I Don't Want to Become Hokage

Before dawn had broken, Iruka opened his eyes.

He stared at the wood grain on the ceiling, while two Naruto Uzumakis fought in his mind.

One was the foolish boy who used every clumsy prank he could think of just to earn even a second of someone else's attention.

The other was the executioner from last night, with his icy gaze and utter disregard for human life.

The two figures tore at each other all night, until his eyes were bloodshot.

He suddenly sat up, unable to lie there any longer.

When he stepped outside and the cold wind struck him, he became somewhat clearer-headed. Then he turned and headed for the shops.

"Hey, Iruka-sensei, so early?" The shopkeeper yawned and looked at him through sleepy eyes. "Buying these for Naruto Uzumaki? Is that kid growing lately? He eats that much?"

Iruka looked at the instant noodles and snacks he had instinctively cleared from the shelves and piled onto the counter. His throat felt dry, and he could only nod vaguely.

The heavy plastic bags carved red marks into his fingers, burning with pain.

He thought that perhaps Naruto Uzumaki had not been wrong.

It was the whole village. All of them had personally shoved that child over the cliff with their cold, indifferent stares.

And as his teacher, he deserved to die for it.

Standing before that familiar peeling door, Iruka raised his hand, then lowered it again.

After repeating that several times, he finally made up his mind and knocked on the door.

Knock, knock-knock.

No one answered.

The house was deathly silent, with only the knocking echoing hollowly within.

Iruka's heart sank bit by bit. He struck harder and knocked several more times.

"Stop knocking. That kid left before dawn."

The door across the hall opened a crack. A sleepy old woman poked her head out, cast him an impatient glance, then looked at the bags in his hands with surprise.

"He left? Do you know where he went?" Iruka asked urgently.

"Who knows?" The old woman curled her lip. "That kid was strange today, full of killing intent. I thought he was going to fight someone to the death. Oh, right, he seemed to be heading toward Training Ground Seven."

Before she had even finished speaking, Iruka had turned and rushed off.

Carrying the bags of snacks, he sprinted through the empty streets. The plastic bags swung wildly behind him, rustling loudly.

But he had come up empty again.

Training Ground Seven was empty and quiet, with only the morning breeze stirring the leaves.

Iruka's gaze finally settled on a wooden post in the center of the field.

That post, meant for Genin training, could no longer be called a "post."

It was covered in countless dents and fist marks. Large chunks of wood had been gouged out by force, and its edges bristled with shattered splinters, as though innumerable beasts had savagely gnawed at it.

Iruka slowly walked over and extended a hand, his fingertips touching a deep fist mark.

He could practically imagine the fury and agony Naruto Uzumaki had carried as he battered the place into this state, punch after punch.

This was absolutely not something that dead-last idiot could have done.

"Are you looking for Naruto Uzumaki?"

A cold voice suddenly sounded behind him without warning.

Iruka's entire body stiffened. He spun around to see an ANBU wearing a tanuki mask standing behind him at some unknown point, like a ghost.

The ANBU ignored his shock and continued in a completely emotionless tone.

"There is no need to look."

"The Hokage personally summoned him."

Inside the Hokage's Office, the air was as stagnant as iron.

Hiruzen Sarutobi sat behind his desk. The tobacco in the ashtray before him had already piled into a small mound.

He tried to begin the conversation in the gentlest tone an elder could manage.

"Naruto Uzumaki, about what happened last night..."

"A post-operation report."

Naruto Uzumaki interrupted him, placing a sheet of paper on the desk. The handwriting was so neat it looked printed.

"Mission name: Classified Scroll Recovery. Mission objective: Recover the Scroll of Seals and eliminate the rogue ninja Mizuki. Mission result..."

Hiruzen Sarutobi looked at the report. Every word radiated inhuman precision and indifference.

He pushed the report aside.

"That isn't what I want."

"Then what do you need? A belated moral trial? Or a pointless interrogation of my personal state of mind?"

Naruto Uzumaki's retort was like an icy blade.

Hiruzen Sarutobi's breathing caught.

"You have changed too much, Naruto Uzumaki. Your way of thinking... is dangerous."

"Dangerous?"

Naruto Uzumaki repeated the word, without the slightest ripple in his ice-blue eyes.

"The belief in defending humanity's home will never be dangerous."

"Humanity's home?"

Hiruzen Sarutobi frowned. The term felt unfamiliar to him.

"Konoha is the human home I recognize on this planet. Any threat to that home must be subjected to the most thorough Purification."

"Purification..."

Hiruzen Sarutobi savored those unfamiliar words, words that carried the taste of rust. A sense of unease born from the unknown spread through his aged heart.

"Who taught you all this?"

"The truth."

Naruto Uzumaki answered calmly.

"The only truth humanity bought with the blood and bones of billions, amid the endless darkness of the universe."

Hiruzen Sarutobi fell silent.

He felt as though he was not speaking with a twelve-year-old boy, but facing a specter of war that had emerged from mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

He decided to change the subject to one he could control more easily.

"What do you think of the village's current situation?"

"It is riddled with holes, rotten and inefficient, like a broken ship with a sound structure but an interior long devoured hollow by termites."

Naruto Uzumaki's assessment contained no tact whatsoever.

