Chapter 252: The Fifth Hokage Takes Office
"Did you hear? They've finally decided on the Fifth Hokage."
"Ha! You're behind the times. I already know who it is."
"Who? Lord Jiraiya? Lady Tsunade?"
"Neither."
"Neither? How is that possible? Who else has the qualifications besides those two... don't tell me it's someone from the Hyuga clan?"
"You're sharper than you look."
The two half-drunk patrons had no control over their mouths. What they took for quiet murmuring was loud enough to carry across the whole tavern, and every customer within earshot leaned in.
The one who had guessed right turned red and frowned. "But the Hyuga clan's White Yaksha isn't even twenty yet, is he?"
The man across the table raised an eyebrow and gave his companion a sideways look. "So what? You think being young means he doesn't have the right to be Fifth Hokage?"
"That's not what I meant. I'm just not sure someone that young can handle everything the position demands."
The man across the table let out a short, dismissive sound and raised his voice. "You think the Hokage's job works like ours, where experience and seniority actually matter? If you ask me, the most important thing a Hokage needs is the ability to fight. To protect the village from outside threats. Everything else — the Hokage Advisor, the advisory elders, the department heads — if all of those people together still can't keep the village running properly, then every last one of them should step aside."
Both men had clearly drunk more than was sensible. The careful restraint they would normally show when talking about village leadership had gone out the window, but the sentiment earned nods from most of the other customers.
The most important thing a Hokage needed was the ability to fight.
And young as he was, the Hyuga clan's White Yaksha had just days ago driven off the rogue ninja Uchiha Tatsuhata and rogue ninja Orochimaru with startling speed, and had captured alive the very man responsible for the Fourth Hokage's death.
Having someone like that take the seat was nothing but good news. The village might finally have a long stretch of peace ahead of it.
That was what almost every villager wanted more than anything else.
As far as most of them were concerned, whoever could bring peace to the village had the right to be Hokage. Only a small number of people bothered to fuss over details like the successor's age or background.
In a private booth at the back of the same tavern — where the walls did very little to block sound — two other customers sat drinking together. One wore the headband of the Hidden Sand Village. The other wore the headband of the Hidden Mist Village.
Mangetsu Hoshigaki, white-haired and violet-eyed, with a mouth full of sharp teeth, leaned back with a grin. "Honestly, White Yaksha or one of the Legendary Sannin, Jiraiya or Tsunade — it doesn't really matter who takes the seat. Konoha's strength stays the same either way. Even without the Fourth Hokage, Konoha is still at its absolute peak."
Then the grin faded. The words had gotten away from him, and he found himself in a worse mood for having said them.
Yashamaru, sitting across from him, let out a quiet sigh and drained his cup of sake. "It's true. Konoha, now as always... still standing just as tall."
Both of them fell quiet, turning over the same memories of the battle that had taken place in the village just days ago.
They had both been in Konoha at the time. The Rinnegan had already been taken, but the envoys hadn't been recalled yet. After leaving Iwagakure they had come here, partly to see whether Konoha had any plan to reclaim the Rinnegan, and partly to observe what kind of shape the village would be in after losing its Fourth Hokage.
Then they had watched Hyuga Ritsu demonstrate exactly what he was capable of. He had captured Uchiha Tatsuhata alive and driven off the reanimated Uchiha Madara. The kind of strength he had shown left no room for thoughts of opposition.
"Though, when you think about it, the ones who have it worst right now are probably the Cloud ninja."
Mangetsu was good at pulling himself back from a bad mood. A few seconds of gloom and he was already reaching for the nearest source of amusement, which at this moment happened to be those unfortunate Cloud ninja.
Yashamaru smiled.
A few days ago, the White Yaksha had used the Heavenly Transfer Technique in that battle — a technique that belonged exclusively to the Hidden Cloud Village's heritage. Afterward, they had watched Cloud envoy Yatsuki Hikari cycle through a remarkable range of expressions, and the face he had made was still vivid in Yashamaru's memory.
