____________
[— Manga Scene —]
In the Hokage's office, Naruto stood before the old man seated behind his desk.
"Is Sasuke still missing?"
"Many ANBU squads are searching for him, but they cannot find him…"
'Perhaps he has already fallen into Orochimaru's hands… If that is the case, finding him will be impossible…'
"…"
"I see…"
…
In the stands, Sakura sat in silence, Ino beside her.
"I understand that you're worried about Sasuke-kun, but…"
"Naruto's match is about to start. Why don't you cheer for Naruto-kun a little?"
"…"
"You're right…"
…
At the arena's entrance, the Third Hokage stood receiving his guest.
Behind the approaching man, his guards lined up with their masks and headbands, and on his hat was the mark of Wind.
"Kazekage-dono."
"You must be tired from the long journey."
"Not in the least. I'm pleased that the main matches are being held in Konoha."
said the shadow beneath the hat.
"Though you are the younger of us… visiting the other villages must be difficult for you, Lord Hokage-sama."
"Perhaps you should choose a Fifth soon…?"
"Heheh… please, don't treat me like an old man."
Hiruzen answered.
"For now, I still consider myself capable of giving another five years…"
"Then…"
"Let us begin."
…
And in the packed stands, the Hokage's voice rose above the arena.
"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming to the Village of Konoha… to watch today's Chunin Exam!!"
"We shall now begin the main matches… for these eight who passed the preliminary rounds."
"Please… enjoy the fights!!"
And in the arena, the contestants stood in a single line.
"These eight… are missing one."
[— End Scene —]
…
Konohagakure:
In the reading hall, the first thing that caught the readers' attention was the scene itself.
A Kazekage in Konoha. Sand guards standing in Konoha's corridors. The mark of Wind and the mark of Fire side by side on a single platform.
"He's actually here."
said one jonin, looking at the drawing.
"Walking in through the main gate, received by the Hokage in person, and the two of them sitting together above the arena."
"That's normal. Allied villages have attended each other's exams for decades."
"Normal, yes."
said a third jonin slowly.
"Except that we read, chapters ago, that this particular man signed an agreement with Orochimaru — and that he's the one who ordered the troop movements."
A short silence settled over that corner of the hall.
"So we're reading a man shaking hands with someone who's planning to kill him."
"No. We're reading two men, each of whom knows the other suspects him."
said the first.
"And both of them smile and go through with the ceremony."
…
At the head of the hall, Hiruzen Sarutobi commented on none of that.
He had stopped at a single sentence.
Perhaps you should choose a Fifth soon.
'…'
He read it again, and tried to weigh it the way sentences are weighed in the councils of Kage: who said it, in front of whom, and at what moment.
'Said in front of the guards. And my aides. On a formal day, in my own village.'
'Coming from another man, it would be a colleague's advice. A heavy pleasantry that old men exchange.'
'But it came from a man who planned a war before he ever left his own country.'
The old man let his smoke out slowly.
'So it isn't advice.'
'It's a measurement. He wants to know whether the village has begun thinking about a successor — that is, whether it knows I won't last much longer. And I, without noticing, answered him with precision: another five years.'
'I gave him a number.'
'On a formal day, in the middle of the smiles, I handed the man planning to invade my village an estimate of my own lifespan.'
Hiruzen turned the page slowly.
'And that is the problem with ceremony. It makes you speak at the exact moment you ought to stay silent — because silence, in that moment, would look like bad manners.'
…
A few seats away, Shimura Danzo had read the same sentence, and did not care who said it.
He cared about who heard it.
'The guards. The aides. Whoever was standing on that platform that day.'
'Dozens of Konoha's senior figures heard a foreign Kazekage suggest to their Hokage that he begin choosing a successor.'
'And no one objected. And no one considered it an insult.'
'Because it wasn't an insult. It was a sentence spoken by an outsider in front of everyone… so that discussing the matter afterward would become permissible.'
Danzo turned the page slowly.
'This is not diplomacy. This is groundwork.'
'When you want to open a closed door in some council, you don't open it yourself. You push a stranger forward to knock on it in front of everyone — then you wait a month, until people grow used to the sound of knocking.'
Then the man stopped at something else on the page.
'And yet… he was not wrong about the substance.'
'Konoha, in those pages, has no declared successor. A Hokage in his seventies, a village awaiting a war, and not a single name ready on paper.'
'Its enemy pointed at the gap before anyone from within pointed at it.'
…
In the quiet corner, Kushina was reading the scene in a far simpler way.
"I don't understand these people."
she said, pointing at the drawing with her finger.
"Look at them. One stands in front of the other and says: welcome, you must be tired from the road. And the other replies: not at all, I'm delighted to be here."
"That's an ordinary greeting, Kushina."
"Ordinary? The man came to invade his village! And that one already suspects him! And then they stand together and talk about the weather and the fatigue of travel!"
"And what exactly were they supposed to do?"
Minato asked quietly.
"The Hokage has no proof. He has suspicions, ANBU reports, and an examiner's corpse. If he refused to receive him, he would be announcing to the entire world that he's accusing an allied village without evidence."
"So he receives him and smiles at him."
"He receives him and smiles at him, and sits beside him all day, and watches him from an arm's length away."
Kushina stopped talking for a moment, then returned to the page.
"…I couldn't do that. If I were in his place, I'd ask him to his face what he's planning."
"I know."
said Minato, a small smile on his lips.
"Which is exactly why they'll never make you Hokage."
