A Ghost

The warm, gentle afternoon sunlight streamed through the window and fell on the black-haired, fair-skinned young man, dispelling some of the gloom that clung to him.

Orochimaru watched everything in the meeting room with keen interest, his golden, slit-pupiled eyes gleaming.

He had always loathed meetings like this, full of power struggles and mutual bickering, but he hadn't expected to witness such an entertaining spectacle today.

From the Uchiha's proposal of the Madara Eye Theft Theory to the exhumation and examination of the coffin, the proceedings had been full of twists and turns. But once it was confirmed that Madara's body wasn't inside, the Uchiha had won a resounding victory.

Konoha was now at its weakest point since the village's founding. It couldn't afford any more unrest.

Sarutobi Hiruzen had no choice but to appease the Uchiha.

The proposal to expand the Military Police Force had passed, the matter of relocating the clan was no longer being raised, and the village's reconstruction plan had even granted the Uchiha two additional commercial streets.

But none of that was the point.

Most importantly, although the Uchiha hadn't cleared themselves of suspicion over the Night of the Nine-Tails, they had managed to cast suspicion on the Hokage Faction's leadership as well.

The shit was about to hit the fan.

Couldn't shake it off, couldn't wash it away? Then tear down the latrine and make sure whoever threw it got covered in stink, too.

"Nicely done, Chen." Orochimaru grinned and looked toward the Uchiha.

Surrounded by his clan members, Uchiha Chen stood ramrod straight, like a victorious general, smiling with reserved humility.

It was the youth and vitality that Orochimaru envied, yearned for, and found so captivating.

The Hokage Faction had suffered a crushing defeat in its clash with the Uchiha today. Still, by convention, the leadership would hold a brief meeting after the jonin assembly.

Once the jubilant Uchiha and the jonin, each with their own thoughts, had departed, only the Third Hokage, the three advisors, Jiraiya, and Orochimaru remained in the meeting room.

As soon as the Uchiha were gone, Danzo immediately puffed himself up.

"Hiruzen, what exactly are you playing at? You've been acting strangely ever since you opened that coffin. Don't tell me you've been caught in a genjutsu?"

Mitokado Homura frowned as well.

"Hiruzen, you were far too soft today. We should have consistently upheld our policy of suppressing the Uchiha Clan."

Sarutobi Hiruzen ignored his old comrades' complaints. He took a pinch of tobacco from the small pouch in his robes, packed it into his pipe, and lit it.

He had thought someone had awakened a Mangekyō, but now there was a good chance this was connected to Madara. Could those possibly be the same thing?

"You don't understand!"

Sarutobi Hiruzen narrowed his eyes, his thoughts drifting back many, many years.

Although Danzo and Homura were about his age, they hadn't become Senju Tobirama's students until they were nearly adults.

They had only heard of the Two Heroes of the Ninja World. They had never witnessed their might firsthand.

How powerful could the Two Heroes of the Ninja World really have been, in their eyes?

Perhaps a rank and a half above Hiruzen, and a rank above Senju Tobirama at most, right?

Even if the mastermind behind the Night of the Nine-Tails had transplanted his Sharingan, non-Uchiha who transplanted Sharingan suffered a heavy toll!

By that reckoning, how much stronger than Sarutobi Hiruzen could the enemy be?

But Sarutobi Hiruzen had been raised by the Second Hokage from childhood. During the Battle of the Valley of the End, the Second Hokage had taken him, still a young boy, twenty miles away to prepare to support the First.

He had seen it with his own eyes.

A gigantic blue warrior two or three hundred meters tall, the Nine-Tails clad in Susanoo as armor, and the Senju Great Buddha, which towered over five hundred meters.

The battle between them had been so immense that even twenty miles hadn't felt like a safe distance.

Sarutobi Hiruzen's expression grew distant. As he recalled the earth-shattering scene from decades ago, his voice turned sharp despite himself.

"A ghost with a Sharingan is lurking around Konoha!

