Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto/Naruto: Shippuden, or affiliated characters and locations therein. This story does, however, feature many of my original characters and locations as well. I disclaim ownership of that which belongs to the original content, as well as the world in which this story is set.

Chapter One: Home

Dragon Temple, Ryuujin Mountains, Fire Country
Hyuuga Tamaki spun to block an imaginary attack from behind, turning to the side to thrust his blade into a wooden practice dummy, then rolling back and imbedding the sharp tip of a kunai into a target on the other side of the courtyard. Panting, he stood and entered the temple, where one of the young monks was waiting with a canteen of water and fresh robes.

Tamaki accepted what was offered and drank from the canteen before moving once more to bathe and change out of his training clothes. After he was presentable, he went to find the monk, Jinobu. Jinobu had been his closest friend in the temple since Tamaki's arrival two years before. As he had expected, he found Jinobu in the meditation room and took a seat beside him, enjoying the quiet.

Jinobu opened his eyes a moment later, and the two stood to leave the silent room. Once outside, Jinobu pulled a scroll from inside his sleeve. "This was delivered for you this morning," he said, passing it to the Hyuuga.

Tamaki broke the seal and unrolled it, reading quickly. "I'm being summoned back to Konoha," he summed up, glancing at the monk. "I suppose I should get ready to go."

Jinobu nodded, "You can leave at sunrise tomorrow. That way, you should be able to reach Konohagakure before evening."

Tamaki wondered what it would be like when he got home. How much had changed in the last two years? Were his loved ones in good health? Just the thought of his family and the mess he had left behind made his curse mark ache; he rubbed it through his cloth headband absently.

That night, after finally slipping into a restless sleep, Tamaki dreamed that he was riding in a carriage. He wasn't certain where he was going, but he had the sense that it was important. Outside, the forest was dense and dark, but in the pale moonlight, a single wolf ran alongside the coach.

Sunagakure no Sato (The Village Hidden in the Sand), Wind Country
"What do you want to do?"

Nara Shikashi shrugged awkwardly against the ground. "You're the one who suggested playing hooky," he reminded his cousin. "I don't know why we didn't just stay at our post if we were just going to be bored here, too." Shikashi rubbed his nose irritably, cursing the freckles that he knew the sun was drawing out. The sky was clear, and the desert sun beat down on all it touched.

Yuki sighed. "How long before we get caught?" he asked.

"How should I know?"

"You're the genius, Mister Prodigy," the older scoffed.

Shikashi considered it. "Assuming nothing unexpected happens, no one will know we're not there until the next patrol shows up at four o'clock," he decided, rolling onto his stomach.

Yuki paused in the middle of making a snarky comment, looking skyward. "What's that?"

"Looks like a messenger hawk." Shikashi sighed, "That's pretty unexpected."

"Huh?"

Temari was livid. "Of all the stupid, pigheaded, idiotic...!"

"Nothing happened, Aunt Temari," Yuki tried to defend.

Temari fixed him with a glare. "And, you, Shikashi! I'd expect that kind of irresponsibility from Yuki, but not you!"

Kankurou put a hand on her shoulder. "I think we can all agree that it was a stupid thing to do, but we're in the middle of what could be an emergency," he tried to reason with her.

Gaara nodded, elbows propped on his desk with little regard for the papers below them. "Kankurou is right," he said. "The hokage wants Shikashi back as soon as he can be. That's all that matters right now."

Shikashi raised an eyebrow. "He's summoned us back?"

"Not us," Temari corrected her son. "You."

"I see. I'll be ready to go in an hour, then." Shikashi bowed to the kazekage, then turned and left the office.

"If you think you're getting out of being punished for running off on your duties that easily, you've got another thing coming, Shikashi!" Temari yelled after him.

Konoha Hospital, Konohagakure no Sato (The Village Hidden in the Leaves), Fire Country
"Sakura-san! We've got an emergency patient in room E-4!"

Sakura jumped up from her desk and threw on her medic coat as she followed the younger medic out of her office. "Get Ai and Sara," she ordered as she passed him.

