Hiruzen Sarutobi

As a child, Hiruzen and his former teammates, Homura Mitokado and Koharu Utatane, were students of Hashirama Senju, the First Hokage, and Tobirama Senju, the Second Hokage. Later in his life, he became the teacher of Jiraiya, Orochimaru, Homura Mitokado and Tsunade, who would go on to become known as the "Legendary Three Sannin". In time, he became the father of Asuma Sarutobi and later the grandfather of Konohamaru.

While Orochimaru was his student, Hiruzen came to appreciate Orochimaru's natural talent and often told Jiraiya to be more like him. He also came to recognize an inner malice and a lust for power within Orochimaru, and tried to steer his student away from these personality traits. Later, Hiruzen competed with Danzo to become Hokage. Then, after taking the position of Hokage and occupying it for many years, Hiruzen started looking for a successor to the title. While he hoped to be able to give the position to Orochimaru, it became apparent that Orochimaru was only interested in the role of Hokage as a way to get power. As such, Hiruzen passed on the role of Hokage to one of Jiraiya's former students, Minato Namikaze.

Soon after, Minato sacrificed his life to seal the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox within his newborn son, Naruto Uzumaki, forcing Hiruzen to reassume the role of Hokage. After reacquiring his title, Hiruzen began investigating a number of disappearances within Konoha. Upon reaching the source of the abductions, he found Orochimaru to be the one responsible. Having used those that he kidnapped as test subjects in his quest to gain immortality, Orochimaru allowed his former master a chance to kill him. Ultimately, Hiruzen was unable to bring himself to harm his favorite student, allowing Orochimaru to escape.

Hiruzen was one of four Hidden Leaf villagers who knew the truth about Itachi Uchiha, along with his former teammates and Danzo. Hiruzen also is trying to prevent Indo Huiyo about finding the truth about his past, for he thinks it will as bad as the Nine-tailed Fox's attack.