The reason the two of them could sit here drinking together came down to the bond they'd formed during the joint Rinnegan escort mission. There was no particular friction between the Sand and Mist villages right now, which made it easy enough to share a table and trade information over drinks.
"Hey, Yashamaru. Do you actually think Cloud will get any kind of answer out of Konoha over this?"
"Almost no chance." Yashamaru shook his head. "The White Yaksha is about to become Fifth Hokage. Wherever he learned that technique, Cloud has no way to force an explanation out of him now."
"Exactly. Cloud just has to swallow this one."
Mangetsu gave a small laugh. Mist and Cloud had no deep old grudges between them, but Cloud's arrogance and tendency to throw its weight around made them hard to root for. He was perfectly happy watching them take a loss. And it wasn't as though Cloud had been crippled by it — losing one secret technique wasn't the kind of wound that shook a village to its bones.
Then Yashamaru shifted his palm. A thread of fine sand moved across the tabletop and gathered into a line of text.
No signs that Konoha obtained the Rinnegan.
Mangetsu's eyebrow rose. A thin film of moisture spread slowly across the back of his hand and shaped itself into a reply.
Same on our end. My read is that Konoha didn't get the Rinnegan from Uchiha Tatsuhata.
The sand dissolved. The moisture smoothed away.
The two men went back to their drinks. The intelligence they had exchanged tonight was next to worthless anyway. There was no hurry reporting it.
Year 52 of the Konoha calendar, the first day of the first month.
On the site where the Hokage Building had stood, a new structure had risen from the ground almost overnight, the product of Earth Style jutsu. Strictly speaking, it was more facade than building — bare concrete walls inside with no finishing or decoration of any kind. Only the exterior had been treated, painted a vivid, striking red.
Described generously, it looked from a distance like a burning flame.
Described less generously, it looked like someone had planted an enormous red bucket upside down in the middle of the village.
But whatever its appearance, the building was a symbol of Konoha. Every Hokage since the First had been inaugurated here, standing on the rooftop and receiving the upturned faces of the village's assembled citizens. Hyuga Ritsu would be no different — and at a moment like this, the ceremony was needed more than ever to lift the spirits of the village.
As it happened, the buildings surrounding the Hokage Building had all been leveled in the recent battle, leaving behind a plaza far more spacious than anything that had existed there before. It could hold far more people than the old layout ever had.
By early morning the crowd was already packed in shoulder to shoulder. Looking down from above was a sea of heads — not all black-haired, either. Yellow, blue, green. Quite a range.
Up on the rooftop of the Hokage Building:
"Ritsu, are you ready?"
Hiruko looked his student over, struck by a feeling of unreality he couldn't quite shake. His student was actually about to become the Fifth Hokage of the Leaf. He had quietly pinched himself several times already. It still felt like something out of a dream.
"Everything's set."
Hyuga Ritsu said it with a smile.
The inauguration ceremony itself wasn't complicated. You stood at the edge of the rooftop, made yourself seen, said a few words, and let the village get a proper look at their new Hokage. Konoha was a large village. Outside of the Hokage, no ninja could expect to be recognized by every single citizen. Even the Legendary Sannin, famous as they were, had never been seen in person by a considerable portion of the village. People could talk at length about the Sannin's deeds and reputations and still not recognize them if they passed each other on the street.
Only the Hokage, specifically the current one, drew the attention of every ninja and every civilian, and achieved the kind of recognition that came with being the highest authority in the village.
Hiruko drew a slow breath and glanced at the two young women standing nearby. "Ritsu, put your robes on."
He stepped aside.
Uchiha Aika moved forward, carrying the Hokage robes she had been holding with both hands, and held them out.
"Help me put them on, Aika."
Hyuga Ritsu spread his arms.
A faint flush rose in the girl's cheeks, but she was composed. She didn't look at the others on the rooftop. Her eyes stayed on Hyuga Ritsu as she worked the robes onto him, her movements slightly unpracticed.
"How is it? Does it look alright?"
He rolled his shoulders and turned back to face her, grinning.
She studied him for a moment.
