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[— Manga Scene —]
15 days had passed since the training began.
On the stones by the riverbank, amid the fading smoke of a summoning, a fresh tadpole wriggled.
"…"
"…"
Master and student sat facing each other in tense silence, the tadpole wriggling between them.
Then the sage finally exploded.
"You call THIS a frog?! I won't help you unless you're serious!!"
"Use your chakra as if your life depended on it!"
"SHUT UP!!"
Naruto screamed into his face, forehead to forehead.
"I AM serious!!"
And the two glared at each other, nose to nose, sparks all but flying between them.
[— End Scene —]
"Fifteen days…"
In Konoha's reading hall, Tsunade lowered her volume and looked over at Jiraiya, seated not far away.
"Fifteen whole days, Jiraiya. And the result of your legendary training: a tadpole, and a forehead-to-forehead screaming match with a child."
"An educational screaming match."
Jiraiya corrected with complete calm, without lifting his eyes from the page.
"Details matter."
"That's all you've got?"
But the man did not take the bait this time either.
He was reading the page of the quarrel with narrowed eyes — the eyes of a teacher evaluating another teacher's work.
'The amount of chakra the boy has on his own will never be enough to summon a real toad… and my counterpart has known that from day one.'
'So he isn't waiting for the training to succeed this way.'
Then his eyes returned to one sentence in particular from the quarrel.
Use your chakra as if your life depended on it.
'…A suspicious choice of words, my counterpart.'
'When a teacher tells his student "as if your life depended on it," he is training him.'
'But when he says it knowing that the required chakra sits behind a cage in the boy's belly…'
Jiraiya closed his eyes for a moment.
'…he is paving the way.'
"Jiraiya? What's wrong?"
asked Tsunade, noticing the change in his expression.
"The coming pages…"
the man said quietly, turning the page.
"…are going to be unpleasant."
…
But the next page did not return to the riverbank.
It returned to the heart of the village… where the news had finally arrived.
[— Manga Scene —]
A grand meeting hall in the Hokage's building.
The Third Hokage sat at the head, two elderly advisors seated at his right and his left, while the village's jonin lined up in rows before them: Kakashi, Guy, Asuma, Kurenai, Ebisu, and others.
"What… Hayate has…?"
"Yes…"
answered an old jonin with a grim face.
"Gekko Hayate's body was found near Kikyo Castle…"
A heavy silence settled over the hall.
"Did Orochimaru kill him?"
someone asked.
"No — that conclusion is premature… Hayate was pursuing Kabuto, the spy from the Sound Village."
"But it's true that Orochimaru is attempting something."
"Then… we must cancel the Chunin Exam… and capture Orochimaru…"
"No. He revealed himself to Anko and threatened us not to cancel the exam…"
"What do you mean?"
"Orochimaru has enough power to found a small village of his own… After he left this village, I'm certain the other nations have been watching him."
"He resents Konoha… any nation would want him."
"Then…"
"The Chunin Exam, in which all the allied ninja are participating… could the allies have conspired with Orochimaru… to betray Konoha?!"
"Well… the alliance treaty is only a verbal treaty, after all…"
"How do you think the ninja wars began?"
And here, the two elderly advisors spoke.
"In any case… we do not have enough information right now."
said the old man with the glasses.
"We must not draw conclusions before we investigate the matter further."
"We have already sent the ANBU on a decoy mission to the other nations…"
added the old woman beside him.
"It is unwise to make any careless move. There is a chance the enemy is waiting for us to make exactly those moves."
And at last… the Third Hokage himself spoke.
The old man looked out at the rows of jonin standing before him, and said quietly:
"Besides… I trust every one of you."
Then he raised his eyes — and in them was a hardness that returned to the hall, for a moment, the ghost of the God of Shinobi who had ruled the village through two wars:
"If the worst should happen… we will gather the full strength of Konoha…"
"…and we will FIGHT!!"
And before him, the jonin of Konoha stood as a single rank, their faces giving the same answer without a word.
[— End Scene —]
…
In the reading hall, the first to move was a small child wearing a mask.
Little Kakashi, six years old, tugged quietly at his father's sleeve and pointed his finger at the panel where his future counterpart received the news of Hayate's death.
"Dad… that's me."
"Yes."
Sakumo smiled from behind the page.
"Why didn't he cry?"
