"Orochimaru, what on earth are you trying to do?"
Inside the Hokage Office Building, Hiruzen Sarutobi called Orochimaru over to lecture him.
Ever since Orochimaru returned from the frontline of Iwagakure, he clung to the office like a slippery snake and refused to leave.
He did not want to leave, and Hiruzen could do nothing about it.
What was infuriating was that Orochimaru was not a lone commander; he had subordinates from Kumogakure and support from the Root.
With Orochimaru as the leader, the Root turning into the ANBU, Masaichi assisting from the sidelines, and twelve hundred ninjas making up one-seventh of Konoha's total ninja force, did that not equal a small country?
In Hiruzen's mind, this lineup was even stronger than an ordinary small country.
Hiruzen felt the problem was tricky. He could easily handle Danzo and Orochimaru by himself, but unfortunately, these two now had a military strategist.
Looking at the silent Orochimaru in front of him, Hiruzen felt a headache the size of a splitting skull.
Leaving Masaichi in Konoha meant Danzo and Orochimaru effectively gained an extra brain.
Send Masaichi away on a foreign assignment? That bastard could help Orochimaru pull together an army of missing-nin in minutes. Why was he so certain? Because Masaichi had started recruiting missing-nin in the northeastern war zone of the Land of Fire!!
When it all came down to it, Masaichi found ways to get money.
The village's finances had originally been in the red.
It was Masaichi who suggested Orochimaru do a few things.
Now the figures on Konoha's ledgers were completely enough to finish fighting the Third Shinobi World War, and there might even be a few million ryo left over.
"What is it? Teacher Hiruzen, did I do something wrong?" Orochimaru smiled with a hint of grimness. "Or is it that Teacher Hiruzen has the ability to conjure money out of thin air, or perhaps Teacher Hiruzen hopes the frontline ninjas won't get their compensation payouts, and use inferior kunai and explosive tags to deal with the enemy?"
"You can make the ninja clans suffer, but you cannot make the countless common folk of Konoha suffer."
"You!" Hiruzen was choked to death, a glob of phlegm stuck in his throat neither going up nor coming down.
Looking at his exasperated teacher, Orochimaru inwardly sighed that Masaichi's tactic of pinning moral labels was truly effective. Who in the village would dare stand in opposition to the Konoha villagers?
"Cough, cough, cough..." Hiruzen burst into a violent fit of coughing. Orochimaru had angered him quite badly.
He suddenly missed the Orochimaru from his childhood who used to call him Teacher Hiruzen at every turn.
"Would you like some drink, Teacher? Don't make yourself sick with anger."
Orochimaru poured Hiruzen a cup of water, carrying a heavy sense of mockery.
"Hmph, who would still dare drink anything given by you." Hiruzen countered with heavy sarcasm of his own.
Orochimaru did not get angry either, just watching Hiruzen with a beaming smile.
"Get out!"
"Hai... Hai..." Orochimaru lazily strolled out of the Hokage Office Building.
The battle for the Hokage seat between Orochimaru and Minato began!
Madara had slept for two days. Upon waking up, he was plotting the grand spectacle of making Obito despair of the Ninja World, so he no longer stirred up conflicts among the major ninja nations.
The wars between the various villages miraculously came to a standstill, leaving only some localized frictions.
The Ninja World experienced a temporary peace for these few days.
Without even pretending, Hiruzen heavily fed resources into Minato's mouth, assigning him the most difficult missions and cultivating Konoha's elite jonin as his teammates to build bonds.
Minato served as the captain, with team members: Choza Akimichi, Shibi Aburame, and Kakashi.
Today they headed to a realm called the Country of Roran, and their mission was to guard the queen of that place.
Here, he met a blonde kid who claimed to come from Konoha's future, as well as Yamato, a future ANBU ninja of Konoha. Together, they shattered the usurpation plot of a minister in this country named Anrokuzan!
At the Dragon Vein, before leaving, the sixteen-year-old Naruto had a bellyful of questions he wanted to ask the Fourth Hokage standing before him who looked somewhat similar to himself.