"Every force in Konoha—the Hokage and the Uchiha, the clans and the civilians, the Anbu and Root—must fight side by side!

"Now is not the time to weaken the Uchiha!

"Besides, I never intended to push them too hard this time. Take a look at this."

Sarutobi Hiruzen pulled a scroll from his robes. "This is the intelligence that came in this morning from the Cloud and Mist fronts."

Danzo snatched the scroll from the Third Hokage without a hint of courtesy. After reading it for a moment, his expression changed. "The Cloud Ninja have sent five thousand reinforcements, and the Mist Ninja two thousand? Have they gone mad?"

The Third Shinobi World War had dragged on for six or seven years. Every nation was exhausted, and its people longed for peace.

Konoha had already signed peace treaties with the Sand and Stone, and the intensity of its wars with the Mist and Cloud had been steadily declining over the past year or two.

But now, Kumogakure and Kirigakure saw a chance to expand their gains. Once they confirmed that the Nine-Tails Incident had really happened, they almost immediately mobilized troops to invade the Land of Fire.

"Clever, Hiruzen!" Danzo's wrinkled face twisted into a cold sneer.

"The village has suffered heavy losses, while the Uchiha have preserved their strength—and now you've dangled a huge reward in front of them.

"To prove that they had nothing to do with the Nine-Tails Incident, and to prove they deserve that reward, those madmen will be falling over themselves to head to the battlefield."

Sarutobi Hiruzen shook his head. This hadn't been his plan from the start. He had always agreed with the Second Hokage's policy of confining the Uchiha to the Military Police Force.

War would thin the Uchiha ranks, but it might also hone them into a force of elite shinobi.

Still, given how things had unfolded by chance, the outcome wasn't necessarily a bad one.

"Jiraiya!"

Sarutobi Hiruzen pondered for a moment. Then he suddenly sat upright in his chair and spoke in a clear, ringing voice.

"I'm assigning you to lead four thousand troops. Depart in three days and hold off the Cloud Ninja beyond the northern border of the Land of Fire. As for the eastern front against Kirigakure, have the Uchiha send four hundred men, and the village will provide another six hundred, bringing the total to a thousand. Orochimaru, you've just returned from the eastern front. Take some time to rest."

Sarutobi Hiruzen found his most gifted student increasingly difficult to read. He thought it would be better to keep him where he could see him.

"Sounds good!"

Orochimaru showed no resentment at having his authority taken away. Instead, he looked at the Third Hokage's deeply wrinkled, visibly aged face and gave a strange grin, baring his white teeth.

"Old man, you've aged quite a bit just in the past half month. If you're struggling, why not ask Tsunade to teach you the Yin Seal?

"Since I have nothing to do, I'll be going!"

Orochimaru got up and left without waiting for an answer.

He simply couldn't stand the sight of his teacher looking so old, with that deeply wrinkled forehead.

It was a constant reminder that one day, he might end up the same way.

He had more important things to do than war or power struggles!

"Orochimaru, wait for me!" Jiraiya hurried after him.

"What a good boy! Though he was cuter as a child!"

Oblivious to the disgust and pity hidden in Orochimaru's eyes, Sarutobi Hiruzen proudly bragged to his old comrades about how talented his student was.

After the three advisors had left as well, Sarutobi Hiruzen took a leisurely puff of his pipe and removed the Hokage Hat from his head.

He hadn't worn this object, which had accompanied him for decades, in over a year. Now that he had put it on again, it felt a little strange.

The Fourth Hokage had died young. I need to take good care of this hat so I can pass it down to the Fifth Hokage someday.

For that, even temporarily yielding to the Uchiha was acceptable. The village couldn't afford another internal conflict.

"Orochimaru..." Sarutobi Hiruzen rested one hand on the hat.

After a long while, he put the hat back on and murmured with a shake of his head.

"Jiraiya has no interest in becoming Hokage, and Shinnosuke lacks the strength and prestige.

"I suppose I'll have to wait for Kakashi, Asuma, and their generation to grow up!"