"But your constitution really is a mystery. At thirteen, to already have this kind of foundation... even my grandfather wasn't that abnormal at your age."
Once that heavy conversation was over, Akira brushed off his clothes and stood up. "It's getting late. I should head back."
He had barely taken a step when a warm hand caught his wrist.
Tsunade looked up at him, moonlight washing over her beautiful face, her expression calm and steady. "It's late. Stay here tonight. There's no reason to make things harder on yourself."
Akira glanced up at the thick night sky, then back at her.
The corner of Tsunade's mouth lifted in a teasing smile. "What? You've got Flying Raijin now. It's not as if you can't get back in an instant if you really need to."
When he thought about it, she had a point. To him, coming and going really was only a matter of a heartbeat.
So that night, he stayed openly at the Senju estate.
At daybreak the next morning, before the sky had fully brightened, Akira used Flying Raijin to flash back into his own room.
Even though the understanding between them had changed, this was still the critical period before Tsunade formally took office as Hokage. Keeping a low profile was better. No need to hand people something to gossip about.
Over the next five days, Akira all but disappeared.
Whether it was Naruto and Sakura, or people like Anko and Yugao, nobody could find him anywhere.
He spent all his time buried in the Senju archive, devouring the knowledge there like a starving man.
To him, those shelves were more tempting than mountains of gold.
By now, learning jutsu had become a pure hobby for Akira. The way some people lost sleep over games, he lost himself in forbidden arts, secret jutsus, sealing methods, and medical ninjutsu with almost obsessive passion.
At night, he rested in a guest room at the Senju estate.
Sometimes he talked with Tsunade for a while, but more often he kept reading scrolls.
The Senju archive's depth was staggering. It didn't just hold jutsus, but records of shinobi history, secrets from the Warring States era, and all kinds of material an ordinary ninja could never dream of touching.
That was the difference in foundation between a great clan and a civilian-born shinobi.
In the past, if Akira wanted to get his hands on even a single secret scroll, he had to twist himself in knots and then test things by brute force. The jutsu he used to fuse bloodline traits, for example, had been incomplete and dangerous, something he'd had to patch up himself through trial and error.
In the Senju archive, though, full and refined versions of those ideas were simply sitting on the shelves.
If he had seen these materials earlier, he probably could have stabilized Wood Style a year sooner.
That was what a difference in status looked like.
During those days, Tsunade personally brought him all three meals.
Watching him skip sleep and meals for the sake of study, she felt both proud and exasperated.
Fortunately, Akira's body was absurdly sturdy. A few nights without sleep barely seemed to affect him at all.
On the fifth day, the ceremony for the Fifth Hokage's succession finally arrived.
Tsunade had originally planned not to disturb Akira and had thought it wouldn't matter if a genin missed an occasion like this.
But when she had finished getting ready to leave, she found him already standing in the doorway with a faint smile.
Both Tsunade and Shizune froze for a moment.
Tsunade walked over and adjusted his collar. "You didn't have to force yourself. Missing one ceremony wouldn't kill you."
Akira lightly caught her hand and smiled. "This is your day. How could I not be there?"
"Come on. I'll take you to the Hokage Tower. We'll use a shortcut."
Tsunade blinked. "A shortcut?"
Chakra surged around Akira. He set one hand lightly on each of their shoulders, and in the very next instant, the scenery around them changed.
The three of them appeared out of thin air inside the Hokage's office.
That one display of teleportation stunned every jonin in the room.
"That was... Flying Raijin? Since when did Tsunade-hime learn a space-time ninjutsu?"
Inside the office were Kakashi, Guy, Asuma, Kurenai, and the other elite shinobi, along with Jiraiya and the two senior advisors.
Kakashi spotted Akira immediately, and his perpetually tired eye curved into a crescent. "So that's where you vanished off to these last few days. I was starting to think someone had kidnapped you."
As a teacher, Kakashi couldn't have been more satisfied with this student of his. Powerful, competent, and low-key.
Akira laughed it off. "I've been hiding away to train. I picked up some medical theory from Tsunade-hime and got a little too absorbed in it."
Kakashi nodded. "There's nothing wrong with learning a few extra ways to keep yourself alive."
Back in the office, Tsunade immediately set aside the relaxed ease she had shown at the estate. Her eyes turned sharp and authoritative.
"Is everything prepared outside?"
The jonin in charge of the ceremony straightened at once. "Everything is ready, Tsunade-hime!"
Tsunade drew in a breath and, without looking back at Akira again, strode toward the balcony with commanding steps. "Then let's begin."
At that moment, she was the Fifth Hokage.
Although Akira was officially still a genin, Tsunade had already discussed matters with the upper ranks. She had decided to promote him by exception and appoint him directly as one of the Hokage's personal guards.
The proposal passed without resistance. Akira could use Flying Raijin and already possessed elite jonin-level combat strength. He was more than qualified.
Even the Third Hokage, before his death, had been quietly shaping him as a potential candidate for the Sixth. Who would object?
The succession ceremony began.
Akira, despite still technically being listed as a genin, was the only one of his rank standing on the roof of the Hokage Tower, positioned behind Tsunade.
Below, an enormous crowd of Konoha shinobi and villagers were gathered, all staring upward in anticipation.
The moment Tsunade appeared, the crowd exploded.
For many of them, this was the first time they had ever seen the legendary woman in person, and they were immediately stunned by how young and beautiful she looked. Nothing about her appearance suggested someone in her fifties.
She wasn't wearing the full ceremonial white robe, only the Hokage hat that symbolized authority.
Sunlight fell across the side of her face, making her look almost unreal.
Then, facing the countless people below, she removed the hat and spoke in a voice that carried across the square.
