The next two days were pretty normal for me. Just without the long hours in the lab—those got swapped for long hours at the training grounds.
After only a day of training, I learned to crank out Ice chakra fast, and my skill already outstripped Haku's. By stuffing ridiculous amounts of Ice-nature energy into my body, I quickly bullied at least some affinity into myself, and it started helping a lot. It was still nowhere near Haku's natural affinity, but even this was enough to get real results.
By the end of day two, my capabilities with Ice Release had seriously surpassed Haku's. The raw power of our chakra was wildly different, so no surprise there. Same with the power of our minds. Mine, once it got used to producing the right chakra, started spitting out way better control.
On the third day, though, I… No, I didn't train Ice. I dragged my ass over to Hiruzen to flex what I'd learned.
I iced up a little tree right on his desk—after they'd cleared the papers off it. He stared at it for, like, two full minutes with a completely blank face. Then, saying some Yamato would arrive in two days to teach me Wood Release, he asked me to get out of his office. All so that, the second I left, he could go right back to his "glug-glug-glug" in there.
Yeah…
After that, without waiting for my future sensei, I managed to reproduce Mokuton using the First Hokage's scrolls and—more importantly—his cells. Wood turned out to be even more complicated than Ice. Way more unique properties. And Ashura's construct, by the way, didn't give me any affinity for it. It looked like Hashirama developed this nature himself.
I only managed to get the Kekkei Genkai to even a remotely basic level by the time that Yamato finally showed up.
We met at the usual training spot—the field. He was a pretty ordinary-looking guy in standard jonin gear: a spiky mess of brown hair, brown eyes, a slightly long face, and a helmet-style protector that covered his forehead and the sides of his face.
"Hey," I waved at the shinobi who appeared in a shunshin.
But he just walked up in silence and stared at me with these dead-ass eyes. Some "dead inside" type.
"…" He stared.
"...Man, you okay?" I asked carefully, just in case.
"...Are you glad I came, Naruto?" he asked—and went silent again.
I just snorted. Formed a few hand signs, grew a sheet of paper out of my index finger, then pulled a pen out of the seal on my bracer. I wrote down the hospital's address, the office number, and a last name, then held it out to him.
While I was weaving signs, Yamato's eyes went back to normal and tracked my hands.
"Here. Take it. I'm not in a rush with the training, so go do the full course."
"Mashima-san?" He took the paper. "That's a psychiatrist."
"Yup. Great specialist. Makes total sense you two know each other. Go see the doc again. You need it."
He stared at me again—but now with normal eyes, a normal face, normal everything.
The specialist really is insane-tier. It's just that the second people see his last name, they start acting normal.
"Ahem-ahem," the shinobi coughed and even got kinda awkward. "It just… didn't work out between us."
"Shocking," I noted flatly, folding my arms. "So what's with the circus?"
"I know you treat rules pretty casually, and I wanted—"
"Give me a masterclass?"
"Hey. Don't interrupt. Damn… That look usually works on everyone, but… hm." He frowned. "I wanted you to have more respect for norms and the people around you. I once worked with Kakashi-san in Team Ro—he was my senpai. And I know you beat him up. You can't do that. He's a sensitive soul. And also…"
For about three minutes, he lectured me and listed all the places where I'd "behaved badly." I listened with a completely blank face. Honestly, the only reason I didn't cut him off was because I was curious what exactly the public knew about me.
"That it?" I asked when he finally finished.
"Yes," he nodded primly.
"Didn't convince me on a single point. I had good reasons. Now can we move on to Mokuton?"
"...Huh?"
"No, I'm not going to explain every case and why I did what I did. Let's start."
And we started on the basics of Mokuton techniques. Hashirama left a lot of theory behind, but Yamato—as another Wood user—had expanded it over the years, too.
Over the next few days, I picked up every skill he had in the Wood element. Along with the basics of architecture, which my newest sensei did as a hobby.
Soon, I could make small wooden houses sprout straight out of the ground, and by the end of the training—big ones. Much bigger than Yamato could manage.
The early stages of mastering an element—when I could quickly optimize it for myself—went fast. But in the end, the farther you go, the harder it gets. And even though I surpassed Yamato, Hashirama was still a long way off. Growing and controlling a massive dragon-snake thirty meters long was, for now—and probably for the next month or two, max—my limit. That still beats Yamato's techniques in raw power, sure, but compared to Hashirama's kilometer-scale Thousand-Armed Statue… yeah. Plenty of room to work.
Honestly, I hadn't been that into elemental nature training before. Even though, like with anything else, I had massive potential for it.
These days, messing with Ice and Wood, I was distracting myself and resting from my main craft—bioengineering—and nothing more. I still remembered the saying about chasing two rabbits, and going forward, I planned to focus back on what I actually know best.