Haruno Ai hurried through the halls to the emergency operating rooms. A large platoon had been slaughtered less than a hundred kilometers outside the village, and so far there were no answers as to who or what had caused so much carnage. Spotting her mother's pink hair, Ai maneuvered through the bustling room to stand beside her.

"I need O-negative blood over here stat!" the pinkette was issuing orders, as her position as head medic dictated she should. "Ai," she turned briefly to her daughter, "I'm going to leave this one to you."

"But, Mom…!"

"You can do this. I'm needed elsewhere."

Ai could only nod mutely as Sakura left room E-4, presumably to do what she did best: save lives. In less than a second, Ai had shaken off her insecurity and was ready to make her mother proud. Hands glowing green with healing chakra, Ai pressed them to the injured jounin's chest.

He sputtered blood and looked up at her. "It..." he rasped, slipping in and out of consciousness. "It was..."

Ai leaned closer. "What? Who did this to you?"

"Monster," he whispered.

Ai was confused by this, but continued to listen to what the shinobi had to say.

"Black... sun..." And with that, he was gone.

Ai slid his eyes shut and stepped back. She turned what he had told her over in her mind as she went on to the next patient. No matter what the dedicated medics of the Konoha Hospital did, however, the results were the same, and every one of the shinobi who hadn't died on the spot, passed away on the operating tables. All but one.

"How is Patient Fifteen doing?" Sakura asked, taking said patient's chart from a junior medic. Even with his chart, the patient's name was unknown; the main reason Sakura wasn't fond of operating on members of ANBU. It all seemed so impersonal, referring to a patient by a number.

"Still in a coma, Ma'am."

She cursed under her breath. "We need to find out what happened to that platoon," she said. "Has anyone from Hokage's office come to get a statement?"

"Ah, a-actually, Ma'am..." he faltered.

Sakura threw open her office door, and paused, staring at the blond who had made himself comfortable in her chair. "Naruto? What the hell are you doing here?"

Naruto set down the family picture that Sakura kept on her desk and grinned at her. "Long time, no see, Sakura-chan," he said. "What? Just because I'm the hokage, doesn't mean I don't have time to investigate attacks on Konoha ninja personally."

"We don't have any information yet. We only have one survivor, and he's comatose," Sakura explained. "Any news on the outside?"

"A tracking team has picked up a trail. Not sure what will come of it, but it's worth a shot," he answered.

Just then, Ai ran in. "Black sun!" she shouted, upon entering the office.

"What?" Naruto asked, and the girl blinked at him.

"Uncle Naruto? What the hell are you doing here?"

Sakura grabbed the teenager's shoulder. "Never mind that," she said, slamming her office door to keep anyone from overhearing. "What was that you said about a black sun?"

"One of the jounin said... I mean, before he died, he said something about a monster and a black sun."

"Black sun?" Naruto thought aloud. "Like a solar eclipse?"

"But there hasn't been a solar eclipse in... well, a while." Sakura crossed her arms. "Is one coming up? It could be about something that will happen in the future."

"We'll look into it," Naruto assured her. "Was that all, Ai?"

Ai nodded. "What's going on?"

"You know as much as I do right now," Naruto told the Haruno women. "I have to go."

Sakura watched her old friend as he left the room, then gave Ai a proud look. "You did good, Ai," she said, giving her a one-armed hug. "We have a lot more patients to get through before our work is done, though."

Main Gate, Konohagakure no Sato (The Village Hidden in the Leaves), Fire Country
The chuunin on gate duty hardly gave him a second look as he approached them. Tamaki presented his Shinobi ID card and signed in. Then he presented his summons to them.

"Hokage-sama wants you to report to his office A.S.A.P.," one told him.

Tamaki nodded in understanding. "Any idea what all of this is about? Even the civilians look to be on edge," Tamaki pointed out.

"A platoon of ANBU was attacked last week. There's only one survivor, by the rumors."

"Well, that is interesting." Tamaki tilted his head to them. "Thank you. I'll be off, then," he said, gathering his bag off the ground and taking off through the village to the Hokage Tower. It was a little surprising that the Hokage would call him back to the village, of all people. Naruto-sama is probably regrouping all free shinobi, Tamaki decided.

