The inauguration of the Fifth Hokage was not a ceremony of joy; it was a ritual of survival.
The village of Konoha, still scarred by the claws of the Nine-Tails, gathered beneath the Hokage Monument. Scaffolding still clung to Minato Namikaze's stone face, a reminder of the incomplete repairs and the unfinished legacy he left behind. The crowd was a sea of black mourning clothes peppered with the green flak jackets of duty-bound shinobi.
Ren Yamanaka stood on the balcony of the Hokage Tower. The wind whipped his white haori—the kanji for Five freshly stitched onto the back—around his slender frame. He had chosen not to wear the traditional hat for the speech. He wanted them to see his face.
Or rather, the mask of his face.
His right eye was covered by a black leather patch, concealing the stolen Byakugan. His left eye, teal and piercing, scanned the crowd with a mechanical detachment. He saw the desperate hope in the eyes of the civilians. He saw the skepticism in the crossed arms of the Jonin Council. He saw the smoldering resentment in the Uchiha sector.
"Citizens of Konoha," Ren's voice boomed, amplified by Wind Style chakra. It wasn't the warm, fatherly baritone of Hiruzen, nor the bright, inspiring tenor of Minato. It was cool, rhythmic, and perfectly modulated—a voice designed by a tactician to induce calm.
"We have endured the night," Ren continued. "We have buried our dead. We have wept. But tears do not rebuild walls. Grief does not guard the gate."
He leaned forward on the railing, gripping the iron with gloved hands.
"I am not your father. I am not your friend. I am your Guardian. My eyes will not close. My resolve will not waver. Under my watch, Konoha will not just survive. It will dominate."
The crowd erupted. It was a roar of relief. They were terrified children, and Ren was promising to be the monster under the bed that ate the other monsters.
But as the cheers washed over him, Ren's sensory net—the amalgam of Isamu's range and his own Yamanaka sensitivity—twitched.
A gaze. Sticky. Malicious. Serpentine.
Ren's single eye snapped to the far left of the crowd, near the shadow of a damaged apartment block.
There, leaning against a wall, was a pale man with long black hair and snake-like eyes. Orochimaru.
The Sannin wasn't cheering. He was smiling. A thin, knowing curl of the lips that sent a shiver down Ren's spine. Orochimaru wasn't looking at the Hokage. He was looking at a specimen.
He knows, Ryuichi hissed in the Vault. He smells the cocktail of bloodlines.He is intrigued, the Tactician analyzed. A predator recognizing a fellow chimera.
Ren held the gaze. He didn't blink. He projected a pulse of Killing Intent so sharp and concentrated it felt like a needle pricking the Sannin's skin.
Orochimaru's smile widened. He mouthed something.
Interesting.
Then, he vanished.
Ren turned back to the cheering crowd, raising his hand. The ovation was deafening. But inside Ren's chest, the heart beat with a slow, heavy thud.
One monster down, Ren thought. Another one watching.
—————
The Purge of the Snake
The next morning, the Hokage's office was quiet. The sun filtered through the blinds, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air.
Ren sat behind the desk. It was too big for him. The chair still smelled faintly of Minato's tobacco.
Across from him sat Hiruzen Sarutobi. The former Hokage looked older than the mountains. He held a dossier Ren had slid across the mahogany surface.
"This…" Hiruzen's hands trembled as he turned the pages. "These are experiments. Human subjects. Children."
"Root intelligence combined with my own… processing," Ren said calmly. "Orochimaru has been abducting Genin and Anbu for years. He is searching for immortality, Lord Third. And he is doing it by butchering your people."
Ren pointed to a specific photo—a lab filled with jars.
"He was present at the inauguration," Ren said. "He is assessing me. If he stays, he will try to dissect me. Or worse, he will try to take the village while we are weak."
Hiruzen closed his eyes. A tear leaked out. "He is my student. My favorite student."
"He is a tumor," Ren said coldily. "You removed him from the succession line, but you didn't cut him out. Now he has metastasized."
Ren stood up, walking to the window.
"I cannot move against him personally. If the new Hokage attacks a Legendary Sannin in the streets, it causes a civil war. It must be you, Hiruzen. You must handle your house."
