Hiruzen Sarutobi, the esteemed Third Hokage, was having one of those afternoons where paperwork was the greatest enemy.
That is, until an ANBU agent materialized in his office with the subtlety of a brick through a window, delivering news that made the Hokage's pipe very nearly become a permanent part of the ceiling.
"I beg your pardon," Hiruzen said, his voice a carefully controlled monotone that hid a tidal wave of internal screaming. "Could you repeat that?"
He felt that his ears must be failing due to his age advancing every day, because for a moment he thought the ANBU said his three best jōnin—the best medic, the best swordsman, and his fire princess—had returned looking like they had a serious fight, with Tsunade currently unconscious.
The ANBU, a model of stoic professionalism (or at least, he was trying to be), gave a curt nod. He could understand the Hokage's shock. Obviously, it was about his beloved disciple, Tsunade.
"Hokage-sama," the agent confirmed, his voice muffled by the animal mask. "Sakumo-sama and Princess Azula have returned. They brought Lady Tsunade, who is... seriously injured. They are en route to the hospital now."
The ANBU braced for a wave of paternal concern, a torrent of worried questions about his student's well-being.
What he got instead was a puff of smoke and the faint sound of air whistling through a vacated space.
By the time the ANBU raised his head, the Hokage's chair was empty, like a top that had just witnessed a miracle of desertion. The man himself had vanished, leaving behind only the ghost of his shock and a very confused, masked subordinate.
Now, to be perfectly fair to the ANBU, he had completely misunderstood the source of Hiruzen's concern. Oh, he was worried about Tsunade, of course.
But his brain had already done the math: Tsunade + Alive + Konoha Hospital + Mito Uzumaki = Problem Eventually Solved. It was a simple, reliable equation.
No, what had sent Hiruzen teleporting across the village with the speed of a man who'd just sat on a kunai was a far more terrifying question: Who, in the name of all that is holy, could do that to Tsunade?
This wasn't just any team. This was the "if-we-send-them-and-they-fail-we-might-as-well-paint-a-target-on-the-village" team.
Sakumo, the White Fang, a man so sharp he could probably cut your ego. Azula, a genius who made others called geniuses look like fools. And Tsunade, who could punch a crater into a mountain and then heal the mountain's feelings afterward.
Fighting them simultaneously was Hiruzen's idea of a very bad day, and even he wasn't confident he could leave Tsunade in a state requiring a hospital gurney.
The mission had been supposed to be simple! Intel suggested the Hidden Sand and Hidden Mist were getting a little too chummy, planning a secret meeting of high-level officials.
The objective was elegant in its simplicity: crash the party, assassinate a few key figures, and ideally leave behind some "evidence" that would make the two villages blame each other. A classic case of diplomatic arson.
He hadn't, however, expected the guest list to include the Mizukage and the Kazekage.
That's right, from Hiruzen's frantic mental calculations, only the combined might of two other Kage-level entities could result in the catastrophic failure state currently unfolding in his hospital.
Hiruzen arrived at the hospital in a swirl of robes, noting the heightened panic of the nurses and the general atmosphere of a beehive that had been poked.
He didn't bother with pleasantries; his chakra senses led him directly to the source of the trouble. He slid the ward door open, and the sight that greeted him was a masterpiece of exhaustion.
Sakumo looked like he'd tried to wrestle a tailed beast and then lost a debate with it. Azula, while maintaining a regal posture, had a look in her eyes that promised arson. And in the bed lay Tsunade, unconscious, a state so unnatural it was almost a violation of the laws of physics.
"Hokage-sama!" Sakumo greeted, springing to a semblance of attention with a wince. The man was a stickler for protocol; even with one teammate down and the other radiating silent menace, his first instinct was to file a mission report.
Hiruzen waved a dismissive hand. "At ease, Sakumo. The paperwork can wait. You look like you've had a… well, a day."
Sakumo let out a sigh that seemed to originate from the very depths of his soul.
"A 'day' is one word for it, Hokage-sama. It was… an educational experience." He glanced at Tsunade. "She's stable. Azula's… unique flame-based medical jutsu patched her up. She says a few injections and Tsunade will be back to her peak again."
Just as Hiruzen opened his mouth to ask the million-ryo question—what happened?—the door opened again.
This time, it was Uzumaki Mito, her serene face a mask of calm authority, with a tearful Nawaki clinging to her robes.
Azula, in a truly staggering display of multitasking, had mustered the chakra to send a shadow clone to Mito the moment they'd arrived—exhausted from using the Flying Thunder God to transport three people after what Sakumo privately thought of as "The Great Kage Kerfuffle."
Nawaki immediately burst into fresh tears at the sight of his sister. Mito's sharp senses scanned Tsunade, and a flicker of understanding passed over her face—she likely assumed the injury was from the reckless use of that incomplete seal.
Her eyes met Azula's, and an entire conversation happened in that single glance. It was a silent, telepathic treaty between master and student, forged in fire and mutual exasperation.
"Don't worry, Mito-sensei," Azula said, her voice smooth but her gaze subtly cutting toward Hiruzen. "Tsunade is alright."
The statement was technically for Mito, but its true purpose was to give the Hokage the information he actually wanted—the tactical bottom line—so he would stop clogging up the room with his thinly veiled anxiety.
She could feel his concern for Tsunade, but it was buried under a mountain of political dread, and Azula had absolutely no patience for such hypocrisy. If he wanted the debrief, he should just ask for it.