Looking at the Konoha ninja from the future, Minato also had a bellyful of questions he wanted to ask.
If it were before, Minato certainly would not want to know about future events; he only wanted to do his own job well.
Yet Konoha now... seemed about to split apart.
Although Orochimaru was not the Hokage, the Third Generation lord had said back then that he looked favorably upon Orochimaru and so on, bestowing upon Orochimaru power akin to a "crown prince."
The Hokage Office Building actually transmitted two sets of orders every day.
The two sets of orders frequently fought like contradictory forces.
He was not stupid; he knew everything the Third Generation lord did was for his sake.
Yet if they kept fighting like this, the only thing that would suffer losses was Konoha.
Minato possessed a somewhat gentlemanly demeanor. He felt he was still young and could give up the struggle against Orochimaru, so he wanted to hear how the future Orochimaru fared.
If Orochimaru did well.
That way... giving up the Hokage position would make him feel a bit better inside.
Otherwise, when a childhood dream was within arm's reach, abandoning it always left one feeling hollow inside.
What Naruto wanted to ask was: since we look so much alike, could you be my dad?
Minato, however, overlooked the similar face and identical hair color of the kid before him.
He asked, "Naruto, Yamato, how does future Hokage Orochimaru do?"
"Orochimaru? Hokage?" Naruto and Yamato looked at each other in blank dismay. How Orochimaru did as Hokage they had no idea, but Grandpa Third (Lord Third) certainly had been done in by him.
"Minato! The future is completely nothing like what you think."
"Captain Yamato is right, dattebayo."
The two of them chimed in with one sentence after another, laying out the Konoha Destruction Plan.
Minato, Kakashi, and the rest all wore grim expressions!
In some future day, Orochimaru allied with Sunagakure to destroy Konoha? And even the Third Generation sacrificed his life in the battle to defend the village?
And also... Minato?
"Hey, who is this Minato you guys keep talking about?" Kakashi looked at Minato, then back at Naruto and Yamato.
"Yes, the future Fourth Hokage of Konoha is precisely Minato Namikaze." Yamato confirmed Kakashi's guess.
"I am... the Fourth Hokage?" A surge of tumultuous emotion welled up in Minato's heart. Had he achieved his dream?
In other words, Orochimaru launching the Konoha Destruction Plan stemmed from his resentment over the Fourth Hokage position being snatched away from him?
Minato did not blame Orochimaru at all. What he thought was that if only he could discover Orochimaru's extremism ahead of time and communicate well with him.
"Then in the future, did I stop Orochimaru and bring him back?"
Yamato looked at Minato in astonishment. That natural, airheaded, kind-hearted appearance of his was really just like Naruto's. To bring back someone as utterly heinous as that criminal Orochimaru, he said?
"No. In October of the forty-eighth year of Konoha, you sacrificed your life during the Nine-Tails Rebellion."
Naruto knew nothing at all about the Nine-Tails Rebellion, but Yamato had served in the ANBU and knew a little bit of the situation.
On October 10th in the forty-eighth year of Konoha, when Nine-Tails Jinchūriki Kushina was giving birth, she was attacked by someone...
That she was attacked by someone was also merely Konoha's conjecture, because everyone involved, including the Third Generation's wife, died on that night.
October of the forty-eighth year of Konoha? Wasn't that just a year from now?
"Was it Orochimaru?" Kakashi did not even know how he was going to face Masaichi when he returned. What if Masaichi was also involved in it?
"Didn't Orochimaru defect yet at that time?" Yamato muttered. He was bad at history, too; how was he supposed to know?
"Orochimaru defected?!" X4
"Yeah, the Third Generation lord discovered him conducting human experiments in secret." Yamato knew this! And very clearly, too! He used to be one of the experimental subjects Orochimaru had used.
"Not only that! He even wanted to seize Sasuke's body!!" Naruto said indignantly. When it came to Orochimaru's vile deeds, even someone as usually absent-minded as him could list a whole bunch of them in detail.
Before you continue