Old age has come, yet the blossoms still beckon;
Lost in joy, one forgets one’s years.
Butterflies dance beneath the beard,
While bees flit lightly beside the ears.
This twilight romance was like an old house suddenly catching fire—it was impossible to stop once it started.
Ever since the leader of the Kōga Group, Uchiha Danjō, and the leader of the Iga Group, Uchiha Gen, had finally been able to openly and legitimately be together, Danjō had apparently lost all interest in even having grandchildren.
After all, having the grandfather marry the grandmother while the grandson married the granddaughter was bound to attract some criticism.
Danjō supported Gennosuke and Oboro’s marriage, but he didn’t support it wholeheartedly.
Especially when he imagined the awkwardness of possibly having to hold his own wedding ceremony at the same time as his grandson’s.
Danjō figured it would be perfectly fine to let his grandson fend for himself out there.
He had heard that the boy had gotten involved with a shinobi from another village, but Danjō wasn’t worried.
"Children and grandchildren have their own destinies. If he can find a wife and start a family on his own, that’s perfectly fine! Heh heh!"
Danjō muttered to himself and chuckled.
If—just if—Gennosuke really did marry and have children somewhere outside the village, Danjō could still give Oboro a magnificent wedding.
At that point, he would be Oboro’s legitimate grandfather, wouldn’t he?
"Ah, Gen, what are you watching over there?"
Even while lost in his own thoughts, Danjō was still attentive to his beloved.
Looking at Gen before him, Danjō still felt the same stirrings in his heart as when he had first seen that young, vibrant girl all those years ago.
It was as though time had stopped at that moment.
Gen’s ambitions, however, still outweighed her romantic feelings.
Standing atop Mount Iidō, the elderly Gen was currently using a telescope to observe the commotion in Konoha.
Konoha’s Memorial Monument and its cemetery were not located together.
The Memorial Monument merely recorded the names of those who had died in service to Konoha, providing everyone with a convenient place to pay their respects.
It was a permanent memorial site.
For proper large-scale ceremonies, people would still normally go to the cemetery.
But today, Konoha had departed from the usual practice.
Instead of going to the cemetery, it was holding a massive public ceremony before the Memorial Monument.
Naturally, Gen felt that the event had been organized specifically for them to see.
After all, Naka Shrine and the Memorial Monument lay in the same direction, while the cemetery was in the opposite direction.
"I’m watching to see what that old Shinobi Professor is trying to pull this time."
"When isn’t that old man trying to get himself killed?"
Danjō was unhappy that his beloved was talking about another old man during their date.
If he weren’t already old enough that he probably couldn’t beat the Third Hokage, Danjō would have grabbed his sword and stormed straight into Konoha.
"When people grow old, they become stubborn. They start trusting in the experiences they’ve accumulated throughout their lives, yet often forget that the only thing that never changes in this world is change itself."
Danjō was taking another subtle jab at the Third Hokage.
He took the telescope from Gen and carefully brushed a few silver strands of hair back from her temple.
Seeing him fumbling around like that, Gen smacked his hand away in annoyance.
Then she looked toward Konoha in the distance and sighed.
"That old Third Hokage has had it rough, too. The fact that Konoha hasn’t sunk under his watch is an achievement in itself."
Danjō immediately became unhappy upon hearing Gen praise an outsider.
Especially when she was praising an old man who was stronger than him.
"What achievement does he have? Konoha simply had a good foundation. If Lord Kei had been given that kind of foundation, he would’ve led us all to the moon by now."
Gen, looking at her elderly sweetheart still getting jealous at his age, didn’t believe a word of it.
If this old man really had such shallow insight, the Kōga Group would never have been able to suppress the Iga Group for so long.
Too lazy to indulge Danjō’s theatrics, Gen became serious.
"Old man, how do you think we should remind Lord Kei not to step into the trap surrounding the Second Hokage’s death?"
Gen considered this matter extremely important.
Danjō, however, didn’t think much of it.
"Remind him? There’s no need. Lord Kei is clever enough. As long as he can calm down, he’ll figure it out himself."
As he spoke, Danjō became interested in the telescope and started looking through it, wanting to see what tricks the Shinobi Professor Gen had mentioned was pulling this time.
