"Quite an interesting lineup this year, isn't it, Sarutobi?" Onoki of Both Scales observed, leaning into the cushions that he'd demanded the Land of Iron's most honorably carved stone seats be covered with, in order to accommodate his aching frame. Standing diligently behind him was his son-in-law, Kitsuchi of the Unyielding Stone Fist, the Tsuchikage's personal aid for the duration of the exams. Both men were sterling examples of their village's most defining qualities, down to their devastating proficiency with earth-based nature manipulation, their caustic attitudes, and their enormous noses.
Both men made Sarutobi regret advising Minato to spare their village every time he saw them.
"I can't say I have any complaints," he nonetheless said, instinctively pleasant if nothing else. He took a slow pull from his tobacco pipe, exhaling slowly as he surveyed the tens of thousands of spectators that the Land of Iron had managed to pack into its premier colosseum. He'd be lying if he said the excitement of it all wasn't beginning to affect him, just a touch.
"Your brats did perform rather well this year," Onoki agreed. "I think all of us were surprised by how much better Konoha did than in previous exams. Though I suppose that's not a very tall bar to vault." A of the Lightning Release snorted in amusement from his place beside the Tsuchikage, and Sarutobi wondered not for the first time why he had been seated with a bunch of children.
"What are you laughing at, Raikage?" Onoki said, turning his attention to the massive kage, a vindictive little glint in his eyes. "I seem to recall you placing first in teams sent and last in teams passed this year."
A grunted. "My shinobi are shinobi, not samurai. I sent them to take a test for shinobi, and got a farce instead."
"Raikage-sama means no offense, Mifune-sama," the Raikage's adviser murmured, bone white hair falling across her face as she simultaneously bowed her head and pinched her kage. He slapped her hand aside, grumbling.
"None taken, none taken," Mifune said, waving off her apology. "I think I'd have a stroke if I managed to host an exam that satisfied all of your villages."
"And isn't it a shame we are so difficult to please," Sarutobi said ruefully, taking another pull from his pipe. The smoke drifted from their spacious box and out into the open air of the arena, mingling amidst the towering stone trees that served as a reminder of one of the Land of Iron's greatest victories, when their previous leader killed the Shodai Tsuchikage in battle and cemented their place as a world power.
The sturdy constructs had refused to move since, and the samurai had been more than happy to keep them, building a colosseum around them as a reminder of their victory. When proposals for a neutral chunin exams had rolled around, the samurai had been adamant that if they were to be held anywhere within their borders, they would be held amidst the remnants of the late Tsuchikage's most powerful technique. Onoki had thrown a fit worthy of the S-rank child he was when Mifune informed him of this.
It was one of Sarutobi's most precious memories.
"The first match involves two of yours, right Hokage-dono?" Yagura of the Shifting Reflection asked. Sarutobi nodded, casting a glance at the far end of the arena and noting a flash of orange lurking inside one of the two participant tunnels. He smiled.
"Young Naruto and Sasuke, yes."
"Lucky break," Onoki observed. "You'll be getting at least one genin past the first round, if nothing else."
"I think you'll be surprised by how they do," Sarutobi said, ignoring the jab and instead focusing on the samurai announcer as he launched into his opening spiel in the arena. It was the same Itoh Jo every year, and he was beginning to grow on the old Hokage. His enthusiasm was such a nice change of pace from the past version of the chunin exams.
Jo announced the first participant, and the crowd went predictably wild. While there was no love lost between Konoha and a good deal of the other participating villages, the Uchiha clan was an entity all its own that commanded more than its fair share of admiration and envy, depending on who you were. The citizens of the Land of Iron especially had a soft spot for the shinobi clan, after seeing Uchiha Itachi drive the entire tournament to its knees in the first of the samurai-hosted exams.
So when Uchiha Sasuke strode into sight, it was no surprise that he got quite a bit of attention. His face was a mask of indifference as he stepped up to the announcer, his bearing easy in spite of the impending fight with his teammate and the thousands of eyes upon him. He really was beginning to look like his older brother.
"An Uchiha, eh?" Onoki said. "I guess that's how that team made it this far."
"I wouldn't underestimate his other teammates," Sarutobi replied, glancing sidelong at the only other man approaching his age in the box. "No matter how much you might admire that particular clan."
The report that he'd received from a harried dog summon regarding Naruto's latest mission and its disastrous conclusion had instilled a special sort of fury in the Sandaime Hokage, and it had not abated until he'd gotten a chance to see Teams 7 and 9 alive and well inside his office. In the time between receiving the corpses of a team of Iwa's elite shinobi force and welcoming Naruto back home, he'd exchanged some rather tense words with the Tsuchikage involving the incident. Of course, he'd known exactly the response Onoki was going to give before he even wet his brush, but again, it was a special sort of fury.
The Tsuchikage had not taken long to respond, and taken even less time to wave Sarutobi's accusations off. He dismissed the team of ANBU as being nuke nin if they even existed in the first place. Of course Iwa would never make such a blatant provocation of Konoha, who did Sarutobi think they were, Kumo?
Nonsense, all of it. Still, Sarutobi was in no position to press the issue. Konoha had come a long way since the Kyuubi's attack some twelve years ago, recovering from the brink of collapse as she always did. If Sarutobi had really wanted to muscle the Tsuchikage into a public apology, or some similar recompense, he very likely could have. The problem was that he could not trust his fellow kage to leave it at that.
Konoha had recovered quite a bit of strength in these last few years of peace, but that did not mean that she was in any condition to fight another war.
They had lost so many good shinobi in the last war, and the Kyuubi had done anything but help their current deluge of strong shinobi. There were exceptions, as there had always been- certain shinobi that allowed Konoha to hold on to its unofficial title as greatest of the Great Hidden Villages, even in spite of her recent hardships. Shinobi like Jiraiya, Gai, and Sarutobi himself. But he worried that it was not enough.
All of Konoha's wars had been won on the backs of legendary shinobi. Hashirama and Tobirama had been the legends that Sarutobi looked up to as a child during the First Great War. Sarutobi himself, along with his students, had served as the legends for the Second Great War. The Third Great War had been perhaps the most horrific for Konoha, pitting an ungodly collection of enemies against them with almost no allies to speak of. As such, it had taken an equally ungodly legend to drag Konoha from the jaws of ruin and crush all who opposed her.
They needed another Namikaze Minato before they could fight the next war, and as much as it pained Sarutobi to admit it, there would be a next war. There was too much hatred built upon years of uneasy armistice, too much lingering resentment for the man that had humiliated so many nations all on his own. Ironically, Namikaze Minato had saved Konoha from the Third Great War, but from what Sarutobi could see just in this little stone box, he would be the cause of the fourth.
Sarutobi watched intently as the second fighter was announced, and Naruto stepped out from his tunnel. The young shinobi froze just a few feet into the arena, wide eyes flitting back and forth across the faces of all those that had come to see him fight. He briefly alighted on Sarutobi's box, and although the Hokage doubted he could make it out from such a distance, he smiled reassuringly.
As much as it galled him to let the Tsuchikage's actions go, or any of the subtle prods that Konoha's enemies had been giving her, really, he had no choice. If they wanted to survive the next war, they needed another Namikaze Minato.
Sarutobi watched Naruto walk up to the announcer, and the familiar resemblance he had noted between Sasuke and his brother was nothing compared to the man he saw standing in Naruto's shadow- the man that had worn these robes of his before, and the one that would wear them again, in time.
Yes, they would have another Namikaze Minato. They just needed to wait a few years more.
...
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