Konoha — Year 49 of the Hidden Leaf Calendar.
War.
The word hung in the air like the taste of blood—everywhere, inescapable, iron and bitter. Shinobi were dying in distant lands. Borders were battlefields. Even the children knew the sound of kunai clashing before they learned lullabies.
But none of that really mattered to Sarutobi Daigo.
He was thirteen. Rich. Untalented. And, most importantly, convinced he was destined for greatness.
"Tea," Daigo snapped his fingers, lounging on a silk floor cushion imported from the Land of Tea itself. His voice rang through his family's sprawling manor, one of the only estates untouched by the shortages brought on by war.
A former Chūnin servant—gray-haired, one-eyed, and spiritually broken—walked in, trembling slightly as he handed Daigo a porcelain cup. The boy didn't thank him. He never did.
"Honestly, you'd think someone of Sarutobi clan would be assigned to a more prestigious unit by now," Daigo scoffed, sipping his tea and staring out the window.
Below, he could see the academy courtyard, full of exhausted Genin drilling for deployment. His classmates had already been drafted into field units. Many of them wouldn't come back. He wasn't concerned.
but he was from a wealthy noble family said to be distantly related to the Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen.
The connection was thin at best—his great-grandmother's cousin's husband or some equally ridiculous lineage that no one cared about. But to Daigo, that made him practically royalty.