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Before Orochimaru became a name that inspired unease throughout the shinobi world, he was simply a child who stood before Hiruzen Sarutobi with a talent that was impossible to ignore.
Hiruzen was still young when he became the teacher of Orochimaru, Jiraiya, and Tsunade. Of his three students, Orochimaru had been different from the very beginning. He learned quickly, noticed what others missed, and was never satisfied with merely knowing how to perform a technique. He wanted to understand why it worked—and what lay beyond its limits.
Hiruzen saw a rare genius in him.
As the years passed, their relationship ceased to be merely that of a jōnin and a team of children. To Orochimaru, Hiruzen became the teacher who had opened the doors of the shinobi world before him. To Hiruzen, Orochimaru became the student from whom he expected more than almost anyone else he had ever taught.
The child grew.
His talent grew with him.
But his curiosity never stopped growing either.
And slowly, the path once shared by teacher and student began to diverge.
Until the man Hiruzen had once looked upon with pride became someone whose pursuit of knowledge had gone farther than he could comprehend.
And now, inside the Art Store…
Teacher and student sat beneath the same roof.
Between their hands was a story showing them just how far their relationship would go in the future.
[— Manga Scene —]
One of Konoha's jōnin appeared before Sasuke.
"Sorry, but the Chūnin Exam is over."
Sasuke stared at him in confusion.
"!!"
"Go after Gaara and the others, right now!"
The jōnin added:
"You're already at Chūnin level. If you consider yourself a Konoha shinobi, then make yourself useful."
"…!"
The man vanished.
For a moment, Sasuke remained there, looking around.
"Damn…"
"What the hell is going on…?"
Above them, Kakashi noticed the movement.
"Sasuke…!!"
…
On the Kazekage's platform, one of the Sand guards drew a kunai.
"Gaara wasn't of any use, huh…"
Hiruzen looked toward the man beside him.
'I see… So that's what's going on…'
The guard seized the Kazekage from behind and held the kunai close to his throat.
"Heh heh heh…"
Hiruzen's expression hardened.
The Kazekage spoke.
"Your foolishness has stalled things, perhaps even stopped them, Konoha…"
"The victory is mine."
Hiruzen's eyes narrowed.
"Hmph…!"
"I thought I taught you not to count your chickens before they hatch…"
And suddenly—
A hand moved from beneath the Kazekage's headdress.
The man's face began to tear away.
Beneath the mask…
Another face appeared.
Yellow eyes.
A smile Hiruzen knew all too well.
"Orochimaru!!"
…
The two men stood atop the roof.
Hiruzen spoke.
"I knew this day would eventually come…"
But his gaze did not waver.
"However, my head won't come off that easily…!"
Orochimaru smiled.
"I thought I warned you to hurry up and name the Fifth Hokage…"
His smile widened.
"Because the Third…"
He ran his tongue along the kunai.
"…is going to die right here."
[— End Scene —]
Hiruzen did not turn the page.
He didn't need to.
His eyes remained fixed on Orochimaru's face, revealed from beneath the Kazekage's disguise.
Throughout the previous chapters, he had known that Orochimaru stood behind the Sound Village.
He knew about his alliance with the Sand.
And he knew that Konoha was the target.
But there was a difference between knowing that your student stood behind an attack on your village…
And seeing him place a blade against your throat.
'Orochimaru…'
The name was nothing new.
Nor was the revelation a surprise.
And yet, the image carried a weight that none of the previous information had possessed.
Because the man on that page wasn't merely an enemy of Konoha.
He was his student.
…
On the other side of the store, Orochimaru was staring at the same page.
At himself.
At his hand gripping the kunai.
And at Hiruzen standing before him.
He felt no shock.
Ever since the manga had begun revealing the threads connecting the Sound and Sand alliance, he had known that his counterpart stood at the heart of what was to come. Each new chapter told him less about who the enemy was and more about how his counterpart had chosen to carry out his goals.
But this time, it wasn't the plan that caught his attention.
Nor the disguise.
