#pretty sophistocated huh?

[hiruzensux]

how i imagine Kagami died

I’ve been trying to think of a less dry and tedious format to post this in, but i really feel like i need to lay down what exactly i think happened regarding Kagami’s death, because it’s a little bit foggy canon-wise and i’ve heard a lot of different headcanons (which are also interesting and equally plausible), but the particular way i imagine things is kind of important to my interpretation of a lot of peoples’ characterization and relationship dynamics and stuff, so here it is (under the cut):

As we know, Tobirama died during the First Shinobi World War at the hands of Kinkaku (and i’m assuming Ginkaku was involved as well); we saw the scene in which he appointed Hiruzen as 3rd Hokage and split off from Team Tobirama to be the decoy to draw the Kinkaku Force away. None of Tobirama’s students liked this idea, but followed his orders and used the opportunity to escape and return to the village and deliver whatever intel they had.

Given how powerful i think Mito is as a sensor and how close she was with Tobirama, i think it’s likely she would be able to tell when he died, so that was the news they returned to. Understandably, all of the students were varying hues of devastated, but Hiruzen and Kagami took it particularly dramatically. They wanted to go after the Gold and Silver Brothers and take revenge. The others thought that was a stupid idea, risking further loss they couldn’t afford in the middle of a war over petty sentimentality, and spitting in the face of Tobirama’s sacrifice. There was a big fight about it, and Mito had to step in. She agreed that a revenge mission was dangerous and irresponsible, and she forbade them from any such action. (Hiruzen was technically hokage now, but Mito was the one with decades of experience, and she commanded utmost respect from him and the other students (and since she was, you know... obviously right, Hiruzen knew he didn’t have much of a leg to stand on here)) Additionally, she refused to assign any of them to the team sent to retrieve Tobirama’s remains, judging them to be too emotionally involved to be trusted to stick to the mission (strict minimal-confrontation; track the enemy, stage an ambush, retrieve the body, and immediately retreat. (The funny thing is, the retrieval team didn’t even need to ambush them bc the Gold and Silver Brothers just... left him there. Bc they are actually that fucking stupid. They don’t have a village to gather intel for anymore. They don’t want to carry that around. (God if Kakuzu ever finds about about this, idk how he’s even going to deal with that; the knowledge that Tobirama’s 100-thousand-ryō corpse (please forgive my numbers, i’ve never used ryō and i don’t understand regular economics let alone narutoverse inflation) was just LYING ON THE GROUND for HOURS maybe even DAYS... he was alive then, he could’ve just picked him up and cashed him in if he’d just known in time... how is he going to live with the knowledge of that missed profit opportunity? how?? anyway i’m derailing but))) ...So. Hiruzen and Kagami reluctantly agreed and everyone went home to sulk.

Don’t ask me HOW they managed to sneak out under the already-suspicious nose of perhaps the most powerful sensor in shinobi history, but that night, Kagami and Hiruzen crept out of the village and left on their own unsanctioned revenge mission. Danzō, who had at least equal suspicion and more free time to watch them, went after them.

He eventually catches up to them and tries again to dissuade them from this course of action. They argue. It’s heated. They tell Danzō they’re not stopping and tell him to go home. Frustrated, Danzō turns back and starts heading back to the village. But, before long something makes him turn around to pursue them again. I don’t know how good he thought his chances of stopping them at this point were, but i think there were also strong subconscious elements of “if this revenge mission is happening then i have to be there too.”

Meanwhile, Kagami and Hiruzen have caught up with the Gold and Silver Brothers and managed to catch them in an ambush. I’m not the best battle choreographer so i don’t know exactly how this went down, but: it was an intense battle, with both sides going all-out; eventually, there was an obviously dangerous opening and Kagami recklessly took it to deal the ending blow on Kinkaku, letting himself be killed by Ginkaku in the process. Danzō gets there just in time to watch him do it. Hiruzen manages to finish Ginkaku off shortly after that.

Kagami was already dead. Hiruzen was only about half-dead, so Danzō healed him as best he could in the field. He sealed the bodies of the Gold and Silver Brothers and his dead teammate into storage scrolls and dragged his 30% dead teammate back to the village.

And the rest is history.