Staff Master: Dou Huan

Thirteen years earlier, in Year 20 of Konoha.

It had been six years since the Second Hokage's death, and the Third had been in office for five years.

At the time, things were far from peaceful, both inside and outside the village.

The First Shinobi World War had not only shattered the Five Great Nations' arrogance; it had also shown the small countries surrounding them an opportunity.

The Land of Fire in particular, which occupied the most fertile territory in the Shinobi World, had recently found itself clashing at its borders every few days with small countries harboring ill intentions.

The Land of Hot Water and the Land of Grass, its closest neighbors, seemed utterly unafraid of the Land of Fire's strength. They had set up their forward camps right where the three countries' borders met.

The battlefield was not far from the Valley of the End. On a clear day, one could still make out, in the distance, the stone statues of Senju Hashirama, the God of Shinobi, and Uchiha Madara, the Asura of the Ninja World, facing each other.

But those hundred-meter statues belonged to the past. With its supply of soldiers depleted, Konoha was struggling to hold its own against the tide of attacks from the two small countries.

So, after discussions among the Konoha High Command, the Chunin Exams, which had originally been held once a year, were changed to twice a year: once in April or May, at the turn of spring and summer, and once in October or November, at the turn of autumn and winter.

Dou Huan had just finished taking the Chunin Exams. He walked out of the Forest of Death with his head hanging. He had failed the exams three years in a row, and he had little confidence about the second round that year.

It wasn't that he had any glaring weakness in ninjutsu, Taijutsu, or genjutsu.

His Taijutsu went without saying. His staff work was in a class of its own in Konoha. After graduating, he had taken on countless D-rank and C-rank missions, honing his skills even further and developing Martial Combat Style: Staff Form Six.

His ninjutsu was decent too. He had mastered the basic Three Body Technique, and had used the mission credits he'd saved up to acquire the C-rank Fire Release: Flame Bullet. After three years of training, he could freely control how much chakra he used to produce oil, letting him adjust the strength of the flames.

He hadn't neglected genjutsu, either. The C-rank Demonic Illusion: False Surroundings Technique, which focused on confusion, and the C-rank Demonic Illusion: Tree Binding Death, which focused on restraining the target, were more than enough for him.

Despite having no obvious weaknesses, he kept failing the Chunin Exams because of a serious flaw in his personality.

Once Dou Huan got into a fight, he was quick to lose himself in the heat of battle. Whether he was sparring with classmates at the Ninja Academy or carrying out combat missions after graduation, either his opponent went down or he did. One way or another, the fight had to end with a winner!

But the Chunin Exams at the time weren't taken in teams of three, as they would be later. They tested each ninja's ability to fight alone.

Once Dou Huan entered the Forest of Death, he would get so caught up in fighting his opponent that he forgot everything else. Losing to someone would have been one thing, but all three times, he had been disqualified for exceeding the time limit.

Even his instructor had run out of ideas. Dou Huan's personality was too deeply ingrained to be forcibly corrected.

Downhearted, Dou Huan had no idea how he ended up near the school. The sweet scent drifting out of the Kan-Kuri-Kan confectionery drew him inside before he could stop himself.

That was the first time Dou Huan met Takako. The sweet chestnut cakes and Takako's bright smile made him forget, for a moment, that he had failed the Chunin Exams again.

As an orphan, Dou Huan was not actually lonely.

He had plenty of friends at the orphanage. When he got a little older and his aptitude as a ninja was discovered, his warm nature helped him make many new friends at school.

Not all of them had become ninjas after graduation, but Dou Huan never neglected them in his spare time. If anything, they had grown closer than they'd been at school.

That was why Dou Huan had been able to buy his little house near Konoha's central commercial district.

He had a good reputation and plenty of people willing to vouch for him, so the former owner had agreed to sell.

Like other young people, Dou Huan trained hard with the goal of becoming Hokage. But in his heart, he also had an idol he looked up to.

His idol was none other than Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Shinobi Hero who had recently displayed incredible prowess on the border battlefield, using Five Release: Great Combo Technique to suppress the forces of the Land of Hot Water.

Dou Huan didn't just admire him; he went around telling everyone else how great he was, too. He often regaled people with stories of the Shinobi Hero's exploits, compiled from the latest reports.

The thing was, Sarutobi Hiruzen had only been in office for four years, and he had little standing in the village.

Lady Mito was the only one keeping the major clans in check. They didn't dare oppose the new Hokage openly, but there was certainly no shortage of rumors and gossip behind his back.

He had appointed his own guards from the Sarutobi Clan, for one, and had agreed to let Shimura Danzō set up an Anbu training department on the outskirts of the village—the Root. The clans used both decisions as ammunition against him.

The great clans also guided public opinion among the villagers, many of whom were critical of the new Hokage.

In those circumstances, a dissenting voice stood out in the village.

Several of the great clans immediately set their sights on the inconspicuous Genin who kept singing the Third's praises.

At first, they thought the four people in the Hokage's office had put him up to it. But after investigating, they discovered he was just an orphan with no connections.

So the first thing the clans thought to do was shut Dou Huan up.

But if the clans had noticed Dou Huan, so had Sarutobi Hiruzen. Before they could act, he visited each of the clans involved in the scheme, thwarting their plans and forcing them to back down for good.

In the clans' eyes, Dou Huan had now been firmly marked as one of the Hokage's men. He was a ninja of the new Hokage's faction.

Dou Huan's appearance also made Sarutobi Hiruzen realize how futile his original strategy of winning the clans' support had been. By contrast, his position as Hokage carried some real weight with the vast population of civilian ninjas.

With this new approach in mind, Sarutobi Hiruzen needed only two years to eliminate the discordant voices in the village and secure his position as Hokage.

Of course, the great clans like the Uchiha and Hyuga would never be that obedient. But they kept their opinions within their own clans, no longer spreading them among the village's civilians.

As for Dou Huan, who had given him this new perspective, Sarutobi Hiruzen made sure he was rewarded. At his quiet instruction, the Mission Center assigned Dou Huan only low-risk, noncombat missions.

The Third's thinking was simple: You want to become a Chunin, don't you? I'll give you safe missions. Once you've reached the mission quota, you'll be able to advance just by completing enough of them!

But things rarely went as planned. After Dou Huan had saved up enough money and married Takako, a young cook at the Kan-Kuri-Kan confectionery, they had barely had a few days of newlywed life when danger found him on an escort mission.

True to his nature, Dou Huan stayed behind to cover the others' retreat. He fought the bandit gang led by several rogue ninjas until his final breath.

Sarutobi Hiruzen blamed himself for what happened. He visited Takako several times after she had received the body of her husband, who had died so soon after their wedding. He also left a ninjutsu scroll for Touma, Dou Huan's posthumous son.

If Touma hadn't asked his mother what kind of person his father had been that day, Takako might never have remembered the scroll she had hidden in the household shrine.

When Touma untied the scroll and saw the ninjutsu recorded inside, he finally understood how much Sarutobi Hiruzen had valued the young man who had given him a way to turn a hopeless situation around.