Sakumo paused for a moment.
It was a simple question — the kind only children know how to ask. His son's future counterpart, in that panel, had received news of a comrade's death with a composed face and an unshaken voice… but the trained eyes of the father saw what the child had not: the way the masked man's shoulders stiffened in the drawing, for a single instant, before returning to their practiced ease.
"He did cry."
Sakumo said at last, quietly.
"But on the inside. Sometimes, the mission doesn't allow shinobi anything else."
Little Kakashi thought about the answer for a long time, then returned to the page and stared at his grown counterpart.
"…I don't like that."
"Neither do I."
said Sakumo, pulling his son a little closer.
"Neither do I, Kakashi."
…
From Orochimaru's perspective, the meeting pages were a singular experience.
It is not every day that a man sits in a public hall, surrounded by half his village's leadership… reading with them, at the very same moment, the minutes of a meeting debating his own arrest.
'They are debating my capture… while I read along with them.'
He licked his lips slowly.
'What a marvelous manga.'
But what truly stopped him was not the awkwardness — awkwardness was a feeling he had never known. What stopped him was the line that ended the entire debate before it began:
He revealed himself and threatened us not to cancel the exam.
'Look at this…'
'Konoha knows he exists. Knows he is planning something. Commands an entire army of jonin…'
'And yet, the exam will be held on schedule. Because my counterpart said so.'
The man's eyes narrowed, and deep within them gleamed something between admiration and unease.
'My counterpart is not running from Konoha…'
'He is dictating to it when to move, how, and in which direction.'
'The man is not playing chess against them… he is playing with their board and their pieces alike.'
…
And on the eastern side of the hall, where the great clan families sat, the head of the Hyuga clan, Hyuga Masanori, was reading the meeting pages with his twin sons seated on either side of him.
Hiashi and Hizashi, ten years old.
"Father."
said Hiashi, the elder by minutes, his brows knotted in open indignation.
"A verbal treaty? An alliance between great villages… on words that were never written down?"
"And what is the problem with that?"
the father asked calmly, in the tone of a teacher who knows the answer and wants to hear it from someone else.
"Words fly away! Words get denied! If it were a written, sealed treaty—"
"Nothing would have changed."
The twins turned to their father.
"Paper, Hiashi, does not stop a kunai. And seals do not deter a man who has decided to betray."
said Masanori, his white eyes on the page.
"Treaties, written or spoken, are worth exactly the weight of the intent behind them. That is what that jonin on the page is saying when he asks: how do you think the ninja wars began?"
Then the man fell silent for a moment, and his eyes returned to another line on the pages.
We have already sent the ANBU on a decoy mission…
'Intelligence, deception, investigations…'
'And in all of it — where were the eyes of the Hyuga?'
The white eyes narrowed slightly.
'A conspiracy of this scale woven inside the village walls, a spy moving freely, an examiner murdered on the rooftops…'
'In that future… this village's eyes were not open wide enough.'
And while the father was lost in his silent critique, Hizashi, the younger by minutes, leaned toward his brother and whispered:
"Did you notice? In all the meeting pages…"
"What?"
"No one accused anyone by name. Not the Sand, not anyone. All they said was: the allies."
Hiashi looked at his brother, then at the page.
"…Because they don't know what we know."
And for the first time, the ten-year-old twins felt that strange sensation the adults in the hall had known for chapters now: the weight of knowing more than the heroes of the story.
…
And by the western wall, where the Uchiha see everything and are seen by no one without effort, the clan head Hogaku closed the volume over his finger and turned to his son.
"Your assessment, Fugaku?"
"The decision is sound."
the young man answered without hesitation.
"Canceling the exam would have meant declaring fear before the whole world, and moving forces early would have shown their hand to a watching enemy. Patience, with the ANBU deployed on decoy missions… that is the best possible play with their incomplete information."
"Hm. That is the shinobi's assessment."
Hogaku nodded.
"Now give me the policeman's."
Fugaku was silent for a moment, his eyes returning to the pages.
"…The body of a certified examiner found near Kikyo Castle, a full night after his murder. A spy of known identity walking the village for weeks, meeting whomever he pleases on the rooftops."
The young man's black eyes narrowed.
"Konoha in those pages has an army that can fight… but its eyes at home are asleep."
"Good."
said Hogaku, reopening the volume.