"The greatest threat comes from within. A rogue ninja named Orochimaru, once a 'companion.'"

Hiruzen Sarutobi's pupils suddenly contracted.

Naruto Uzumaki continued in that flat, unchanging voice.

"He covets the village's forbidden techniques, covets the Sharingan, and covets... a suitable vessel. His Otogakure is merely a weapon of war prepared to overthrow Konoha. According to my projections, his most likely time to act will be during the Chunin Ninja Exams."

Every sentence was a heavy hammer striking viciously against Hiruzen Sarutobi's heart.

These should have been Konoha's highest-level secrets, intelligence the ANBU had traded their lives for. How did this child... know them?

"What... what do you intend to do?"

Hiruzen Sarutobi's voice was slightly hoarse.

"The optimal solution: assemble a small elite assassination unit, infiltrate Otogakure, and carry out a Purification judgment upon him. Before he launches his plot, erase both him and his nest from the map."

"Secondary plan: the instant he crosses the border of the Land of Fire, activate the highest-level elimination protocol. Regardless of the cost, mobilize every available force and kill him on the spot."

"The worst choice: wait for him to enter the village and fight him within our 'home.' That would cause massive, unnecessary civilian and ninja casualties. It is the most efficient form of the foolish act of turning one's own assets into liabilities."

"Purification... erase... kill..."

Hiruzen Sarutobi leaned back in his chair, feeling a profound sense of helplessness.

Every proposal Naruto Uzumaki made was soaked in blood and cruelty, entirely discarding all political, diplomatic, and humanitarian considerations.

"Orochimaru... was once my student!"

"So once again, your emotions have become noise in your decision-making."

Naruto Uzumaki's answer was cold and direct.

"Your 'love' allowed him to defect, allowed him to build a force that threatens us, and may allow him to kill hundreds or thousands of villagers you swore to protect in the future. Your 'love' is Konoha's most fragile line of defense."

"Enough!"

Hiruzen Sarutobi slammed his hand on the desk and rose to his feet. The imposing force of a Hokage erupted from him.

"Konoha was built upon love and trust! The core of the Will of Fire is protecting one's comrades and treating the village as one great family! Not the cold laws of slaughter you speak of!"

He tried to use the Will of Fire to awaken the lost lamb before him.

"The Fourth Hokage also sacrificed himself to protect the village and the people he loved! He..."

"He was a great warrior who used his life to buy time for his home. His sacrifice deserves remembrance, but that does not mean his tactical choice was the optimal solution."

Naruto Uzumaki calmly endured the Hokage's fury, his body utterly unmoving.

"Hokage-sama, put away that laughable 'love and peace' of yours."

"Before true brutality, love cannot forge armor, and prayers for peace cannot stop the butcher's blade."

"The 'Will of Fire' you cherish can still be spoken of so gently here only because countless nameless people have built high walls with iron and blood in the darkness you cannot see."

"All I have done is make that wall higher and harder."

The pressure in the office seemed to drop to freezing point.

Before Naruto Uzumaki's words, Hiruzen Sarutobi's imposing aura was like a wave crashing against an unyielding rock, quietly receding.

He slumped back into his chair and picked up his pipe again, only to discover that his hand was shaking so badly he could not light it.

He could not find a single flaw in the child's logic to exploit.

More terrifying still, he sensed a twisted yet irrefutable loyalty in Naruto Uzumaki's words.

This child truly was protecting Konoha in his own way.

It was simply a way that made Hiruzen Sarutobi shudder.

"What... exactly do you want to become?"

Hiruzen Sarutobi finally asked the question that had lingered in his mind for so long.

"A monster? A butcher?"

Naruto Uzumaki slowly shook his head.

"I have no interest in the hat on your head. A Hokage needs emotion, balance, and must deal with far too much meaningless internal attrition. My energy should not be wasted on such things."

He paused, then gave his answer.

"I will become Konoha's political commissar."

"Political commissar?"

Another new term.

"A supervisor, an enforcer, a correction mechanism that ensures every gear turns toward the one and only goal of 'defending our home.'"

"I will be the line of defense for ideology and the touchstone of loyalty. I will expose every heretic and eliminate every threat, whether it comes from outside or... within."

"I will be the sharpest sword hanging above the heads of all potential traitors."

Hiruzen Sarutobi was completely speechless.

After speaking for so long, he felt that he had managed to infer something.

Yet Naruto Uzumaki before him had only become more obscure.

He did not want to become Hokage. He wanted to become something purer, and more terrifying, than a Hokage.

After a long while, Hiruzen Sarutobi waved his hand, his face full of exhaustion.

"I understand. You... go attend to your own affairs for now."

He neither approved nor rejected it.

He decided to accept this incomprehensible existence for the time being. Therefore, he had to find a way to place the shackles called "Konoha" back on this runaway Jinchūriki.

Naruto Uzumaki said nothing more.

He gave a meticulous military salute, the movement as standard as a textbook illustration.

Then he turned around.

With steps as precise as if measured by a ruler, he left the office.

Hiruzen Sarutobi remained alone amid the curling smoke, gazing at the village he had protected his entire life beyond the window, feeling an unprecedented confusion for the first time.