The Yondaime hadn't miscalculated. And he wasn't all that golden either. An angelic exterior hides far more sinister motives. Long live the Hokage.
I don't own Naruto, I believe Viz Media and Masashi Kishimoto own the rights to that…damnit!
***
Power was important. The child understood this. It was as simple a concept as breathing. For other people to have any real power over you was intolerable.
***
It was a tragic accident, everyone agreed. Some genin must have lost control of their kunai. A training accident. So heartbreaking, both of them, leaving their only son. That poor child. All alone in such a harsh world.
The newly orphaned four year old stared at the world through sapphire eyes. Beautiful and cold.
***
His teachers adored and praised him. So intelligent, and hard working! A little on the quiet side, but that's to be expected after… what happened. So mature too. A true genius.
It was no surprise when he scored perfect in his exams across the board. The kunai sliced through centre of the targets in rapid succession.
Lungs, Spine, Jugular Vein, Carotid Artery, Brain, Kidneys, Heart.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
In his mind's eye, he saw a man with blond hair and a woman with eyes just as blue as his.
Thud!
The last target fell, kunai lodged firmly in its 'heart'.
He smiled.
***
The blond boy quietly examined his team as they walked ahead of him.
His sensei was an idiot. However, he was an easily manipulated idiot with useful skills. This was more than satisfactory.
His team-mates, on the other hand, split his sensei's focus, and slowed his progress to their level. They were a drain on his resources with no useful compensation. This was unacceptable.
***
Four shinobi left on a simple C class delivery mission.
Only two returned.
If only, everyone lamented, the two genin had been able to distinguish between poisonous and safe mushrooms.
It was really only luck that had spared the other members of the team, the sensei having left to 'research' for his book, and the other genin had come down with a mild stomach ache and had thus avoided the deadly brew.
Poor boy, the Sennin lamented, when his own sorrow had muted under the influence of strong alcohol. Woke up surrounded by the bodies of his dead friends, he's still in shock. Tragedy seems attracted to him. Poor kid.
At that moment, he made an oath to do right by his remaining student. Teach him everything he knew to stop something like this from happening again.
Two days later, the newly minted apprentice walked calmly beside his grieving sensei.
***
The war was raging. Rumours of secret weapons being developed on both sides, suspicion and betrayal were flying rampant.
In the midst of this chaos, a blond jounin was given his own genin team.
For once in his life, he felt kinship with another.
The silver haired chunin's dark eyes, so cold and calculating, reminded the blond of a pair of sapphire blue eyes seen so often in the bathroom mirror.
When the boy made Jounin at the age of 13, he felt as if he'd finally found a possible protégé. In this vein of thought, he gave him control of the mission.
It was an unqualified disaster. The weapon that he'd developed so carefully, was ruined, the sharingan eye, and the last words of the team-mate forever excluding the boy from his world.
The rain was pouring down. All around him, people offered empty condolences. Two feet away, the silver haired jounin stood, tears mingling in the downpour, and completely out of his grasp.
This was the first and last time his plans had failed.
The jounin bowed his head, rain plastering the blond strands to his face.
All around him people admired his restraint and sorrow at such a tragic time.
***
The war was going badly for Konoha.
All of their enemies forces had decided on one combined assault, cutting of the majority of the Leaf forces from their allies.
They were ill prepared for such an attack and were fairing terribly. Leaf nin after Leaf nin were falling to the oppressors.
It seemed hopeless.
Suddenly, a blond haired shinobi stood on an overcrop over the battle field. The enemy nin sneered at single Leaf. What could he do to stop all of them?
The War was over in a single yellow flash.
***
The Sandaime sat at his desk, two personnel files covering it instead of the usual paperwork.
Two brilliant shinobi, his student and his student's student. It was common knowledge that both coveted his position.
He examined them again, knowing that his decision would affect the future of Konoha. Sighing, he replaced one of them back in the drawer, the other remaining on his desk.
The Sandaime smiled at the photograph, it was about high time that he retired anyway.
The next day, one of the Snake Sennin's experiments got loose from his lab, and ran screaming into the street, covered in blood.
The Sandaime angrily stared at the photograph on his desk before ripping it in two. He then pulled a photograph of a blond man with blue eyes from the side drawer and looked at it.
A week later, the inauguration of the Yondaime Hokage took place. The blond shinobi smiled at the populace from under the wide brim of a red rimmed hat.
***
It was almost night, the last rays of light skulking along the horizon.
His former student, an accomplished medic, tore into his office babbling about conspiracies.
The deaths of his parents and team-mates, all of them, when taken individually, were merely tragic accidents, but when seen in the bigger picture, it was evident: some evil person was targeting him.
Blue eyes calmly watched her cry hysterically. A bronzed arm circled her shoulders, and the Yondaime Hokage took her on a brief calming walk outside of Konoha's walls.
The distraught girl clung to her kind and loving sensei. She couldn't see why would anyone want to target him. No, she hadn't told anyone else of her theory, had come straight to him.
The next morning, the patrol guards found her cold body underneath a willow tree.
Suicide, it was concluded. Poor girl never got over her team-mate's death.
Blue eyes watched as her ashes were scattered into the wind.
Beside him, a silver haired ANBU shook with repressed sobs.
***
The Yondaime sat at the Hokage's desk, all the paperwork in tidy, finished piles around him. An ancient book lay on the desk, slowly he flipped through the pages.
One image in particular caught his eye. A complicated seal array glowed from the left hand page. On the right, a shadowy image of a demon fox with nine tails.
He traced the image gently, a small smile on his lips.
***
The Sandaime picked his way through the carnage, a letter clutched in his hand. Shinobi lay dying everywhere. Blood soaked the fields. Whole buildings were demolished.
In the centre of the devastation, a flattened area of land signified where the Yondaime had summoned the Boss Toad and completed his last act as Hokage.
A small bundle lay right where the letter said it would be.
He picked it up.
A small blond baby with sapphire eyes looked solemnly up at him. Three whisker marks adorned each cheek and a complicated seal was glowing softly on his stomach.
The Sandaime made his way back to the villagers with a heavy heart.
Within the bundle, the baby smiled, sapphire eyes cold.
Power was important after all. And who was more powerful than an immortal?