Chapter 112: The Prophet-Teacher, Hiruzen Sarutobi
"I'm listening, Jiraiya."
Jiraiya stood up quickly, swallowing hard as he met Hiruzen's level, unreadable
gaze. The boisterous Toad Sage looked unusually small in the center of the
office.
"Which part first, Sensei?" Jiraiya asked weakly.
"The student. The Rinnegan. Start there," Hiruzen commanded, waving a hand.
"We'll deal with the dreams later."
"Right. At the end of the Second War, Orochimaru, Tsunade, and I encountered a
group of children in the Land of Rain," Jiraiya began, steadying his voice.
"They were war orphans. Their parents had been caught in the crossfire between
our forces and the Rain."
"They followed us, begging for food, for survival... for a way to protect
themselves. You know how it is, Sensei. Seeing children like that in the mud...
it broke me. I told the other two I'd stay behind for a while to ensure they
wouldn't die in a gutter."
"Konoha didn't start that war, but we finished it. I felt we owed them that
much."
Orochimaru narrowed his eyes, a flicker of memory returning. "Ah, I remember
now. The three brats I suggested we put out of their misery? You actually stayed
to play house with them?"
"I did," Jiraiya nodded, sighing. "I spent three years in the Rain. I taught
them the basics of Ninjutsu. One of them, a red-haired boy named Nagato, carried
the Uzumaki bloodline."
"But it was more than that. His eyes... they were the Rinnegan. Or at least,
they looked exactly like the myths. He was talented, certainly. He picked up
forms and nature transformation faster than an average Jonin. But to be
honest..."
Jiraiya paused, looking at his teammates. "He wasn't a freak of nature. His raw
aptitude was lower than yours, Orochimaru. And he lacked the 'Spark' I see in
Minato."
"The Ninja World is a big place. I've seen ripple-patterned eyes in the medical
texts before. I couldn't be 100% sure it was the Sage's gift. Combined with the
Great Toad Sage's earlier prophecy about a 'Child of Destiny,' I figured if
Nagato was truly the savior, he'd make a name for himself. I left them to find
their own path and returned to the village."
"But when I went back to look for them a year later... the reports said they
were all dead."
"I... I never reported it because I didn't want to explain why I'd been training
foreign orphans in secret."
Hiruzen puffed on his pipe. "And why are you reporting it now? If they're dead,
they're dead. What changed?"
"The Great Toad Sage woke up, Sensei," Jiraiya said, his voice dropping to a
low, somber note.
"He had a 'Great Dream.' It completely rewrote the prophecy of the Child of
Destiny. In this new vision, he saw a massive tree—half-withered, half-blooming.
It was rooted in the ruins of the old world."
"The tree was nourished by a Pillar of Fire. And inside the trunk, a Giant Ape
was being born. The Ape was wreathed in flames so intense they seemed to set the
sky itself on fire."
Hiruko blinked, a mental question mark appearing over his head. Does Mount
Myoboku have a marketing department? he wondered. The metaphor was so
heavy-handed it was practically a biography of Hiruzen Sarutobi.
"After the birth of the Ape," Jiraiya continued, "the Sage saw two futures."
"In one, the Ape tore the tree apart, and the sap within flowed across the
earth, bringing a green, lasting peace to every nation."
"In the other, the Ape used the fire to ignite a global inferno, turning the
entire continent into a wasteland of ash."
"But in both visions, the Ape was followed by an army of shinobi with different
colored hair and eyes, all wearing a fanatical, unified expression. And the Sage
mentioned the Rinnegan. He saw it on the battlefield—sometimes as the Ape's
greatest rival, and sometimes as its loyal shadow. He couldn't tell which was
which."
Jiraiya looked at Hiruzen with a look of desperate pleading. "The Great Toad
Sage said this Ape is my 'Guiding Teacher.' He told me to stop looking for a
student and start following the Prophet-Teacher if I want to survive the coming
shift."
Orochimaru burst out laughing. It was a cold, mocking sound.
"A Great Tree? A Giant Ape in the fire? An army of fanatical followers?"
"Jiraiya, the only thing missing from that 'prophecy' is the Hokage's social
security number. If Danzo's Anbu haven't arrested the Toad Sage for blatant
political commentary yet, I'm filing a formal complaint for negligence."
Hiruko nodded in agreement. "I'll second that. The imagery is... distinct."
Jiraiya groaned. "I'm serious! I don't tell the toads about village politics!
They don't even know what a 'High Commissioner' is!"
"So," Jiraiya said, looking back at Hiruzen. "When I heard the Sage say the
Rinnegan was still on the board, I realized Nagato might still be alive. Or...
that my choice to leave him changed the tracks of fate."
