"I always have this ominous feeling!" Inside the Hokage Office Building, Hiruzen Sarutobi took the pipe from his mouth and lightly tapped it, scattering ash across the desk.
The rest of the desk was piled with dossiers on ninjas from various villages, most of them Genin who had come to take the Chunin Exams.
Most of these dossiers had been submitted by the ninjas at the village entrance. To determine whether any spies had slipped in among them, the Hokage's workload had increased severalfold.
"Otogakure..." Picking up one of the dossiers, Hiruzen Sarutobi's gaze narrowed slightly. He had always felt a faint unease about this ninja village that had emerged in recent years, though even he did not know where that feeling came from. Logically speaking, no matter what such a small village did, it should not have posed a threat to a behemoth like Konoha.
There was nothing suspicious in the dossier either. Hiruzen Sarutobi sighed softly. "Am I really getting old and paranoid? Is this a sign of nervous exhaustion?"
He raised his head and looked through the window toward Kage Rock. The stone faces of the four Hokage remained unchanged, yet of the four, only he was still alive. A sense of bleak loneliness rose within him.
"It seems I should consider the matter of the Fifth Hokage after these Chunin Exams. In that case, should I call Jiraiya back?"
He lowered his head in thought for a while, then looked up and called out, "Someone."
A shadow silently appeared before him.
Elsewhere, on the back mountain of Konoha, sunlight continuously filtered through gaps in the trees. A figure in short sleeves stood in the middle of the forest.
The fan-shaped clan crest on his back revealed his identity: Sasuke Uchiha, the sole surviving orphan of the