As Nawaki understood it, most of the surviving members of the Senju Clan belonged to his father's generation or the newer generation, while only a few from the First Hokage's generation remained.
The entire Senju Clan had a population of three thousand! Yet among them, only eight were Jonin. Three were leftovers from his grandfather's generation, and in his own generation, Tsunade was the only Jonin. That meant there were currently only four Jonin in his father's generation, with everyone else being Chunin. It was clear that their bloodline had deteriorated severely.
Given the Senju Clan's powerful bloodline, it shouldn't have diluted and faded away so quickly. Their descendants continued to intermarry with descendants of other clans in the village who carried Senju blood through their mothers, which should have preserved a certain level of bloodline concentration. The First and Second Hokage had considered this when they made such arrangements. So why had things gone wrong? Why was the clan's bloodline nearly gone after just three generations of intermarriage?
Because these Senju Clan members had encountered the same problem as Tsunade and Nawaki: the bloodlines of different clans couldn't fully fuse! The Senju bloodline hadn't disappeared, and its concentration wasn't as low as it seemed. Rather, because genes could be either dominant or recessive, much of the bloodline power had turned into recessive genes and remained hidden within the clan members' blood. If any of their descendants managed to turn these powers back into dominant genes, they would inherit the Senju Clan's talents. This was also why Konoha's ranks of geniuses never ran dry.
For Nawaki, this problem was easy to solve. He only needed to spend 1,000 Wish Power to perfectly fuse the bloodlines inside any Senju Clan member. Not only could they awaken the high- and mid-level bloodline powers they should have possessed, but they could also gain the abilities of other clans and learn their secret techniques! The Senju Clan's power would then grow explosively. This was tens of thousands of times more worthwhile than spending Wish Power to turn an ordinary person into a member of the Senju Clan—perhaps even a hundred thousand or a million times more worthwhile!
The Senju Clan was the greatest legacy his grandfather had left him! If he could awaken the bloodline powers of all three thousand members, the clan would surpass its former glory, crush the Uchiha and Hyuga, and become the greatest clan in the Shinobi World! But that would take at least three million Wish Power. At Nawaki's current level of fame, it would take a thousand years to accumulate that much... So he planned to deal with the problem once he had enough Wish Power.
How could Nawaki be sure his theory was correct?
Remember how he'd collected Orochimaru's saliva and Jiraiya's hair yesterday?
After analyzing them, the system had found that both men carried the Senju Clan's advanced bloodline powers in their genes!
Back in his previous life, when watching Naruto, Nawaki had always wondered about their surnames. He'd searched through all kinds of information but couldn't find them. Jiraiya and Orochimaru were clearly given names, not surnames. Why had their surnames never been mentioned, just like Tsunade's? If they were ordinary commoners with no surnames, why had the Third Hokage taken them as his students?
Moreover, according to the Book of Formations and the Book of Ren, both men had an unusually wide range of chakra natures and enormous chakra reserves. Orochimaru had all seven chakra natures, and his "Essence" score—the measure of his chakra—was 7. Jiraiya had six chakra natures, yet his Essence score was a perfect 10, the same as Naruto's!
That was why Nawaki suspected they might also be descendants of the Senju Clan, with at least one Senju parent. Now the system had finally confirmed his theory.
Besides the two of them, Nawaki suspected that Minato Namikaze also carried the Senju bloodline. Why had Naruto inherited Minato's blond hair and blue eyes, rather than his mother Kushina's red hair and dark eyes? Was the bloodline of the ordinary Namikaze surname stronger than that of the Uzumaki Clan? The most likely explanation was that Minato had inherited the Senju bloodline from his mother or grandmother, and had been lucky enough for all of it to become dominant genes! And advanced bloodline powers, at that! According to the Book of Formations, his chakra natures were Wind, Fire, Lightning, Yin, and Yang—a total of five. He also had a huge chakra reserve, an innate talent for sensing space, and had learned the Second Hokage's Flying Thunder God Technique. That was the hidden reason he could become the Fourth Hokage at just twenty-three!
Another fan-favorite character, Kakashi Hatake, was also highly suspicious. He had the rare ability to use all seven chakra natures, and he'd been able to receive a transplanted Sharingan and use the Mangekyo's powers! If just anyone could receive a transplant and use the Mangekyo's abilities, the Uchiha Clan would have been wiped out long ago! As for the transplant holding him back, that was because his bloodlines hadn't fused perfectly. Just 1,000 Wish Power could solve the problem.
The last major suspect was Shimura Danzō! Why did Sarutobi put up with him, even though he was always courting death? How had he managed to receive a Wood Release Cells transplant? And how had he transplanted an entire arm's worth of Sharingan? If anyone could do that successfully, they'd have mass-produced them long ago! In the original story, only a handful of people successfully received Wood Release and Sharingan transplants. Danzō had both, and he was still up and about.
If he was always courting death, why had he never directly gone after Minato Namikaze, the parents of the Konoha 12, or the Sannin? Because he was related to them! They were already tied to Konoha through blood and had become one with the village!
Terrifying when you thought it through. Without anyone noticing, the Senju Clan had become one with all of Konoha, making themselves the village's hidden masters through blood ties. Every member of the upper ranks was connected to them in one way or another. The Hyuga and Uchiha had never stood a chance. In the end, one clan was wiped out, while the other chose to merge with Konoha through intermarriage.
This kind of sinister scheme had to have come from the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju. Perhaps he'd even kept the First Hokage in the dark!
If the Senju Clan's bloodline fusion hadn't gone wrong and thrown his plan off by one move, perhaps all of Konoha would have become an extension of the Senju Clan, with the Hokage Position passed down through the clan from generation to generation. Instead, as in the original story, the Senju Clan had unexpectedly disappeared, allowing those who should have been its subordinates to take over and hand the rewards to other small clans and ordinary people.
Even so, Tsunade had easily become the Fifth Hokage as the princess of the Senju Clan, without any resistance at all!
It was clear that, thanks to the Second Hokage's plan, the Senju Clan's status had already become deeply rooted in Konoha and synonymous with the Will of Fire!
Now that he could see the entire board the Second Hokage had set up, Nawaki decided to follow its threads. And as it happened, he had the power to fix its greatest flaw: bloodline fusion.
With the Wish Power System's help, he would be able to preserve the Senju Clan's bloodline advantage while using Konoha's clans and civilians as nourishment and fertile ground, absorbing the strengths of every bloodline to make the Senju Clan stronger!
He would lead the Senju Clan and all of Konoha to become a forest that continued to grow without end!
And the Will of Fire would no longer need to be passed down like a flame. Senju Nawaki would become the Fourth Hokage, transforming into an immortal God Tree that would carry the Will of Fire forever.
Before you continue