What kind of person was the Konoha White Fang Sarutobi Toru knew?
In Sarutobi Toru's memories, Konoha White Fang Hatake Sakumo had many labels attached to him, and they were basically all positive.
Brave, just, humble, loyal, and devoted. If Sarutobi Toru had to find someone to compare him to, perhaps he was like Zhao Yun, Zhao Zilong, from the Three Kingdoms era—charging at the forefront, covering the rear, sharing blessings with others, and taking hardships upon himself.
However, Hatake Sakumo had a flaw of his own: stubbornness.
Once he believed something was right, he would not care what anyone else thought. In that respect, he truly possessed the spirit of facing a thousand accusations with cold defiance.
As a Root member, he had never done any truly dirty work. Was it because Shimura Danzō had never assigned him any? No, he had simply refused them all. The fact that he ignored even his own teacher's orders showed just how stubborn he could be.
From this, it was clear that the idea of him being affected by villagers' gossip was utter fantasy—absolutely impossible.
Well, it was not like he had peeped into a women's bathhouse and suffered a social death incident. What did he have to be ashamed of?
"So Hatake Sakumo was really murdered and made to look like a suicide? Leaving aside whether my uncle could bring himself to do it, even if he could, who could deal with a master like him without anyone noticing?"
Yeah, the idea that he had been "suicided" was probably even more absurd than the notion that Hatake Sakumo had been affected by rumors. Forget the difficulty of carrying it out—when the Third Shinobi World War was about to begin, Konoha killing one of its own great generals first would have been