Not Necessarily the Hokage

"Jiraiya, it seems I have won."

On the path of pursuing immortality, Orochimaru found that neither his teacher nor his closest friend understood him.

Once, Orochimaru had asked Jiraiya who he would support if he and Minato were to compete for the position of Hokage.

At the time, Jiraiya had laughed it off with a vague remark.

It was as if he had said something, yet also as if he had said nothing; he chose to remain neutral.

To Orochimaru, neutrality was betrayal; neutrality meant that Jiraiya had chosen Minato.

After the Third Shinobi World War broke out, Orochimaru observed all of Jiraiya's actions, and they were exactly as he had once imagined.

Orochimaru completely lost faith in friendship; what was the point of decades of friendship in the end?

Indeed, he was destined to be alone.

The only things in the ninja world that would not lie to him were the pages of data in his laboratory.

Although he spent all his time on experiments, Orochimaru still kept an ace up his sleeve. Not entirely trusting that Zhengyi could handle trivial matters, he had hidden summoning snakes on several Konoha ninja, learning of Zhengyi's actions through the snakes' perspectives.

Orochimaru fell into a brief silence.

Aside from handing Zhengyi a few ninjutsu scrolls to keep him occupied, had he really taught him that much?

Point-to-surface tactics, guerrilla warfare, psychological warfare...

Perhaps... this was what it meant to be a genius.

However, this also indirectly proved that his judgment was better than Jiraiya's.

Now, Orochimaru was completely at ease with Zhengyi; he withdrew the summoning snakes and stopped paying attention to the Konoha ninja altogether.

When he handles things, I can rest easy.

Compared to Zhengyi, no one else was talented enough.

"Jiraiya, it seems your judgment isn't very good."

Orochimaru made a decision: once he became the Fourth Hokage, he would assign Jiraiya the most difficult missions to complete.

Because Orochimaru was no longer paying attention, he was unaware that Zhengyi had killed Sarutobi Hayate.

Since Zhengyi had committed the act in his name, this debt would ultimately be settled on his head.

Orochimaru, too, was oblivious to the world outside, focused solely on his experiments and occasionally instructing Anko in ninjutsu.

Such a massive event in the Land of Lightning spread throughout the entire ninja world within a few days.

"Ōnoki!!"

At the Iwagakure front lines, the face of the Third Raikage was as black as charcoal.

He gritted his teeth in fury.

If it weren't for that old man Ōnoki constantly dragging him down, he would still be in Kumogakure. If that brat named Zhengyi dared to run, he would see!

He would chase those skinny bamboo poles down and beat them to death!

Damn it! Damn it all!!

"Iwa-nin! All of you, get out!!"

He certainly wanted to avenge such a humiliating disgrace, but if he withdrew, this road would be captured by Ōnoki in a matter of minutes.

Therefore, he ordered an all-out assault to quickly decide the outcome with Iwagakure.

However.

Before deploying his troops, his eyes rolled, and a sudden inspiration struck him.

Zhengyi had used military tactics in his Land of Lightning. Having read Dodai's reports and records, he understood the general idea of how these tactics were operated.

Was there a possibility that he could imitate Zhengyi's maneuvers and pull the same thing on the Land of Earth?

One had to remember that Iwagakure's two great jinchuriki, Roshi and Han, were both fighting against Konoha.

"Tell A that the title of the world's greatest master of taijutsu should be mine."

"He wants to be the world's greatest master of taijutsu? Hahaha, he can wait until I, his father, am dead."

The Third Raikage set out with his ninja, filled with grand ambitions.

And then... he fell into Ōnoki's ambush.

His campaign failed before it had truly begun.

To cover the retreat of the Cloud ninja, the Third Raikage resolutely decided to sacrifice himself to hold the line.

1 versus 10,000!

A no longer had a father.

Sigh.

The moment news arrived that the Third Raikage had fallen in battle.

