Among the three of them, Ruri Uzuki was the top-ranked girl in the class, while Sarutobi Enjun had taken second overall. Ruri herself was no mediocre talent either. Every one of her assessment scores had placed within the top five of this elite class.
Judging by her current performance, she was no worse than future Konoha elites like Aburame Shibi and Akimichi Choza had been at the same age. With a lineup like this, and Orochimaru as the jonin in charge, it was hard not to suspect the Third Hokage had arranged it on purpose.
After all, Enjun was the Hokage's son. There was no way Hiruzen Sarutobi would leave his teacher and teammates entirely to chance.
And Gen himself had been placed on that team, becoming Sarutobi Enjun's teammate and Orochimaru's student.
That meant something very clear.
He had not only entered the Third Hokage's field of vision, he had already been drawn into the Hokage faction.
Are they trying to raise me into another Uchiha Kagami? Gen thought. And instead of doing it gradually, they've handed me directly to Orochimaru.
Maybe... that isn't entirely a bad thing.
The conflict between the Uchiha clan and the Hokage line had begun surfacing as early as Tobirama Senju's era.
Back when the First Hokage was alive, no one except Madara had dared stir trouble. Hashirama Senju had been broad-minded and powerful beyond measure, and he had never treated the Uchiha with the same suspicion others would later show.
Tobirama was different.
His prejudice toward the Uchiha was real, and when he gave the Police Force to the Uchiha, it was less a gift than a cage lined with authority. He was cautious to an extreme, but he also had the strength and ability to suppress the tension and keep it from boiling over.
That balance lasted only as long as he did.
Once Tobirama died, and Uchiha Kagami—the bridge left between the Uchiha and Konoha's leadership—also died young, the conflict between the two sides began to deepen little by little.
If Kagami had lived, the Uchiha would always have had one of their own among Konoha's upper ranks. In that case, the hostility between the two sides twenty years later in the original timeline would never have become so severe.
At the very least, after the situation exploded, a disaster like the Night of Extermination might never have happened.
Maybe that was why, in the original timeline, the Third Hokage had placed Obito under Minato Namikaze. Perhaps he had wanted to shape that talented, simple, hot-blooded Uchiha into the next Uchiha Kagami. After Obito, there had also been Uchiha Shisui and Uchiha Itachi.
But in the end, everything had been ruined.
Madara had been lurking in the dark. Danzo had interfered at every turn. Obito and Itachi had both been mentally unstable in their own ways. If even one of those people had handled things sensibly, the tragedy might never have happened.
And now...
Now it seemed Gen had become one of those chosen pieces.
The conflict between the Uchiha and Konoha had already begun to show itself in the years since Uchiha Kagami's death, but it was still only in its infancy. Compared to what it would become in the future, it was still relatively easy to suppress, adjust, and resolve. It had not yet reached the point of being irreconcilable.
Then yesterday's meeting with the Grand Elder flashed through Gen's mind.
If the informed people within the Uchiha clan learned that he had become Orochimaru's student and stepped into the Hokage faction, what would they do?
Would they be as shortsighted as Fugaku and treat him as nothing more than a tool for gathering information? Or would they see him as someone who could enter the Hokage camp's upper circles and fight for real power and status?
And what about the Third Hokage?
Now that Gen had caught his eye, Hiruzen would definitely want to see whether the boy could be shaped by the so-called Will of Fire. The examples of Shisui and Itachi were more than enough proof of that possibility.
If that was the case, then if they wanted to raise him into a useful piece, they would also need him to become someone with genuine strength and influence within the Uchiha clan.
Which meant one thing.
Before his growth became enough to threaten the Third Hokage, the Hokage might not mind using his authority to give him resources and speed up his development.
But the truth of it would only become clear after he met Orochimaru.
At least for now, this looked more like an opportunity than a danger.
While Gen was silently analyzing the situation and weighing the pros and cons, time slipped by without a sound.
Once the squad assignments were complete, a middle-aged female jonin appeared at the classroom door and took away this generation's Ino-Shika-Cho.
It was Sarutobi Biwako, the Third Hokage's wife.
The Sarutobi clan had always been closely tied to the Ino-Shika-Cho alliance, and they had witnessed the pact between those three clans for generations. When the previous generation inherited their clan leadership, the witness had been Sarutobi Sasuke, father of the current Hokage and a ninja famous in his own right. For this generation, the witness would certainly be Sarutobi Hiruzen himself. And if there was another generation after that, then in the original timeline, it would be Asuma who stood in that role.
Normally, as Hokage, Hiruzen would never have had time to personally serve as a jonin team leader during wartime. But the Sarutobi clan would absolutely send out someone of enough status and strength to fill that position.
Biwako qualified perfectly.
She was a capable jonin in her own right, and as the Hokage's wife, her standing was also just right. Hiruzen had not inherited the Hokage title through blood, so having her lead that squad still preserved the sense of balance the village liked to maintain.
One after another, Konoha's jonin came to the classroom and took away their students.
Soon, a pale young man with long black hair and a stern face appeared at the doorway. He wore Konoha's green jonin vest, but the moment he stepped into view, the atmosphere in the room changed.
"Sarutobi Enjun. Uchiha Gen. Uzuki Ruri. The three of you, come with me."
The voice was slightly hoarse, cool, and unsettlingly calm.
At once, Gen and the other two stood up and followed after Orochimaru.
A few minutes later, they arrived near Konoha's main gate.
