The world was fire and screams.
From the roof of the Hokage Tower, Sarutobi Hiruzen saw it clearly. A monstrous silhouette of crimson chakra, nine tails lashing out like whips against the village he had sworn to protect. Each swing leveled buildings, each roar shook the very foundations of the Land of Fire. The air, thick with smoke and the metallic tang of blood, was stolen from his lungs.
So, this is the power of the Nine-Tails... The thought was a cold stone in his gut.
In a blur of motion, shinobi landed on the rooftops beside him, their faces pale behind their masks and headbands. Panic, a poison in the ranks, was beginning to spread.
"Lord Third!" an ANBU gasped, his voice strained. "Reporting! The Nine-Tails manifested in the village center without warning! The barrier division is annihilated! The Konoha Orphanage has been hit!"
Hiruzen's ancient heart clenched. The orphanage. A place of memories. It was where he had found Jiraiya.
"Casualties?" Hiruzen's voice was gravel, steady as a mountain. He could not afford to show the tremor he felt.
"Three hundred, Lord Third... and rising!"
So many.
He tamped down the grief. Now was the time for the God of Shinobi, not the old man. His mind, a whirlwind of strategy, issued commands with lightning speed.
"All Chunin and below, establish a perimeter! Evacuate every last civilian! Jonin, with me! We stall the beast until the Fourth arrives!"
His gaze swept over the shinobi. His eyes landed on a small, three-man cell—Team 13. Capable, loyal, civilian-born Chunin. Standard protocol dictated they join the main assault force, a frontline unit tasked with the suicidal mission of directly confronting the beast. It was their duty. An honorable, but near-certain, end for the team.
The orphanage...
A single, half-second thought, born of sentimentality in a moment of crisis, broke through the cold calculus of war.
"Team 13!" he barked, altering a fate that had already been written. "Your mission is the orphanage! Get in there and save whoever you can! Go!"
"Yes, Lord Third!"
It was a minor change, a single unit redirected. A decision that should have been meaningless in the grand scale of the battle.
But fate, once nudged, rarely returns to its original path.
The Next Day.
Konoha Hospital.
The silence was heavier than the screams had been. Konoha Hospital smelled of antiseptic and sorrow. Hiruzen, his ceremonial robes replacing his battle armor, walked past rooms filled with the wounded and the grieving. His steps were heavy. Minato was gone. Kushina was gone.
He paused before a guarded room, observing the sleeping, whiskered newborn within. A legacy and a burden, left for them all. With a sigh that carried the weight of a thousand souls, he turned.
There was one last visit he made.
He found her in the intensive care unit. Shiori, the last conscious member of Team 13. Bandages encased her limbs and head. An IV drip fed blood back into a body that had lost too much. Her husband, her teammate, had not survived even in the "safer" mission.
And yet, there was a miracle here. A cruel, beautiful miracle. Shiori had been seven months pregnant. The trauma of the attack had induced a premature birth right here, in the chaos of the hospital.
Beside the broken mother lay a small, shockingly quiet baby in a cradle. Hiruzen peered down at the child.
His hair was a dark, impossibly rich black that seemed to drink the light, shimmering even in the dim room, and his eyes, though barely open, were a startling silver with pupils like stars.
What beautiful eyes...
A name echoed in the old Hokage's heart. Not a name he chose, but a name that felt like a discovery, a truth. He spoke it aloud, his voice a low whisper in the quiet room.
"Deva."