No question, nature releases are a ridiculously promising direction, but real mastery in the shortest time only happens when you commit to one thing.
So yeah, I was taking a break from genes by studying elements. And I wanted that break to last at least a month, to build up more energy and ideas.
But one day, some lunatic tore me out of my downtime. He threw on a bandit balaclava and attacked me! All to remind me about one important event.
It went like this…
I was sitting on one of the training fields, legs crossed, holding two hand seals in each hand, concentrating Mokuton chakra inside my body.
A dull, heavy hum of chakra filled the air, while the air itself warped from the energy saturating it.
This had been going on for over an hour when a person in a balaclava "unnoticed" crept into the clearing.
He came up behind me and lunged at me with a kunai.
In a flash, I sprang up, easily slipped past a few swings, drew a kunai, and moved so fast he didn't even notice—ending up behind him, ripping the mask off, and immediately putting the blade to his throat.
Everything froze.
"And what the hell is this, Iruka?"
I wasn't surprised—I recognized my academy teacher's chakra and the outline of his body right away.
"It's a Konoha check. Screening for the Chunin Exams… Ha-ha, Naruto-kun. Could you put the kunai away?"
I did, then waited for him to turn toward me.
Umino looked rattled. But more importantly, he wasn't lying—and he hadn't attacked with a clear intent to kill.
"Thought it through," I noted, handing the kunai back.
"Not really…" the chunin admitted, rubbing the back of his head and shoving the weapon into his pouch with his other hand. "Kiba-kun sniffed me out immediately. Shino's bugs covered me before I even got close. And Hinata…" He winced. "She hit me faster than she recognized me. I spent two days in the hospital. And now I've seen your strength… and…" He sighed. "You've all gotten so strong."
It looked like another second and he'd shed a single, stingy man-tear. A teacher proud of his chicks that flew the nest.
Cute.
"Interesting. You're testing them one by one?"
"Yeah."
"Then I seriously don't recommend going near Sakura," I advised. "She's gotten a lot stronger, but her sensory skills still aren't up there. She might not recognize you, and you won't get off with just a hospital stay. I'm telling you—I vouch for her."
"O-oh…" He sagged even more.
"Don't go near Sasuke either. The guy's twitchy, and after training with Kakashi he leveled up hard too."
And it was true. During the Land of Waves mission, Kakashi actually did a fair bit of training with my team. And even if he did it like crap, the one who progressed the most was the Uchiha who'd awakened his Sharingan. So yeah—Sasuke resisted at first, but once he started seeing results, he got pulled in. The training lasted about three weeks before it ended because Hatake's laziness kicked back in. Still, the student's talent beat the teacher's anti-talent, and Sasuke learned plenty of techniques—at his own level—and did a solid job copying and adapting Kakashi's fighting habits to his style. A couple of days ago, as I know thanks to a clone, that "three Sharingan" duo started meeting up again for personal training.
"H-ha," Iruka smiled sadly. "Now I feel completely useless."
"Hey, hey. You're screening who's ready. That's important work," I patted his shoulder. "Besides, you've still got Asuma's team. I'm guessing there are fewer prodigies there, and they need a proper check."
"Yeah… Thanks, Naruto, for the info." He perked up a little. "I've gotta go—deadlines are burning, ha-ha. Later!"
"Later," I waved, and he vanished in a shunshin.
So. The Chunin Exams.
That screening from the Village really is necessary. Not everyone's like my team or Hinata. A lot of genin are straight-up useless, and if they show up to the exam, they'll just die. This selection is probably there so those very same idiots can see their weakness in practice—so they're not only pulled from a lethal exam, but also get motivated to become stronger.
But this exam is… "a little" below my level. …And they want to drag me into it anyway, since the checker showed up? Well, that's actually perfect. I'm already kind of tired of nonstop research. This'll be a more varied kind of rest—watch people, have fun. I planned to end my "vacation" a bit early, but if there's such a great excuse, I'll stretch it a little longer. Right up until the exam ends.
A couple more days passed in normal routine. Everything was almost like before: sometimes I met up with Hinata, sometimes with Sakura, sent my clone out on missions, and trained—though not too intensely—in elemental transformations.
Nobody actually invited me to the exam, by the way. Even though I knew there'd been a jonin meeting where the topic came up.
The big sign was the mass arrival of genin with their instructors from the Sand and other smaller Villages.
And because of that, Hiruzen asked me to come see him—since the visitors managed to pull some shit on day one.
"...picked up my grandson and almost stabbed him in the middle of the Village! Just because he bumped into him! Like that's normal!"
While I sat at the desk with my elbow propped on it, the old man paced the office, wired and furious, retelling what happened that morning. He was tense and pissed off to a degree I'd probably never seen from him before. At least not in front of me.
