Years and Years or Secrets are Still Secrets Much, Much Later
And over and over and over people died. It was still true a hundred years later, though the country had all changed, and the people died more of old age and boredom than anything else, to hear grandpa tell it. This was now Konoha, the capital of the province of Fire, of that greatest of all countries, Peace -Just like your name, kiddo. Believe it!-, spreading from the province of Rock to the province of Sand.
He had been only a Hokage then, a hundred years or so ago, who was the last of the War-nins, who had started the first age of Peace. "He's your great-great grandpa right?" her classmates always asked. Or "Your great-grandma was adopted, right?" if they had any guts, which not many did. But no one ever told her of any of that, really. Not about why he never married, not about why he left, not about why the years before he was ninja -and respected- are flimsy lies that even she can see through. All she knows is what she remembers, a tall blond man, who was kind and sad, and should have been dead long, long ago. But again, no one ever mentions that. She wishes she knew the why for all these questions, because then he might not ever leave her again. Then he could keep her where he keeps the answers. She's just a lonely child, most days, and he's her only family.
A/N: And orphans are still orphans, though presumably much fewer in number.