27 Chapter 26

A stared in trepidation as the tanto of Indra slowly came down on his face. He gave it his all, but he was simply no match for him.

'I can't believe I lost in less than five minutes. No, I lost the moment he attacked him,' He slowly closed his eyes, accepting his death.

*Bang*

The blade on the tanto slammed beside his head, just missing him by a few centimetres.

"Ah! I missed, I guess you aren't dying today then," Indra exclaimed, causing A to slowly open his eyes.

"Why?!" he quietly muttered. "Why didn't you kill me?"

"Who knows," Indra replied.

"Just in time," exclaimed Indra as a messenger bird landed on his shoulder.

Taking out the scroll from the messenger bird, he passed it on to the raikage. "An armistice, sign it. So it would be like you're being pressured to do so, I'd turn around."

The raikage had a bead of sweat roll down his forehead but he took the scroll from Indra. Perusing the contents of the scroll, he added his signature to it before passing it back to Indra.

The raikage informed his shinobi to pull back while Indra passed the message on to Danzo.

"It won't be like this the next time we meet in battle. I won't hesitate to cut you down, so keep that in mind before you think of starting another war," Indra said to the raikage before leaving with the remnant of the shinobi.

"How many died?" He asked the moment he got next to Danzo.

"I think about 300, possibly 50 more," Danzo replied.

"That's less than I anticipated. Good job."

"You did most of the work," replied Danzo.

"Of course I did."

"You won't make friends with that personality of yours," Danzo quipped before chuckling.

********

[Two Months Later]

It was raining heavily in Konoha, it was like the heavens knew today was a sad day for the village.

The entire village was clad in black as everyone paid respect to the heroes that died for the safety of the village in the war.

"Tobirama, Hoki, Sasuke,... " Hiruzen proceeded to list the names of the important shinobi that died. "You all gave your lives to protect Konohagakure and its future..."

To honour the other shinobi that died, Hiruzen created the 'Memorial Stone', carving the name of every shinobi that died on it.

......

After the procession, Indra stayed behind. Standing over the tombstone of Tobirama alongside Mito. "I already avenged you, Tobirama." He said, dropping a white lily beside it.

Turning to leave, he stopped as he saw a white-haired shinobi standing above a tombstone a few meters away from him.

"Are you coming, Indra?" Mito asked.

"I'd meet you back at the house," he replied. He then walked towards the white-haired shinobi.

"Sakumo," he said as he stopped next to him. "I'm sure Hoki would want you to have this," he added, summoning the white chakra blade.

"Thank you," Sakumo said, a small smile gracing his face.

.......

The war had officially ended with the signing of a peace treaty by the five great nations that would ensure no war would break out involving all five nations for the next two decades. Although a white peace treaty was signed between the five great nations, it was obvious Konoha won the war, and by a large margin too. Kumogakure had the strongest shinobi force, but Konoha had the stronger individual shinobi, and they also had the freak of nature that was Indra, so they lost the least number of shinobi compared to the other villages.

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"Ahhh!!" Indra groaned as he settled in the warm water of the hot spring.

"I should get to checking up on the Senju clan,' he mused before letting out a sigh as he'd have to leave the hot-spring. "Is this what responsibilities feel like?! I already don't like it,"

Creating a shadow clone, "Inform Tsunade's parents to gather everyone with Senju as their last name in thirty minutes... No, in one hour, I want to relax more."

An hour later, Indra sat on a tatami mat in the main Senju clan meeting hall waiting for the Senju clan members to come in. Mito came in first, sitting beside Indra.

"Are you sure you're ready for something as big as this?" She asked, ruffling his head slightly.

"Can you ever be ready for having the lives of an entire clan on your palms?!" replied Indra. "I just want to lie down," he added.

"Stop being a baby, you are a clan-head now," she said, while Indra pouted in return causing Mito to let out a chuckle.

Indra turned his attention to the door as the first Senju clan member walked into the meeting hall before taking his seat. Five minutes later, Indra let out a frown.

'Is this everyone?' he wondered.

"Where's the rest of the clan?" he asked.

"This is everyone," an older Senju replied.