"If a jonin hadn't been passing by, that Sand kid would've killed a child in the street. This is completely unacceptable!"
"And you invited me here so I could quietly kill that Suna brat?"
The old man stopped and looked at me.
For a split second, I saw a very clear yes in his eyes, but…
"No," he dropped his gaze. "Forgive an old man. I probably shouldn't have told you that."
"No problem," I shrugged. "And if those genin go missing because of someone else, I won't even notice."
Hiruzen let out a heavy sigh and walked back to his chair.
"You can't. That shinobi was one of the Kazekage's children. And not even the worst of them…"
I'd already turned fully toward him.
"Hm. That's a lot of trust between you. The Kazekage sent other kids too, right? Including the jinchuriki?"
What I meant was: sending a jinchuriki into another village is a huge risk. Because, well, anything can happen. What if he "gets lost," and then in the next war it turns out some village has one extra jinchuriki? Hypothetically. Sure, it's not that simple—there's the whole world-balance thing, and a disappearance alone could trigger a war. But you could still come up with options. Slip in a delayed poison so that, once the jinchuriki gets home, he goes berserk and kills everyone. Or something else.
"Trust? Please," the old man waved it off. "The issue is that Gaara—the jinchuriki—is one of the strongest shinobi in the Sand. Possibly, after his father, the strongest."
"And they're sending him to the Chunin Exams?" I pointed out the absurdity.
"Politics," Hiruzen said darkly, and kept going in the same tone. "The Sand's jinchuriki… he isn't like you. That child grew up in hatred, and that couldn't not leave a mark on him… He's a madman. Bloodthirsty. And if we let him near other genin…"
"…" I nodded, pushing him to finish the obvious thing he'd been building toward from the start.
"That's why I'm asking you to participate in the Chunin Shiken and keep an eye on Gaara. He must not destroy Konoha's new generation."
"Mm." I leaned back in the chair. "Okay. I'll go. I kinda also want my classmates to stay alive. Might even save a few asses."
"It makes me happy to see understanding in your heart, Naruto," Hiruzen's shoulders loosened by maybe a millimeter when I agreed. I already had a reason to go—rest. Now I had another.
Sarutobi reached into the bottomless drawer of his desk and pulled out an exam invitation, handing it to me.
"Yeah," I took it and glanced back. "By the way, wasn't Kakashi supposed to give me this? He's waiting by the door, actually."
"He was, but… what I'm asking you to do is very important. And Kakashi, as you know, isn't exactly our best diplomat."
"Heh, yeah."
I smirked, and Hiruzen finally relaxed completely. The conversation seemed over when the old man, in this totally casual tone—like he was asking how many sugar cubes I wanted—threw out:
"Listen, Naruto. Just hypothetically. Not now, but in ten or twenty years. Would you want to become Hokage?"
My eyelids lifted.
The question surprised me, so I actually thought about it.
"Probably… no."
"Why?" Hiruzen clearly expected a different answer, and his shoulders dipped in confusion.
"The job's efficiency is low. Running a Village might be beneficial. But…" My mouth spread into a wide grin. "Running the whole world is way more meaningful. And it'll take about the same amount of time. Yeah—you just handed me a pretty interesting idea. I'll think about it." I nodded at the old man like I was thanking him.
Sarutobi's face turned to stone. But after he recovered, he looked at me like I was a very ambitious teenager whose ambitions were… a bit too high.
"Ahem-ahem. It's probably too early for that kind of talk." Wiser from experience, the old man decided to bury the topic and protect his mental health. "It was good to talk. Thank you for coming by."
"Yeah. Take care."
After nodding to Kakashi, I walked down the Residence corridor, lost in my thoughts. Hiruzen's question—thrown out almost casually—had sparked a really interesting idea, and now it was spreading in my head.
My power—that all-encompassing strength I not only have, but can use and multiply—is the result of a lot of factors. Luck that I even reincarnated, being born into a monstrously talented body, my persistence, my work—sure, all of that matters. But I also understand I wouldn't have achieved even a tenth of this progress if I'd acted alone.
Konoha became an incubator for me. I had plenty of mentors here, and even more people I simply picked things up from. Priceless knowledge from secret scrolls, support and resources from the Hokage, even just the ability to work calmly without fearing for my life—all of it paved my road to where I am now. Because of that, I can't help feeling… grateful to this place. Konoha became my alma mater, let me grow stronger under its "wing." That's why I treat its people a bit warmer than I otherwise would, and why I didn't demand insane money from Hiruzen for my work. He'd already helped me like a king. So much so that if someone "not one of ours" paid the Leaf—even a few billion ryō—they still wouldn't have gotten that kind of help.
