"Lord Hashirama! What brings you here? Come on, come on, take my place! Go ahead of me!"
The first person in line greeted him enthusiastically.
Hashirama waved a hand. "No need. I don't want to hold everyone up."
But to his surprise, everyone in the entire line spoke up. "Lord Hashirama, there's no need to be polite. Go right in! You're the idol of us all and the pillar of Konoha! Why be so modest with us younger folk?"
What the man said wasn't wrong. Hashirama's standing among the villagers was every bit as high as Torifu's.
Torifu had led the people toward a better life.
Hashirama, meanwhile, was the founder of all they had built and their spiritual leader. So when he tried to line up to enter the Trial Tower, everyone naturally objected.
Everyone present agreed that Hashirama should go straight into the Trial Tower. It was a sign of how much the village supported him.
Even though he had deliberately faded from public view, the villagers still remembered him.
And on the night of the war, when Hashirama's Wood Release appeared once more, it had pushed the villagers' fighting spirit to its peak.
Now that he had returned victorious, there was no way they would let Hashirama stand in line.
Hashirama turned them down several times, but in the end, he couldn't resist their enthusiasm.
He smiled and headed toward the Trial Tower.
"Lord Hashirama! Do you want to livestream too? Let us see you in action!"
Hashirama hesitated. It wasn't that he didn't want to livestream his fight for the villagers.
He just had no idea how to work the thing. This was his first time in the Trial Tower, and he was nowhere near as skilled at using it as the younger generation.
"All right,