Hiruzen was stunned! His eyes widened. In the last few minutes, Fujin had given him one surprise after another. Be it the unfamiliar feeling, his team's performance or the involvement of Akatsuki. Juzo's death had shocked him the most, but he had still managed to hold it together. However, the sudden announcement of retirement completely shocked him!
It was important to remember that Fujin had just turned 15. It was the age when most joined the Anbu. In all the decades that Hiruzen had been the Hokage, this was the first time anyone asked to retire from Anbu at such a young age. No, Fujin didn't even ask him!
Fujin chuckled internally and thought, 'I don't know why, but seeing Hiruzen rattled is so exciting and satisfying.'
Hiruzen finally composed himself and asked, "What do you mean?"
Fujin tilted his head and asked in a confused tone, "What else can it mean?"
Hiruzen shook his head and asked, "No. I mean, why do you want to retire?"
Fujin was an integral part of Hiruzen's plans. He wanted Fujin to take over the Root or even become the Hokage depending on the situation. But for that to happen, Fujin needed a lot of accomplishments. And the Anbu was the perfect place to gain such achievements and to prove himself. Hiruzen even planned to replace his eldest son with Fujin as the commander of the Anbu to give him more exposure and experience. So Hiruzen didn't want Fujin to leave the Anbu.
Taking inspiration from Hiruzen, Fujin faked a sigh full of tiredness and exhaustion and answered, "For the last three years, I have been running around the elemental nations killing one guy after another. During this time, I have frequently encountered ninjas who were far stronger than me and would kill me had I made just one mistake.
I am exhausted from all this killing and fighting on the edge. My recent clashes, be it with Roshi, Iwa or Kisame, all show me that I need to work on my jutsus a lot. But I barely have any time to train to make myself stronger while the enemies I face keep getting stronger. And between my training and missions, my schedule has become very hectic leaving me little or no time to rest.
So, I want to retire from the Anbu and take a long break to learn new techniques and rest my mind."
Hiruzen was speechless. He thought, 'Hectic? He is the only Anbu who regularly asks for vacations. I just gave him a 3-month long vacation! And I rarely gave him a mission that required killing in the last year.
Don't tell me he is complaining about not getting enough time to meditate in the training rooms. After nearly emptying all our Wind Crystal reserves, he is complaining about it?'
Hiruzen said, "If you quit, you won't be able to train in the Anbu Training Facility."
Fujin asked in a pleading tone, "Not even for a little while, Grandpa?"
Hiruzen said in a strict tone, "No."
The tactics he could use as a kid had long lost their effect on Hiruzen. Fujin sighed and said, "That's unfortunate, but I expected as much."
He thought, 'The Wind Crystals don't have any effect on me anymore. As for Fire and Earth, my affinity for them isn't very impressive. So the absorption speed is too slow for it to be of much help. So the Elemental crystals are no longer of any help to me.'
Hiruzen was surprised. He analyzed, 'So it wasn't because he wanted more crystals. But why does he want to retire? It can't be because of exhaustion. Kakashi took missions non-stop for years without needing a break. So did I when I was younger. In fact, there has never been an Elite Jounin in Konoha who retired due to the workload!'
He asked, "Why don't you just take training breaks and continue being in the Anbu?"
Hiruzen sighed internally and thought, 'Why does everyone keep giving me headaches? This kid barely ever socializes with anyone! He has almost no connections. I was planning to give him Anbu ninjas who are already ready to become Anbu Captains and increase his influence through them. But he wants to quit after influencing just two? How will I even increase his reputation enough to make him a possible candidate for Hokage?'
Hiruzen couldn't directly tell Fujin that he wanted to raise him to become the next Hokage. After all, he couldn't guarantee that Fujin would become the Hokage. Not to mention, telling something like that or even hinting it would create various complications.
So, Fujin was unaware of Hiruzen's plans to make him the Hokage. In fact, the thought of competing for the Hokage position didn't even cross his mind. Despite his impressive talent, Fujin had no connection to any of the Hokage.
The First and Second Hokage were brothers. The Third Hokage was a student of the Second Hokage. The Fourth Hokage was Jiraiya's student who was the Third Hokage's student. In the future, the Fifth Hokage would be the student of the Third Hokage, the Sixth Hokage would be a student of the Fourth Hokage. While the Seventh Hokage would be the student of the Sixth Hokage and the son of the Fourth Hokage.
Fujin didn't have any such connections. Though he took advantage of Hiruzen's weird obsession to become every kid's Grandpa, he was well aware that their relationship wasn't as deep as Hiruzen's relations with his students.
Of course, the most important factor was that Fujin was aware of the future. Had Hiruzen known how strong Naruto and Sasuke would grow in the future, he wouldn't have bothered spending so much effort on nurturing Fujin.
So Fujin was in a weird spot. At the present time, due to his young age, he had no way of becoming the Hokage. If anything were to happen to Hiruzen, both the Sannins and Kakashi had a much higher chance of becoming Hokage than him. His name might not even be brought up by the council and even Shikaku would be preferred over him despite being weaker than him. Even if he kept becoming stronger and gained a lot of achievements, six years later, Naruto's reputation would reach a level far beyond any other ninja in history.
So Fujin didn't see much hope of becoming the Hokage. Even if he did, he wasn't particularly interested in the post. Though he did see some benefits of becoming the Hokage, such as getting access to all the forbidden jutsus, holding on to that post for a long time was something he wasn't interested in.
Being a Hokage was a selfless and thankless job. While he did enjoy playing mind games, he wasn't particularly interested in doing that all the time. After all, it was fun to do so when Hiruzen and Shikaku had to deal with all the consequences. It won't be the same when he would have to deal with such situations on a regular basis and clear up messes that others create.
So, on this topic, Fujin and Hiruzen weren't on the same page and both were completely unaware of each other's thoughts.
Fujin didn't think much and replied, "No, I think I am done with the Anbu. Sorry Grandpa."
Hiruzen was lost for words. His last offer would have allowed Fujin to use the training rooms as much as he wanted. And still, Fujin rejected him. He understood that Fujin had already made up his mind. He sighed and said, "Alright. Let me know if you change your mind."
Fujin nodded and said, "I will. Thank you, Grandpa."
He left the room and shut the door behind him. Hiruzen let out another sigh and muttered, "They are all the same."
He thought, 'The weird feeling I got from Fujin earlier is the same one I got from Jiraiya, Tsunade, Orochimaru and Minato. By killing Juzo, he should have understood that he is a rank S ninja. This realization brings about a change in mindset that is hard to determine.
When Jiraiya reached this level, he left Konoha and began touring around the world to fulfil his prophecy. When Orochimaru did, he began doing experiments. Tsunade didn't change much on the surface, but she became wilful enough to try to forcefully revamp Konoha's medical ninjas in the middle of a war. By comparison, Minato didn't change much other than becoming very confident in himself.
I never imagined that Fujin would reach this level at such a young age and the changes he would experience would lead him to quitting Anbu. According to my estimates, I had thought that he would have needed at least 4 to 5 more years before reaching this level. That would have been enough for me to increase his reputation by several levels in Konoha. But now…'
Hiruzen had a massive headache.
