The Old Fox

"You left a crater five meters across in the street and damaged a sixty-square-meter house..."

"And you call that a job well done, Kazan?!"

In the Hokage's Office, Hiruzen Sarutobi roared at Kazan.

He was every bit as hysterical as Sengoku was when dealing with Garp.

Kazan said nothing. He was so well-behaved he hardly seemed himself.

"Say something!"

"...All right, then." Kazan scratched his head, then said something that nearly made Hiruzen spit blood. "I didn't think his body was that sturdy. I never expected him to make such a big hole."

Cough, cough, cough!

Hiruzen Sarutobi nearly choked on his own smoke.

"That's not what I meant!"

"Why did you pick a fight with Jing Uchiha out of nowhere?"

Looking at Kazan's guileless face, Hiruzen Sarutobi couldn't help roaring again.

The birds near the Hokage Building took flight at the sound and fled into the distance.

"I wanted to see how strong I am now. But nobody else at school is strong enough, or tough enough! Kakashi didn't have time, and the Uchiha Clan was the best opponent I could think of."

So you do know the Uchiha are trouble?

"Do you realize that if I hadn't acted quickly, the Uchiha would have taken you away?"

"Do I have to spell out what would've happened to you then?"

Hiruzen Sarutobi braced both hands on his desk and spoke irritably.

"Tell me. Why have you been going around looking for fights lately?"

Instead of answering, Kazan asked, "Old man Third, things have been unsettled in the Shinobi World lately, haven't they?"

"Who told you that?"

"No one. I can see it. The Ninja coming back to the village all have something wrong with their expressions."

Has it become that obvious?

Hiruzen Sarutobi's anger faded, and he sighed inwardly.

Sunagakure's Third Kazekage had been missing for so long that the Sand Shinobi had concluded he was dead.

Grandma Chiyo, the Legendary Puppeteer, had temporarily taken charge of Sunagakure.

Grandma Chiyo was a woman, but she had an exceptionally fiery temper.

Now she had turned her attention to the other Four Great Shinobi Villages.

Aside from the Four Great Shinobi Villages, the smaller villages lacked the means to quietly assassinate the Third Kazekage, who was hailed as the Strongest Kazekage.

Sunagakure's probing had put the other villages on edge. As tensions rose, clashes along the borders grew more frequent.

Hatred and anger were rapidly building along every nation's borders. No one could say when full-scale war might erupt.

Hiruzen Sarutobi had no intention of telling Kazan any of this, but he thought more highly of him now.

Kazan only seemed careless and blunt. In truth, he was remarkably perceptive.

"You don't need to worry about any of that. What you need to do now is promise me you won't go around picking fights, especially with the village's Shinobi Clans. Can you do that?"

"I'll try."

"Trying isn't enough. If there's a next time, even I won't be able to protect you! Now get out there and repair what you damaged. You have my permission to use that technique Kakashi taught you."

So the old man knew after all.

The people in power in Konoha were none of them easy to deal with, Kazan thought. Still, he put on a look of surprise.

"Old man Third, you... you knew?"

"Hmph. Don't underestimate the Hokage, kid."

Hiruzen Sarutobi smiled smugly.

Everything that happened in the village fell within his watch.

Besides ANBU, his most elite force, he also had the Telescope Technique.

Whenever someone caught his attention, information on them would land on his desk.

Unless the target lay beyond ANBU's reach.

Orochimaru and Danzo, for example. The Hyuga Clan and the Uchiha Clan, too, could only be watched from a distance; ANBU couldn't infiltrate them.

That old fox is hard to deal with.

After leaving the Hokage Building, Kazan's carefree expression gave way to a shrewd look.

The old man knew how to win people over.

In all his years, Kazan had only dealt with Hiruzen Sarutobi up close these past few days.

Yet in just two encounters, Hiruzen Sarutobi's "roaring" and the "exasperation" of a grandfather at his wit's end with his grandson had quietly drawn them closer and erased the distance between them.

No wonder he later talked Uchiha Itachi and Shisui Uchiha into turning completely against their clan.

A man like that was terrifying.

Still, if he went to the trouble of putting on that show for me, it proves I've caught the Hokage's eye. From now on, I've got someone powerful behind me!

Kazan looked forward to the team assignments after graduation even more.

Would I get Minato Namikaze?

Minato always seemed to arrive a step too late at crucial moments, leaving his life full of regrets.

The Fourth Hokage didn't appear often, and whenever he did, his sunny smile made it easy to overlook everything else.

But throughout his life, he was dogged by the regret of being "a step too late."

He was known as the Fastest in the Shinobi World.

Yet he had failed to save his student, Obito Uchiha, in time.

During the Nine-Tails' Attack, duty drove him to deal with the Nine-Tails crisis first, but in doing so, he was once again a step too late.

That recurring "step too late" defined Minato Namikaze's life, perfectly capturing the cruel unpredictability of fate.

Even so, during the Third Shinobi World War, Minato Namikaze was one of the strongest allies anyone could have.

"Ah, why am I thinking so much? Back to fixing the road."

Kazan went back to working with cement.

ANBU from Konoha were still supervising him. Not far away, the Ninja of the Military Police Force—members of the Uchiha Clan—gritted their teeth in frustration.

They had complained to their clan leader, who had gone to the Hokage Building to protest, only to be turned away by Hiruzen Sarutobi.

The Uchiha couldn't understand why the Third Hokage was so determined to protect this brat.

Could a civilian really rank above the Uchiha?

They didn't understand. All they knew was that Kazan had humiliated the Uchiha Clan.

In broad daylight, he had beaten one of their clan's geniuses so badly he was hospitalized, and he still hadn't woken up.

"Kazan? What are you doing here?"

It was Kurenai Yuhi's voice.

Kazan looked up and saw Kurenai Yuhi walking with a companion. They looked like they had come out shopping.

"Oh, nothing. I saw the road was damaged, and I couldn't just leave it like that for everyone in the village."

"What do you mean, you couldn't leave it? Why don't you tell us who damaged the road? And that house, too."

Mitarashi Anko exposed his lie without mercy.

Konoha wasn't small, but it wasn't that big, either.

While Hiruzen Sarutobi had been giving Kazan a tongue-lashing, word that he had sent Jing Uchiha to the hospital had spread throughout the village.

If Konoha held a popularity poll, the Uchiha would be the village's most hated Shinobi Clan, hands down.

So plenty of people used the incident as another chance to speak ill of the Uchiha.