"Old man! I'm back!"
The window of the Hokage's office burst open as Jiraiya, reeking of alcohol, staggered inside.
Sitting at the Hokage's desk, buried in paperwork and lost in troubled thoughts, Sarutobi Hiruzen was startled by the sudden intrusion. Turning around, he saw Jiraiya clumsily tumble in through the window and collapse onto the floor.
The ANBU hidden nearby, tasked with protecting the Hokage, silently averted their eyes, pretending not to see anything.
"Ah, Jiraiya, your timing is perfect," Hiruzen said, swiveling his chair around and picking up his pipe. After taking a couple of puffs, he caught the heavy stench of alcohol radiating from his former student.
His eyebrows immediately knitted together.
"Where have you been all this time?"
Since the end of the Third Shinobi World War in Konoha Year 51, both Jiraiya and Tsunade had left the village for their own reasons, choosing to travel and train.
Of the legendary Sannin, only Orochimaru had remained in the village—but even he had been occupied with experiments, eventually growing closer to Danzo.
Long before his human experimentation came to light, Orochimaru had already lost any chance of becoming the Fourth Hokage.
He had chosen the wrong political ally—Danzo—slowly drifting away from the faction led by his teacher, Sarutobi Hiruzen.
That alone had sealed his defeat to Minato Namikaze in the election for Fourth Hokage.
"I've been gathering material in the Land of Hot Springs, of course," Jiraiya replied, scratching his head as he pulled himself up from the floor.
Even during the war with Kumogakure, Jiraiya hadn't officially joined the front lines, but he had stayed near the borders of the Land of Fire and the Land of Hot Springs so he could return quickly if needed.
Now that Konoha and Kumogakure had signed a ceasefire, he had finally returned.
"Actually, I had something to talk to you about, old man," Jiraiya muttered, casually grabbing the teapot on the desk and pouring himself a cup.
"The Great Toad Sage has foretold an unprecedented disaster coming to the ninja world. The entire world will be swallowed by darkness!"
He finished the cup of tea and spoke with a heavy expression.
"Right… so you're going to look for that 'Child of Prophecy' who will save the world, aren't you?" Hiruzen responded flatly.
This wasn't the first time he'd heard Jiraiya rant about prophecies, calamities, and chosen heroes.
To someone like him—a Hokage who dealt with reality and politics daily—such mystical predictions always sounded dubious.
The owners of the Three Great Sage Regions weren't even human. Expecting them to genuinely care about mankind's future was laughable.
"No! This time it's far more serious!" Jiraiya protested, his face slightly flushed.
He went on about a "child of darkness who would destroy the world" and a "catastrophe never seen in a thousand years."
Hiruzen merely nodded without comment, then slid a scroll across the desk toward him.
"Orochimaru has defected."
Those few words froze Jiraiya in place.
After a moment, he shouted in disbelief, "Old man! That's not funny! Orochimaru would never—"
But his words trailed off as he looked at the documents in the scroll—testimonies from ninja who had survived Orochimaru's human experiments.
His hands trembled as he read through them.
Detailed reports of rescued victims, horrific experimental logs, and grotesque records of forbidden research filled the pages.
By the time he finished, Jiraiya was silent, his face grim.
Even the prophecy he'd been so concerned about was completely forgotten.
"I'll go bring him back myself!"
He slammed the scroll onto the desk and leapt out the window in a furious rush.
Hiruzen rose from his chair, standing by the window with his pipe in hand. Watching Jiraiya's figure vanish across the rooftops, he let out a long, weary sigh.
Northern Land of Fire. Deep within a forest.
Wearing a raccoon mask, "Tenzo"—the boy who would later be known as Yamato—arrived at the rendezvous point as ordered by Danzo.
He stopped beneath the largest tree in the forest.
At its base was a dark, bottomless hollow.
Cautiously, he stepped inside.
The interior was a long tunnel lit by oil lamps along the walls—clearly an artificial structure.
At the end lay a vast underground chamber, supported by massive intertwined tree roots.
It resembled a gathering place—or perhaps a shrine.
As Tenzo surveyed the area, a strange mist began to rise around him.
Immediately he felt it—this fog was dangerous.
"Who are you? And why do you know of this place?" a voice echoed from within the haze.
Tenzo quickly identified himself.
"I am a subordinate of Lord Danzo! I've come regarding matters concerning Lord Orochimaru!"
At his words, the smoke gathered into a human shape and circled him.
More clouds of mist transformed into hazy figures, surrounding him like spirits.
One faint red wisp hovered around him several times.
"This is Lord Danzo's letter," Tenzo said, producing a scroll.
The tall smoke figure took it, examined it, and muttered, "It bears Danzo-sama's seal."
Then the mist faded away, revealing a tall, plain-clothed man with a thin mustache.
All around, the smoke dissipated, revealing more than twenty men and women dressed in simple attire.
'An ability I've never seen before… a bloodline limit?' Tenzo wondered in shock.
"Tenzo! Is that you?!"
A girl's delighted voice made his otherwise numb heart twitch.
He turned to see the faint red mist had turned into a girl his age—freckled, curly-haired, with bright hopeful eyes.
"Yukimi… he isn't Tenzo," the man holding the scroll—Iburi clan leader Gota—said gently.
He handed the scroll back to Tenzo.
"Explain the situation," Gota said firmly. "For Lord Orochimaru, the Iburi clan will do anything."
The others nodded in agreement.
After all, it was Orochimaru's cursed seals that had once saved them from extinction.
"Is that so?"
A cold, mocking voice suddenly echoed from the tunnel entrance.
"Who's there?!" Tenzo spun around, kunai raised.
He had sensed no one following him!
The Iburi clan members also went on alert.
From the darkness stepped a figure wearing a three-eyed fox mask and a fur-collared cloak.
"So pitiful…" the masked man sighed as he surveyed them.
"The Iburi clan—nearly wiped out after being used as nothing more than test subjects by Orochimaru."
The figure was none other than Uzumaki Menma.
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