Chapter 21: Three Questions, Three Answers
Two-thirty in the afternoon. Hiruzen Sarutobi himself sat across from Sakura Haruno, personally supervising her graduation exam.
Clone Technique. Transformation Technique. Substitution Technique. All three — flawless, first try.
But when Sakura accepted the forehead protector from Hiruzen's own hands, there wasn't much of a smile on the old man's face.
Instead, his expression was serious as he looked down at her.
"Sakura. Come with me."
"Yes, Lord Hokage."
Inwardly, Sakura was calm. She'd been expecting this.
What choice did she have? She was graduating, and she still hadn't gotten her hands on the Yin Seal.
This past year, all Hiruzen had given her was Enhanced Strength and the Body Flicker Technique.
As for the Yin Seal — Strength of a Hundred? Not so much as a shadow of it.
Clearly, in Hiruzen's mind, an eight-year-old who'd already mastered Enhanced Strength and the Body Flicker had more than enough on her plate. The rest could come later. Slowly.
And honestly? He wasn't wrong.
An eight-year-old genin packing Enhanced Strength and the Body Flicker was already a borderline-absurd loadout. You couldn't really ask for a higher ceiling at that age.
But Sakura was desperate. There were exactly two people in the world right now who could teach her the Yin Seal technique.
One was Hiruzen Sarutobi.
The other was Tsunade.
Hiruzen was right here within arm's reach. Tsunade, on the other hand, was probably halfway across the continent dodging loan sharks at this exact moment.
Where the hell was Sakura supposed to find her?
The Tale of How an Eight-Year-Old Genin, Through Entirely Normal and Above-Board Means, Acquired an S-Rank Forbidden Jutsu in Under a Year.
Yeah. Not happening. Which meant Sakura had no choice but to play it risky. Pull something unexpected. Win by going off-script.
And clearly — clearly — Hiruzen's behavior right now was proof that her gambit had landed.
The only question was whether it had landed well or badly.
Hiruzen walked with her, step by step, in silence. He showed no sign of speaking, and the longer the silence stretched, the more Sakura's earlier composure started fraying at the edges.
They climbed all the way up to the highest point in Konoha. The top of the Hokage Monument.
The wind up there was strong enough to tug at the hem of Hiruzen's robes and send Sakura's pink hair fluttering around her face.
"Sakura..."
His voice carried a note of weariness.
That ambitious Will of Fire essay she'd handed in today had told him everything he needed to know. This sweet-looking little pink-haired girl was not nearly as adorable as she appeared on the outside.
"I'm here, Grandpa Hokage."
Sakura watched him, reading the conflict in his face.
"Can you tell me, Sakura..." Hiruzen lowered himself slowly to sit on the rocky ground, his clouded eyes drifting out across the village he had spent his entire life protecting. "What is a Hokage?"
He had thought, once, that his life would simply end this way. That he'd train one last pillar for the village in his remaining years, and then he could finally retire with his work done.
But Sakura's exam essay today had stirred something in his quiet, settled old heart.
Once upon a time, he had been called a Shinobi Hero, hadn't he?
Time had a way of erasing things. The Shinobi Hero had long since become a relic of the past. These days, they called him "the Professor" — that ridiculous nickname someone had stuck on him along the way.
Which was just another way of saying that the warrior who had once stormed across battlefields had quietly disappeared from everyone's memory.
In his place was just a Professor who'd been sitting in the village for decades...
"A Hokage..."
Sakura sat down beside him, mirroring his posture, and looked out at this scene she'd only ever watched in an anime in her past life. She spoke slowly.
"A Hokage is the father of a family.
"The teacher of a class.
"The chief of a neighborhood.
"The mayor of a village.
"The leader of a nation."
She paused.
"But of all of those — I think 'father of a family' fits best."
Hiruzen's expression shifted slightly. "I seem to remember Sakura's goal was to become the first female Hokage. So why describe it as a father, and not a mother?"
The pink strands of her hair drifted in the wind. Sakura met his eyes.
"Because compared to a mother, a father is more rational. A father can make harder calls when he has to — even when those choices, in the short term, might hurt the family.
"But if you look at the long term. If you look at the bigger picture..."
She held his gaze.
"That decision is almost always the right one."
Her words left Hiruzen silent.
He couldn't help thinking back to the time he had forced the Hyūga to swallow a compromise.
Years ago, Kumogakure had used a peace treaty as cover to try to steal the Byakugan. Hiashi Hyūga had caught the culprit in the act and killed him on the spot. In the end, it was the body of Hizashi Hyūga — Hiashi's twin brother — that Konoha had handed over to keep the peace.
That decision had been quietly criticized at the highest levels of the village ever since.
But — what other option did he have?
It was the tail end of the Third War. Konoha had burned through nearly every shinobi who could still fight. The Fourth Hokage had only just sacrificed himself. The Nine-Tails jinchūriki was barely three years old. The Uchiha were already under suspicion after the Nine-Tails attack. Danzō was circling like a vulture. Kakashi and his entire generation were still too young.
If they'd lost Kakashi's generation in another war, Konoha would have had no future. None at all.
"So that's how Sakura sees the Hokage."
He let out a soft breath.
"Well said. The Hokage truly is forced into many things he would rather not do. The man at the top of the village — he has more burdens he can never speak of than anyone realizes..."
Hiruzen's wrinkled hand reached over and gently stroked her soft pink hair.
He genuinely liked this child. And it was because he liked her so much that he had brought her up here today.
"Is there more?" he asked, his voice gentle. "More to how Sakura understands what a Hokage is?"
Sakura blinked. The tension at the corners of her eyes eased slightly.
There's an opening.
"It's not that becoming Hokage earns you everyone's recognition," she said. "It's that earning everyone's recognition is what makes you Hokage."
Hiruzen's eyes brightened, just a fraction.
"Then the question becomes — how does one earn everyone's recognition? Just by saying so?" Sakura stood up, facing into the wind that swept across the cliff's edge. A spark of excitement flickered behind her eyes. "Obviously not."
Watching her, Hiruzen felt the first faint prickle of unease at the back of his neck.
"Grandpa Hokage. Everyone in this world speaks the same language. Writes with the same characters. Spends the same currency." She turned her head slightly, her voice perfectly even. "Don't you think there are an awful lot of countries in this world?"
De-nationalize the entire shinobi world.
There it was.
He'd known this little girl wasn't going to play nice.
Hiruzen stared at her, momentarily speechless, a tangle of emotions rising in his chest with no clear way to sort them.
Sakura asked: "If someone could make sure every person in Konoha lived a good life — make sure every person in the Land of Fire never went to bed hungry — could that person be called Hokage?"
The Third Hokage answered: "Yes."
Sakura asked: "If someone could bring Konoha its first true peace. End the suffering of war forever — could that person be called Hokage?"
The Third Hokage answered: "Yes."
Sakura asked: "If someone could make it so that anyone, anyone, could travel anywhere in this world — across mountains, across seas, through snowfields and deserts — without ever fearing for their life — could that person be called Hokage?"
The Third Hokage answered: "Yes."
"Grandpa Hokage." Sakura turned her head and looked down at the village spread out beneath their feet. Her voice was light. And it was heavy. "I want to become Hokage.
"The Hokage who makes all of that real.
"That essay I wrote — my Will of Fire — that's just where it begins."