Chapter 267: The Hero's Return
Konohagakure.
Today marked the return of the final contingent from the Rain Country battlefield. By noon, the streets of Konoha had transformed into a river of celebration. Banners fluttered from every rooftop. Lanterns swung gently in the warm breeze. The air itself seemed to hum with anticipation.
Crowds lined the main thoroughfare, packed shoulder to shoulder, their faces bright with joy and relief. Mothers held children aloft for a better view. Old men who had seen too many wars dabbed at their eyes. Young women clutched flowers to throw at the returning heroes.
The village was alive.
And in a small, dimly lit sake shop tucked away from the main celebration, several Uchiha shinobi watched the spectacle through a grimy window. Their expressions were dark. Their sake cups sat half-empty. The festive mood outside only deepened the bitterness curdling in their chests.
"Why?" one of them muttered, his voice thick with resentment. "We fought on the front lines too. We shed the same blood. Why don't we get a welcome like this?"
"Exactly." His companion slammed his cup down. "The Uchiha lost plenty of people in this war. Good people. Strong people."
"My cousin took a kunai to the leg," a third added sullenly. "He's still bedridden. And does anyone care? Does anyone even know his name?"
The owner of the sake shop, a barrel-chested man with a permanent scowl, had been listening to their complaints with growing irritation. At the last remark, he snorted.
"Just a kunai to the leg? That's your great war injury?" He wiped a glass with deliberate contempt. "Please."
The young Uchiha who had spoken shot to his feet, knocking over his sake cup in the process. "What did you say?! Bastard!"
The shop owner didn't flinch. He drew himself up to his full height and met the Uchiha's glare without a trace of fear. "What are you going to do about it? The Hokage himself is at the main gate right now, welcoming the heroes home. If you cause trouble here—today, of all days—I'll report you directly to the authorities."
The Uchiha's face cycled through crimson rage to pale humiliation and back again. His companions grabbed his arms, pulling him back into his seat.
"Forget it. It's not worth it."
"Today's a bad day to make a scene."
"Think of the clan."
The young Uchiha seethed, his fists trembling on the table. But they were right. Konoha already had precious few establishments willing to serve Uchiha customers. If they caused trouble here, they might lose even this dingy watering hole. They were ordinary clan members, not direct-line elites with influence to shield them from consequences. If they stepped out of line, no one would protect them.
Better to swallow the humiliation. For now.
Outside the window, the celebration continued. Smiling pedestrians streamed past, clutching paper fans and small flags, their laughter bleeding through the glass like salt in an open wound.
The Main Gate
If happiness could be measured, the ordinary citizens of Konoha would rank among the most contented people in the Five Great Nations. Sheltered behind the village's walls, protected by the Will of Fire, they had come to expect triumph. Victory was their birthright. And today, victory was being delivered on a silver platter.
At the head of the welcoming party stood the Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen. His white Hokage robes hung crisp and immaculate, the kanji for "Fire" emblazoned across his back. In one hand he held his ever-present pipe, the gray smoke curling lazily upward. His expression was calm, grandfatherly—the face of a leader who had guided his village through the storm and emerged unbroken.
Beside him stood Hatake Sakumo, the White Fang, whose legend had only grown in the crucible of the Rain Country. And beside Sakumo, Jiraiya of the Sannin, arms crossed, his wild mane of white hair ruffling in the breeze.
"It's almost time for the final group to arrive," Hiruzen remarked, taking a contemplative puff of his pipe.
"Tsunade and the others are with them," Jiraiya confirmed.
He had stayed in the village specifically for this. His wanderlust had been itching at him for weeks—there were hot springs to visit, women to charm, research to conduct for his next literary masterpiece. But he couldn't leave without seeing Tsunade and Orochimaru one more time. It would feel wrong. Unfinished.
"Old man," Jiraiya said casually, addressing his teacher with the irreverent familiarity he'd never bothered to outgrow, "you're looking more wrinkled than usual. The stress of peace negotiations getting to you?"
Sarutobi Hiruzen winced. Old man. He was in his prime, damn it. He just happened to age a bit... prematurely. The burdens of the Hokage's office had a way of carving years into a man's face whether he liked it or not. Still, he let the comment slide. Jiraiya had always been Jiraiya—brash, informal, impossible to discipline. Some things never changed.