Why were the spring days so long? A walked along the edge of the encampment, his heart heavy with melancholy.

He was slowly ceasing to be a boy, slowly learning to shoulder everything...

"Old man!!!"

A had grown, transformed, and matured completely into a man.

A man who grows rapidly enters a period of dividends; he becomes exceptionally calm, and such calmness means no difficulty can stump him.

Zhengyi and a group of Konoha ninja were driven out of the Land of Lightning by him.

Then, A wasted no time returning to Kumogakure to take up the mantle of the Fourth Raikage.

"Tsk."

Zhengyi and his band of ninja walked back toward their station, looking disheveled and dejected.

There was no helping it.

Facing A and the perfect jinchuriki Killer B, it was only natural they were driven out.

But their disruption in the Land of Lightning had bought Konoha's northeast border at least a few months of peace.

While Kumogakure had fewer top-tier powerhouses than Konoha in the northeast, the average quality of their ninja was a cut above, as their daily diet consisted of meat, eggs, and milk, making them all tall and sturdy with an average height of 1.8 meters.

After returning, Zhengyi busied himself with training every day.

After all, the war had not ended, the situation remained unclear, and regarding Zhengyi's killing of Sarutobi Hayate, everyone tacitly avoided mentioning it once they considered the importance of Orochimaru.

Nearly a week had passed since the incident, and seeing that Orochimaru had made no move, it proved that he had at least tacitly allowed Zhengyi to do it.

This realization terrified all the Konoha ninja.

Was the upper echelon's trend one of rectifying military discipline?

"It's over, it's over. I killed someone back in Amegakure, and it was even a member of the Uzumaki Clan."

The one speaking was filled with trepidation.

When Hiruzen Sarutobi heard of this, he merely puffed on his pipe in resignation, "Zhengyi and Orochimaru are truly alike; both are equally cold-blooded."

Rectifying military discipline was, of course, impossible.

He couldn't exactly rent out the red-light district for Konoha ninja to enjoy themselves, could he?

With Konoha's current fiscal revenue, if not for the Daimyo's support, they would be in the red in a heartbeat.

Orochimaru... why couldn't you learn a thing or two from Minato?

"Sigh."

Jiraiya was sighing at the same time.

Orochimaru and his disciple were far too extreme.

If he weren't tied down, he would truly want to go see what Orochimaru was up to.

"Boom~"

Yes, the source of the violent roar was the Tailed Beast Bomb from the Four-Tails jinchuriki and the Five-Tails jinchuriki, Han.

This move, with its immense lethality and massive range, had caused Jiraiya no end of trouble these past few days.

"So cool! Teacher, did our Konoha ninja actually strike deep into the heart of the Land of Lightning?"

The newspaper didn't specify who led the charge.

It only reported the good news, attributing the credit to all Konoha ninja.

Perhaps it was prejudice.

Anyone associated with Orochimaru was destined to be disliked.

Obito, unaware that it was his romantic rival who had struck the blow, looked at Minato with envy, "If only I had been in that squad. It's so noisy here; these two beasts—if I had the Three-Tomoe Sharingan, I'd show them what's what."

He covered his ears.

"Hmph, Teacher, Zhengyi's side surely isn't as intense as it is here, right?"

Rin Nohara froze for a moment upon hearing the name Zhengyi; come to think of it, she hadn't seen him in a long time.

"Well, no matter how intense it is here, the two Iwagakure jinchuriki are being handled by Jiraiya and Teacher Minato; it has nothing to do with you anyway."

Some choose to grow when their father dies; others choose to rot.

Kakashi, during this period, was also a person no one dared approach.

"What did you say? Does that have anything to do with you? Aren't you just slacking off too?"

"Is that so? At least I don't engage in boring displays of male rivalry."

"Bastard! You're even more hateful than Zhengyi right now; I'm going to tear your mouth apart!!"

"Kakashi, Obito, stop arguing."