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"I think Hatake Sakumo was a hero."
It's an easy enough thing for Obito to say. An easy enough thing to say about a man you never knew, a story, a legend or a warning.
It is harder when he is real to you. When you and he are intertwined into one us, and you cannot separate one moment from the whole.
You remember the way he looked when he came home, exhausted and sad and somewhere deep underneath, very afraid (and that terrified you, because you had never seen him afraid before) but he was happy too, and proud. Happy to be home, proud to have gotten his comrades home, happy to see you, proud to see your hitai-ate and hear you try not to complain about D-ranks. If he felt shame in that moment, you could not see it.
You are Hatake, the Wolf, tall-standing and proud and honor-bound and you bow to no one. It was only the two of you who were left then, but you were, both of you, enough for pride.
You remember what he looked like when war was announced, when the first shinobi died in it, when the first genin died, when the whispers grew louder and louder until they pounded in your ears inescapable.
It was shame and shame and shame.
You understood then what your father had done. He had failed the village. He had caused the deaths of countless, and brought shame upon himself and shame upon his name, shame upon your name. He was a shame to the village and they cursed him as they had a right to.
Sepuku is not an easy way out. It is painful, slow. You are all ninja. You know a thousand other ways to kill a man, quicker ways, painless ways, simpler ways. Sepuku takes putting a tanto to your stomach pushing in, pushing deep, spilling your guts out onto the floor. It takes courage, intent, honor.
Your father's death was a choice, one not made lightly. He erred and took the consequence of his error, removed himself and his stain from his clan and his village, left you alone to do right by your name and your ancestors.
You smelled the blood coming home from your chunnin exams. You had passed them as you knew you would but it filled you with excitement and pride anyway. You were a real adult now, and you wanted to tell your father. But you smelled his blood before you reached your house and started running.
Afterwards, you held your head high and your back straight. The townspeople didn't shun you anymore, and when shinobi spoke of your father they did so with sympathy and respect, because in the end he had done the right thing and died well and honorably.
You found him lying in his blood and guts, with the smell of it hanging suffocating in the air.
Every night you dream of his blood. You do not always dream of him, because you are a warrior and this is war, and there are many, many deaths for you to dream of. But every drop of blood in your dreams holds his scent.
When you found him you fell to your knees in his blood and held your breath. You did not cry because shinobi do not cry, and you did not allow yourself to grieve him, because his death was right and natural, it was a gift given to you to restore your pride, because he had been a man you could not be proud of. And you were not allowed to grieve this.
So it is a simple thing for Obito, for whom Hatake Sakumo is only a story of a man who saved his teammates, and whose death is only a sad footnote, unattached.
But for you, you cannot have one without the other. And so there is no sense in which your father was a hero, because if he was right to save them, he was wrong to have left you.