Orochimaru

As the classroom door was pulled open once more, a ninja with white hair and a height of over 1.8 meters strode into the room, his wooden sandals clacking against the floor.

"Lord Jiraiya?!"

Of the six people present, everyone except Uchiha Matsuri exclaimed in surprise.

"Hahaha, hello there, everyone." Jiraiya greeted them with a playful grin.

"Team 5, your jonin instructor is Jiraiya, and your team members are Minato Namikaze, Kiba Inuzuka, and Chōji Dōtō." Before the six could respond, the chunin standing to the side opened the team assignment list and began to read.

"Wow, my teacher is actually the famous Lord Jiraiya! My mom will be so happy when she hears this." Upon hearing his name in Jiraiya's team, Chōji Dōtō couldn't help but cheer.

"Teacher Jiraiya, my name is Minato Namikaze. Please take care of me." Minato Namikaze walked respectfully to Jiraiya and smiled.

After seeing off Minato and the others, Kushina Uzumaki and Nohara Shin suddenly became dejected.

With Lord Jiraiya already "snatched" away, surely they wouldn't really be assigned an ordinary jonin, would they...

Uchiha Matsuri, who had known the assignment results all along, had remained calm from the start, waiting for Orochimaru's arrival.

Suddenly, a chill crept into Uchiha Matsuri's heart.

He was close...

As the classroom door slowly creaked open, Kushina Uzumaki and Nohara Shin couldn't help but freeze.

The moment the door was fully opened, a man with pale skin, black hair, vertical pupils, and cold eyes stepped into the classroom.

"How interesting." The man licked his lips, staring at the three stunned students as if he had discovered something amusing. "A Nine-Tails Jinchuriki, an Uchiha brat, and a dead-last. I truly wonder how the teacher managed these assignments."

"Are you... Lord Orochimaru?" Nohara Shin stared at the man, his intuition telling him that the person before him was dangerous. Yet, there was no mistaking the excitement in Nohara Shin's eyes.

"Team 6, led by elite jonin Orochimaru, with team members Uchiha Matsuri, Kushina Uzumaki, and Nohara Shin." The chunin at the side read out.

"Let's go." Orochimaru's gaze was icy; he gave the three a faint glance before walking out of the classroom.

"That person is so scary." Kushina Uzumaki shuddered, recalling the way the man had looked at her.

"Little girl, you shouldn't let others hear you when you're speaking ill of them." Orochimaru stopped abruptly and said in a flat tone.

Kushina Uzumaki was stunned to realize Orochimaru had overheard her muttering. Sensing the atmosphere had turned sour, Nohara Shin quickly changed the subject.

"Ah, um, Lord Orochimaru, where are we going?" Nohara Shin asked with a stiff smile.

"The training ground." Orochimaru tossed the words over his shoulder and kept walking without looking back.

What a dangerous guy. I'll have to be careful around him from now on, Uchiha Matsuri thought to himself, watching Orochimaru's retreating back.

Hokage's Office.

The chunin who had spent the morning reading the assignment results in the graduating classes was now standing respectfully before the Third Hokage.

"Lord Hokage, the assignment results have been announced. All the graduates of this year have been handed over to their respective jonin leaders," the chunin said respectfully.

"Mm, thank you for your hard work. You may go." The Third Hokage smiled and waved the chunin away.

"Yes."

After the chunin left, the Third Hokage suddenly picked up the assignment list on his desk and muttered to himself, "I wonder if it was right to assign these three children to Orochimaru."

Over the past few years, Orochimaru had led four graduating classes, yet all of them had died under mysterious circumstances within six months of graduation, their bodies vanishing into thin air.

When asked for the reason, Orochimaru would always calmly state that they had died in battle against enemy ninja. Although he deeply doubted Orochimaru's explanation, the Third Hokage, who was exceptionally "fond" of Orochimaru, did not let his mind wander to other possibilities.

At the training ground.

Orochimaru stood in the center of the field, swept his gaze over the three, and suddenly spoke: "Introduce yourselves. Name, likes, and dreams."

"My name is Nohara Shin. I like lying on the grass at night and watching the stars. As for my dream, it's to become a great Hokage, just like Grandpa Third Hokage!" Nohara Shin answered first, as he always did.

Orochimaru ignored Nohara Shin and looked instead at Kushina Uzumaki.

"My name is Kushina Uzumaki. I like eating salty ramen, and I don't like coffee or tomatoes. My dream is to become a female Hokage and, during my tenure, completely stop the wars occurring across the world to maintain peace in the ninja realm," Kushina Uzumaki said earnestly.

After hearing Kushina Uzumaki's dream, Orochimaru let out a soft hum, then looked at Uchiha Matsuri, who had been silent for a long time.

"My name is Uchiha Matsuri. I don't have anything I particularly like, nor anything I particularly dislike," Uchiha Matsuri said calmly. "As for my dream, like most people, I aspire to become a Hokage."

When Uchiha Matsuri mentioned his dream, Orochimaru's brow furrowed slightly.

Indeed, if one were to ask about dreams, 99 out of 100 children in Konoha would say they wanted to be Hokage. However, among the four of them, only Orochimaru, who was deeply embedded in the upper echelons, knew that the words "Uchiha Clan" and "Hokage" might never have any intersection.

Thanks to the Second Hokage, the Uchiha Clan held the position of the Konoha Military Police Force. While to outsiders, entrusting the safety of Konoha to the Uchiha Clan was a sign of the Second Hokage's trust and reliance, only the high-ranking officials of Konoha and the members of the Uchiha themselves knew that this was actually the Second Hokage's wariness and restriction of the clan.

By placing the Uchiha Clan in the Konoha Military Police Force—a position that was neither too high nor too low (with the Uchiha clan head serving as the captain)—it signaled that members of the Uchiha Clan could never enter the upper echelons of Konoha, let alone become Hokage.

Yet, this Uchiha youth before him spoke with a calm expression about wanting to be Hokage. Could it be that he was unaware of the Uchiha Clan's current predicament?

Uchiha Matsuri, naturally, was unaware of Orochimaru's inner thoughts. His own reasoning was quite simple.

He wanted to be Hokage, naturally, because only by becoming Hokage could he have the freedom to control his own destiny and, incidentally, search for forbidden techniques related to space-time displacement.

As for the Second and Third Hokage's wariness and restriction of the Uchiha Clan, Uchiha Matsuri, having skimmed through Naruto in his previous life, was well aware of it. However, Uchiha Matsuri also felt that he had never really had much entanglement with the Uchiha Clan since he was a child, and his personality and conduct stood in stark contrast to the arrogant Uchiha.