As the village's administrative and command center, the Hokage Building naturally took top priority.
That very evening, after emergency repairs and wiring by the Technical Corps' ninja, power had already been restored to the Hokage Building's core areas.
Bright light shone through its windows, like a guiding beacon amid the still-dim, newly reborn village.
Once the systems had been tested, the ANBU immediately entered the Hokage Building to set it up again.
Inside, the various departments quickly moved into their temporarily assigned rooms, along with mountains of documents.
Population statistics, supply inventories, casualty reports, mission records, postwar assessments, reconstruction plans, diplomatic correspondence...
After daybreak, they poured in like a tide, only to be swiftly sorted, filed, and processed.
Amid all this bustle, an especially aged, stooped figure slowly entered the Hokage's Office on the top floor.
It was the Third, Hiruzen Sarutobi.
In just a single day, he had experienced betrayal, bitter fighting, serious injuries, a blow to his convictions, and the sight of the village's destruction and rebirth...
The old man seemed to have aged more than ten years all at once.
His eyes were sunken, his complexion ashen, and even his steps were a little unsteady. Only his eyes still instinctively sharpened the moment he entered the office, surveying this entirely new environment.
To his surprise, the office's layout and furnishings, even the positions of the pictures on the walls and the bookshelves, were almost identical to those of the office before its destruction.
The portraits of the four Hokage on the wall, however, had become wooden reliefs.
Even the large desk he had sat behind for decades was exactly the same, from the grain of the wood to the curves of its corners and the arrangement of its drawers. To the touch, the wood even felt sturdier,