Hiruzen, blissfully unaware that he was being mentally filed under "Annoying Bureaucrats," simply assumed Azula was distraught. It was a little hurtful that she'd greeted Mito and ignored him, but he was a big boy. He could take a hint.
"Right," he said, clearing his throat. "I'll… leave you to it. Sakumo, with me. I need to get a record on what happened."
Sakumo, a man wise enough to know when to follow orders and when to flee a room full of emotionally charged women, practically teleported after Hiruzen. Paperwork, after all, was a familiar and much less terrifying battlefield.
---
"Let me see if I have this straight," Hiruzen spoke, his voice deceptively calm, like the surface of a lake right before a monster erupts from its depths. "You are telling me that not only have the Hidden Mist and Hidden Sand, but that the notoriously proud Hidden Cloud and the Hidden Stone have also, in fact, joined the alliance?"
He paused, letting the sheer absurdity of it all hang in the office air, thicker than his tobacco smoke. "An alliance so clandestine that the Four Kage themselves have apparently been having secret summits?"
This could, without a doubt, be filed under 'The Most Shocking Thing Hiruzen Has Heard Since Becoming Hokage,' a category with fierce competition.
He felt a distinct, unwelcome sensation in his chest, a sort of psychic clench that made his blood seem to think twice about its usual circulatory route. It was the same kind of feeling he'd had that day decades ago, when death's chilly breath was on his neck and a desperate, younger Danzo had pulled him from the brink.
It was the feeling of the entire chessboard being flipped over and replaced with a game of explosive tag.
Standing before him, Sakumo Hatake, still coated in the grime and grit of his harrowing mission, gave a grim nod. He could read the Hokage's shock as clearly as a mission scroll.
After all, from this new geopolitical perspective, Konoha wasn't just in a bad spot; it was looking like the designated target on a map of the entire ninja world.
"Precisely, Hokage-sama," Sakumo confirmed, his voice raspy with fatigue. "We managed to engage them for a solid half-hour before we made our escape. We did, however, successfully retrieve a treasure trove of intelligence regarding the specific abilities and fighting styles of the other Kage."
He then launched into a detailed, twenty-minute debrief that would have given a lesser man a permanent twitch. He spoke of hidden locations, of intercepted messages, and of a confrontation that sounded less like a ninja operation and more like a festival of catastrophic power.
"As for the specifics of Princess Azula's… dance… with the Tsuchikage and Kazekage simultaneously," Sakumo continued, "and the parallel fight where Tsunade-san fought the Mizukage and the entire guard team, needing a collective healing adjustment, you'll need to get the finer details from them directly."
He offered a slight, apologetic shrug. He was a tad preoccupied at the time, you see, trading blows with the Third Raikage—a man who treats lightning release like it's a personal greeting and whose fingers are less 'hands' and more 'lethal power conduits.'
Hiruzen held up a hand, needing a moment to manually reboot his brain. "Stop. Rewind. Let me synthesize this." He took a steadying breath. "You, Sakumo, not only survived a fight with the Third Raikage but innovated a whole new Secret Technique mid-fight to do it."
"And, as if that weren't enough for one mission report, the fourteen-year-old Azula fought a one-versus-two against a Tsuchikage and a Kazekage that she thought was a fair fight, and was apparently winning until Tsunade—who had just finished mopping the floor with the entire Kage's guard while fighting the Mizukage himself—ran into some… post-special-state difficulties, forcing your tactical retreat?"
A single, profound thought echoed in Hiruzen's mind, drowning out all other noise: 'Oh, sweet merciful sage. A storm isn't coming. The storm has made landfall, it's named itself Azula, and it's billing Konoha for the damages.'
He could already feel the phantom throbbing in his temples. The Uchiha clan, already perched at the pinnacle of Konoha's power structure in terms of strength, wealth, and influence, would hear of this and collectively short-circuit with glee.
They would launch a full-scale campaign to have her crowned Hokage before she even finished puberty. It was the worst-case scenario, a direct contradiction to his late teacher's stern warning that the next Hokage must be a civilian, no matter what.
To be brutally honest, as he mentally cataloged her arsenal—the mastered Flying Thunder God, the dual Fire and Lightning Chakra Modes, the chakra reserves of a mini-tailed beast, her mastery of fuinjutsu, her frankly exaggerated talent for genjutsu (including that terrifying illusionary projection she'd perfected to the point it could independently form its own clan)—he wasn't entirely sure he could beat her in a straight fight.
No, this was a five-alarm fire. The questions of how to deal with the quadruple alliance and why they had formed were now tangled in a giant, Uchiha-shaped bow. Both issues demanded immediate, decisive action.
"I understand the gravity of the situation, Sakumo," Hiruzen said, his voice firm with renewed resolve. "You have done Konoha a great service. Now, go. Rest. You've more than earned it. Leave the rest to me."
He dismissed the weary White Fang with a wave, and as soon as the door clicked shut, he performed a familiar series of hand signs that his ANBU were already familiar with.
In the blink of an eye, his three closest confidants—the kind he trusted most in this world—appeared. Well, almost all of his closest confidants. The absence of Kagami Uchiha was noted, a friend who had grown increasingly distant and indifferent to their inner circle.
But that was a worry for another moment. Right now, he had a legendary, world-breaking teenage kunoichi and a secret Kage alliance to manage. It was going to be a long day.
(END OF THE CHAPTER)
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