeing Root's experimental records and the secret orders Teacher Sarutobi had once sealed away, she would no longer be the same as before."
"Even Tsunade's Wood Release was learned because she personally proposed transplanting Lord Hashirama's cells."
After hearing Orochimaru's words, Tobirama said nothing. He remained silent for a long while, his feelings complicated.
As the Second Hokage, he was pleased that Tsunade possessed such resolve. Sometimes, for the sake of the village, certain things had to be sacrificed—perhaps emotions, perhaps lives, or perhaps one's moral boundaries and principles.
But as Tsunade's granduncle, he also felt sorrowful. Their generation had not done well enough, forcing the next generation to endure such cruel things as well.
With Tsunade's former personality, she might have seemed