From the Hokage's tower, the Forest of Death looked almost calm.
Under the moonlight it was just a dark mass beyond the village wall, a shaggy ring of treetops breathing mist into the night. Lamps burned in tight clusters where the streets of Konoha twisted together, but that forest was a single black shape, like someone had inked the horizon with one careless stroke.
Hiruzen Sarutobi's office smelled of old smoke and fresh ink. Scrolls and clipboards crowded his desk. Some were dry reports from border posts, some were requests from merchants and clan heads.
The newest stack smelled faintly of swamp and blood.
He slid the elastic loop off the top clipboard and flipped it open. The brushwork was fast and impatient, but still legible.
Confirmed reaches to central tower – Third Exam, Phase Two.
Beneath it, a list of names and villages, each one a small, sharp weight.
He was halfway down the page when knuckles rapped once on the door.
"Enter," he said.
The door swung in and Mitarashi Anko strolled through like she owned the place. Her coat was half-zipped, fishnet torn at one shoulder, purple hair full of leaves. She dropped a second sheaf of papers onto his desk and propped her elbows on the back of the chair opposite him, breathing a little harder than she wanted to show.
"That's the last of the field tallies, Lord Third," she said. "Everyone who crawled into the tower is on there. Or limped. Or got carried."
Hiruzen closed the first clipboard and laid it on top of the new pile. "You look like you've been through a war."
Anko snorted. "You put a war inside the walls and called it an exam. I just watched."
Her eyes flicked to the closed window, toward the forest. There was a quick, hunted flash there—recognition of something old and poisonous—and then it was gone, smoothed over by a grin.
"How many in total?" he asked.
"Twenty-six genin," she said. "Some more 'genin-shaped lumps' than genin, but they were breathing when we counted, so." A shrug. "They beat your forest."
More than expected, then. The exam designs assumed perhaps ten to twelve would make it through, if the proctors didn't interfere too early.
Hiruzen eased his pipe out of its stand, rolled it between his fingers, and didn't light it.
"Breakdown?" he asked.
Anko jabbed a finger at the top of the stack. "Leaf brats, more than anyone else. That's on you and your teachers. Sand siblings made it, obviously. A couple of Takigakure kids, one Rain team… and three from Sound who give me hives just looking at them."
"Meaning?" Hiruzen asked.
"They smell like experiments," Anko said flatly. "Bad ones. Flesh that doesn't know if it's allowed to be human. One of them should not be walking after what he went through. His arms are… wrong."
Orochimaru's shadow uncoiled inside the words without either of them saying his name.
Hiruzen's fingers tightened on the pipe stem. "You're certain they reached the tower under their own power?"
"They reached it," Anko said. "I'm not giving you a guarantee on the 'power' part."
She straightened, rolling her shoulders, and dragged herself back toward flippancy. "Point is, we've got more kids in the tower than you budgeted for. Med-nin are running low on stimulants and bandages. Kitchen staff are already complaining about how much they eat."
Hiruzen's gaze slid to the far wall, where an old battlefield map of the Third War still hung, pins and colored threads marking old fronts. Back then, he would have killed for twenty-six fresh, talented genin.
Now he was supposed to turn them into a spectacle.
"They'll rest," he said. "Tonight, at least. Full meals, proper treatment. No more tests until morning."
Anko's mouth twitched. "You expecting a fight about that?"
"I expect several," he said.
She snorted again, but softer. "You want me at the council meeting? I can bite someone if they get ideas."
He almost smiled. "Someone needs to stay near the tower. If any… unexpected guests slipped in during the exam, they may use the lull to move. And if those Sound genin worry you, I want you watching them."
"I'll watch them," she said. "If I see any snakes, I'll cut them."
She turned for the door, then hesitated with her hand on the knob. "Old man… they're just kids."
He knew exactly which ones she meant without her saying.
"So were you," he said quietly. "So were we all, once."
She grimaced, like he'd pressed on a bruise, then flicked him a two-fingered salute and slipped out.
The office fell quiet again. The forest slept its pretending-sleep beyond the walls. Somewhere under that dark canopy, the tower lights burned warm as a campfire.
Hiruzen set the pipe down untouched, picked up the tallies, and folded them once, twice, until they were a thick, blunt edge in his hand.
Then he left his office and went to call in the elders.
The council chamber was all stone and shadows and old grievances.
Six seats formed a rough half-circle around the central floor. Two were empty—clan heads excused to tend to their injured—but the important ones were filled.
Homura Mitokado sat stiff-backed, fingers linked on the table, eyes already narrowed in worry. Koharu Utatane hunched over a slim folder, lips moving as she read, brush still tucked behind one ear as if she might leap up to revise policy in the middle of conversation. Danzō Shimura did not sit. He stood near his own chair with both hands resting on his cane, bandaged eye turned toward the doorway as Hiruzen entered.
"Hokage-sama," Homura said.
"Hiruzen," Koharu added, less formal, more tired.
Danzō inclined his head a fraction. "You called for us quickly. I assume there is an issue."
