Madara Uchiha's Final Glance Back

Toji's ideological conditioning plan began by forcibly binding together the First Hokage's will, the Will of Fire, and the will of the Anbu, treating them as one and the same.

He intended to brand this logic into the depths of every Anbu member's consciousness like an ideological seal.

As long as Hashirama Senju remained alive, this equation was beyond dispute.

But once Hashirama passed away, the succeeding Hokage would not be the First Hokage himself. At that point, as the chief architect of the Will of Fire, Toji would possess the ultimate authority to interpret it. And with the will of the Anbu bound to the Will of Fire, his will would become the will of the Anbu.

The smarter Hokage who came later might feel uneasy about it, but considering Toji's weight, they probably would not make a move and disrupt the peace. They would simply wait for Toji to die of old age, at which point the authority of interpretation would return to their hands.

But the key was that Toji could not die.

As long as he remained alive, the Hokage's will within the Anbu system would forever hold only secondary authority, like a crown prince. The true authority to command the Anbu and define its standards would always remain in Toji's hands.

As for the slower-witted Hokage—

Those like Minato and Naruto would care even less.

At the same time, in order to completely secure his position as Root's leader and establish absolute authority, Toji summoned the Anbu's senior officers to the Root office one by one for individual mental conditioning.

The methods were simple, yet immensely corrosive.

The first step was to dim the room's lights to the extreme, creating an oppressive atmosphere.

The second step came when an officer noticed the strange lighting and