His hair, black as a raven's wing, fell to his waist. On his forehead the pair of white horns caught the cold morning light. His eyes were pure white, his features clean and sharp. Her pulse quickened before she could stop it.
He wasn't wearing his usual white coat today either. He had changed into a black combat uniform, and the white Hokage robes settled over it perfectly. Her heart beat a little faster.
"It fits," she said, quietly.
Hiruko's gaze moved back and forth between the two of them. The corner of his mouth curved upward in a smile that was, frankly, the kind that belonged on a fond older relative. But he hadn't forgotten what day it was or what was about to happen. He cleared his throat and put the thought aside.
"Ritsu, it really does suit you."
He fixed his eyes on the characters stitched across the back of the robes. Fifth Hokage. A tide of feeling welled up that he struggled to put a name to. He found himself thinking back to the early days — the two of them sneaking off to study forbidden techniques together, always one step away from discovery, always afraid the village would find out and come down on them. And now here they were. One of them Hokage Advisor. The other the Fifth Hokage.
Life had a way of becoming stranger than you could have imagined.
This future — neither of them had dared to picture anything like this back then. Well. He hadn't, anyway. Ritsu had always carried an unshakeable certainty about himself. He had always seemed to believe that as long as he didn't die, he would eventually become something extraordinary.
He had been right.
Looking back on it now, taking Ritsu on as a student was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
"Go on, then." Hiruko reached out and clapped him on the shoulder. "Let them see what their Fifth Hokage looks like."
"Ritsu-nii! Your hat! You forgot your hat!"
Hyuga Akiba waved the Hokage's hat urgently in one hand.
"Right. Almost forgot."
"Seriously! You look at Aika and the whole world disappears. I'm standing right here and you don't even see me!"
Akiba was clearly put out about this.
"What are you going on about."
Hyuga Ritsu flicked two fingers against her forehead, settled the hat on his head, and took one last look around the rooftop — Hiruko, Aika, Akiba, advisory elders Akimichi Torikaze and Inuzuka Jaw, jonin corps commander Nara Shikaku.
"Wait here. I'll be back shortly."
He walked to the edge of the rooftop and stepped into view of the tens of thousands of villagers waiting below.
The Fifth Hokage's inauguration ceremony had officially begun.
As Hyuga Ritsu started reading from his prepared remarks — with, it had to be said, a notable absence of emotional investment — the rooftop of the embassy building across the village was occupied by the four great villages' envoys, binoculars raised, watching the Hokage Building from a distance.
They had not been invited.
Akimichi Torikaze had suggested including the envoys who were still in the village, but Hyuga Ritsu had turned the idea down. As far as he was concerned, this was Konoha's own business, and there was no reason to have outsiders present.
Because of that, they had not been invited. In fact, their movements had been temporarily restricted. Until the inauguration concluded, they were confined to the embassy building.
"The Fifth Hokage." Mangetsu Hoshigaki lowered his binoculars and let out a long breath. "We're going to spend the next several decades living under this man's shadow."
No one said anything.
But the expression on every face told the same story as his words.
Hyuga Ritsu was too strong. Strong enough that none of them could muster the desire to do anything about it.
"Several decades." Yatsuki Hikari's smile was tired. He set his binoculars down and looked around at the group. "Mangetsu, Yashamaru — you're both roughly his age. Maybe the two of you will actually live to see the day he steps down."
"Who can say? Nobody knows what the future holds." Yashamaru shook his head. "Given how many exceptional ninja Konoha keeps producing, I think the village is going to be standing for a very long time."
The room went quiet after that.
It was true.
The talent Konoha produced was enough to make anyone envious.
The future was difficult to feel good about.
Yatsuki Hikari found himself, somewhere in the back of his mind, genuinely regretting that Uchiha Tatsuhata had been such a disappointment — that he hadn't managed to do real, lasting damage to Konoha, that he and the White Yaksha hadn't at least dragged each other down together.
But there was still Orochimaru out there, unaccounted for, an S-rank rogue ninja with no leash on him. And there was the suspected reanimated Uchiha Madara, still unconfirmed and still missing. The variables in the ninja world hadn't all been spent yet.