With this chapter I begin my attemptsto firmly outline a timline. There is very little information out there about the events surrounding the training and advancement of the Sannin, so I've been forced to use what little I can find in the anime and manga to piece something together.

So I'll say right now, almost none of the timeline you'll find here is in any way cannon. The latest manga release at the time of this writing was chapter 290, so that's all I have to go on. But if anyone catches me in a mistake, please let me know so I can attempt to correct.

Thanks and enjoy! Please R &R.

-sor

When I was eight years old, Nidaime died, leaving word that Sarutobi-sensei was to follow him as Hokage. I cannot claim to have been pleased with the choice, though I would not have been pleased with any choice but myself. However, I understood the implication of naming a child Hokage and thus, as Nidaime was obviously attempting to avoid conflict, accepted his choice. Sarutobi-sensei was not unskilled, nor was he an ill choice. It was something I could live with. No doubt I would be named when Sandaime was prepared to retire.

Of course, Sarutobi-sensei's promotion was not all bad. In fact, it had one very positive result. Due to his new duties, it was uncommon for Sandaime to step outside the village for missions. Thus, while he continued to see to our training, command of our missions naturally fell to me.

It was during this time that the three of us – Jiraiya, Tsunade, and I – began to truly learn each others' strengths. We worked much like a well oiled machine, able to compensate for one team member's weakness or augment his strengths with hardly a moment's thought. For this, I cannot take all the credit, though I will admit that much of it occurred at my direction. Still, Jiraiya, despite his obvious flawed morality, was a quick thinker and due to much practice, his stealth was second to none. And Tsunade was bright and bold, a strong leader in her own right.

It was also during this time that my obsession with ambition faded somewhat. Certainly, I studied as hard as I ever did, but it was not always unusual to find me joining Jiraiya for lunch at the ramen stand or enjoying a game of dice with Tsunade. We three developed such a unity that it was no difficult task to practically read one another's minds, or at least to the degree one had to do such a thing to operate effectively on missions. There were always certain topics that were taboo. For instance, Jiraiya's obsession with women and Tsunade's tendency to place unfavorable wagers.

And there were other topics as well. My ruthlessness, my cruelty. Things that seemed so huge and overwhelming to my two more innocent teammates. Things that were nothing at all compared to what they are now. No, those things we did not talk about.

However, I had never been one to worry over what was or was not taboo.

It was after one particularly simple mission in the winter after my twelfth birthday that I first chose to broach such a subject with Tsunade. As it turned out, I had managed to absorb a rather large portion of the knowledge available in the academy library, including texts not always offered to every student. Seeing my hunger for knowledge, a few of the academy sensei had smuggled a handful of the higher ranked volumes out of hiding for me, which I had devoured eagerly. Fascinating, all of it. However, their generosity only made me hunger for more knowledge. Knowledge that remained locked away from me. It was a horrible feeling.

This was why I turned to Tsunade, whose intelligence would have been much more celebrated had it not been so effectively overshadowed by my own. But then, everyone's intelligence was overshadowed by my own.

Tsunade was linked by blood to the first, and greatest of our Hokage. No doubt there were familial secrets passed down through her line just as there were through mine. All ninja families had secrets they liked to keep very much to themselves, not just the powerful clans, as many thought. It wasn't my goal, however, to learn what secret jutsu Shodai-sama had passed down to his bloodline. Such a thing would have been impudent of me. I had too much respect for the line of Hokage to do that.

However, certainly there must have been some knowledge locked away that was not tied to the immediate family. Something that was held in secret, away from all but the most capable ninja.

I had been considering this for some time as the three of us made our way back to the village, though I had disguised my pondering by pretending to read. The scroll I had produced from my belt was one I had already read on the way to our mission destination, but it served to keep my teammates out of my hair while I gathered my thoughts. They knew better than to interrupt me when I was reading. Or at least, I had thought so.

It seemed, though, that Jiraiya couldn't stand extended periods of silence. With a grumpy sigh, he jogged a few steps to close the distance between us and peer over my shoulder at the text. It only took a moment for him to wrinkle his nose and snort in my ear. "How can you read that crap all the time? You've got plenty of life ahead of you to study!"

He made a grab for the scroll, but I expertly evaded him, choosing to roll it up and replace it at my belt rather than indulge in his childish games. "Knowledge is infinite, Jiraiya. A human life is not."

"Yeah, well I'd rather spend my human life on something worthwhile… like women." Jiraiya stuffed his hands into his pockets, pouting just a little, unable to understand why I didn't share his interest in perversion.

Thankfully, I was spared the task of responding. Tsunade had stepped up beside us both, giving Jiraiya a firm smack to the back of his head, strong enough to send him stumbling forward a few feet. "You don't know anything about women at all, Jiraiya! Don't talk like you do. You could use a little bit more studying and a little less women, if you ask me."

This caused Jiraiya to pout even more. "Yeah, well nobody asked you or your flat chest."

The conversation followed its typical direction from that point and I gladly put some distance between myself and the childishness. Tsunade retaliated to that insult with more physical violence and Jiraiya responded in kind, casting a few blows of his own between insults to Tsunade's figure. It would have gone on like this indefinitely had I not intervened.

