Right, right. Before we get started, for those of you who have payed attention to my other fics thus far, this is what I mean when I say that I'm going to start writing a whole bunch of ideas down in consecutive order. I may end up developing all of them, but they will be given priority based mainly on how public response goes. More reviews means its more likely to see the light of day rather than the cramped Platonic cave of my head. Also, most are very general ideas at this point, so if you want to have a say in what happens, speak up now or forever shut the hell up.
This also includes matters of the working title, as I'm still not entirely satisfied with it. Reference is of course to 'Nihon' or 'the Land of the Rising Sun'.
Premise: 2nd Century BC, the first emperor of China Qin Shi Huang constructs the first foundations for the Great Wall of China in order to stave off aggressive overtures from their northern neighbors.
However, the invaders the Chinese are worried about aren't the Mongols. A sect apart from those which fled to the Island of Japan, instead retreated inland to Southern Mongolia, where it remained cooped up in civil war until the early 1930's, when the Kwantung army of the Empire of Japan begins to seize land north and south of the Southern Manchuria Railway. These two Japanese-speaking factions meet, and the history of the Second World War is irreparably changed…
I don't own Naruto or any other privately owned work referenced in the creation of this fictional account. Any relation to real names or places are entirely (partially) coincidental and no defamation is intended.
And on a personal note: offensive or inaccurate language used in this work is either intended to create a sense of timeliness or incidental.
August 7th, 1942
Tulagi Island, Guadalcanal
It was a dark and stormy night.
Or had it become a dark and stormy day? None of the ship's passengers could see significant change in the miserably dark sky, much as they couldn't see any improvement in the tumultuous black waves over the gunwales of their flimsy craft. The vapid plywood interior of the Higgins boat did nothing to inspire confidence in the 28 leathernecks of the USMC's 2/5 Battalion on their short jaunt from ship to shore, as they prepared to disembark on hostile and unknown beaches.
Exactly eight months to the day after the surprise attack on the US fleet at Pearl Harbor, the restive and eager young men would finally have a shot at vengeance for that underhanded sucker punch which left an aloof nation foaming at the mouth, and an otherwise neutral public fully committed to a prolonged fight.
But with the smooth way things were going (bar the weather), the gaggle of teens did not expect the enemy to put up much of a fight. Especially not for the tiny and insignificant island they could barely see in the distance, despite its strategic location perched just above Australia. Their arrival had apparently gone unnoticed in the horrid gale, if the jungle's silence was any indication. And if their groaning, shallow-draft boat could make it to shore without sinking, they imagined an easy waltz over the beach to overtake the handful of island defenders left after yesterday's heavy bombardment.
*Blarg!*
"God damn it, Arc! How the hell could you become a Marine if you get seasick?"
"Sorry!" The lanky blond apologized, struggling to hold in his hastily chowed breakfast whilst his comrades tried uselessly to distance themselves in that sardine-packed interior, men and equipment spilling over one another as the dingy rocked violently back and forth in the angry tide.
"Jesus, man! Try to pull it together will ya?"
"Na'my fault," He wiped his boyish face on the sleeve of his HBT jacket. "I think there was something wrong with my C rations." He protested impishly as some of the others unaffected by the incident laughed at the misfortune.
"Of course there's something wrong!" Schneider, dark and gaunt little thing as thin as Arc, but head and a half shorter shouted from somewhere near the front. "They're fucking C rations, mate!"
The rest of boat broke out in unrestrained mirth, even those who couldn't hear the incident and simply latched on to the cheerful feeling in order to eschew the malaise brought on by the weather and their grim task ahead.
"Oi! Cut the chatter! You want Tojo to know we're coming?!"
The only one not eager for their landing and the only one seemingly never in good spirits shouted over the raucousness caused by both men and nature, which far drowned out the choked thrumming of the diesel engine putting laboriously amidst the thrashing sea.
"How the hell are the Japs gonna hear us over this mess, anyway, cap'n?"
Captain Archibald McGovern, or the "Arch Nemesis" of every jarhead in the 2/5 was not one to share in jovialities. Especially not when his gut churned with uneasy anticipation that had nothing to do with the rough ride. With another decade and a half experience over every other marine in the small boat, he gazed out at that misty black line on the horizon like it was the very heart of darkness itself.
He might not have been wrong.