"We have more survivors than expected," Hiruzen said, taking his seat at the head of the arc and placing the folded tally on the table. "Twenty-six genin reached the tower. Several foreign teams we assumed would be eliminated early pulled through."
Koharu's brows drew together. "Twenty-six? That… complicates things."
"The finals were designed for a maximum of eight to ten competitors," Homura said. "The daimyō will not sit through day after day of endless bouts. And the foreign envoys certainly will not."
Danzō tapped the cane once against the stone. The sound cracked through the chamber.
"This is not merely an issue of etiquette," he said. "If we allow every genin who survived the forest to proceed, we send a dangerous message."
Hiruzen watched him. Danzō's good eye was cold and bright, like a pebble at the bottom of a stream.
"Explain," Hiruzen said, though he knew where this was going.
"These exams are more than a test," Danzō said. "They are a tool. A chance to evaluate not only our own prospective officers, but the talent of other nations' children. If we clutter the finals with mediocrities, we cheapen the rank we bestow. Worse: we elevate foreign shinobi to chunin in front of our own daimyō."
"They are not 'foreign' children while they stand under our protection," Hiruzen said. "They are guests."
Danzō's lips thinned. "Guests who will return to other villages with our approval stamped on their foreheads. Chunin command missions. Chunin lead squads. Every outsider we promote is one more junior officer working against Fire Country's interests in some future conflict."
Homura shifted, uneasy. "He has a point, Hiruzen. We cannot simply grant promotions for surviving the second exam."
"Surviving that second exam should mean something," Hiruzen said. His gaze slipped, briefly, to the tally. He could see individual names in his memory: the Uzumaki boy with the loud mouth and stubborn eyes, the transplanted girl with the bright pink hair who clung to him and Sasuke, the shy Hyūga watching them all from the margins. So many different faces. So many kinds of fragile.
Koharu rapped her knuckles on her folder. "Meaning or not, the logistics remain. Twenty-six candidates is too many for a clean finals bracket. The nobles expect a tight presentation. Our allies expect clarity, not confusion."
Danzō angled his head slightly, sensing the opening. "There is a simple solution."
Hiruzen already knew what he would say. It still soured on the air.
"An elimination round," Danzō went on. "Single matches between all remaining genin. The winners proceed to the finals. The losers… return to their villages with scars and experience, but without the rank."
Koharu nodded slowly. "A preliminary stage would certainly reduce numbers. It would also allow us to properly assess the true standouts."
Homura glanced at Hiruzen. "Preliminaries were not announced in advance," he said. "There may be complaints."
"From whom?" Danzō countered. "The rules of the third exam are always subject to the host village's discretion. That is tradition. Those who brought their children here knew that. If they do not like the format, they are free to host next time."
"Discretion is not license to be cruel," Hiruzen said softly.
Danzō watched him for a moment, weighing. "The world does not grow less cruel because we avert our eyes," he said. "These children have already survived five days in a forest designed to kill them. We have weeded out the weakest. Those who remain are the seeds of future commanders. It is… efficient… to see how they fare in direct combat."
"Some of them are barely standing," Hiruzen said. "Your efficiency looks a great deal like grinding them into the arena floor for the entertainment of nobles."
Koharu flinched, just slightly. Homura's fingers twitched on the table.
Danzō didn't blink. "Then they will demonstrate their village's resolve even more vividly. Or they will fall, and we will know their names are not worth circling on any list."
There it was. Root thinking, spoken plainly in front of the crest of the village.
Hiruzen's jaw ached. He had to force his shoulders to loosen. "They are not lists," he said. "They are children."
"Children who will grow into men and women who decide whether Fire Country bleeds," Danzō said. "You know this. You have sent enough of them to war."
The words landed like stones. Koharu looked away. Homura stared down at the tabletop.
For a moment, Hiruzen saw them all as they had been decades earlier, young and fierce and full of certainty, standing beside him as they shaped Konoha out of ashes and stubbornness. Back then, the village had felt like a miracle that would last forever.
Now it felt like a patient he could no longer keep off the operating table.
"If we agree to a preliminary round," Homura said carefully, "we can at least control its structure. We can ensure med-nin are on hand. We can instruct the proctors to stop matches before fatal blows are struck."
"Assuming the proctors can keep up," Koharu murmured. "You have seen some of these children fight, Hiruzen. The Sand jinchūriki alone…"
"She is correct," Danzō said. "There are dangerous elements among this crop. And not all of them belong to foreign villages."
A small, pointed silence followed that remark.
Hiruzen's mind supplied the faces again. Naruto's grin, wide and guileless. Sasuke's eyes, narrow and hungry for strength. And...the girl: she looked like the Haruno's missing child. Sylvie drew seals on scraps of paper with hands that should have only known ordinary ink and homework. The other genin too: prodigies from clan and non-clan backgrounds, each of them carrying the weight of adult expectations on underfed shoulders, some stranger than this pink haired mystery.