"By the way," Jiraiya continued, scanning the assembled dignitaries, "where's Lord Danzo? Shouldn't the Hokage's shadow be here, basking in the glory?"
The question was innocent. The implications were not.
Jiraiya might play the fool, but he was no idiot. He knew exactly what kind of man Shimura Danzo was. The shadow that hungered for the light. The schemer who had eyed the Hokage's seat for decades, waiting for his moment. A grand public occasion like this was the perfect opportunity to build goodwill, to show the villagers that Danzo was more than just a grim specter lurking in the corridors of power.
So why wasn't he here?
Sarutobi Hiruzen's expression flickered—a micro-shift that anyone who didn't know him would have missed. Danzo. How could he explain? That his old friend's hatred of Ragnar had curdled into something obsessive? That Danzo saw the young shinobi not as a hero, but as a threat to be managed, controlled, or eliminated? That Hiruzen had subtly suggested Danzo sit this one out, precisely to avoid a confrontation?
Hatake Sakumo, ever perceptive, stepped smoothly into the silence. "Lord Danzo is the Hokage's shadow. Managing the vast administrative machinery of Konoha is no small task. His duties are too heavy to permit attendance at public ceremonies. Such occasions must fall to the Hokage alone."
"Huh." Jiraiya shrugged. "If you say so, Captain."
He didn't believe a word of it. But Hatake Sakumo was a good man, and good men deserved the benefit of the doubt.
"Speaking of captains," Jiraiya's tone brightened, "I heard congratulations are in order. A son, wasn't it?"
Sakumo's stern features instantly softened. A genuine, radiant smile broke through his usual composure. "Yes. Hatake Kakashi. He's nearly two years old now, actually. The war kept me away for almost three years. I missed... so much."
The joy in his voice was undercut by a current of sorrow. When he had finally returned home, his own son had looked at him with blank, unrecognizing eyes. Who is this stranger? The boy had asked his mother. Sakumo had no right to be hurt by it—he had been absent for the child's birth, his first steps, his first words. He had failed as a husband and as a father. The war had taken that from him, and it was a debt that could never be repaid.
"Kakashi," Jiraiya repeated, testing the name. "Good name. With you as his father, he'll probably make waves across the entire shinobi world someday."
Sakumo's smile turned wistful. "I just want him to grow up safe. And happy. Nothing else matters."
If only it were that simple.
The thought passed through no one's mind but the wind. No one present could see the future that awaited little Kakashi. The father who would die by his own hand, branded a disgrace. The teammate who would gift him a scarred eye with his dying breath. The friend he would be forced to kill with his own jutsu. The teachers who would perish one after another. The student who would turn traitor. The world war that would grind everyone he loved into dust.
And at the end of it all, Kakashi would still be standing. Alone. The last leaf on a dead tree. Alive, but only in the technical sense. Everyone around him gone. Perhaps living was crueler than dying.
If any shinobi had cause to darken, to curse the world and burn it down—it was the silver-haired boy who would one day carry the legacy of two great lineages in his veins and a ghost in his heart.
But that future was not yet written.
"Jiraiya, Sakumo—both of you have sons now," Hiruzen observed, a hint of grandfatherly wistfulness in his voice. "You're not getting any younger, Jiraiya. When are you going to settle down?"
Jiraiya's confident swagger evaporated. His face flushed. "Ah—well—that is—"
He rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly very interested in the clouds.
"It's not that I don't want to find a wife! It's just... no one seems to want me. So I figured I'd travel the world, live the single life. Maybe write some books. Keep the toads company back on Mount Myōboku when I get lonely."
"Mm-hmm." Hiruzen took a long, skeptical drag of his pipe. He had been hoping to bounce a grandchild on his knee before his back gave out entirely. But between Jiraiya's romantic ineptitude, Orochimaru's... Orochimaru-ness, and Tsunade's stubborn independence, the prospect of grandchildren from his prized students was looking increasingly remote.
He couldn't count on Jiraiya. Orochimaru was a lost cause. Which only left—
"Tsunade," Hiruzen muttered to himself, a glimmer of hope kindling in his chest. "She'll come through. She has to."
Somewhere on the road to Konoha, a blonde Sannin sneezed.
And the procession of heroes drew closer with every passing moment.
(End of Chapter)
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