He glared with general disdain at the men under his command from his pulpit near the front, which was actually a coil of hemp rope he was using to stand taller than his already impressive six-foot-two demanded. Used to the killjoy persona, the twenty-some-odd eighteen and nineteen-year-olds quickly reigned in their laughter, but did not stop their idle chatter which was both endemic and helped to relieve the tense apprehension.
"Cheer up Arc, maybe the Japs'll share some of their rice wit ya. Back in Georgia we always had 'em grits to settle the tummy." The blond nearly hurled again as the burly Beauregard gave him a hearty slap on the back.
"Y'think those 'special troops' get any special rations?" Schneider poked his sunken face in between the elbows of the men ahead and asked with an almost desperate twinge which reminded his comrades of the kid's constant hunger and bottomless stomach.
"What 'special troops', y'er talking about?" Beauregard sneered at the hungry ghost and pushed him back with one meaty paw on the young man's helmet. "You mean their 'thetic attempt to copy the Corps?!"
"Hooah!" The obligatory cry echoed in the cramped space as the commanding officer gave another frightening glare.
"The Special Naval Landing Forces are nothing to sneer at…" The bespectacled and aptly named Wright shot impishly once the noise had died down (relatively). But no one heard him, nor cared for his informed opinion.
"Na, man. I hear tell they got some crazy kung-fu guys they brought in from China." Arc shivered at the conspiring words hissed over his shoulder by the local prankster everyone in the unit called 'Joker' because they had honestly forgotten his name. His dark face smiled eerily at the captive audience in the gray light of the morning.
"Shut the hell up, Joker. No one believes yer shit."
"It's true!" The joviality which had always painted the man's pock-marked expression disappeared as he became deadly serious. This stirred all within earshot as they listened with rapt attention. "I heard from my cousin who was friends with a guy in the China Marines that the Manchukuo's got some new blood they dragged down from way up north in Siberia or some shit. Real crazy bunch, got this killer look in their eyes- even the tiny ones!"
Beauregard snorted and shook his double-chin in condescension, but before he could regale them with another one of his Southern anecdotes which proved irrefutably that what was being said was a load of crock, Joker pressed on with his yarn which everyone else ate up with rapt attention.
"That's another thing-! I heard 'im say that they ain't just short like y'know most yellows are, they've actually been recruiting kids to fight for them!"
"Bastards!" Wright swore to the shock of his shipmates before he turned away and fingered his rosaries, muttering a prayer under his breath.
"Amen, preacher!" Joker smiled a toothy grin at the reaction he was getting with his so-far best performance. "And that ain't even the most shocking thing. Doug- that's my cousin's friend- Doug said that not only do they got women too! Beautiful things, and each and every one of them c'n do magic!"
A collective groan resounded throughout the cramped hull as every single onlooker turned away in exasperation, chagrinned knowing that they'd been put on for so long.
"Joker, you ass!" The mulato storyteller's mouth hung open, wondering where he'd lost them. "That ain't magic. It's called lust, you letch!"
"No! That's not-"
Before he could protest his newfound innocence, Joker, along with everyone else was thrown forward to the prow of the ship as they all tumbled over one another in a game of human dominoes.
"Ow! What the hell-?"
The groans of annoyance became groans of pain as the fully-loaded marines struggled to lift themselves off one another.
"Captain McGovern!" The Coast Guard tillerman called out from his machine gun post on the front. "I think we've hit a reef! Engines still working but I can't get her free!" The engine choked and wined as it fought pointlessly at the churning waves and the flimsy hull ground and cracked as it listed back and forth on its rocky anchor.
"Figures." Arch McGovern grumbled, but was a good Catholic in that he was happy to receive their punishment early in exchange for safe passage later on. "Alright maggots!" He called out to the sniveling mass of bodies that were acting more like children than the hardened killers they portended to be. "Boat's stuck, but the shore is only 100 yards or so. So suck it up, put it up, and get moving!"
Another groan shook the injured vessel, but the faceless bodies were quick to comply with the order and began leaping over the high walls and into the murky water below with a series of cannonball splashes and further cursing as men slipped and stumbled on the slick submarine surface.
"And for godssake, no more chatter!"
No one had much to say as they slogged their way to the distant shore, gasping for sweet air as an occasional misstep would sink their foot and have the rough waves up and over their heads. Somewhere out in that dark morning there were another several thousand Marines doing much the same as they were. Hopefully they had a smoother landing, though.
The beach was a fleeting afterthought as they waded onto the shore and threw themselves into the cover of the dense jungle. It was every bit as wet and dark as the water they had come from, and as they pressed further into the twilight depths they felt the interwoven branches closing in on them with each step they took further into hell.