Hiruzen stood up. His face hardened. The sorrow remained, but the resolve of the 'Professor' returned.
"I understand," Hiruzen said. "I will deal with Orochimaru."
"Do not hesitate," Ren warned, looking back at the old man with his single teal eye. "He will not hesitate to kill you."
Hiruzen nodded and left.
Hours later, reports came in. A massive battle near the village border. Snake summons vs. Monkey King Enma. The destruction was localized, but violent. Orochimaru had fled, grievously wounded but alive.
He let him go, Ryuichi sneered in Ren's mind. The old man is soft.
He removed the threat, the Tactician countered. Orochimaru is gone. He is a missing-nin now. We can hunt him later.
Ren stamped the report CLASSIFIED.
"One problem solved," Ren whispered. "Now for the others."
—————
The Governance of Ghosts
Ren ran the village like a clock.
He bypassed the slow bureaucracy of the Civilian Council. He reorganized the Anbu into smaller, hyper-specialized cells based on the structural models of Kumo and Iwa (stolen from his victims).
Mission assignment times dropped by 40%. Casualty rates in B-rank missions dropped to near zero.
But the workload was immense. The village was rebuilding. Danzo was flooding Ren's desk with "problems"—civilian unrest, supply shortages, border skirmishes. It was a test. Danzo wanted to see if Ren would crack under the administrative pressure.
He didn't.
Ren sat in his office at 3:00 AM, surrounded by towering stacks of paperwork.
Inside the Vault, the Council was working overtime.
Goro (Constitution): Managing the physical fatigue. Pumping endorphins to keep the body awake. Tactician (Logistics): Processing the budget. Allocating resources for wall reconstruction. Calculating grain distribution. Isamu (Intelligence): Analyzing foreign spy reports. Flagging potential threats.
Ren was multiprocessing. His hand moved across scrolls at a blur, signing, stamping, annotating. He was doing the work of five bureaucrats simultaneously.
Danzo entered the office without knocking. He saw the boy-Hokage working with terrifying speed.
"You don't sleep," Danzo observed.
"Sleep is for those who don't have deadlines," Ren murmured, not looking up. "The supply lines from the Fire Capital are secured. I renegotiated the steel tariff. The wall repairs are ahead of schedule."
Danzo picked up a scroll. It was a flawlessly executed reallocation of Root funds to support the Academy—a move Danzo hadn't authorized but couldn't argue with, as it increased recruitment.
"You are efficient," Danzo admitted, a grudging respect in his tone. "The Hyuga are complaining about the new patrol routes, though. They say you are scattering them too thin."
"They were bunching up," Ren said. "Inefficient coverage. I spread them out to maximize their sensory radius. They don't like it because it makes them harder to organize a coup."
Danzo smirked. "You see shadows everywhere."
"I see patterns," Ren said. He finally looked up. "And I see you testing me, Danzo. Stop throwing rocks at my window. I'm busy fixing the glass."
Danzo bowed slightly—a rare gesture. "Very well, Lord Fifth. Carry on."
Ren watched him leave.
He respects power, Ryuichi noted. He respects competence.
He is still a snake, Isamu warned. Just a different breed.
—————
The Cloud Incident
Two months into his reign, the test came. Not from within, but from without.
Kumogakure (The Hidden Cloud) sent a "Diplomatic Envoy" to sign a peace treaty. Ren knew better. The Cloud Tactician in his head screamed that Kumo never signed treaties without an angle.
The night of the signing ceremony, Ren sat in the Hokage office, the lights off.
Tactician: Standard Kumo infiltration protocol. Feign diplomacy, execute extraction. Target priority: Bloodlines. Ren: The Hyuga. They want the Byakugan.
Ren activated his sensory net.
At 2:00 AM, he felt it. A disturbance near the Hyuga compound. A masked figure moving with lightning-enhanced speed carrying a small, unconscious body.
Hinata Hyuga. The heiress. A child.
"Predictable," Ren sighed.
He stood up. He didn't send Anbu. He went himself.
He intercepted the Kumo Head Ninja in the forest, just before the border.
