Chūnin Exam Arena --- Audience Stands
Bai Yan had been eating roasted chestnuts since the Future Pillar Ranking started.
He'd eaten through Sasuke's placement.
Through Guy-sensei and Rock Lee.
Through Hinata falling off the railing.
He'd watched Naruto catch her with the expression of a man watching a river flow in the direction rivers are supposed to flow.
Of course he caught her.
What else would he do.
He peeled another chestnut.
Beside him, Ayame hadn't touched her food in twenty minutes.
She was watching the arena.
Watching Naruto specifically.
She'd watched the parentage reveal with the same still expression she got when something was too large to react to in real time --- the same look she'd given the first time the scroll announced Naruto's ranking and put his name in gold above everyone else's.
Bai Yan knew that expression.
He'd lived with it for years.
It meant she was thinking about something she hadn't decided how to say yet.
He kept eating his chestnuts.
He waited.
"Honey."
"Mm."
"Naruto." She paused. "He grew up alone, right? His whole life."
"Yes."
"And the whole village knew his parents --- the people who raised him, the Hokage, Kakashi-san, Jiraiya-san --- they all knew. The whole time."
"Yes."
She was quiet for a moment.
"Did you know?"
Bai Yan stopped peeling the chestnut.
Just for a second.
Then he resumed.
"...Yes."
Ayame turned to look at him.
She had very steady eyes, his wife.
It was one of the things he'd first noticed about her.
She didn't look away from things she wanted to understand.
"Since the beginning?" she asked.
"Since before the beginning," he said honestly. "I knew before we arrived at this arena. Before the scroll appeared. Before any of it."
She was quiet.
He kept his eyes on the chestnut in his hands.
"You knew," she said slowly. "That he was the Fourth Hokage's son. That he'd been alone his whole life knowing nothing about his parents. That the entire village was protecting a secret from him."
"Yes."
"And you said nothing."
"No."
Another silence.
Bai Yan had been through many silences with Ayame.
He'd learned to read them.
This one wasn't angry.
It was something quieter than anger.
The kind of silence that came from someone who loved you genuinely trying to understand a version of you they hadn't seen before.
"Why?" she asked.
He set the chestnut down on his knee.
He thought about how to answer this honestly --- not the version he'd give to anyone else, not the easy version, but the actual answer.
"Because I told myself it wasn't my place," he said. "That the plot would unfold as it was supposed to. That my job was to watch and manage things from the edges. Keep my hands clean. Not disrupt the structure."
"But?"
He looked at Naruto in the arena.
At the boy who was standing with his fist raised and his grin cracked slightly open at the edges, somewhere between joy and something much rawer than joy.
"But that boy ate birthday ramen alone every year," Bai Yan said. "And I was standing right there behind the counter serving it to him."
Ayame said nothing.
"I told myself it was kindness," he said. "Giving him a seat. Making sure the broth was hot. But it's easier to hand someone a bowl of ramen than it is to tell them the truth."
The chestnuts sat cooling between them.
After a long moment, Ayame reached over.
Took the one he'd been holding.
Peeled the rest of it herself.
"I'm not angry," she said.
"I know."
"I just wanted to know the answer."
"I know that too."
She handed the chestnut back to him.
"Don't do it again," she said simply.
He looked at it in his palm.
"...No. I won't."
She picked up her own snack and went back to watching the arena.
Shoulders relaxed.
Settled.
Done.
That was Ayame.
She didn't hold things.
She just needed the truth to be said once, clearly, and then she could put it down.
He'd married her because she was kind.
He was only now understanding how much courage that kind of kindness actually required.
The scroll pulsed.
He looked up.
A new section was beginning to glow.
Not the next ranking.
Text appeared --- just a single line at the top of the blank section, before the ranking title formed:
[The following ranking pertains to those who have shaped the next generation. Results may be uncomfortable for those involved.]
Bai Yan read it.
Then read it again.
His eyes narrowed.
Ah.
He knew this one.
He hadn't expected it this early.
It wasn't part of the original sequence.
Which meant---
The scroll is doing something on its own.
He filed that away under "things to think about later" and settled back in his seat.