It might as well have been that mythological place for the 28 men who, by in large, hadn't left the confines of their home towns before joining the illustrious Corps. They hadn't ever seen anything like it in their young lives, and if it weren't for the threat of enemy guns poking out of every shadow it might have been awe inspiring.
As it was, it was miserable.
"Son of a-" One PFC Salinas swore as his heavy boot squished down once again into an empty patch of forest floor and sunk ankle-deep into the mud.
He tried yanking his foot out to no avail. Then he tried levering himself out with the butt of his M1 Garand braced against the base of a nearby tree. Lady luck would not have pity on him as the line of troops behind him stopped their careful march across the treacherous terrain to poke fun at his misery.
"What the fuck is this?" The titters were trimmed at the base as Captain McGovern came scrambling to the fore. "Well? Don't just stand there! Get this man unstuck and get moving!" The soldiers standing idly by snapped to obey his hissed command without further question.
It happened to Salinas again. And then to PFC Wintergreen. By the time five men had dislodged Beauregard's girth, no one was laughing. They were all sweating, mosquito bitten, scratched, bruised and still sopping wet.
"Captain." Sargent Flanders whispered cautiously to the volatile man, his own sunken eyes scanning the shaded bramble encroaching them from every side.
"What is it?"
"I think the men need a break. We've been at this nearly six hours now."
The gruff officer took this advisement with a guttural huff, clearly illustrating his displeasure with the poor progress they had made thus far. He might have pointed out that they hadn't even made it halfway to their objective that was supposed to be secured two hours ago. But he was a stern man, not cruel, and he could feel his own weariness nibbling at his honed senses. If they were to come upon a determined defense as they were, they would be totally incapable of mounting an adequate attack.
"Ten minutes." He glanced back to a few scraggly faces looking at their private conversation with trepidation. "And make sure they get something to eat."
Sgt. Flanders was as happy as a clam to hear his request granted- that is, a tight-lipped nod which looked like he was trying to pass sand through his gut.
"There's a clearing up ahead. We'll push on to there and work out guard duty."
With surprising vigor, the man darted off into the bush like a gazelle to inform the bedraggled men.
"Hmph." The seasoned soldier harrumphed, though not out of any particular displeasure with his men, but rather that unshakable sense of foreboding that had been dogging him since they had disembarked from the USS San Juan. The clenching around his heart only seemed to get stronger by the minute.
"Ca-captain!"
The man quickly forgot his inner torment and whipped around to face his distressed Sargent who had somehow managed to get up to the head of the column next to Private First Class Polakowzki who was serving as point man for that stretch.
Instantly, all around the officer and all up and down the line, Marines twitched their weapons into firing positions, scanning the impassible screen of foliage for signs of an ambush.
"What the hell is it, Sgt.?!" Trying to keep his yell as focused as possible all the while loping over the knotted roots with his finger on the trigger of his Thompson submachine gun. "Is it the enemy?"
"No sir, it's-it's"
"It's just a fucking kid!" Polakowzki finished for him, flabbergasted as all the others within sight of the clearing.
The career soldier had to look twice as he came huffing up to his subordinate's position, and had he not seen it with his own two eyes that were military certified 20/20, he might not have believed it. In fact, he was still tempted to doubt his sanity and began to wonder if senility was common in 35-year-olds.
"What in the devil…?"
Rational thought dictated that it must be the child of one of the local inhabitants. But the shock yellow hair and lightly tanned face betrayed this notion as surely as did the serene expression haloed in the crocheted light shining the dense canopy. He was also not garbed like a pacific islander, in the fact that he was garbed at all. The khaki suit with accompanying web equipment lent a stern edge to that otherwise tranquil air he had surrounded himself with in that clearing.
"Polakowzki." The swarthy man broke from his transfixed stare and looked back at his commanding officer. "Get that kid out of here, now."
"Uh-uh yessir." He blinked twice and slung his rifle along his back, not wanting to scare the young man who had the misfortune to be resting in that inconvenient location.
"Hey, kid." Polakowzki tried tentatively, not even sure if the child could understand him. "Kid!" He tried again, added urgency elevating his voice a little as he took another few steps closer to the seated child.
But still the boy had yet to move, or even give any indication he noticed the soldier's approach. Captain McGovern watched from the edge of the clearing as the blond kid sat there like a statue, brilliantly painted to appear lifelike. All the while, that whisper of foreshadow tickled his ear and sent his heart thumping in his throat. Unconsciously his Thompson scooted up to rest in the crook of his shoulder.
