Azula was in a secret underground chamber beneath the Hokage residence, one of several, actually, that the Hokage could use for private projects. Though from the look of things, only Tobirama had ever really bothered with them.
The room smelled old and a little like a tomb. A few candles flickered against the dark, their light barely enough to see by, but what really made the scene unsettling was the body of the Second Hokage laid out in the center and the sacrifice Azula had prepared beside it.
Theoretically, she could revive Tobirama with just a piece of his tissue. She didn't need to dig up his actual corpse.
But one of the first things Azula did after becoming Hokage was a little morally questionable.
She'd had the graves of Konoha's most important figures, Tobirama included, exhumed and sealed away. She wasn't about to leave something like that to chance, not when Black Zetsu could suddenly get clever and decide to resurrect them first.
She planned on visiting the other villages' graves too, especially their Kage, but that was a project for later.
As for the sacrifice, it was just some average Jōnin, a prisoner. The ninja world ran short of moral people long before it ever ran short of prisoners.
She didn't need Tobirama at full power anyway. His real value, the reason she'd picked him over anyone else, was his brain, knowledge, techniques and evidently, his evil ideas.
•••
•••
Darkness, then numbness, before a sudden, violent awareness that felt like being thrown into a frozen river.
The first coherent thought that formed in Tobirama Senju's reanimated brain was not Where am I? or How am I alive? but rather something far more primal, something that bypassed logic entirely and went straight to instinct.
'I sense an Uchiha.'
'Not just any Uchiha but a very powerful one at that.' The chakra signature was bright and sharp and utterly unapologetic, the kind of presence that demanded attention just by existing.
It reminded him of 'him'.
Madara.
The same overwhelming density, the same quiet certainty that the world would bend because they willed it so.
'An evil Uchiha. I've been resurrected by an evil Uchiha.'
His eyes snapped open, finding the ceiling very familiar. One of his old chambers because the stonework was unmistakable.
That meant he was in Konoha, underground, in a room he'd personally designed to contain things that shouldn't exist. The irony was not lost on him.
He sat up.
Standing over him, arms folded and smile as sharp as a kunai, was a teenage girl with the Sharingan analyzing like he'll analyze an experimental subject.
Her chakra was the thing he'd sensed, It was monstrous, only a little bit below Madara. And she was looking at him like he was a birthday present she'd been waiting years to unwrap.
'An Uchiha child. An Uchiha child with my Edo Tensei. An Uchiha child with my Edo Tensei who dug up my corpse.'
His mouth opened to demand answers, but before he could speak, the girl beat him to it.
"Hello, Grand Uncle-in-law."
Tobirama's brain, the legendary mind that had shaped the village's foundations, invented multiple S-rank jutsu, and never once been caught off guard, simply stopped.
"Nani?"
The word escaped him before he could stop it. It wasn't dignified or befitting a former Hokage.
But there was no other response available to a man who had just been addressed as Grand Uncle-in-law by an Uchiha who'd stolen his forbidden technique.
"It's a whole thing, very simple. But the short version is that I'm Azula Uchiha, Tsunade is my girlfriend. So yes. Grand Uncle-in-law. Should I call you Tobirama-ojiisan? Uncle Tobi? I don't need to add 'future' because I'm very flexible, right?."
Tobirama stared at her.
She stared back, utterly unbothered.
"You," he managed, "are dating my grandniece."
"Grandniece by blood, yes. Tsunade. You'd like her. She's got your temper and your brother's gambling problem although I tamed her these past few months. But the enthusiasm is there."
Then she proceeded to give him a bit of information about what she could.
He processed this in fragments. Mito was alive. Mito had trained this Uchiha. Mito had apparently 'blessed' this Uchiha's relationship with his brother's granddaughter. Which meant Mito, the woman he'd respected the most, had actively and willingly brought an Uchiha into their family.
"Mito trained you," he said slowly.
"Sealing, fuinjutsu, my Adamantine Chains, she taught me everything she knew. Said I was the best student she'd ever had."
Of course she did. The most powerful sealing master in the world had handed her knowledge to an Uchiha prodigy who'd used it to master the Edo Tensei.
His Edo Tensei, the one he'd specifically forbidden anyone from using.
"You're the Fourth Hokage," he said, remembering the earlier bombshell.
"Fourth of the name." Azula gave a little mock bow. "Hat's upstairs if you want to see it. It's red and very stylish, Tsunade said I look so good in it, that it fit me the most compared to all the past Kage."
Gnashing his teeth with hatred, Tobirama asked. "Hiruzen."
"Retired voluntarily. Mostly."
"Mostly."
"I may have put some pressure on him. Politically. And personally. And existentially." She tilted her head. "In my defense, he was doing a terrible job."
Tobirama's hands clenched at his sides. Hiruzen had been his student. His chosen successor. The one he'd trusted to lead Konoha into a stable, Uchiha-fr—ahem, Uchiha trouble-free.
And instead, the man had apparently handed the village to an Uchiha teenager and called it a day.
"I'm going to have words with Hiruzen," he said.
"Get in line. Everyone wants words with Hiruzen. The other villages Kage wants words. Danzō wants words. I'm pretty sure the Hyūga elders want to lock him in a room and scream at him for a week." She paused. "Actually, that last one might be about me. Hard to keep track."
Tobirama sat back down on the slab. He was a dead man and had no blood pressure to rise. Yet, somehow, he could feel a headache forming.
"I died about a decade ago," he said.
"Give or take."
"And in those few short years, my village elected an Uchiha as Hokage." He said remembering the time when Azula was born.
"Yep."
"My sister-in-law trained that Uchiha in the sealing arts."
"With enthusiasm."
"That Uchiha revived me using the jutsu I created specifically to be unrevivable."
"I found the loophole."
"And that Uchiha is now dating my grandniece, making me, through a chain of associations I refuse to acknowledge, her grand uncle-in-law."
Azula beamed. "You said it! I knew you'd come around."
Tobirama's brain was not to be underestimated after all. He'd processed the avalanche of information she'd dumped on him in record time, no matter how much it stung.
"Why did you resurrect me, Uchiha?" He asked the question point-blank. If the village was facing some imminent disaster, then fine, she was Hokage. He'd give her the benefit of the doubt.
"So you can handle my paperwork." She answered, tone dead serious, like she was assigning him an S-rank mission.
Silence hung between them for a solid few seconds.
"Are you actually an Uchiha?"
Azula didn't bother with words. She just activated her Mangekyō Sharingan.
Tobirama let out a long sigh and buried his face in his hands, praying to every god he didn't believe in that this whole situation was some kind of genjutsu. That the village his brother had built wasn't really being run by an Uchiha like this, and that she was just screwing with him the same way she'd claimed Tsunade was her girlfriend.
At the very least, he'd assumed she was joking when she said he'd be handling her paperwork.