Not one to get my hands dirty, after all, taijutsu was the most primitive of the ninja arts, I tended to solve nearly every problem with a jutsu of some kind. I had such a wealth of them stored away in my mind it seemed a waste not to use them. The technique I chose was one from that very scroll Jiraiya had attempted to snatch just moments before. It was a technique that effected and solidified sound waves, creating a transparent wall, a wall that I pressed between the two combatants, leaving Jiraiya to throw a fairly forceful kick against it. If his yowling was any indication, the jutsu had been a complete success.

Not to mention, he was cursing up a storm. "I've got better things to do than deal with this! I'm going on ahead." He threw an unhappy wave at the two of us before darting off down the road. We were close enough to Konoha that I let him go. No doubt he was running off to peek through his usual crack in the bath house.

"Really… what an idiot." Tsunade watched him scamper off with a shake of her head. "He's a chuunin now. You'd think he'd be more mature."

I had already plucked another scroll from my belt again purely out of habit and unrolled it. "If that type of maturity were qualification for advancement in this village, we would be a village of hopeless genin." It was a constant trial to be a man in Konoha not obsessed with naked women. Their common perversion gave Jiraiya and Sarutobi-sensei a bond I could never have had with him. There were times I wondered if things would have been different if our sensei had understood my ambitions more than he understood Jiraiya's.

I scolded myself silently. It was pointless to dwell on such things. It would be a more productive use of my time to turn the conversation in the direction I had meant it to go. "More and more I find Konoha is not the proper place to develop scholarly talent."

She had begun to walk again and so I joined her, pretending again to focus my attention on the scroll I carried. She was chuckling softly, shaking her head. Obviously she realized there was truth to my words, though she never confirmed it aloud. Rather, she took the conversational bait I had offered. "Come on, now. You know Konoha is the most advanced of the hidden villages. You couldn't find anywhere better for learning."

Even when deep down I knew she was correct, I couldn't help but scoff at her words. The best place for learning? And to think I had nearly exhausted the supply of knowledge available to me. Certainly there were things awaiting me at the rank of jounin, which I was determined to achieve in short order. Though he thought I wasn't aware, Sarutobi-sensei had already suggested a promotion to the council members. It was only a matter of time before the paperwork was completed. It was extremely satisfying to know that, despite all else, Sarutobi-sensei knew a genius when he saw one.

Still, there were things even a jounin was not allowed to see. Forbidden knowledge known only to the Hokage and perhaps a select few of his most trusted ninja. There was even knowledge unknown to them. Knowledge hidden away in dark vaults, hidden from all eyes. Jutsu that could turn the world on its ear! Things that could only be accomplished by the greatest of geniuses. This was my destiny. I was meant to be the ninja to uncover these secrets, long forgotten, and give them life again. This was my path to becoming the next Hokage and earning renown as the greatest ninja in history. And beyond that, beyond Hokage and renown was the possibility of infinite knowledge. It was a path to learning everything and anything I could ever desire. Never being without study. That was my true dream. Not power or glory, but knowledge. Yet no one ever really understood that.

I must have been silent for longer than I thought, because Tsunade was peering at me quite intently. "You don't think so?"

"Of course I think so." I made no effort to hide my amusement and that must have been the first thing to put her on guard. She knew me well enough to know that amusement was not always the safest of emotions when it came from me. "But how much of that knowledge will I ever see? How much do they keep hidden away where a boy like me, from such a small, insignificant family, would never see it?"

She had begun to look more and more uncertain by the moment, but unlike so many who would have fled long before, she made the effort to delve deeper into my mind. Tsunade had always been the only one willing to see entirely beyond my pallid appearance. She had never taken to crossing the street to avoid me or refusing to look me in the eye like so many others, which was why it was a bit unnerving even for me, to see her discomfort. "What are you getting at, Orochimaru?"

There was no point in delay. Not now that she was already uncomfortable. The only course was to push forward and hope for the best. "Tsunade… You are of Shodai-sama's blood. One would imagine your bloodline would be aware of more, shall we say, private knowledge. Knowledge such as the location of the forbidden scrolls?"

It was a gamble to begin with, this much I knew, yet despite it all, I had not expected her to react as she did. Even before responding, she had put more distance between us, though I doubt she even realized her own actions. What's more, there was something strange in her eyes, a look of uncertainty and fear. Never before had she been afraid of me. She did answer, though, with what I took to be great reluctance. "Even though I am the granddaughter of the Hokage, I… Well, simply put, I don't know where they are."

I wasn't happy with this reply, but there was little I could do the change that. It had been worth a try, even if it had resulted only in failure. Though I had to wonder if I had damaged something more in the process. There was tension between us now that had never been there before. Her pace had quickened slightly and I was forced to alter my own pace to keep up. She noted this with a sidelong glance and eventually responded.

"Ah, Orochimaru… I should probably try to catch up to Jiraiya before he gets himself into trouble. But I'll see you soon! Maybe we can play dice or… something…" He voice trailed off as her pace quickened yet again. She was smiling, yes, but it was as transparent as glass. And as she all but fled form me that day, I couldn't help but wonder if my precious knowledge really was worth such a price.