After the funeral I continued with my persecutions against the other villages, trying to find anything of note that hinted and inside agent or someone else responsible, sadly the battlefield wasn't the normal grass plains or rocky terrain, it was inside castles and against snakes that would make Orochimaru mild in some ways.
Politics were a nightmare, thankfully in my old age I was already very experienced in these fields, I even made it a learning opportunity for Minato, sadly the young man was too bright for the dark world of politics, but at the end of the day he is a shinobi first and foremost, we need to do a lot of unpleasant and regretfully things on our careers, so even if it was something that opposes his nature he learned relatively fast.
Times passed slow or fast depending on your perspective, and soon the tensions were as close to exploding as a gunpowder barrel at the side of a pyre.
And soon the third war started, small conflicts at the border at the start, escalating until the great five finishing constructing their camp, it was Konoha against the world, thankfully the Sand chooses to not participate, its only form of contribution is selling its products to the highest bidder, to its ally Konoha a simple discount was offered, our relationship was strained for some time, but in prol of the war, we decided to leave these kinds of affair for later, as pitting another village against Konoha would be unwise. Maybe if my friend Danzo was here he would insist on more offensive nature, but sadly he was s dead.
Choosing the commander to their respective front was basically a no brainer, I already have the best candidates in the form of the Hokage candidates, so the only thing left was calling them.
The commander was Aizen on Kumo, Fugako on Kiri, and Jiraya/Minato on Iwa the last one was basically most Minato on the command, Jiraya was there as a deterrent to Iwa two Jinchuuriki in some rare case they decided to attack his expertise would be very needed if the tailed beasts appear. Same for Aizen actually, as Kumo has the most active of all the 9 jinchuuriki sending a user of [Wood Release] to deter them was a no brainer too. Thankfully the jinchuuriki in Kiri were in a poor relationship with its Kage, so they wouldn't be appearing any time soon, but worst come to worst I can always ask for Aizen to use [Flying Thunder God] and help Fugaku.
The war was on, and all the commander besides being young are doing fairly well, they started horrendously but they learned steadily, so I didn't see a reason to interfere, each one of has their own way of handling things, there is no true way of war, as long as you win you can even dress your troops like clowns and make daddy jokes that it won't matter, all that matter is that you won.
Everything was going great until I received the noticed that the Raikage decided to go personally to Aizen camp I, of course, was extremely distraught, because if I had to appoint the strongest Kage in this period, it would certainly be the Raikage, I can fight him, and if I pull some of my more destructive moves, possibly even kill the juggernaut, but all these moves would have long-lasting injuries on myself, and when I on my full combat armor, I receive the news that Aizen was able to deal with it.
I was extremely relieved immediately, so it was not surprising that after the tension had passed that I grew extremely curious about how the hell Aizen was able to do that. After reading my reports in more depth I was able to grasp roughly how he did it.
Apparently, he used one of Hashiramma trump cards, a colossal wooden Budha statue with thousands of hands, and with it, he was able to drive off the Raikage. Good grief, that boy can't stop surprising me, and if he was able to learn that jutsu, it shows that he is close to Hashiramma in strength(This is what Sarutobi thinks, not a fact).
The repercussions of the Raikage endeavor were a pain, suddenly I receive letters and scrolls from so many people announcing their 'friendship', some individuals were som shameless that I almost puked blood, principally those offering their daughters hands in marriage, there was even a guy that offered a harem of beauties, that one I simply burned the letter instead of replying, I know what Aizen thought about marriage, haven already talked with the boy about it, he answered that he wants to marry someone that he loves, and these bunch of people aren't interested in that.
And this was only the letters that I received, the ones addressed to Aizen must be something much, much worse.
Besides the letters were the bunch of invitation from politics, from what I was able to grasp Aizen evaded that rabbit hole splendidly, so they thought they can get to him thought me, it is like they didn't even bother to research the Senju political immunities on the village laws, some of these nobles are really incompetent, I even marked some more overzealous ones to have an 'accident' later, normally Danzo would deal with these things, but with him gone I need to assume some of his tasks, when Aizen comes back I will definitely offer him the job as a new shadow, he would probably accept seeing as it has a lot in common with the Hokage position but more 'Dirty' if you will, and from what I was able to grasp from Aizen he would certainly fit well there.
Sometimes his resemblance with Tobiramma Sensei is rather uncanny, maybe they are related? food for thought.
The war continued, the camps are doing very well, their commander improving their leadership skills by the day, and something surprising happened, the point system Aizen used, has shown extremely good results in his camp, the other camps immediately followed the successful example. I am very happy for then too, seeing that they are doing better definitely improved my mood drastically.
Time continued running and everything was normal, as normal as a war can get, sitting on my chair in the Hokage office I suddenly have a gut feeling, this one way worse than when the explosion occurred, the pain was way greater this time, and if I had bothered thinking I would definitely find new markings on my stomach region.
The report has arrived detailing the situation, apparently, Aizen has left the camp ordering his forces to hide and stay in the camp at all costs, and Aizen himself has gone in the direction of the threat.
This time even without my gut feeling I could tell something very bad was happening.