'Just twenty-five?! they were over two hundred Senju's before the war started. What's going on? This much casualty makes no sense,'

"As you all know, Tobirama made me the next Senju clan-head but then he was killed which made me the clan-head. I was going to use this opportunity to introduce myself, but I think you can all agree with me that finding the reason why about 20% of us are left.

It would be stupid of me to think the war wiped out most of the Senju's, so until I get to the cause of it, every Senju would be suspended from the active shinobi force of the village. no one is allowed to accept a mission that leads outside the walls of Konoha."

"You can't do that!!!" some of them tried to protest.

"I wasn't giving you all a suggestion," Indra exclaimed, letting out his chakra.

"Understood?"

"Yes," they all replied, clearly intimidated by him.

Indra disappeared from the meeting hall.

"Hiruzen," Indra called out as he returned to his original size in the Hokage's office.

Seeing Indra pop out inside the office of the Hokage, the Anbu guarding Hiruzen attacked him immediately. His pupil just flashed yellow as they were about to touch, shrinking their tantos, rendering their attack pointless.

"Leave, every one of you," He stated, clearly not in the mood to deal with them.

Hiruzen nodded to them before addressing Indra. "You know you can't just pop in here right?!" he said.

"That's beside the point."

"What seems to be the problem?" Hiruzen asked.

"They are just twenty-five people left in the Senju clan."

Hiruzen frowned, "I suspected this but I didn't think it was this serious."

"What do you mean you suspected this?"

"When the First Hokage passed, The Second sent my team to investigate a report he'd received but we couldn't find any evidence, and then the war happened so there was no way to confirm if the deaths were due to the war or the information we received."

"What information?" Indra asked.

"One of, or the four villages ordered the hunt and possible capture of the Senju's."

"Why would they want to kill or capture them? A Senju was the Hokage, something like that would lead to war."

"It won't, and they knew that. It isn't the warring clans' era anymore, the village is more important than a single clan. Even if we had confirmed they were being hunted, there wasn't much the Second could have done," Hiruzen explained. "In hindsight, we could have done more but it wasn't confirmed. You understand, don't you?"

"Yeah, I do. I understand that one of the founding clans of Konoha is down to twenty-five members," replied Indra. "From now onwards, the remaining Senju would not be undertaking a mission outside the village."

"You can't just decide that, Indra. The other clans would not accept such a decision," Hiruzen argued.

"I can, and I just did. If the other clans can't accept that, they can come and complain to me."

"I'd be leaving the village to investigate. Later today, I'd come and get the mission report from your investigation," Indra stated, leaving no room for Hiruzen to object.

"Indra, we just got out of a war. Do not start another one," Hiruzen stated, his expression turning serious.

"That's why you have a peace treaty, isn't it?"

"You're still naive to how the world works, Indra. A peace treaty at the end is just a piece of paper, with enough justification it could be ripped to shreds."

"I guess I'd be leaving no witnesses then," replied Indra.

"You're acting rash, Indra," Hiruzen stated, but Indra had already disappeared from his office.

.......

Just as Indra had informed Hiruzen, he picked up the mission report later that same day.

Sitting over the scrolls, Indra read through them multiple times to ensure that he didn't miss anything. After he was done, he shrunk and stored them before leaving the study.

When Indra walked out of the study, "What are you doing here, Mito-sama? It's late," he said.

"I came to check on you. Do you know they've reduced so much?" replied Mito, with worry on her face.

"I believe they were targeted. They were either killed...or worse...." replied Indra.

"You just got back to the village from war, do you have to leave again?"

"Yes, If I was certain they were targeted and killed, it would have been different. But the chance of obtaining the wood release is a big lure for every village. If they were killed in fear of someone awakening the wood release or captured to...." Indra stated, not able to complete his sentence.

"To breed one," Mito finished the sentence for him, already knowing how the shinobi world works.

"I worry for you, Indra. You've taken so many responsibilities at your age," Mito stated, drawing Indra into a motherly hug.

"I'd be fine," he replied.

'I'd kill them,' he swore to himself, his right eye glowing yellow.