The Kumo ninja was fast. Elite Jonin. He carried the limp girl over his shoulder.
"Out of my way!" the Kumo ninja roared, crackling with lightning armor. "I have diplomatic immunity!"
Ren landed on a branch in front of him. He wore his Hokage robes, which fluttered menacingly in the moonlight.
"Immunity applies to diplomats," Ren said, his voice echoing with authority. "Not kidnappers."
The ninja charged, a lightning lariat aimed at Ren's neck.
Ren didn't dodge. He activated the Magnet Release.
Iron sand erupted from the ground, forming a dense, black gauntlet around Ren's arm. He caught the lightning-charged arm mid-strike.
The impact shockwave leveled the surrounding trees.
The Kumo ninja's eyes widened. "Magnet Release? You… you're a monster!"
"I am the Hokage," Ren said.
He twisted his arm. SNAP.
The ninja screamed. Ren dropped him with a swift chop to the neck. He caught the falling Hinata gently with a chakra thread.
But the ninja was dead. The force of the snap had severed the spinal cord.
Hiashi Hyuga arrived moments later with his personal guard. He saw the dead Kumo ambassador. He saw the Hokage holding his unconscious daughter.
"Lord Fifth…" Hiashi breathed, looking at the broken body of the enemy. "You… you killed the envoy. Kumo will demand reparations. They will demand a body."
Ren looked at Hiashi with his cold, mismatched eyes (hidden by the eyepatch, but felt).
"Let them demand," Ren said. "This man was an intruder stealing a Konoha citizen. I executed him. If Kumo wants a war over a failed kidnapping, I will meet the Raikage on the field myself."
He handed Hinata to Hiashi.
"Your daughter is safe. Go home."
Hiashi held his child. He looked at Ren. For years, he had called Ren a thief. A mongrel.
But tonight, the mongrel had bitten the throat out of the wolf at the door.
Hiashi bowed. It was deep. It was sincere.
"Thank you, Lord Fifth. The Hyuga… we are in your debt."
Ren nodded and vanished.
The Aftermath: Kumo blustered and threatened war. Ren sent back the body of the ambassador with a message: "Next time, send an army, not a thief. I enjoy the exercise." Kumo, realizing the new Hokage was unhinged and powerful, backed down.
The Hyuga Clan ceased their public criticism. They were still suspicious of his eye, but they respected his strength.
—————
The Imposter's Throne
However, not everyone was appeased.
The Uchiha Police Station was a cauldron of rage.
Kaito Uchiha threw a bottle against the wall, shattering it.
"He mocks us!" Kaito screamed to his squad. "He runs the village like a dictator! He kills envoys and gets praised! But when we arrest a criminal, we are called brutes!"
"He is strong, Captain," a younger Uchiha muttered. "Maybe… maybe he's what we need."
"He is a fraud!" Kaito roared. "I know him! He's Ren the Battery! He's stealing all of this! That power isn't his! He's wearing our legacy like a costume!"
Kaito slumped into his chair, his Sharingan spinning with hatred. "I will expose him. I will rip that mask off and show the world the empty hole underneath."
…
Back in the Hokage office, Ren sat alone.
He looked at his hands.
He had eaten the Kumo Head Ninja's soul before sending the body back. He now knew Lightning Release: Lariat. He knew Kumo's cipher codes.
He was stronger again.
Inside the Vault, the Council voted. Vote for Induction of new Asset (Kumo Jonin): Approved.Reason: High-speed taijutsu acquired.
Ren rubbed his temples. The new voice joined the chorus. It was getting crowded.
He looked out the window at the village. The lights were on. People were safe. They were sleeping soundly because he was awake, processing the dead.
"They cheer for me," Ren whispered. "They call me a hero."
He opened a drawer. Inside was the cracked photo of his mother.
He tried to feel something. Pride? Satisfaction?
He felt nothing. Just the hunger for the next problem to solve. The next enemy to eat.
"I am the greatest Hokage who ever lived," Ren told the empty room.
"And I am the only person in this village who doesn't exist."
He closed the drawer. He picked up his pen.
There was work to do.
End of Chapter 18.