Within the next ten minutes, Tamaki was at the Hokage's office door. Taking a deep breath, he tapped at the red-painted wood.

"Come in," called the unmistakable voice of the Sixth. Upon seeing the young Hyuuga, Naruto grinned broadly. "Tamaki-kun! Look at you, all grown up."

Tamaki bowed, "Naruto-sama. It's been a long time."

"Did you learn any new techniques while you were away?" asked Naruto, as eager as an old lady was for gossip about her neighbors. "I swear, you picked up the rasengan so fast...!"

"Naruto," called Shikamaru, getting his boss's attention, "Tamaki isn't here to catch up."

Clearing his throat, now all business, Naruto focused once more on his one-time apprentice. "Five days ago, there was an attack..."

"On a platoon of ANBU," Tamaki added quickly. "One survivor, right?"

"How did you know?"

"It's all anyone is talking about," Tamaki answered. "The details are fuzzy, though. Something to do with a lion and clover?"

"No, no, no. It's a monster and a black sun," Naruto corrected. "Mean anything to you?"

Tamaki shook his head. "Anything from intelligence?" he asked.

"Well, we did get a message from one of our field agents. After it was decoded, there was only one word on it: 'Kurohi'."

"Black sun. Makes sense, I guess. Now if only we knew who or what Kurohi is."

Shikamaru nodded, "Which is why we're reassembling Team Anju. As we speak, Shikashi is on his way home, and then you'll have three days to catch up on each other's new abilities. After that, you four will be going to gather as much information as you can."

"I'm not sure..." Tamaki paused. How to explain the situation...?

Naruto frowned. "Whatever happened between you three needs to be resolved. If not, I'll be taking you all off duty."

Tamaki sighed inwardly. Outwardly, he smiled coolly. "Of course, Naruto-sama," he said, and dismissed himself.

The Hyuuga compound was just as he remembered it: blank, unwelcoming walls, and even blanker, more unwelcoming stares. He ignored the way members of the main family looked at him as he walked on to the branch housing, where his home was located. He heard them mutter to each other behind him. The names they called him were nothing new.

Tenten was sharpening her shuriken when he found her in the back yard. She jumped when he tapped her shoulder, but was quick to recover and envelop him in a tight hug.

"I've missed you so much," she told him, squeezing him as if she intended to make up for his two year absence.

"I missed you, too, Mother." He hugged her back, and for the slightest moment, he was eight and crying into her shoulder over the injustices of the world. His caged bird seal stung just thinking about that day.

"You've gotten so big," she went on, pulling away and looking him over. "You look just like your father."

His smile dropped and he stepped away from her. His father, the last person he wanted to think about.

"I know how you feel, but…"

Tamaki forced a smile, now extremely convincing after so many years of practice. Not even his mother could tell how he really felt when he didn't want her to. "It's fine. Father is a sensible man, and I've grown quite mature in these past years. I'm sure we can get along," he assured her, turning back toward the house. "I'm going to wash up and then take a nap. I tried to avoid making too many stops on the way home."

"Oh. Okay, Tamaki," she returned to her seat on the ground and went back to her sharpening. "I'll wake you when dinner is ready."

"Thank you, Mother." He left her and went into his room. He stripped down and stepped into the shower in the bathroom attached to his bedroom, feeling the heat wash over his tense muscles. It was nice. The temple only had the cold rainwater that the catchment tanks held, and the plumbing was gravity-powered to the outdoor shower. Finishing up, he toweled off and slipped on some loose pants, falling tiredly onto his bare mattress and ignoring the dust that sprung up in response.

He dreamed of the wolf.

Shikashi slipped through the gate just after midnight. He was supposed to report directly to the Hokage, but he felt that there was one thing he had to do before that. He moved swiftly through the empty streets, landing in a tree and squatting on a familiar branch.

The Haruno's house was small, especially when one considered how many people were crammed into the three bedrooms. Even if Shouichi, their oldest, had moved out since he turned eighteen a few months before, they were still a household of six, and none of them much liked having people in their 'space'.

