"Where the leaves dance, the fire never dies."
"The blaze will keep lighting the village and help the new leaves sprout."
"Summing up the spirit of the Hokage before me, plus my own reflections, this is how I understand the Will of Fire."
"In short, the young are the village's hope, and the older generation bears the duty to protect them. The sacrifice of our predecessors is not in vain. It inspires the young to grow into the village's pillars."
At every new student ceremony, one thing was never missing: the lecture from the Third Hokage, the man rumored to be Konoha's strongest, and his gentle brainwashing.
You could lack talent, but you must hold absolute loyalty to Konoha.
Amane seemed to understand the old man's good intentions in lecturing children barely six years old.
Konoha did not need mighty heroes. It needed obedient dogs.
"That thinking is too small."
Shaking his head, Amane nudged his frames and let out a soft sigh.
Countless people were swept along by the Will of Fire.
The Will itself was not wrong, and the man preaching it truly had the spirit of giving himself to the village. That was beyond doubt.
The Third was hypocritical, cared about his image, and loved power.
Even so, he risked his life to protect Konoha and stopped Orochimaru.
That alone showed the Will of Fire was not empty talk.
Yet the scale was small.
He was forever bound to one village, spending all his methods on managing the clans inside it.
That was the path of a politician, not a leader.
Even so, Amane had no right to judge from his own angle. He had watched this story with a god's-eye a thousand times and knew what kind of world it was.
The rest were born into a fixed culture, taught by their elders.
Environment sets the scale.
Someone like Itachi was already an outlier.
Still.
Amane glanced at his daily quests, and a sweet smile drifted over his usually placid face.
Anyone who did not know him would think he was only a child full of innocence.
That smile, though, made the Second Pillar beside him shiver on the spot.
What is Second Brother planning?
Sasuke swallowed and stared, ready to bolt at any moment.
"Hey, Grandpa Hokage!"
PFFT!
The sudden address nearly made Sasuke spit.
Grandpa Hokage?
Heh.
Second Brother, last night at dinner you called the Third a mangy old dog right in front of Father.
Sasuke was a child, not a fool. He would not blurt that out.
Besides, it was the Hokage.
But this Grandpa Hokage made it impossible to guess what Amane was about to pull.
Onstage, Sarutobi Hiruzen was in high spirits, reliving Konoha's history.
Years to be proud of.
He boasted of how, under his leadership, Konoha won the Second and the Third Great Ninja Wars.
Warmed up, he tossed in a bit about the First Hokage, Senju Hashirama, like how the title Hokage was set by the First.
Which meant Uchiha Amane's chance had arrived.
Wearing a guileless smile, the boy slipped from the crowd and bowed with polite humility.
Kneeling was out of the question.
A man's knees hold gold. His knees held diamonds. Bending them hurt.
"An Uchiha child, is it."
No one strikes a smiling face.
All the more when that face belonged to a child.
No matter his grudge with the Uchiha, no matter that this boy was the clan head's son, in this setting Sarutobi would pull on the kindly mask and play the doting grandfather.
Most importantly, Amane's cultured manners were the perfect cover.
Rare indeed.
Even the Uchiha had produced a child with such refined bearing.
He nodded to Amane, lifted a warm smile, and beckoned him up.
"Do you have a question, child?"
As the ruler of Konoha, he knew the rift with the Uchiha. He also knew there were Uchiha he could use.
Danzō held Shisui in his fist, and he, Hiruzen, held the ANBU's Uchiha Itachi.
If that grip widened, if they nurtured this boy's love for Konoha from the start, swallowing the Uchiha would not be difficult.
So he would show closeness to the clan head's son in public like this.
"Yes, Grandpa Hokage."
Onstage again, Amane bowed, tugged his sleeve with bookish grace, and raised clear, shining eyes.
The Third.
Danger.
Below, Sasuke's brow twitched. He could already see that smile on the old man's face vanish in the next moment.
"Ask freely."
Hiruzen thumped his chest. Ask, and he would answer.
He had been waiting for this line.
Amane's lips curled. His voice rose, crisp and clear as he fired off a string of questions. "So then, Grandpa Third."
"As far as I know, the First Hokage, Senju Hashirama, did not specialize in Fire Release. At that time, the Land of Fire had only just formed. Its very name was not yet fixed."
"So... Grandpa Third."
"Why..."
"Would the First Hokage name Konoha's..."
Not good.
In that instant the Third's pupils shrank.
He knew what the brat was going to ask.
Too late to stop it.
Amane quickened his speech.
"Why would the First name Konoha's highest leader, the village head, as Hokage?"
Silence fell.
Onstage and off, the only sound left was the boy's questioning tone.
Was it careless, or deliberate?
Was it his father Uchiha Fugaku's instruction?
Hiruzen had no idea.
He only knew he could not answer.
To answer was to acknowledge the Uchiha's place, to acknowledge the Uchiha.
Yes.
The title Hokage was a post the First prepared for the Uchiha's strongest of old, Uchiha Madara.
Madara named the village Konoha. The First named its leader Hokage.
It was a piece of history buried in Konoha's past.
How could he reply?
He must have asked without malice, right?
The Third lit his long pipe in silence. At his side, the brat mirrored him and lit a Hua-zi.
When they had finished those smokes, Amane breathed out softly.
"As a person."
"Never forget your roots."
Perhaps he said it to himself, perhaps to everyone below.
Hiruzen knew.
Uchiha Amane was provoking the authority of the Hokage.
...