The Second's Second Chance

Space-Time Conundrum

Tobirama instinctively scanned the room for chakra signatures as regained consciousness. There were none in immediate vicinity which rendered it safe for him to open his eyes.

He found himself in a detainment room with chakra suppressing seals.

If it hadn't been for the seals, he would have assumed that he had been captured by Kumo. But Kumo ninja  couldn't produce such seals if their life depended on it. Furthermore Tobirama recognised them to be modified form of his own design.

So, he was in Konoha.

Before he could dwell much into the possible scenarios responsible for his own village detaining him, the door opened to reveal a short, old man wearing the Hokage garb. Tobirama, however, was more fixated on his chakra signature.

"Hiruzen?" He blurted out.

What had happened to transform his teenage student to a gaffer, in span of what couldn't be more than a month, even in the worst case scenario.

The old man (Hiruzen?) smiled. " It's good to see you again, sensei. I apologise for the confinement. But exceptions can't be made. Even though I recognise your chakra, you have been missing in action for half a century."

Tobirama would never admit it, but he gaped.

"Will you be amenable for a mind walk? It would make the process of reinstating you much simpler." His student asked, not even trying to hide his amusement.

Tobirama's brain took a second to reboot. Half a century? Time travel? It was considered impossible, though that didn't mean much to Tobirama. He had defied the realm of impossibility too many times to count. An incomplete space time seal with a one in a million chance of doing its designated job, was definitely capable of producing such bizarre result. Tobirama preferred this to being blown to bits, but he wasn't naive enough to think that all his loved ones would have weathered the storm of time for fifty years.

Wait..

"Kagami didn't look any older when he found me in the forest."

"Ah... Shisui-kun bears a great resemblance to his grandfather. But surely you realised his chakra was different?"

Grandfather?? That was going to need some getting used to.

Tobirama centered himself, before answering," Training Ground 44 is saturated with Hashirama's chakra. It's difficult to identify different chakra signatures there, unless I'm concentrating, which, being delirious with blood loss, I had forgone to do.

Hiruzen nodded in understanding, as he always did when Tobirama explained something to him.

"I'll agree to a mind walk by the Yamanaka clan head." Tobirama stipulated. Not only he had classified information that should be accessible only to the highest ranking Yamanaka, he didn't wish for his mind to be invaded by an untrained one, who wouldn't know to suppress involuntary emotional implantation. He already had enough on his plate without the added baggage belonging to someone else.