One of the upstairs windows, the one that Ai shared with her two younger sisters, was still dimly lit, despite the late hour. Shikashi remembered back when they were in the academy, when Ai would get into fights with the other students for whatever reason. Her goals seemed to change from day to day back then. The only constant in her fight was her hatred of feeling inferior.

Shikashi pushed a stray hair out of his face irritably, regretting cutting it. But that wasn't what he was really angry about. He hated Fridays; they were Test Day, when all of the students were quizzed on what they had learned in the past week. He hated it because he always finished twenty minutes before everyone else, and he wasn't allowed to go home early. He exaggerated a bored yawn.

The raven-haired girl beside him, with the pigtails that he always had the strangest compulsion to tug on, snapped an annoyed glance his way. Seeing this, he did it again, this time stretching his arms out so he invaded her personal space.

She grit her teeth and went on, attempting to finish the test in the allotted time. "Shut up," she hissed, elbowing him between the ribs.

"Go faster," he muttered back. "It's because everyone is so slow that these quizzes take so long."

She squeezed her pencil so hard, it broke in two. Throwing the ends across the room, she jumped up onto the bench and tackled him, landing a right hook to his face before their teacher managed to pull her away. "Stop talking like you're better than me!" she shrieked, her face red enough to match her dress.

He furrowed his eyebrows and said, completely matter-of-factly, "I am better than you. And I always will be."

The misconception of this event had been that he was being cocky, Shikashi understood. The truth of the matter was, and continued to be, that he knew he was the best in his age group. Certainly the smartest.

He watched quietly until the light went out a few hours later. The sun would be rising soon. He'd wait until then to report to the Hokage.

Training Ground Nineteen, Konohagakure no Sato (The Village Hidden in the Leaves), Fire Country
Aburame Anju looked at her students, now all chuunin and no longer in need of her protection. Her guidance, however, still seemed completely required, looking at the way the three refused to make eye contact. She cleared her throat, calling their attentions to her.

She frowned, "This is not the way proper shinobi should act. We underwent several teamwork exercises back when you three were genin, and I refuse to go through them again.

"I will leave you all alone for one hour. I don't care what it takes, just work through this issue of yours. If you have not resolved your problems by the time I return, you will be demoted, or even retired." She didn't give them time to argue as she left in a swirl of insects.

"Demoted, huh?" Shikashi scoffed. "Will she be sending you back to the academy, then?" he asked Ai.

"A know-it-all like you should already know that I'm a chuunin," she snarled. "With no help from either of you, I might add. At least I didn't run away from my problems."

Tamaki bristled, "I didn't run away. I left for training. Shikashi is the one who ran away."

"If we're talking about training, I was training with the kazekage."

Ai rolled her eyes at Shikashi, "There you go dropping names again. Look at me! I'm Shikashi, and I'm related to the kazekage, and my dad is the hokage's assistant, which is the only reason I was promoted to chuunin in the first place!"

"That's just hypocritical, Ai. You parade your mother's name out all the time," Tamaki pointed out.

"Oh, because it's so hard being a Hyuuga!"

Tamaki glared at them both, "If you two cared about anyone but yourselves, you might actually know something about me!"

"I am not selfish!" Ai shouted, "And if you hadn't run away, you'd know that."

Shikashi nodded sagely, "Ai is right. She cares about what the guys she's sleeping with think."

Ai whirled around with a snarl, throwing her fist only millimeters away from Shikashi's face and punching the tree behind him. The force threw splinters of wood in all directions, and the forest rumbled with birds crying out as the entire tree split from its trunk and fell.

Shikashi stared up at her from the ground, astounded. "Where did you learn that?" he asked.

Her green eyes burned as she stared heatedly down at him. "Like I said, I am a chuunin now. And I didn't need either of you to get there!" She ran her fingers over her bloody knuckles, her chakra glowing green as she healed herself. Then she pulled a pair of leather glovelettes from her kunai holster and strapped them onto her hands, adjusting the Leaf insignia-inscribed plates on the tops.

