"Uncle Lu Xuan, why did you leave Konoha back then? I heard my grandmother mention many things about the three of you and Grandpa. She never understood—why did you really fall out?"
After chatting for a while, Tsunade had relaxed and let go of her restraint. With the alcohol in her system, she simply began talking with Xuan. The Battle of the Valley of the End had been shrouded in mystery. By Senju Hashirama's order, no written records had been left behind, leaving countless shinobi puzzled about what had truly happened back then.
"My grandmother told me that you were one of the Uchiha Clan's strongest supporters of founding Konoha. She said you were, like Grandpa, one of the greatest shinobi. I've seen the stone monument at the village entrance. At first, I was deeply moved by that will; it made my blood boil. Even now, countless shinobi regard the words you left behind as a motto for life and strive toward them. Especially Teacher Sarutobi—he thinks very highly of you and believes you must have had some unavoidable reason back then."
"So that's how you see me." Xuan's expression turned somewhat strange. He had not expected that, after having left Konoha for so many years, he would still receive such an evaluation.
Moreover, hearing how the later generations of shinobi viewed him truly gave him a sense of life's vicissitudes—right and wrong, success and failure, all vanished in the turn of a head; how many events throughout the ages had become mere laughingstock in idle conversation?
But perhaps it was precisely because everyone believed both he and Madara were dead that they could be placed in history and discussed. If they had been living rogue shinobi, then no matter how many hardships they had endured, the village's shinobi would