"Remember this lesson, Fugaku. Villages do not fall from their walls…"
"…they fall from their alleys."
…
But the most particular reaction to those pages belonged to two adjacent seats near the head of the hall.
Mitokado Homura… and Utatane Koharu.
For the first time since the manga began, their counterparts had appeared on the page.
The two elderly advisors — elderly already in their own time — sat staring at their versions twenty years older: the future Homura with his glasses and white beard, calling for patience and investigation… and the future Koharu with her pinned hair, speaking of the ANBU's decoy missions.
"I am still saying the same sentence."
Homura said at last, in a dry tone impossible to place between satisfaction and sorrow.
"No conclusions before investigation… twenty more years, and the very same sentence."
"And were you expecting it to change?"
Koharu replied without lifting her eyes from the page.
"Men like you are born with one sentence and die with it."
"And you? Look at yourself there. Still seated at the Hokage's left after twenty years."
"And you are still at his right."
the old woman said calmly.
"It seems no one ever found anyone to replace us… or we refused to die before we could rest assured."
The exchange between them was low and dry — the kind mastered only by two people who have served together for half a century.
But when they reached, together, the final page of the meeting…
both fell silent.
If the worst should happen… we will gather the full strength of Konoha… and we will FIGHT!!
The line belonged to the future Hiruzen.
A man of seventy, who had ruled the village through two wars, handed over the hat once and then returned to carry it again… standing before an entire generation of jonin, declaring his readiness for a third war with eyes that knew no retreat.
Koharu slowly raised her eyes from the page and looked across the hall toward its head…
where the present Hiruzen was reading that very same page with a calm face.
"Look at him there."
the old woman said quietly.
"Seventy years old, a village being stabbed from within, a student plotting to crush it…"
"…and still, the first thing he says to his men is: I trust every one of you."
"That is the man we chose that day."
said Homura, folding his arms.
"And it seems we were not wrong… not in our time, and not in theirs."
Then his eyes returned to their two counterparts on the page, seated at that old Hokage's right and left, still in their same places after twenty years.
"And we are still there too… restraining, warning, investigating."
"Our job, Homura."
Koharu closed her volume quietly.
"Someone must be there to say: wait… so that he can be the one to say: we fight."
…
And a few seats away from the advisors, there was one man who had not commented on the meeting pages with a single word.
Shimura Danzo.
The man was reading those same pages with his usual rigid face, his eyes sweeping the drawn meeting hall line by line, and face by face.
Hiruzen at the head.
Homura at his right.
Koharu at his left.
The jonin in rows.
'…'
Danzo turned the page. Went back. Turned it again.
'A village discovering a plot to crush it. A spy who moved freely within. An examiner assassinated on the rooftops. An emergency meeting gathering the village's entire leadership…'
'…its entire leadership.'
His thumb stopped at the edge of the page and pressed on it — a slight press that no one noticed.
'Hiruzen has appeared since the earliest chapters. Orochimaru has become the story's axis. Jiraiya claimed an entire cover. Even Homura and Koharu… even those two elders who haven't left their chairs in thirty years — the manga drew them today in the seats of honor.'
'And I?'
'Twenty years of this village's future laid bare on paper… and the name Shimura Danzo has not appeared in a single line.'
The man reread the meeting page for the third time, his eyes searching among the jonin's background faces, among the shadows drawn at the edges of the panels — for a mask, for a silhouette, for any trace.
Nothing.
'…Very well.'
Danzo straightened in his seat slowly, and his face recovered its total stillness.
'The Roots do not show in the light. That is their very definition. My absence from the pages is not an absence from that future… it is proof that I am still working exactly where I should be working: underground, where the artists' pens do not reach.'
The explanation was logical. Coherent. Comfortable.
But somewhere, in a dark corner of the mind of the man who had devoted his life to the shadows…
a small question remained, grinding like a pebble in a shoe:
'A conspiracy of this scale woven against Konoha… an emergency meeting of this level convened…'
'…so where was I?'
Danzo turned the page calmly, and decided that the answer lay in the coming volumes.
And that he was not going to like it.
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Upcoming chapter titles (spoilers):
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Chapter 209: Madara's Game!
Chapter 210: The Fourth Hokage!
Chapter 211: And Every Single Person in This Village!
Chapter 212: The Hidden Sand Village Appears in the Manga!
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