"From this day forward, Konoha is under my protection. I am the Fifth Hokage."
The roar of cheers that followed was like a tidal wave.
After everything Konoha had just endured, the village desperately needed a powerful leader to stabilize its spirit.
Standing in the shadow behind her, Akira watched Tsunade's proud, commanding figure and couldn't help the faint smile of approval that touched his mouth.
When the ceremony ended, everyone returned to the Hokage's office.
The two advisors had already left, but the core jonin leadership remained.
At that point, Shikamaru was also called in.
Standing beside Akira, he was full of confusion. Why had this guy been allowed to stand up on the roof just now? That was supposed to be a place reserved for the village's top tier.
Tsunade sat behind the desk, fingers laced beneath her chin, her gaze moving over the two boys.
"You two had the most outstanding performances in this Chunin Exam, and both of you were recognized by the old Third Hokage while he was alive. So from today onward, you are both promoted to chunin."
"Becoming chunin means taking on the responsibilities of a team leader. From now on, think more carefully when you're out on missions."
Shikamaru scratched his head, already wearing that familiar expression that said what a pain. He had lost his match, but the tactical brilliance he showed had earned everyone's respect.
As for Akira, his promotion came as no surprise to anyone in the know. He had barely fought in the final rounds, but internally, his strength had already long since been acknowledged.
Once Tsunade finished confirming Shikamaru's advancement, her tone shifted, and her eyes settled on Akira.
"Akira, in light of your role in the Land of Grass incident, where you reversed a disaster in progress and successfully completed an S-rank confidential mission..."
"I am hereby promoting you by special exception to Special Jonin, effective immediately. In addition, you are appointed from this day forward as one of the Hokage's direct personal guards."
The words hit Shikamaru like a hammer.
"S-rank mission? When did this guy go off and do something like that?"
Shikamaru had always known Akira was hiding something, but this was ridiculous.
Skipping straight past ordinary chunin status to Special Jonin, and then becoming a personal guard to the Hokage? That level of trust was unreal.
Anyone chosen to stand at the Hokage's side had to be an absolute confidant.
Shikamaru couldn't stop himself from sneaking another glance at Akira, trying to figure out what kind of magic he'd worked on the Fifth Hokage.
Under everyone's eyes, Akira remained perfectly calm. He simply inclined his head and said, "Understood, Hokage-hime."
In public, the two of them kept an unspoken distance between superior and subordinate, but there was something in the exchange of their eyes that only the two of them understood.
Outwardly, Tsunade was completely composed, giving away nothing that might suggest special treatment.
Because of that, no one around them suspected anything unusual.
Kakashi and the others all knew that Akira had been studying medical ninjutsu directly under Tsunade, making him, for all practical purposes, a true personal disciple.
So Tsunade promoting him to Special Jonin and then keeping him by her side as a guard seemed entirely reasonable.
No one had any reason to question it.
Still, news that Akira had become a Special Jonin, while Shikamaru had risen to chunin, spread through the younger generation like wildfire.
Naruto wasn't surprised at all. In his straightforward mind, Akira had always been ridiculously strong anyway.
Sasuke, for his part, said nothing. He had no grounds to object.
Sakura even less so. She had seen Akira use Flying Raijin with her own eyes. To her, someone who could kill Zabuza outright already belonged in the jonin tier.
Only Kiba and a few of the others were left baffled. Kabuto had hinted at a few things before the exam, sure, but afterward Akira had stayed so absurdly low-key that he had barely shown a fraction of what he could do.
Now that he had become Tsunade's chosen guard, Akira had effectively split off from Team Seven. He was now glued to Tsunade's side like a shadow.
That said, most of his free time was still spent buried in the Senju compound or in the musty archive rooms of the Hokage Tower.
Once he became one of the Hokage's guards, Tsunade stopped holding back and granted him the highest level of access to the archives.
Among the mountains of scrolls stored there, Akira could not only study the old secrets of the Senju clan, but also browse scattered records involving many other families.
Of course, the true lifeblood secrets of the great clans were not kept there. Those would never be left in a place like this.
Days turned into months.
With frightening perseverance, Akira managed to work his way through roughly a third of the Hokage archive in that time, stuffing his head full of all sorts of bizarre sealing arts and strange ninjutsu theories.
One day, in the dim underground Senju archive, Akira was reading in total concentration when Tsunade pushed open the door and stepped inside.
She looked straight at him and got to the point.
"There's a nasty assignment that needs handling. I need you to go."
Akira raised his head from the mountain of books and let his eyes rest on her face, curiosity flickering there. "What kind of mission is important enough for you to come here personally?"
If the Hokage herself was hand-picking him, then this definitely wasn't going to be some old-lady-lost-her-cat nonsense.
Tsunade sighed and rubbed her temples, clearly tired. "Something's happened over in the Land of Water. A group of Konoha missing-nin are causing trouble there. They even tried to assassinate the daimyo of the Land of Water."
"Right now the Land of Water and the Kirigakure are at each other's throats. There's no trust there at all. So the daimyo sent the request directly to Konoha, asking us to clean up our own mess."
Akira paused for a moment, then asked, "Couldn't you just send a few elite shinobi to deal with it?"
Tsunade dropped into the seat across from him and frowned. "That's the problem. There are more than a dozen of them, and the one leading them is a jonin. If we want to uproot them completely, I need at least one high-level operative to hold the line."
"And you know the situation in Konoha right now. Every available jonin is already stretched to the limit. The village is drowning in mission requests."
"I went through the list over and over. In the end, you were the only one I could spare."
Akira didn't hesitate for even a second. He simply nodded.
"All right. I'll go."