Chapter 50: Sakura Would Recognize Her From Her Ashes
Hokage Office
"I see..."
Hiruzen Sarutobi stroked the short whiskers on his chin as he listened to Sakura's private mission debrief.
Tazuna had falsified his mission rank. He'd originally been planning to send some operative out to handle the man at his leisure, but Sakura had locked the mission in ahead of him, so he'd let it sit. Now, with Sakura passing word to Gatō in the Land of Waves to take care of Tazuna after the mission concluded — that was a perfectly reasonable resolution.
"Right. Got it."
"On a separate note — did you bring back the Demon's Executioner Blade from Zabuza?"
Hiruzen wasn't going to fuss over the Tazuna situation. He'd already pivoted to the more interesting question.
He could see Sakura's caliber clearly. For something this minor, one sentence was enough.
"Brought it. I'm planning to go through Sasuke to reach out to the Cat Shinobi clan and have it melted down and reforged."
"Recast it into a few standard-issue shinobi blades."
"I hear the Cat Shinobi clan's craftsmanship with shinobi tools is second to none."
Sakura rummaged in her tool pouch, produced a scroll, and laid it out on Hiruzen's desk. As the scroll unrolled, she made a hand seal.
A massive blade roughly the size of a door panel materialized on top of the Hokage's desk.
The Executioner's Blade was reputed to be one of the Seven Ninja Swords of the Mist that could never break. It absorbed iron from the blood of those it cut down to regenerate damaged sections.
But from Sakura's perspective, aside from the fact that it was perpetually in mint condition and its owner never had to spend money repairing it, the thing had basically no upsides — it was one of the most useless of the seven swords.
Hiruzen glanced at the blade, nodded, didn't say much, and resealed it back into the scroll.
"Sakura, here's the participant roster for this Chūnin Exam. Take a look."
He smiled at his neatly efficient little disciple and pulled a document from a folder on his desk, sliding it over to her.
Sakura gave him a deeply unimpressed look.
Excuse me, old man. Are you the Hokage, or am I the Hokage?
Everything has to land on me — at this point you might as well step down and let me take over~~
Even so, she leaned back into the sofa and picked up the file.
"Hmm?"
Her fine eyebrows knit slightly.
"Spotted something?"
Hiruzen was just about to pull out his pipe for a draw.
"This worn-out sofa — how long has it been sitting here? It's lumpy as hell. Tomorrow you're getting it replaced. Sitting on this thing is exhausting."
The pink-haired girl was sprawled sideways across the sofa, one leg crossed over the other, lazily flipping through the file as she spoke.
Hiruzen looked at Sakura — who was currently treating his Hokage office like her own living room — and felt his mouth twitch.
Now that he thought about it, that sofa had been a stylish acquisition all the way back in the Second Hokage's era. A few decades on, yeah, it was getting up there.
"Hahaha, fair enough."
He didn't actually mind in the least.
Day to day, the only people he interacted with — outside of Homura Mitokado, Koharu Utatane, and Danzō Shimura — were people who treated him with rigid deference. Sakura had been around him long enough that she didn't make trouble for him the way the elder council trio did, but she also didn't tiptoe around him the way everyone else did.
She reminded him a lot of how Jiraiya and Tsunade had been at her age...
While Hiruzen drifted into reminiscing about his own youth, Sakura's eyes were rapidly scanning down the file.
First on the list: the Hidden Stone and the Hidden Sand.
The Sand's delegation had Kazekage Rasa and his three children, and outside of Baki, was basically all small fry.
The Stone's delegation, on the other hand — that one was worth chewing on.
The Stone had sent a sparse delegation. Aside from Tsuchikage Ōnoki of the Two Scales and the jōnin Kitsuchi, only three squads had been entered into this Chūnin Exam.
One of those squads in particular — its three genin caught her eye.
Akatsuchi. Kurotsuchi. Suiton. Hai... Hai-tsuchi? Whatever — that one she didn't recognize. But Akatsuchi and Kurotsuchi? Oh, those two she knew.
These were the two future bodyguards who would flank Ōnoki of the Two Scales three years from now! The ones he'd bring with him to the Five Kage Summit!
So clearly old man Ōnoki, like Hiruzen Sarutobi, was here to fish with dynamite!
Both of these kids were fourteen now — minimum chūnin-level, no way around it. Quite possibly Special Jōnin already!
Especially that Kurotsuchi!
Sakura would recognize that one if she'd been reduced to ash!
"Achoo!"
A short-haired girl in sharp red shinobi gear sneezed.
"Hm? What was that?"
"I have this weird feeling someone's badmouthing me behind my back."
Hearing the girl's words, the boy walking next to her — burly, broad-faced, with the look of an honest workhorse — laughed.
"Could be Kurotsuchi caught a chill sleeping last night?"
"Don't worry though, we'll be at Konoha soon. They've got the best medical shinobi in the entire ninja world."
Akatsuchi scratched the back of his head, his honest face creasing with concern.
"Baka."
"How would I catch a chill?"
Kurotsuchi punched him in the shoulder, indignant.
Faced with the girl's brash, devil-may-care behavior, Akatsuchi just laughed and didn't push it.
"Alright, that's enough. We're nearly at Konoha."
"Kurotsuchi, Akatsuchi — remember your assignments."
The burly man leading the team turned to his daughter.
"Got it, Old Man."
"It's just beating up a bunch of foreign genin, right?"
"That's my specialty!"
Kurotsuchi grinned, cracking her knuckles, every inch a girl about to tear up the Chūnin Exams for fun.
Kitsuchi glanced at his daughter and didn't bother saying more.
Kurotsuchi was just like that — energetic, can't-sit-still personality, on top of which she'd been thoroughly spoiled by the current Tsuchikage — Kitsuchi's father, her grandfather. She didn't take anyone particularly seriously. On top of which she had Lava Release as her kekkei genkai, and recently she'd learned the old man's Light-Weight Rock and Heavy-Weight Rock techniques — which had only made her more impossible to control. Combined with the Earth Release: Stone Spears, you could fairly call her one of Iwagakure's resident terrors.
"The Chūnin Exams?"
Naruto looked at Kakashi with a bright, delighted expression.
"Yep. It's a large-scale joint Chūnin Exam with the Land of Wind and the Land of Earth."
"Unprecedented arrangement, this one. First of its kind."
Kakashi's visible eye crinkled into that happy little arc as he watched his blond gremlin.
"EH?!"
Naruto, predictably, was riveted.
"On the day of the exams — not just the Hokage. The Sand's Kazekage and the Stone's Tsuchikage will both be making appearances at the third stage."
Kakashi dropped a second bombshell, and Naruto practically vibrated out of his shoes.
Sakura watched Kakashi work the kid like he was a children's TV host and just sighed.
But it wasn't only Naruto eating it up — even Sasuke had quietly clenched his fists.
So this Chūnin Exam meant a chance to size up the standout same-age shinobi from every great village. He could measure exactly where his own strength stood.
"Sakura-chan doesn't seem terribly excited though?"
And with that, Kakashi pivoted right onto her too.
Naruto and Sasuke both turned to look.
"Wow."
"Truly thrilling~~~"