"HEY!"
…
And at the head of the hall, Uzumaki Mito was looking at the page from an entirely different angle.
'Ceremony is not a lie, children.'
'It is a language. A very old language, invented by people who used to slaughter each other every ten days — when they discovered that a man you have sat with and drunk from his cup is harder to kill the next morning.'
'And it works, more often than not. Believe me, I have seen it work more times than I can count.'
Then the lady's eyes stopped at the hat concealing the face.
'But it requires one condition: that both of the smiling faces be real.'
'And when something else is sitting beneath one of those hats…'
'…then the whole ceremony becomes a play performed by one side, for itself.'
…
Sunagakure:
In Suna's hall, the matter was entirely different.
For while Konoha was reading about a suspicious guest, Suna was reading about its own Kazekage walking through another village's gates.
"He's walking through their streets."
said a jonin in the back rows.
"Sitting on their platform. Speaking with their Hokage in front of their entire village."
"And suggesting that he choose a successor."
added another, with a note of admiration he could not quite hide.
"In the man's own village. In front of his own men."
"I can't tell whether that's brilliance or insolence."
"Both. In our line of work, they're usually the same thing."
But in his seat, Rasa was taking no part in that conversation.
He was staring at the same drawing that had troubled him for chapters: the hat, the hanging cloth, and the face of which nothing showed.
'Again.'
'In his own office, surrounded by his elders, the hat concealed his face. Understandable. The room was dim and the angle was high.'
'And at the gates of a foreign village, under open sun, before the Hokage of Konoha and hundreds of its people…'
'…the face is still not visible.'
The young man closed the volume over his finger, and did not lift his eyes from it.
'A Kazekage visits an allied village. Its Hokage receives him personally. That is the highest formal moment a man stands in, in his entire life.'
'And in a moment like that, a Kage does not hide his face.'
'He shows it.'
…
And close by, old Chiyo was reading a different line.
Perhaps you should choose a Fifth soon.
'No.'
thought the old woman, her fingers tapping the edge of the volume.
'That is not a Kazekage's sentence.'
'I have sat with three of them in my life. A Kazekage — whatever his name — does not discuss the succession of a Hokage inside that Hokage's own village. It is more complicated than mere rudeness, my dears: it simply does not concern us.'
'What concerns a Kazekage in that moment is the budget, and the borders, and the Daimyo's missions being pulled out from under us.'
'As for who will inherit Konoha's hat twenty years from now…'
The old woman paused.
'…that is a question that concerns a man who wants to know how much time Hiruzen Sarutobi has left.'
Then she slowly turned her head, and looked at the Third Kazekage seated at the head of their own hall, reading the same pages with a face of stone.
'And that man sitting over there… has no interest in Hiruzen Sarutobi whatsoever.'
…
And in the front rows, little Baki read the scene for the third time, then finally raised his head and asked the jonin sitting beside him:
"Uncle, a question. When a Kage visits another village, who stands behind him?"
"His personal guards. The best the village has."
"And how many are they?"
"Four, usually. Two in front, two behind."
The boy returned to the page, and counted the figures drawn behind the man with the hat.
"And do they stay with him everywhere?"
"Everywhere. They don't leave him for a single moment on foreign soil."
"…"
"Why do you ask?"
"No reason."
But the ten-year-old had noticed the thing that made him count: that the four guards standing behind a Kazekage on foreign soil are the only people in the world who get close enough to him…
to see what is beneath the hat.
…
Konohagakure:
And as the chapter drew to its close, the readers in Konoha returned to the final page.
Packed stands. A high platform. Two banners raised. And eight children standing in a single line in the middle of the arena — with one of them missing.
"Please… enjoy the fights."
Minato read the sentence, then lifted his eyes to the wide shot: thousands of faces, and flags, and vendors, and children on their fathers' shoulders.
'All of these people came to watch matches.'
'And on the platform above them sit two men: one who knows something is going to happen but doesn't know what, and one who knows exactly when it starts.'
'And between them, two smiles, a cup of tea, and a conversation about the fatigue of travel.'
The boy turned the page.
'And then they tell the people: enjoy the fights.'
____________
Upcoming chapter titles (spoilers):
____________
Chapter 219: Neji vs. Naruto! (End of Volume 11)
Chapter 220: Between the Two Volumes
Chapter 221: Anime Episode 20 — A New Chapter Begins! The Chūnin Exams!
Chapter 222: Volume Twelve Arrives!
____________
Support the journey and unlock advanced chapters!
If you're enjoying Rob's story, his journey of publishing the Naruto manga inside the Shinobi world, and the impact it has on the world, and you want to know what happens before everyone else… there's always a way to stay ahead.
I work on this novel every day, developing its world and chapters, and every bit of support helps me keep delivering higher-quality content at a faster pace.
By supporting me on Patreon, you'll get exclusive access to advanced chapters before they're released to the public. You can move ahead in the story and read up to 30 chapters in advance!
📚 Support Tiers:
$5 → Read 5 advanced chapters
$10 → Read 10 advanced chapters
$15 → Read 15 advanced chapters
$20 → Read 20 advanced chapters
$30 → Read 30 advanced chapters
Every bit of support, even a small one, makes a real difference and helps me continue writing this journey that we're experiencing together.
Join now and start reading the stacked chapters before everyone else:
Patreon:https://www.patreon.com/BlackStar_BH
Thank you to everyone who supports the story and believes in this world. You are the reason it continues. ❤️
____________