Not even the fact that he had successfully gotten close enough to slit the Hokage's throat.
It was the words.
"Because the Third is going to die right here."
Orochimaru stared at them for several moments.
'So… this is where our relationship ends up.'
…
Hiruzen couldn't stop his memories from drifting backward.
Not to the day he discovered Orochimaru's experiments.
Nor to the day their paths diverged.
But much further back.
A child standing before him.
Far too quiet for his age.
His eyes following his teacher's hands whenever Hiruzen explained a technique, as though he were already trying to dissect it before the explanation was even finished.
Jiraiya needed things repeated to him.
Tsunade understood quickly whenever she cared enough to pay attention.
But Orochimaru…
More often than not, Hiruzen would finish explaining something only to realize that the boy was already thinking about the step that came after it.
Once, that had made him happy.
'I thought your curiosity would make you a greater shinobi.'
Hiruzen's eyes lowered slightly.
Perhaps he had been right.
Just not in the way he had wanted.
…
Orochimaru, meanwhile, didn't need to summon any particular image from his childhood.
It was enough to look at the man on the page.
Hiruzen Sarutobi.
His teacher.
The man who had taught him ninjutsu before the name Orochimaru became something villages learned to fear.
And ironically, his future counterpart wasn't standing before him as a student.
Not even as a missing-nin who had returned for revenge.
He was standing before him as a man who had come to kill him.
'But why?'
The question did not come from hesitation.
It was pure curiosity.
Orochimaru knew himself well enough to understand that killing Hiruzen alone was not an objective that required preparations on this scale.
The Sound Village.
An alliance with Sunagakure.
The Chūnin Exams.
Kabuto.
Gaara.
Infiltrating the heart of Konoha.
Disguising himself as the Kazekage.
All of that was far greater than the assassination of a single man.
So killing Hiruzen…
Wasn't the entire plan.
It was part of it.
But what part?
…
Hiruzen's eyes stopped on another sentence.
"I knew this day would eventually come…"
This time, he couldn't move past it so easily.
His counterpart had said it.
He hadn't asked why Orochimaru was there.
He hadn't appeared shocked that Orochimaru wanted to kill him.
Instead, he had said that he knew this day would come.
As though the two men had carried this ending with them for years before finally reaching it.
'So even I…'
Hiruzen thought.
'I knew.'
A strange weight settled in his chest.
Knowing the future did not make it easier.
Quite the opposite.
It made him realize that his future counterpart would live long enough with the reality of what Orochimaru had become that the possibility of facing him like this would eventually become something expected.
…
Hiruzen lifted his eyes from the page for a moment.
Far away from him, Orochimaru was reading in silence.
Almost the same face.
Younger.
Calmer.
And there was no kunai in his hand.
There was no rooftop separating them from the village below.
Neither of them was trying to kill the other.
Not now.
And that fact mattered more than the page itself.
The future he was reading had not happened yet.
But Hiruzen couldn't use that as complete reassurance.
Because some of the roads leading toward it had already begun.
…
Orochimaru felt his teacher's gaze.
He didn't raise his head immediately.
Instead, he read his counterpart's words once more.
"I thought I warned you to hurry up and name the Fifth Hokage…"
Then:
"Because the Third is going to die right here."
A faint smile appeared on his face.
Not because the thought of Hiruzen's death pleased him.
But because the way his counterpart spoke fascinated him.
Even while threatening him with death, there was still something familiar in the way they spoke to each other.
A teacher and student who knew each other far too well.
Hiruzen responded by reminding him that he had taught him not to celebrate victory before it was secured.
And Orochimaru answered with a warning about his successor.
Even at a moment like this…
They still spoke as though all those years of teaching had never completely disappeared.
'Interesting.'
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Upcoming chapter titles (spoilers):
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Chapter 249: Who Is Orochimaru?
Chapter 250: Enemy of Konoha!
Chapter 251: I Want to Set the Wheel in Motion!
Chapter 252: You Anticipated Your Last Moments!
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