Chapter 77

"If it isn't my four least favorite adults in the same room," I began. The ANBU shinobi had brought me to a meeting in the Hokage's Office. I didn't recognize a few faces in the crowd of important figures, but I had a bone to pick with the ones that I did know.

"Haru..." the Hokage tried to speak.

I cut him off. "No, I have something to say. And if I don't say it now, I don't know if it'll ever get said.

"Danzo-sama, whatever you're planning, just give it up. It's probably just going to end up destroying the village from the inside out. I know you mean well but you seriously don't understand the whole Will of Fire thing at all. And that's why the Nidaime passed you over for the Hokage job. Because you don't get that it's not obedience that makes a village strong but devotion to each other that makes a village strong.

"Orochimaru-sama, I have no idea what you're doing here in this room but I've always wanted to tell you that you're doing it wrong. Even if you were immortal, you would never learn every single jutsu. What you need to do instead of discover a single jutsu that can do anything, or find a way to create jutsu extemporaneously so you can essentially cast any jutsu you could possibly imagine.

"Kakashi-sensei, you need to get over Obito and Rin. Obito isn't even dead. Madara Uchiha pulled him from the rubble before he died and now Obito is probably acting as Madara's proxy in Akatsuki. And Rin had the Three-Tails sealed inside her by the Kiri ninja so that when you brought her back to Konoha, the biiju would escape and destroy the village. That's why she put herself in the path of your Chidori. She chose to kill herself to save the village. So grow a pair and deal with it.

"And Jiraiya-pervert. You need to stop fucking around and ask Tsunade out on a date already. You're probably going to die in the next few years anyways so you might as well hit that while you can. Neither of you are getting any younger."

As I finished venting, everyone was staring at me. I was still in a terrible mood and didn't care for useless platitudes.

"Haru..." the Hokage ventured to speak again.

"What? Did I miss something?"

"Orochimaru and Danzo are here to negotiate peace with Otogakure and the eventual integration of the Sound into Konohagakure," he informed me.

"Is that a good thing?" I asked, surprised.

Snake-face chuckled to himself in his chair. "Heh, heh, heh, heh. Well, I have no objections now. It's clear that he's the real thing," he said in his raspy voice.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, both suspicious and still bewildered.

Danzo was the one to answer. "Child, when I...received...your eye, it was clear that you were no ordinary child. I have seen things that are beyond what I thought were possible. Surely you too have seen the future in your dreams."

"Dreams? What dreams?" I hadn't had any noteworthy dreams since...

"I have seen things, awful things which must never come to pass. In order to prevent these visions from coming true, I have persuaded Orochimaru to return to Konoha."

I hadn't been expecting that. "That's...good, I guess."

Jiraiya snorted from his chair on the other side of the room. "I still can't believe you think that brat is the Child of the Prophecy."

I hadn't been expecting that either. "No, no, nononono, I'm not the Child of the Prophecy. You're thinking of Naruto. Not me. Definitely not me."

That caught Jiraiya's attention. "You know about the prophecy?"

"The one from the Great Toad Sage? Yeah. But I don't know why you think I was the Child of the Prophecy. You never taught me anything. Except when you gave me that scroll that taught me how to use the Summoning Jutsu. Or when you let me know that it was safe to teach myself Senjutsu. Or that time when I followed you and Naruto to the hot springs and you taught us where the...never mind. It's Naruto. For sure. Not me."

Jiraiya had turned pale. Compounded with the face paint, he looked ghastly.

"Wait, is that why you never wanted to teach me anything? Seriously?" It would have explained why he never wanted anything to do with me.

One of the unfamiliar shinobi cleared his throat. "Ahem, we've heard it from the boy himself that he's not the Child of the Prophecy you were worried about. And I think all parties are satisfied that Haru is capable of some level of precognition through his Kekkei Genkai as confirmed by Danzo-sama. Now that those matters have been taken care of, perhaps I could have a chance to talk to the boy in private?"

The Hokage grimaced. "I suppose you do have business with Haru to deal with. I am satisfied with the validity of Danzo's claims, seeing as much of what he's forewarned has been collaborated with Inoichi's report and..." He stared straight at me. "...with other sources of information regarding happenings in the ninja world. You may take him away, Fugaku."

"Well, shit."