"Help me, Sensei. What do I do?"
Hiruzen remained silent for a long time, the smoke from his pipe obscuring his
face.
"Don't flatter yourself, Jiraiya," Hiruzen finally said. "In the grand scale of
history, a single man's hand-wave rarely causes a hurricane on the other side of
the world. Usually, it causes nothing at all."
Jiraiya blinked, stunned by the bluntness.
"The Great Toad Sage's visions are a form of high-level sensory jutsu," Hiruzen
analyzed. "But as you've seen, the future isn't a script. It's a simulation
affected by real-time variables. His dream is just one possibility out of a
million."
"Just like that 'Ape' he saw. It can be a savior or a destroyer. It could be me,
it could be you, it could be Danzo—or it could be a kid in the Academy we
haven't noticed yet. Hell, in one of those futures, Minato might actually be the
one wearing this hat."
Orochimaru gave a sharp nod. He was already thinking: If Sensei hadn't had that
breakthrough after the Kushina incident... if we hadn't reconciled... I probably
wouldn't have been Hokage. And a Flying Raijin master like Minato would have
been a very strong candidate.
"As for your 'secret' students," Hiruzen said, his voice turning clinical.
"I know why you hid them. I'll say it for you."
"First: You didn't trust the administration's stance on Uzumaki refugees. You
saw it as a 'High Council Scandal' and didn't think I'd protect a Rain-born
orphan."
"Second: You were terrified of Danzo. You knew that even if Nagato didn't have
the Rinnegan, his Uzumaki blood would make him a 'target' for the Root. You
thought I'd let Danzo turn your student into a tool."
"Third: You were losing faith in Konoha. You couldn't see a path to peace within
our walls, so you chose to invest your hope in a 'Child of Destiny' outside of
them."
Hiruzen looked at the speechless Jiraiya. "Am I right?"
Jiraiya felt a cold sweat break out on his back. Every word was a direct hit. It
was a summary of his own subconscious failures. He realized that his secrecy
wasn't about "mercy"—it was about a lack of trust in his own Master.
"Essentially," Hiruzen sighed, "the problem was me. I failed to build a system
where my own students felt they could come to me with a miracle."
"Sensei, no! It was my own stupidity!" Jiraiya shouted, his face turning bright
red with shame.
"Regardless of the eyes, the past is written," Hiruzen said, looking at Hiruko.
"Hiruko, I'm going to dictate. You record. We're sending these to the
Administrative Branch to be codified as formal Village Ordinances."
"Understood, Lord Hiruzen!" Hiruko snapped to attention, pen ready.
Hiruzen laid out two new laws:
1. The Supplementary Code of Shinobi Conduct: Every Leaf shinobi who
establishes a personal or professional relationship with a foreign ninja
must report the contact to the Administrative Branch immediately. Disclosure
grants the shinobi full village legal protection for that relationship.
Concealment is grounds for an immediate Internal Affairs audit.
2. The Rare Resource Intelligence Ordinance: Any contact with a "Strategic
Ocular Power," "Forbidden Heritage," or "High-Tier Kekkei Genkai"—regardless
of whether the target is dead or alive—must be reported to the Intelligence
Division for archival within 24 hours. Individual judgment is no longer a
valid reason for delay.
In the old Konoha, these laws would have caused a riot. Ninjas were poor; a rare
eye or a secret scroll was their "Loot." They didn't trust the village to
compensate them.
But in the new Konoha, with the Social Safety Net and the "Sage Pill" profits,
the ninjas were stakeholders. They had seen the Hokage buy Kakuzu's threads with
cash. They knew the village had the gold to pay for their intel.
"The law is not retroactive," Hiruzen said, looking at Jiraiya. "The Rain
orphans are a closed file. But if you do it again, Jiraiya... I will have to
make an example of you."
"I'm not joking. I have no interest in 'clearing the house' of my own family."
Jiraiya shivered. "I'm on it, Sensei! I'll file a report on every woman I've
ever had a drink with in every town I've visited! Total transparency!"
Orochimaru smirked. "And what about the prophecy, 'Dead-Last'? Are you going to
travel the world looking for a new teacher now? I don't recall the Hokage
allowing his students to apprentice themselves to outsiders."
"Maybe you should just quit now and save us the paperwork?"
"Shut up, Snake!" Jiraiya barked. "Can't you read? The 'Ape' is the
Prophet-Teacher! I've already found him! Why would I look anywhere else?!"
Hiruzen watched his students bicker, then delivered a sharp, heavy blow to the
top of Jiraiya's head. BAM!
"Stop babbling about monkeys and focus on the Grass Village deployment! We have
real work to do!"
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