“So, that’s why the two of you started fighting?”
“Mm.”
“You simply wanted to test how strong you were?”
“Mm.”
“YOU IDIOT!”
Hiruzen Sarutobi’s roar thundered through the Hokage Building in the middle of the night.
Kazan felt his eardrums vibrating and hurriedly covered his ears.
“Didn’t your teachers ever tell you that fighting inside the village is forbidden, much less using lethal ninjutsu within its boundaries?!”
Hiruzen Sarutobi had been working overtime every single day lately.
Reports were constantly arriving from the borders, all pointing to trouble in Sunagakure.
Their Kazekage hadn’t appeared for a long time and was suspected to have gone missing—or even died.
The Sand shinobi were practically going insane.
The unexplained disappearance of a village leader was an enormous matter.
The atmosphere along the borders of the Land of Wind, the Land of Fire, and the surrounding regions had become increasingly tense.
War could erupt at any moment.
Hiruzen had been extremely busy lately, constantly dealing with conflicts breaking out along the borders.
By the time he returned home each night, his wife and children were already fast asleep.
And yet…
These two little brats had decided to start a fight in the middle of the street tonight.
All because one of them wanted to find out whether his fists were hard enough.
“I didn’t use ninjutsu. Kakashi did.”
Kazan rubbed his ears.
Didn’t use ninjutsu…
“The technique you used caused far more damage than Kakashi’s ninjutsu!”
What was it called again?
Blue Hole?
Hiruzen had to admit that this little brat had given him quite the surprise.
The kind that was both shocking and delightful.
That taijutsu move, Blue Hole, probably already possessed destructive power comparable to an A-rank ninjutsu.
“That wasn’t a technique. I just picked Kakashi up and threw him at the ground.”
Kazan was still trying to argue his case.
Then again, Garp’s fighting style mostly boiled down to overwhelming everything with sheer physical strength.
Even his ultimate move, Infinitum Explosion, was essentially just throwing full-power punches continuously without stopping.
As for Kakashi standing nearby, his expression had long since turned completely dark.
Kazan’s shameless refusal to take responsibility made him want to challenge the bastard to another fight on the spot.
All he’d wanted to do was go home.
Not only had Kazan attacked him, now the bastard was trying to pin everything on him?
Absolutely ridiculous!
“And you, Kakashi! Why did you go along with Kazan’s nonsense?!”
“Lord Hokage, I explicitly refused. He was the one who wouldn’t leave me alone.”
“You’re lying. If you’d really refused, you could’ve just stood there and let me beat you up. Why did you fight back?”
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Kakashi’s head buzzed.
What kind of idiotic logic was that?
Was he supposed to just stand there and get beaten without defending himself?
“Enough! Both of you little brats are going to repair the street you damaged. It must be completely fixed before sunrise. You are not to cause the villagers any inconvenience or trouble!”
Hiruzen promptly threw both of them out of his office.
As for punishment…
They were two children who had gotten into a fight.
What was he supposed to do?
Making them repair the damaged street was enough.
“Hand Kakashi over to Root, Hiruzen.”
The two boys had barely left before Danzō emerged from the shadows.
Like a fixed-location NPC, he seemed to spawn whenever moments like this occurred.
He had come after hearing that Konoha’s genius, Kakashi, had been beaten up.
But after seeing Kazan with his own eyes, he was thoroughly disappointed.
Specializing only in taijutsu wasn’t the problem.
The problem was Kazan’s reckless personality—causing trouble and then immediately shirking responsibility.
That temperament was completely incompatible with Root.
If anything, bringing him in would probably create even more problems.
Kakashi, on the other hand, was perfect.
The darkness inside his heart was practically made for Root.
“Was getting Sakumo killed not enough? Now you want to ruin his son too, Danzō?”
Hiruzen bit down on the stem of his pipe and glanced over his shoulder.
“Don’t think I don’t know that you were the one who spread those rumors about Sakumo!”
The death of the White Fang had been an enormous loss for Konoha.
He had been a top-tier combatant whose strength was no less formidable than that of the Sannin.
And yet he had died because of vicious rumors.
“I didn’t kill him. Everything I said was true. He abandoned an important mission and caused the village tremendous losses.”
Danzō’s voice remained calm, without the slightest hint of regret.
“As a shinobi, completing the mission should always come first. Unnecessary emotions have no place in a mission. Ultimately, his death was merely the result of his own weakness.”
“Enough, Danzō. I’m tired of hearing your twisted reasoning. I will not hand Sakumo’s son over to you.”
“Fine. Then give me these people. Root needs additional manpower. The shinobi world is becoming unstable.”
Danzō appeared to have anticipated Hiruzen’s refusal.
He immediately produced another list.
It contained the names of numerous shinobi from clans aligned with the Hokage’s faction, most of them talented members of branch families.
Seeing Hiruzen hesitate, Danzō spoke coldly.
“You keep accusing me of killing the White Fang, but you were the Hokage.”
The White Fang had died beneath the crushing weight of public opinion.
Root’s authority was indeed considerable.
Danzō commanded a force of Root shinobi whose strength was not inferior to the ANBU, Konoha’s elite covert unit.
So rather than saying the White Fang had died because of the villagers’ slander, it would be more accurate to say that he had died because of an internal political struggle.
One man had dealt the wound, magnifying the consequences of the failed mission without restraint.
The other had simply stood by and watched.
“That was an accident!”
Hiruzen exhaled a mouthful of smoke.
That much was true.
He had never wanted the White Fang to die.
Konoha needed powerful shinobi like him.
But in Hiruzen’s mind, the White Fang should have been a blade.
A pure blade.
The person who inherited his position as Hokage should rightfully have been his own disciple, Orochimaru.
Not some civilian-born genius unaffiliated with any shinobi clan!
Hiruzen had allowed the rumors to spread merely because he wanted to suppress the White Fang’s reputation and support within Konoha.
Just a little.
That way, Orochimaru would naturally become Konoha’s next Hokage.
But the White Fang had chosen to take his own life at home.
That had been completely beyond Hiruzen’s expectations.
“You can have these people. But I want the matter of the Third Kazekage thoroughly investigated.”
“I will.”
Danzō took back the list and disappeared into the darkness once more.
Hiruzen was left alone in the office.
“Don’t blame me, White Fang.”
“I simply trusted Orochimaru more.”
The White Fang and Orochimaru were equally outstanding.
As two of Konoha’s strongest shinobi, either of them possessed the ability to serve as Hokage.
But Orochimaru…
Hiruzen had watched him grow up.
From a young student to one of the Sannin whose name resounded throughout the shinobi world.
Compared to the White Fang, Hiruzen simply trusted Orochimaru more.
A moment later, he once again used the Telescope Technique to secretly observe Kazan and Kakashi.
Kazan had often been looked down upon at school because he didn’t train in ninjutsu and was considered an oddity.
But Kazan had entered Hiruzen’s notice a long time ago.
Not just any child could treat the Forest of Death as his personal hunting ground.
And tonight, Kazan had exceeded even Hiruzen’s expectations.
He had actually defeated Kakashi, the greatest genius of their generation.
Granted, there were several contributing factors.
Kakashi had underestimated his opponent, allowed anger to cloud his judgment, and grown careless.
Even so, Kazan’s fists, which possessed monstrous strength reminiscent of the Senju Clan, along with the taijutsu he had created himself, were more than enough to demonstrate just how extraordinary his talent truly was.