Polakowzki inched forward, as if the child were boobytrapped, craning his neck to see if he could tell if the boy was breathing.
"Do you think he can even hear me?" He turned back to his concealed unit, shadowed faces watching owlishly from hollows between the mossy trees.
"Oh- for God's sake!" Captain McGovern stormed from his position, snapping branches and causing his own men to flinch reflexively. "Will you just-!"
And almost as soon as he exploded into motion, the whole clearing and everything beyond seemed to freeze. Even the exotic squawks of the birds and the buzz of insects seemed to still, cowed by those frozen blue eyes which were staring straight past the Private and directly into his own.
With that dichotomy of innocence and severity, he might have wondered why he never noticed the tribal-like tattoos on the boy's cheeks- like a tiger's stripes or whiskers. Equally, he might have taken note of the military-like plate tied across his brow, the color of Lebanese olives and emblazoned with the very symbol of their enemy: a chrysanthemum.
But both of these facts along with many other prudent observations fell by the wayside as he was locked in his myopic focus with those cold slabs of azurite bearing down on him with all their mountainous weight.
"Sorujas ofu da Unitedu Statesu…" His voice was high pitched enough that it was obvious he had not yet gone through puberty. But the moment the heavily-accented words passed through his lips, hackles were raised on the backs of every single soldier within earshot.
The boy frowned and scrunched his brow together in concentration as he mulled the foreign sentence over in his mouth. His halcyon aura lost and the commanding tone he had attempted appeared to peter out. He coughed and the soldier in front of him jumped slightly. Though he took little notice. His focus too, was solely on the Captain. And that made the man far more nervous than he could possibly justify.
"Kid, you need to get out-"
"So-ru-diers of the United Statesu!" He began again, this time far more clearly and with a reinvigorated sense of dominance that once again caused everyone to tense. "I havu been auturized to arrow you one chancu to surrenda in the namu of the Emperor!"
When told back home, or at the barracks over a couple of lukewarm beers and the promise of a weekend pass, the men of 2/5 would laugh about the way this prepubescent brat stood up to their Captain and even their entire patrol with a straight face and armed with nothing more than a long knife, ordering them to lay down their weapons for him.
If, they ever made it back, that is.
In that moment however, no one knew quite what to do with the simplistic and nigh-unintelligible ultimatum. Even after they realized that the youth had been indoctrinated into the service of the Imperial Japanese Army, there was a question as to what to do with that information. Could they just kill the kid, like they would any other soldier? Somehow giving him a spanking and sending him back home in tears just didn't seem like it was going to cut it this time.
"Captain?" Polakowzki asked hesitantly as he took his eyes off the strange child.
"You tell that kid," The man wetted his parched lips-despite the sweltering humidity surrounding them he suddenly felt dry- and instructed his subordinate while never breaking the staring contest he was desperately locked in. "That the USMC never backs down from a fight."
Even while the Private looked at his officer like the man had gone mad, the child appeared to have gotten the gist of the information, somehow reading his lips and comprehending despite not knowing the language very well.
Or maybe it was the expression he knew was permanently etched on his face, which was reciprocated in his youthful counterpart. That kind of language was universal on a battlefield.
"So-ka." He whispered, nodding his head shallowly.
Captain McGovern felt each heartbeat after that.
The first had the kid on his feet, one arm extended and fingers splayed as if releasing a bird from his magician's cuff.
The second saw Polakowzki stumble and then drop to a knee as the blond kid had yet to remove his steely sight from the rest of the platoon.
By the third, Cpt. Right already had his weapon to his shoulder, even as Polakowzki flopped backwards with a spray of blood erupting from a pointed star in his neck.
By the fourth it was all over.
The jungle erupted in a cacophony of gunfire. A storm, much more savage than the one they rode in on, blazed through the lush foliage, tearing vines from branches and sending slivers of wood exploding in every direction. Back in the clearing, the last man standing unloaded his 20-round magazine into the child-assassin, sense and sight both lost behind the blinding crack of the muzzle-flash and the thumping of the bolt running back and forth, keeping pace with his racing heart.
The Captain's finger squeezed incessantly on the trigger, long after the last round had been spent. His heavy breath tasted only sulfur, and none of the damp humus and salt-water that had clogged it for the past several hours. After a few seconds, ammo ran dry and sense filled the empty space.