Through the telescope, he saw ordinary members of the Sarutobi Clan.
They were scattered throughout every street of Konoha, distributing welcoming lanterns and calling on everyone to participate in the Mikoshi Arai ritual.
Gen stood with her hands behind her back.
Unlike Danjō, she wasn’t nearly as confident.
The two of them regarded Kei as both their lord and their grandson.
More importantly, they regarded him as a grandson upon whom they had placed their greatest hopes.
Perhaps the difference in their attitudes was simply the difference between how grandfathers and grandmothers loved their grandchildren.
"I’m just worried that the old Third Hokage is putting too much pressure on Lord Kei. What if it keeps that child from thinking clearly?"
Gen still couldn’t relax.
Seeing this, Danjō lowered the telescope and calculated the scale of the ceremony.
The expenditure couldn’t be small.
He had no idea where all that money was coming from.
No matter how wealthy the Sarutobi Clan was, even they would have trouble funding a celebration lasting more than ten days and involving the entire village.
Unless their clan could, like Lord Kei, somehow conjure supplies out of thin air.
Otherwise, that deficit would be difficult to make up.
Danjō turned back toward the worried Gen and comforted her.
"You’re overthinking it. You always hesitate to teach Lord Kei directly. He’s not someone who refuses to listen to advice."
"Once his surgery succeeds, just explain it to him clearly. If a supreme power has been reduced to an ordinary great power, he’ll understand who would be most dissatisfied with that change."
Gen nodded.
She had always hoped Kei would figure things out on his own.
But sometimes, certain matters only needed someone to give him a little nudge.
Perhaps that was why old people like them continued consuming so many of Kei’s resources.
Maybe this was what they were supposed to do in return.
"Still, it makes you sigh when you think about it. Konoha under the First Hokage..."
"Back then, Konoha was so powerful that if it apologized to someone, it didn’t even have to consider whether the other side was willing to accept the apology."
Danjō nodded.
"Exactly! Every time I read the records of that era, even I, an outsider, can’t help but feel exhilarated."
He became more animated as he spoke.
"Back then, when Konoha told you it was sorry, you had better know your place. If you didn’t, Uchiha Madara would make sure your entire village learned what it meant to know your place."
At last, Danjō sounded like the leader of the Kōga Group rather than an infatuated old fool.
"Heh. You dared to resist Madara?"
Gen smiled.
"Then the Senju and Uchiha would join forces, and the entire country would learn to know its place."
Gen acknowledged the strength of those two men, but she was unwilling to admit that Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha had possessed strength that stood above everyone else.
So when she spoke, she attributed their overwhelming power to the strength of their respective clans.
It was, to some extent, self-deception.
But women were like that, regardless of age.
Danjō didn’t care.
Hero worship was a man’s natural instinct.
Becoming an overwhelmingly powerful individual who could look down upon all others had been the dream of many a boy.
"What dominance. What arrogance!"
Danjō was beginning to imagine himself as Madara, the Uchiha who had once stood above all others.
Gen, however, became somewhat melancholy.
Living in the same era as people like that was the great fortune of an age.
But for every other exceptional figure of that era, it was an immense misfortune.
"Yes. Back then, there were only two true ’Kage.’ One was Konoha’s Hokage, and the other was Konoha’s regent."
"The rest were nothing more than background characters filling out the scene."
The elderly Gen was being somewhat sentimental.
Her own generation had spent its life living in the shadows of others.
As he spoke, Danjō formed a series of hand seals and summoned the scroll containing historical records of Konoha that Danzō had sent them.
He opened it and pointed out various passages to Gen.
"Look at what’s written here."
"Back then, anyone who survived being caught in the collateral damage of the techniques used during battles between Madara Uchiha and Hashirama Senju could already be considered one of the strongest shinobi of their era."
"Only Hyūga Tennin and the Uzumaki elder who intervened could step forward and try to break up their fights. And even they usually had to leave after suffering severe injuries."
Gen scoffed.
"What does the strength of other people have to do with us?"
She hoped that the Uchiha of the future could become just as powerful.
She didn’t want them to become stepping stones for figures like those.
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