Orochimaru stopped a short distance away from the towering gates and turned around.
"Orochimaru-sensei, what's going on here...?"
Sarutobi Enjun hesitated as he looked up at the gate, but before he could say more, Orochimaru interrupted him with a glance.
"I haven't permitted you to call me teacher yet," Orochimaru said evenly. "At least, not for now. The jonin in charge all possess the right to send newly graduated genin back."
His golden, snake-like eyes moved across the three of them one by one.
"Life is fragile. One moment, you may still be breathing. The next, you may already be a corpse on the ground."
His tone remained calm, but the words seemed to seep into the air like venom.
"That is especially true for the weak. If you lack the talent, the strength, the capacity, and the wisdom to protect yourselves, then sooner or later, you will die on the battlefield."
Orochimaru paused for half a breath.
"I have no need for students like that."
The three of them stiffened.
"Children of the Hokage," Orochimaru continued, his expression unreadable, "or descendants of important clans, have no absolute need to risk their lives as shinobi. If they are too fragile, it would be better for them to stay home. Then at least they would not die meaninglessly."
The words sounded cold, but they carried something heavier beneath them.
A thought flashed through Gen's mind at once.
Nawaki.
It seemed the death of his beloved disciple two or three years ago had left a wound in Orochimaru far deeper than outsiders knew.
Even though he had not yet become the monster he would one day turn into, the current Orochimaru had already begun thinking about life and death in a way ordinary people could never understand.
That was why he had not accepted students lightly for so long.
If someone wanted to become his disciple, they first had to prove one thing to him—that their life was not so fragile that it would snap the moment they stepped onto a battlefield.
"Lord Orochimaru," Uzuki Ruri said, her back straight and her eyes steady, "how can you know we don't have that kind of talent? We're ready to do whatever it takes."
For the first time, Orochimaru's gaze settled on her for longer than a moment.
"Determination is common," he said. "Most people have it when they haven't seen enough blood yet."
Ruri bit her lip, but her eyes did not waver.
Sarutobi Enjun clenched his fists.
"Then tell us what we need to do," he said. "If this is a test, we'll pass it."
His voice was full of confidence, but Gen could hear the tension underneath it.
Orochimaru did not answer at once.
Instead, he slowly turned his head and looked beyond them, toward the forest outside the village walls.
The morning wind moved through the trees in the distance, carrying with it the smell of damp soil and leaves.
Then Orochimaru smiled.
It was not a warm smile. It was the kind that made the hairs on the back of your neck rise.
"Very well," he said. "Since you all seem to have so much confidence in yourselves, I'll give you a chance to prove it."
He reached into his vest and took out three small bells.
The bells chimed softly as they swung from his fingers.
The moment Sarutobi Enjun saw them, his expression changed.
Gen's eyes narrowed as well.
A bell test?
So even at this point in time, Orochimaru was already using this format?
"Before noon," Orochimaru said, "you are to take these bells from me. Anyone who fails to do so will be sent back."
Ruri's brows furrowed. "There are only three of us... and only three bells."
"Is that so?" Orochimaru asked lightly. "Then perhaps all of you have a chance. Or perhaps one of you doesn't."
He let the implication hang there on purpose.
Gen immediately understood what he was doing.
The real purpose of the test was not just strength. Orochimaru was deliberately throwing a wedge between them to see what kind of decisions they would make under pressure.
Would they cooperate?
Would they betray each other?
Would they cling to individual victory and expose their own weakness in the process?
A test like this was not only meant to assess combat sense. It was meant to strip away pretense.
Sarutobi Enjun clearly hadn't thought that far yet. The moment he heard there were three bells for three people, his shoulders loosened slightly.
Ruri, on the other hand, stayed wary.
As for Gen, he only watched Orochimaru more carefully.
This man was dangerous.
Not just because he was powerful, but because he understood how to pry open the human mind with a few words and the right amount of pressure.
Orochimaru tied the bells to his waist and stepped back.
"You may use any method you like," he said. "Traps, feints, ambushes, cooperation, deception. What I want to see is whether you have the qualifications to survive as shinobi under me."
Then his expression turned cold again.
"And let me be clear. If you come at me with the kind of hesitation children show in academy sparring, I won't hold back enough for you to regret it later."
The air seemed to tighten around them.
Sarutobi Enjun swallowed.
Ruri drew a slow breath.
Gen lowered his center of gravity ever so slightly and let his mind turn at full speed.
A jonin like Orochimaru could crush the three of them without effort. If this were truly a straightforward fight, there would be no meaning in taking the test at all.
Which meant the answer had to be somewhere else.
Teamwork was one possibility.
Judgment was another.
And perhaps the most important point of all was whether they understood what Orochimaru was really asking of them.
Not whether they could beat him.
But whether they could think like real ninja.
Orochimaru vanished.
There was no warning.
One instant he stood before them, bells gleaming at his waist. The next, there was only a faint disturbance in the air where he had been.
Sarutobi Enjun jerked in shock. Ruri spun toward the treeline.
Gen's pupils contracted.
Fast.
Too fast.
Even knowing Orochimaru was a top-tier jonin, actually watching him move made the gap between them feel enormous.
Then Orochimaru's voice drifted out from somewhere in the forest.
"The test has begun. Come find me."
Gen exhaled slowly.
The moment had arrived.
Whether this would become a stepping stone—or the first true danger of his new life—would depend on what they did next.