“You smashed a crater five meters in diameter into the street and damaged a sixty-square-meter house…”
“And this is what you call a good deed, Kazan?!”
Inside the Hokage’s office, Hiruzen Sarutobi roared at Kazan.
The sight was almost exactly like Sengoku losing his mind over Garp.
Kazan said nothing, behaving so obediently that he barely seemed like himself.
“Say something!”
“…You told me to.”
Kazan scratched his head, then said something that nearly made Hiruzen spit blood.
“I didn’t expect his body to be that sturdy. Who knew he’d make such a big hole when he hit the ground?”
“Cough! Cough! Cough!”
Hiruzen nearly choked to death on the smoke from his pipe.
“That’s not what I meant!”
“Why did you suddenly go looking for Uchiha Jō just to fight him?!”
Looking at Kazan’s sturdy, innocent-looking face, Hiruzen couldn’t hold back and started roaring again.
Even the birds perched near the Hokage Building took flight at the sound of his voice and fled into the distance.
“I wanted to see how strong I am now. But everyone else at school is too weak and too fragile! Kakashi didn’t have time, and the Uchiha Clan was the best opponent I could think of.”
So you do know the Uchiha aren’t people you should casually provoke?
“Do you realize that if I hadn’t acted quickly enough, the Uchiha would already have taken you away?”
“Do I need to spell out, one word at a time, what would’ve happened after that?”
Hiruzen braced both hands against his desk and glared at him irritably.
“Tell me. Why have you suddenly started going out of your way to pick fights with people?”
Kazan didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, he asked,
“Old Man Third, things have been getting unstable in the shinobi world lately, haven’t they?”
“Who told you that?”
“No one. I can see it. The shinobi coming back to the village have all been wearing strange expressions.”
Has it already become that obvious?
Hiruzen’s anger faded, and he sighed inwardly.
The Third Kazekage had already been missing for a long time.
Long enough for Sunagakure itself to begin assuming that he was dead.
For the time being, leadership of Sunagakure had fallen to the legendary puppeteer, Granny Chiyo.
Despite being an old woman, Chiyo had an exceptionally fiery temperament.
And now, her attention had turned toward the other four great hidden villages.
Aside from those four villages, the smaller hidden villages simply didn’t possess the ability to silently assassinate the man hailed as the strongest Kazekage.
Sunagakure’s probing naturally put the other villages on edge.
As friction escalated, clashes along the borders became increasingly frequent.
No one could say exactly when full-scale war would finally erupt.
Naturally, Hiruzen had no intention of telling Kazan any of this.
But inwardly, his opinion of the boy rose another notch.
Kazan merely looked carefree and reckless.
In reality, he was remarkably perceptive.
“You don’t need to concern yourself with any of that. What you need to do now is promise me that you won’t casually go around challenging people anymore—especially members of the village’s shinobi clans. Can you do that?”
“I’ll try.”
“I don’t want ‘I’ll try’! If there’s a next time, even I might not be able to protect you!”
Hiruzen pointed toward the door.
“Now get out there and repair the damage you caused. I’ll allow you to use the technique Kakashi taught you.”
So the old man really does know.
Kazan thought to himself.
None of Konoha’s people in power were easy to deal with.
Even so, he put on a surprised expression.
“Old Man Third, you… you knew?”
“Hmph. Don’t underestimate the Hokage, brat.”
Hiruzen smiled smugly.
Every movement within the village fell under his surveillance.
Aside from his elite ANBU forces, he also possessed the Telescope Technique.
Once someone entered his sights, information about that person would inevitably find its way onto his desk.
Unless, of course, the target possessed abilities beyond what the ANBU could handle.
People like Orochimaru and Danzō, for example.
The same went for the Hyūga and Uchiha Clans.
They could only be observed from a distance; infiltrating their compounds directly was another matter.
…….
“That old fox really is difficult to deal with.”
After leaving the Hokage Building, a rare gleam of intelligence appeared on Kazan’s usually carefree face.
The old man was exceptionally skilled at managing people.
Kazan had lived in the village for years, but only over the past few days had he actually interacted with Hiruzen up close.
Yet in only two encounters, Hiruzen’s furious “roaring” and his helpless, grandfather-like “frustration” had quietly closed the distance between them.
Without Kazan even noticing, much of the sense of separation between them had disappeared.
“No wonder he managed to talk Uchiha Itachi and Uchiha Shisui into completely opposing their own clan later.”
Someone like that was terrifying. This chapter was taken from novelping.com without permission.
“But if he’s willing to put on this whole performance in front of me, that at least proves I’ve entered the Hokage’s sights.”
“From now on, I’ve got someone backing me too!”
Kazan became even more curious about which team he would be assigned to after graduation.
Would it be Minato Namikaze?
Although the future Fourth Hokage always seemed to arrive one step too late at the crucial moment, leaving his life filled with regrets.
The Fourth didn’t appear very often in the original story, and whenever he did, he usually wore that sunny smile of his, making it easy to overlook everything else.
But throughout Minato Namikaze’s life, the regret of being “one step too late” seemed to follow him everywhere.
He was hailed as the fastest shinobi in the world.
Yet he failed to save his student, Uchiha Obito, in time.
During the Nine-Tails’ attack, his responsibilities forced him to prioritize dealing with the Nine-Tails crisis, but objectively speaking, he was once again one step too late.
That recurring theme followed Minato throughout his entire life, perfectly displaying the fickleness of fate.
Regardless, during the Third Shinobi World War, Minato Namikaze was one of the strongest allies anyone could possibly have.
“Whatever. No point thinking about it now. Back to fixing the road.”
Kazan once again became a construction worker.
The one supervising him was still a Konoha ANBU.
That sight made the members of the Police Force—the Uchiha shinobi standing not far away—grind their teeth in anger.
They had already complained to their clan head, who had personally gone to the Hokage Building to protest.
But Hiruzen Sarutobi had rejected him.
The Uchiha couldn’t understand why the Third Hokage was so determined to protect this brat.
Could a mere civilian really be placed above the Uchiha Clan?
They didn’t understand.
All they knew was that Kazan had humiliated the Uchiha.
In broad daylight, he had beaten one of their clan’s geniuses into the hospital.
Uchiha Jō still hadn’t woken up.
“Kazan? What are you doing here?”
Kurenai Yūhi’s voice rang out.
Kazan looked up and saw Kurenai walking with several companions.
Judging by the looks of it, they had come out to shop.
“Nothing much. I saw the road was damaged, and I just couldn’t help myself. I didn’t want it inconveniencing everyone in the village, so I decided to fix it.”
“What do you mean, you ‘couldn’t help yourself’? Why don’t you mention who destroyed the road in the first place? And this house too.”
Anko Mitarashi mercilessly exposed his lie.
Konoha wasn’t small, but it wasn’t particularly large either.
While Kazan had been receiving Hiruzen Sarutobi’s roaring lecture, news that he had beaten Uchiha Jō into the hospital had already spread throughout the entire village.
If Konoha ever held a public opinion poll, the Uchiha would undoubtedly rank as the most disliked shinobi clan in the entire village.
No contest.
Because of that, plenty of people were using this incident as an opportunity to mock and criticize the Uchiha.