"Cease-fire! Cease-fire!" He barked out, once he realized his own foolishness.
"God damn it…"
His Catholic mother would probably send him to the nuns with how many times he had used the lord's name in vain, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Not when looking upon the corpse of one of his men, bug eyes staring back up at him in total shock, as if still wondering what was going on.
But there weren't enough swear words in his vocabulary when he scanned the small clearing for a second body, and came up with only a perforated log.
"Reload! Spread out, defensive positions!" He summoned up the strength of his training, forcing his shaking hands to change out magazines and his feet to carry him to better cover.
"What the hell is going on, sir?!" His Sargent asked as he threw himself into the crook of some roots next to the man.
"What the hell does it look like? We've been attacked! So get your goddam weapon up and act like a soldier, damnit!" He chastised even as he removed his helmet to run a trembling hand through his hair.
"But the kid-"
"I don't know what the hell that was." He growled. "But it sure as hell wasn't no fucking kid."
"Gomez!"
The shout came from far off behind them, well off into the parts of the dense jungle which where shielded by a curtain of plant life. It was followed soon after by an enraged yell and renewed gunfire. Eight shots and they heard the telltale ping as the person firing the Garand used up all his ammo. But the war-cry continued until it was abruptly silenced, and the jungle was submerged into an ethereal silence once more.
The silence was deafening. But even as it was broken, they wished the could have it back.
"Jesus…"
More cries and more gunfire scattered all around them. A few stray shots whizzed over their position and buried themselves into the thick trunk next to which they sought shelter.
"Where the hell are they?!" Flanders yelled as he pivoted along the trunk and stared off into the darkness. "There must be a fucking platoon of them. How come we didn't see them?" He fired off a few random shots from his M1 Carbine which were swallowed up by the unflinching jungle.
"The kid must've distracted us from their approach." McGovern said halfheartedly as he glanced around the opposite side of the tree. Though in his heart, he knew he didn't believe it.
"Shit. We're screwed if we stay here. I can't see any of the other men. One of us has to make it back to the beech and signal the ships so that they can level this rock. Flanders, you're the faster runner. Do you think you can make it back if I cover you? Flanders?"
But while he was busy planning, the terrain as dark as night fell to a hush once again, and he realized it had been a while since he had heard anything from his second in command. He whipped around the tree with his gun at his hip, ready to blast whatever he found on the other side.
"Damnit!"
Sargent Flanders lay sprawled out on the massive root he was using for cover, blood quickly running down the gentle slope and dribbling to the ground.
Cpt. McGovern was normally a man to trust his instinct. That he hadn't thus far was only because of the heavy drilling laid into him by the Marines, who forced him to ignore that fight-or-flight in order to succeed in combat. Though he paid heed to it now, as instinct told him that something was coming up from behind.
He spun on his heel, throwing himself against the corpse of his comrade and unleashing a spray of bullets at what was his backside.
The blond kid darted to the side, just in front of the muzzle's sweep. He hid himself behind an equally thick tree which absorbed the bullets like putty. The man held his fire, expecting the wily assassin to come at him again from the other side of the trunk.
He was right, but the position in which the child appeared was far too high for him to have climbed it by hand, and so McGovern was caught off guard as he released a single knife like a dart which lodged perfectly into his firing hand.
He cried out in rage more than pain, dropping the weapon and reaching instinctually for his sidearm. But with his left hand he was clumsy, and that minute delay was all it took for the child soldier to get up next to him and lodge another one of his crude knives into his uninjured hand. Then a surprisingly strong foot knocked him in his burly chest, pinning him against his fallen soldier, and his opponent reached back to draw out his long knife.
He looked the kid in his dead, blue eyes and uttered the first word that came to mind.
"Monster…"
"Hai."
He never even felt the blade as it severed his neck.
…
Naruto wiped his blade off with a special type of paper given to him by one of his new squad mates specifically for that purpose. He let it fall from his palm and onto the lap of the man he had just slain as the severed head glared back up at him accusingly.
He sighed heavily and slowly replaced the wakizashi into its sheath on the back of his belt.
He only knew select phrases in English and had a passing comprehension of Mandarin. He had memorized the declaration beforehand, and sweated hours practicing it, making sure he delivered it correctly. Even now- especially now, he continued to doubt whether he had not caused this bloody outcome.
Though his knowledge of foreign language was abysmal compared to the others in his group, he did know the last word that had been on the Captain's lips. In fact, he knew that word in five languages and seven dialects now.
