The scroll trembled.
Not the polite shiver of the previous mornings, but a bone-deep convulsion that rattled the lacquered case Hiruzen had commissioned specifically to keep the damn thing from rolling off his desk. Ash drifted from his pipe onto the tatami. He didn't notice.
In the group chat, the notification chimed like a temple bell struck wrong.
[Ranking Scroll]: The Eighth Ranking shall now commence. Category — Shinobi Most Likely to Die for a Friend.
Uchiha Madara: Pathetic category.
Senju Hashirama: Madara!! This one's beautiful!! Friendship is the strongest jutsu!!
Uchiha Madara: Hashirama. Shut up.
Namikaze Minato: (pleasantly) Good morning, everyone. Coffee's on in the Hokage tower if anyone wants to come watch the rankings together.
Uchiha Obito: I'M COMING
Hatake Kakashi: ...I'll pass.
Uchiha Obito: OH SO YOU'LL DIE FOR ME BUT YOU WON'T DRINK COFFEE WITH ME, KAKASHI?
Hatake Kakashi: I never said I'd die for you.
Uchiha Obito: YOU LITERALLY DID. CHAPTER 239. KANNABI BRIDGE. THE BOULDER???
Hatake Kakashi: That was you dying for me.
Uchiha Obito: ...
Uchiha Obito: OH MY GOD YOU'RE RIGHT
Senju Tobirama: A Hatake admitting another's correctness. The world ends today.
Hatake Kakashi: Lord Second.
Senju Tobirama: Silver-Hair Junior.
Hatake Kakashi: I'm forty-six.
Senju Tobirama: And I'm dead. We all have problems.
The scroll glowed. Lines of golden script unfurled mid-air above every village, every camp, every chat window — the kind of script that bypassed eyeballs and went straight to the spine.
[Eighth Place]: Might Guy. Reason — would die for Kakashi on a Tuesday for fun.
Might Guy: YOOOOOSH!! THE RANKING SEES MY YOUTHFUL DEVOTION!!
Hatake Kakashi: Guy. Please.
Might Guy: KAKASHI MY ETERNAL RIVAL I WOULD DIE FOR YOU TWICE
Senju Tobirama: That's not how dying works.
Might Guy: IT IS IF YOUR FLAMES OF YOUTH BURN BRIGHT ENOUGH
Uchiha Madara: I want to leave this chat.
Senju Hashirama: Madara!!! You can't!!! It's mandatory!!!
Uchiha Madara: I am God.
Senju Hashirama: You're grounded is what you are.
[Seventh Place]: Uchiha Itachi. Reason — already did. Twice.
The chat went quiet for three full seconds. A record.
Uchiha Sasuke: ...
Uchiha Itachi: Foolish little brother. Don't read too much into it.
Uchiha Sasuke: I HATE THIS RANKING
Uchiha Sasuke: I HATE THIS SCROLL
Uchiha Sasuke: I HATE THAT YOU GET SEVENTH AND I GET NOTHING
Uchiha Itachi: (gentle) You'll get your turn, Sasuke.
Uchiha Madara: The crow speaks softly. Disgusting.
Uchiha Itachi: Lord Madara.
Uchiha Madara: Crow.
Uchiha Itachi: Did you also die for someone? Forgive me — the records are unclear.
Uchiha Madara: I died for spite. It's a higher art form.
Senju Tobirama: It's really not.
The scroll cracked open wider. The footage panel — that floating square of impossible silver light that had haunted Konoha's skyline for eight mornings running — flickered to life above the Hokage Monument. Civilians stopped mid-step on the bridges. Vendors abandoned dango skewers. A genin team going for morning laps slammed into each other and didn't bother getting up.
[Seventh Place Footage]: Uchiha Itachi — The Massacre Night.
The image bloomed. Not the Massacre as the world knew it — bloody, monstrous, a clan ended by a prodigy gone rotten — but the Massacre as it was. Itachi on his knees in the rain afterward. Shisui's cloak folded across his lap. A sob that sounded like a knife being twisted out of a wound.
In the chat, no one typed for a long moment.
Uchiha Sasuke: (typing)
Uchiha Sasuke: (typing)
Uchiha Sasuke: (stopped typing)
He thought: I don't want to look. I don't want to look. I'm looking. Why am I looking. Aniki — you idiot, you absolute idiot, you let me hate you for this. For this. I'm going to break something. I'm going to break Danzo. Where's Danzo.