This was going to be entertaining.
Group Chat:
[Third Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi: "Results may be uncomfortable for those involved"... that's an ominous warning.]
[Jiraiya: Uh. Uncomfortable how?]
[Orochimaru: It's a teacher ranking. Obviously.]
[Jiraiya: How do you know?]
[Orochimaru: Because if it were anything else, it wouldn't warn us first. Only teacher rankings make people uncomfortable. Combat rankings just bruise egos.]
[Jiraiya: ...You figured that out quickly.]
[Orochimaru: I've been taking notes since this morning, Jiraiya. Keep up.]
[Tsunade: A teacher ranking. So the three of us are on it.]
[Orochimaru: Obviously.]
[Tsunade: And it's going to be "uncomfortable."]
[Orochimaru: Obviously.]
[Tsunade: For us specifically.]
[Orochimaru: ...Probably more for you and me than for Jiraiya.]
[Jiraiya: Excuse me?!]
[Orochimaru: Jiraiya, you taught the Fourth Hokage. Who just ranked second. On the Hokage Power Ranking. Above Tobirama Senju.]
A pause.
[Jiraiya: ...Oh.]
[Tsunade: Jiraiya, don't be smug about this.]
[Jiraiya: I'm not being smug.]
[Tsunade: Your message had "oh" in it like you just remembered something good.]
[Jiraiya: That's just how I type!]
Konoha --- Chūnin Exam Arena
The ranking title solidified.
[Sannin Legacy Ranking: Which of the Three Legendary Shinobi Left the Greatest Mark?]
Complete chaos.
Group Chat:
[First Hokage Hashirama Senju: SANNIN RANKING!! This is going to be incredible!! Madara, are you watching?!]
[Uchiha Madara: I'm watching.]
[First Hokage Hashirama Senju: Who do you think ranks first?!]
[Uchiha Madara: ...The perverted hermit.]
[First Hokage Hashirama Senju: SAME!! I think so too!! HAHAHA!!]
[Second Hokage Tobirama Senju: That's because it's correct. The analysis supports it. Jiraiya's students include the Fourth Hokage, Pain, and Konoha Uzumaki Naruto. Two world-defining figures from one teacher is unprecedented.]
[Jiraiya: Sensei---]
[Second Hokage Tobirama Senju: Don't get emotional. I'm simply stating facts.]
[Jiraiya: I'm not emotional.]
[Second Hokage Tobirama Senju: You are visibly emotional.]
[Jiraiya: I'M NOT---]
Konoha --- Chūnin Exam Arena
Naruto squinted at the chat.
"Oi. Shikamaru."
"What."
"Pervy Sage taught Dad?"
"...Yes, Naruto. Jiraiya trained the Fourth Hokage. We've known that since---"
"Pervy Sage taught MY DAD."
Shikamaru rubbed his temples.
"...Yes."
Naruto turned and looked at Jiraiya, who was standing three rows behind them in the audience.
Jiraiya, who had been attempting to look completely composed and normal, felt Naruto's stare like a kunai between the shoulder blades.
He turned.
Naruto was looking at him with an expression that could only be described as:
You trained my dad and you never told me.
Jiraiya opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
"...Kid, I was going to---"
"You trained my dad," Naruto said. Not angrily. Just stating it the way you state something you're still turning over in your hands. "This whole time. You were training me the same way you trained him."
Jiraiya looked at him for a long moment.
"Yeah," he said finally. "Yeah. Same basics. Same approach." He paused. "He was better at it than you."
"OBVIOUSLY I KNOW THAT---"
"But you work harder."
Naruto stopped.
Jiraiya scratched the back of his neck in that way he did when he was saying something real and didn't know how to dress it up.
"Minato was a genius," he said. "Everything came naturally to him. He never had to want it the way you do." He shrugged with one shoulder. "I always thought that made you more interesting to teach."
Naruto stared at him.
His jaw worked.
"...Pervy Sage."
"Don't start."
"You're actually---"
"I said don't."
"---kind of decent sometimes."
"I will leave. I will walk out of this arena right now."
He didn't leave.
Naruto grinned.
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