Monster.
Bakemono.
He knew he deserved the title. It had boosted him up through the ranks and garnered him all kinds of accolades within the Imperial Army. But still… it wasn't the respect he wanted.
He craned his neck up to the canopy far above just as the sun descended past the impenetrable branches and swallowed the jungle in inky blackness. It may have only been a few hours into the afternoon, but it might as well have been midnight on the forest floor among the massive and ancient roots, and freshly spilled blood. It would not go to waste, though. They would not go to waste, and soon the humid climate would add their flesh to its fecund soil, life sprouting anew.
He consoled himself with this. For now.
He wrapped the darkness around him like a blanket, and disappeared into the land of the setting sun.
Alright, let's get this bitch of an author's note out of the way!
What to say though? For those of you (all like, 12) that have read my previous attempt at a Naruto x RL crossover, know that this will share a lot of the same dark elements and political machinations (gee, I wonder why?). But that being said, I hope to focus more on the shinobi characters with this attempt even though I am also going to be jumping through all number of hoops to make this as historically accurate as possible.
What does that mean? Well, this IS an AU, so things are probably going to diverge rather rapidly, but for those of you who care to check up on facts, you'll notice that this chapter follows the basic history of WWII fairly closely. Again, another caveat, is that while I am a total history buff and general nerd, I have a terrible time remembering names and dates, choosing to focus more on the general concepts and motivations of the conflict. I will get names wrong, either by mistake or on purpose for the sake of the story. I am a geardo, I like and know military equipment and their limitations, so while this makes me more qualified than some to compare historical armies to hypothetical battles, it makes me pretty myopic and ignorant of things I probably SHOULD really know…
And in that vein, some people are no doubt going to give me all sorts of crap (being that they read this far, that is) about how Ninjas are so much stronger/weaker than your average GI. All I have to say to that is: if you don't agree, don't read. Or rather, if you prefer, PM me with something more than an honest opinion and more facts.
So for example, in this scene Naruto decimates (more like exterminates) a platoon of USMC's finest without a scratch, and he's not supposed to be OP? Yes. If you have ever been in the jungles of SE Asia, you'll know it's almost impossible to see like 4 feet in front of your face. Close quarters scenarios like that make guns practically useless, especially the long rifles typical of WWII armies. That, and the age old excuse that the ELEMENT OF SURPISE trumps just about everything. He's not going to have that easy a time with the next 4+ years of RL canon.
But shinobi are like so much faster than guns, of course they would totally be able to dodge bullets and be like shwaaa, weee, jutsu-magic! Yeah… no. I love the premise of Naruto, the characterization and the intertwining of Japanese lore. However, things just get STUPID later on in Shippuden. If we are being objective, when the series starts out it is pretty clear that only very ELITE ninjas have a chance at dodging bullets at CLOSE range. Nothing to say for a long-range potshot which the only way they'd be able to dodge is to know they're being watched (which, I admit is a possibility). Bullets be fast.
But of course, balance this out with the fact that armament in WWII was mostly bolt-action and semi-automatic rifles with a handful of troops being issued what would later be termed 'squad automatics' and SMG's. Yeah, it's going to take a lot of bullets to take out a single ninja with those kinds of tactics. But of course, consider that there are about 1000x more troops in every country compared to the ENTIRE elemental nations, and you have a pretty fair game in my opinion.
Of course, one other thing to consider is the fact that the Nuclear bomb hasn't been developed…yet. Conventional bombing can STILL raze a city like Konoha to the ground, though. And apart from a few specialty ninja, as we've seen, they really don't have too much in the way of AA capabilities. Though I admit, the Japanese army of this time period was very poorly mechanized, they did have a formidable air presence. This is the number one deciding factor in this timeline, and if one knows anything about history, this was true in real life as well, as aircraft carriers superseded larger battleships like the Yamato class and made them all but obsolete.
Anyway, a LOT more to say about this, but I'm not even sure that it's wroth it at this point, considering this story may or may not get developed depending on how much attention it gets (yes, even bad attention counts, so if you don't have anything nice to say, best not say anything at all).
I still urge you to vote, and be on the lookout for more oneshot probes like this in the coming weeks.
And one final note: Also for those of you who know my other works, no, sorry, this isn't a massive crossover. The scene just kinda worked out that way, and I couldn't help but sneak Jaune in there. Besides, I don't think he made it out of the jungle alive. OR did he? Review!