Shimura Danzo: (has gone offline)
Senju Tobirama: Coward.
Senju Hashirama: Tobirama!! He's your student!!
Senju Tobirama: Anija. The man went offline mid-ranking. He knows what he did.
[Sixth Place]: Jiraiya. Reason — Ame. The kids. The rain. You know.
Namikaze Minato: Sensei.
Jiraiya: Minato. Don't.
Namikaze Minato: Sensei.
Jiraiya: Don't.
Tsunade: You absolute walnut. Sixth? SIXTH?? You should be third minimum.
Jiraiya: Hime, please, the scroll has its reasons —
Tsunade: The scroll has my FIST is what it has
Senju Hashirama: That's my granddaughter!! Look at that grip strength!!
Senju Tobirama: Anija your pride is misplaced. She's threatening a sannin.
Senju Hashirama: AND DOING IT SO WELL
The footage flickered again. Jiraiya in the rain at Amegakure, body broken, one hand carving the final message into Fukasaku's back. The scroll didn't dwell. It never dwelled. It just showed, and the showing was always worse than dwelling.
Outside the chat, in the actual streets of Konoha, an old woman selling persimmons set down her basket and pressed both hands to her mouth. A jounin on the rooftop above her turned his face away and pretended the wind had something in his eye. The wind had nothing in it. The wind never did.
[Fifth Place]: Hatake Sakumo.
The chat froze.
Hatake Kakashi: (typing)
Hatake Kakashi: (stopped typing)
Hatake Kakashi: Excuse me. I need a moment.
Uchiha Obito: Kakashi —
Hatake Kakashi: A moment, Obito.
Senju Tobirama: Let him go.
Might Guy: MY ETERNAL RIVAL I WILL HOLD HIS PLACE IN THE CHAT WITH HONOR
Senju Tobirama: That's not — that's not how chat works, Beast Boy.
Might Guy: IT IS NOW
The scroll didn't show Sakumo's footage. It just left the name there, glowing, and somewhere in a small apartment above a dango shop, a silver-haired man with a mask pulled down sat on his floor with his forehead against the cold tatami and breathed very carefully through his nose for a count of sixty.
Uchiha Madara: (unexpectedly quiet) The White Fang's son. Hm.
Senju Hashirama: Madara?
Uchiha Madara: Nothing, Hashirama. Continue the foolishness.
The scroll trembled — harder this time, hard enough that Hiruzen's lacquered case finally split down the middle with a crack like a small bone breaking. Ash spilled across the desk. The old man didn't reach for his pipe. He just watched the next name burn itself into the air.
[Fourth Place]: Namikaze Minato. Reason — sealed the Kyuubi into his own son. Walked into death smiling.
Uchiha Kushina: Minato.
Namikaze Minato: (softly) Kushina.
Uchiha Kushina: You absolute LOSER you got FOURTH for dying for our SON
Namikaze Minato: I'd do it again.
Uchiha Kushina: I KNOW YOU WOULD THAT'S WHY I'M MAD
Uzumaki Naruto: DAD YOU'RE FOURTH?? DATTEBAYO THAT'S SO COOL — WAIT NO IT'S NOT COOL YOU DIED — WAIT BUT IT'S KIND OF COOL —
Uchiha Kushina: NARUTO PICK A FEELING
Uzumaki Naruto: I PICKED THREE MOM
The scroll glowed brighter. The top three names hovered behind a veil of golden mist, blurred, teasing.
[Ranking Scroll]: Top three to be revealed at the next chime. Until then — meditate on what you would die for. And for whom.
Senju Tobirama: Ominous little parchment, isn't it.
Uchiha Madara: I've been saying.
Senju Hashirama: YOU TWO AGREEING IS SCARIER THAN THE SCROLL
The scroll trembled one final time and went still. Above the village, the silver footage panel dimmed but did not vanish — it hung there like a held breath, waiting.
In his apartment, Kakashi lifted his forehead from the tatami, exhaled once, and reached for his father's old white tanto on the wall.
◇ BONUS & SUPPORT ◇
◇ 1 bonus chapter for every 10 reviews — drop a comment!
◇ 1 bonus chapter for every 100 Power Stones.
◇ Read 70 chapters ahead on P@treon → patreon.com/Sagamaster789