They were supposed to be the ones he handed a gentler world to. Somewhere along the way, the roles had reversed; they were the ones bearing his generation's unfinished wars.
He could say no.
He could slam his hand down and declare that the Forest of Death was sufficient, that any child who walked out of that place alive had proven enough. He could refuse to turn the third exam into a meat grinder, could tell the daimyō and the visiting leaders that Konoha would not show off like some circus.
He could. But he knew what would follow.
Rumors of weakness. Questions about whether Leaf had gone soft under an old man's rule. Whispers in Kumo, in Iwa, in the smaller nations on the border, about how Fire Country was promoting foreign officers like candy.
And in secret, Danzō would do what Danzō always did: remedy what he saw as Hiruzen's softness with knives in the dark.
If the village had to be cruel, Hiruzen wanted to at least choose the shape of that cruelty himself.
"They will rest tonight," he said at last. His voice sounded heavier than he wanted, like it had to push through wet sand to reach the air. "Full meals, complete medical attention. No matches until tomorrow. I will not have children dragged from the forest floor straight into the arena."
Koharu exhaled, a quiet, relieved sound. Homura nodded, some of the tension leaking from his posture.
"As you wish," Danzō said. He did not sound disappointed. He had gotten exactly what he wanted. "One night will suffice."
"Med-nin on standby for every fight," Hiruzen continued. "Not just at the edges. On the floor, ready to intervene. Proctors are empowered to stop any match they deem too dangerous. If a child yields, the fight is over. Anyone who continues past that point will be disqualified on the spot."
"That may upset certain clans," Homura warned.
"They are free to be upset," Hiruzen said. "No one will die in that arena to satisfy a parent's pride. Not if I can prevent it."
Danzō's grip on the cane tightened just enough for the leather to creak. "You cannot prevent every death," he said. There was no mockery in it. Just a flat recital of fact.
"No," Hiruzen said. "But I can refuse to feed them into the flames myself."
Silence settled over the chamber again. The lamps hissed and popped; somewhere beyond the stone walls, a dog barked once and was answered. The forest loomed just outside the edge of hearing.
"Then we are agreed?" Koharu asked softly. "A preliminary elimination round, followed by a reduced finals bracket. Format to be announced to the genin in the morning."
Hiruzen nodded once.
Homura made a note. Koharu shuffled her papers into a new order, already thinking of the language for the official announcement.
Danzō studied Hiruzen for another long moment, then inclined his head again. "You will need a reason," he said.
Hiruzen stared at him.
"For the children. For the observers," Danzō said. "Protocol can be changed by the host, but appearances matter. You cannot stand before them, pipe in hand, and say, 'We fear elevating our enemies.' You will have to… simplify."
"Too many candidates," Hiruzen said. The words came out before he could stop them, bitter and neat. "We must narrow the field before the finals."
"A practical concern," Danzō said. "No one can fault practicality."
Hiruzen's hands curled, slowly, on the edge of the table. For an instant, he wanted to slam his fist down, to drive splinters through his palm and shout until the walls cracked.
Instead, he unclenched his fingers and pushed his chair back.
"Very well," he said. "I will address them in the arena tomorrow. You will have your elimination round. Make certain the examiners understand the limits."
Homura and Koharu murmured assent. Danzō only dipped his head again, the barest shadow of a bow. In that small, smooth gesture Hiruzen could see the first stones laid for whatever came after this generation—policies and plans that would outlive him if he failed to stop them.
The meeting dissolved. Homura and Koharu left together, voices low, already debating match scheduling. Danzō lingered a heartbeat longer, then turned and walked out with his cane tapping an easy, patient rhythm.
When he was gone, the chamber felt colder.
Hiruzen stood alone beneath the carved crest of the village. For a few breaths he simply listened, counting each inhale, each exhale, as though they belonged to someone else.
Children would stand in front of him tomorrow morning, lined up on stone, skin still smelling of forest loam and antiseptic. He would look down at them and tell them there were too many of them. That they would have to fight again.
He would not say: Because my generation never learned how to live without enemies.
He left the chamber, climbed the familiar stairs back to his office, and went straight to the window.
From there, he could see the faint glow of the central tower rising from the black mass of the Forest of Death. Tiny, stubborn light, surrounded on all sides by teeth.
Twenty-six small lives inside it. Twenty-six futures he could not hold on his own.
He reached for his pipe again, then stopped. The smell of tobacco felt suddenly wrong. He set it back down and rested both hands on the sill instead, fingers splayed wide, as if he could shield the whole village with his palms.
Below, the rooftops of Konoha curved softly in the moonlight. The village slept, trusting him to keep it safe.
"Too many candidates," he murmured, testing the words. They tasted like ash.
In the morning, he would stand beneath the carved stone faces and lie to children for what he told himself was the good of the village.
Tonight, he let himself look at the tower and see them as what they still were, before the exams and the ranks and the wars turned them into anything else.
Just kids.
And one tired old man, already deciding which of them would be allowed to keep being that for a little while longer.