But back to the idea… Konoha, the Land of Fire—that's only a small part of the world. And the world is huge. So, theoretically, what if you unify the whole world under a single rule? Remove national conflicts, force everyone to share their developments, unite the best minds and aim resources at common goals… That wouldn't be just a step. That would be a fundamental leap in the speed of progress. For the whole world, and for me personally.
Thanks to the knowledge of specialists from one country, I became insanely strong. It's logical to assume that with the knowledge of the entire planet, I'll become even stronger.
There's a worn-out phrase: "War drives progress." But it's too shallow. Yeah, war forces massive resources into specific developments, mobilizes the best scientists and engineers, and cuts through bureaucratic delays. But at what price? Some people die, others scatter under threat of death, whole generations of specialists get lost, and innovation mostly funnels into military tech while medicine and everyday technology degrade. After the jump, progress freezes—or slowly declines—for decades. It's inefficient.
You need targeted, controlled pressure.
And what if you allow for… a biologically immortal ruler. A tyrant. Whose power is unquestioned, and whose mind is sharp enough to plan centuries ahead. Someone who understands he's going to live on this planet for a very long time, and that it's in his own interest not to drain a country/planet on a "maybe it'll work out" gamble, but to develop it on purpose, with a detailed strategy. He could redirect resources, set tasks for the best minds, bring them together, remove obstacles. Pressure and reward, for motivation, can be applied artificially too. And in the long run, that would bring far more progress than the usual chaotic bursts of wartime innovation.
That's the rational path.
The Ōtsutsuki. I know about them from meta-knowledge. But who comes after them? To face unknown, even stronger enemies, I need constant, uninterrupted progress. A guarantee that every year I'll become stronger. That's the only way to add even a little confidence in my own survival.
Only… nothing works perfectly on the first try. You have to start somewhere.
In the Mist, there's some kind of revolution going on right now, isn't there…? Maybe I should pay them a visit. Practice "global governance" on one country first, and only then go for the whole world.
With thoughts like that, without even noticing it, I walked from the Residence back to my house. The idea was… interesting. Very interesting.
But it needed time.
All these ideas needed time. So why not start after the exam?
A little earlier. The Hokage's Office
"So why did you call for me, Hokage-sama?" Kakashi asked, locking the door behind him.
Hiruzen studied the man who'd entered with a thoughtful look.
Hatake looked different than he had a few months ago. The old apathy was gone; in his single visible eye, a living, assessing fire smoldered. His posture was straighter, more collected.
"You've been showing yourself well lately, Kakashi," Hiruzen began in a calm, leading tone. "Sparring with Naruto-kun did you good. You got your form back fast—your edge. You look like a living person again, not like some ghost from the Memorial Stone."
Kakashi's expression shifted slightly at the mention of the stone, but he stayed silent, only giving a short nod.
"As I reminded all the jonin instructors at the meeting," Sarutobi continued, "the exam is soon. And, as we both understand, your genin—all three—will become chunin. They'll go their own way, and you'll be freed from the duty of directly training them."
Kakashi didn't speak, but his gaze sharpened. He had a bad feeling somewhere behind him, a little below the belt, that this wasn't just polite conversation.
"Where are you going with this, Hokage-sama?" he finally asked.
Hiruzen looked him straight in the eye before his pupils narrowed, like a man making a fateful decision.
"I see you as my successor, Kakashi. The next Hokage."
Kakashi recoiled like he'd been hit in the gut. His eye went wide.
"No… Hokage-sama, that's impossible. I… I'm not suited for it. And you're still full of strength—you can do so much more for the Village."
"Perhaps," Hiruzen agreed, but deep exhaustion slipped into his voice. "But I'm aging, Kakashi. Every year, this burden gets heavier. And besides…" He paused, staring out the window at the Village. "I feel something. The air smells like a storm. This exam… it may bring something bigger than simple trials for genin. And I want to be sure that if something happens to me, Konoha will have someone who can catch the falling Hat of Fire—before it drops into the abyss."
A heavy silence settled in the office. Kakashi lowered his head, and the silver hair that fell forward hid his expression. He thought about those he'd lost, about his mistakes, about the weight he'd tried to run from for so long. And then about a new, weird team that—without realizing it—had started pulling him out of the dark. About his teacher's son.
His kidneys and liver answered with phantom pain, and Hatake huffed with a fleeting, crooked smile.
Finally, he slowly raised his head. There was no shock or fear left in his eye. Only heavy, unshakable resolve.
"If… if it's truly necessary, Hokage-sama… I accept." He swallowed. "With honor, I'll continue the work of the previous Hokage—and of Sensei—until the time comes to pass on the Will of Fire again."
Hiruzen nodded in silence, and in the corner of his eye something gleamed—either pride or sadness.
Sarutobi had made another move that, it seemed, should only make things better.
Now all that remained was to wait and see how fate would answer.
_____
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