"While you two were off, hiding from your problems," she said, clenching her fists, "I was here, getting stronger. And now I'm twice the shinobi either of you ever were!"

Tamaki smirked, pulling a scroll from one of his holders and unrolling it. "You're not the only one who's picked up some new tricks, Ai."

Shikashi jumped straight up from the ground and landed in a crouch, pulling a tessen from one of his own pouches. The wind twisted playfully around him, teasing his hair and jacket. Her opened his metal plated fan and held it out in front of him. "I've mastered a few new arts, myself," he admitted.

Ai pulled her hands toward her body, quickly making the seals for tiger, horse, rabbit, rat, and then dog. Her hands began to glow with chakra as she ran at her teammates at a speed that impressed even Tamaki, the fastest of their team. Shikashi blocked her chakra scalpels with his tessen as Tamaki leapt into the air, biting his thumb and summoning a Chinese broadsword.

The Hyuuga brought his dao down at the interlocked warriors before him. They somersaulted off in different directions, just barely managing to escape Tamaki's blade. Tamaki, in turn, had to twist his body quickly to dodge the chakra scalpel that Ai had launched at his neck.

"Since when can you do that?" he asked, landing nimbly on his toes and running at her.

"Since—ngh," she ducked below his horizontal strike. He brought the sword down at her in a vertical slash, and she caught in on the guards on the back of her gloves just above her head. "Since I found the notes taken from one of Orochimaru's old hideouts. Kabuto was sort of an egomaniac when it came to his techniques," she panted. "They were detailed enough for me to figure them out, anyway." She grunted as her arms shook under the force of Tamaki's sword. Calling chakra to her arms, she managed to push him away and swing her leg up, moving her chakra into her heel.

Tamaki stumbled back to avoid the deadly kick and the resulting hole, and in that time, Shikashi attacked Ai from the side. She jumped away, huffing with the effort.

Shikashi knew that she'd need a minute to recover from using her chakra so carelessly in the last few minutes, and he wasted no time biting his thumb and smearing his blood over a seal on his fan. The fan vanished in a puff of smoke, and in its place, he held a giant bladed pinwheel. He swung the staff, calling up a gust of wind, which he used to increase his speed and air-time as he hurdled at Ai. She darted away gracefully, but Shikashi landed on the ground where she had been and threw his weapon at her. She rolled to the side, only to notice that it was following her.

From his vantage point, Tamaki noted with a strange mixture of horror and amazement how Shikashi's fingers danced like he was playing an invisible piano. If Tamaki had been able to activate his byakugan, he'd have been able to see the translucent strings that connected Shikashi's fingers to his weapon.

Grinning, Tamaki put his dao away and pulled out a new scroll, summoning its contents. Now with a handful of specially marked kunai, he set mental targets around the training ground and launched a kunai at each, hitting his marks perfectly. His last was sent at the Nara.

Shikashi jumped out of the way of Tamaki's kunai, losing his concentration, and thus his chakra-string hold, on his weapon. He then took note of the seemingly purposeless kunai that Tamaki had thrown around the area, but he knew better than to believe that Tamaki would waste a kunai for no good reason. On top of that, this moment gave Ai the time she needed to refocus her chakra. Warily, he awaited Tamaki's next move.

Tamaki held his right hand out, palm up and took a deep breath. In the next minute, a tiny, tornado-like ball had formed in his hand, and both opponents recognized this as the rasengan. This was nothing special; Tamaki had used the technique in his second attempt at the chuunin exam and had been promoted for it. What he did next, however, was a bit more impressive.

Before their eyes, Tamaki disappeared without even leaving a cloud of smoke behind. In the next second, he was behind Ai, slamming his rasengan into the dirt below her feet, sucking her into the sinkhole it created. Next he was behind Shikashi with another rasengan, but Shikashi had been expecting this, having caught on to Tamaki's plan around the time he disappeared the first time.

Shikashi quickly formed the rat seal and slid his food back a few inches so he was standing on Tamaki's shadow, stopping the Hyuuga in his tracks. The rasengan in his hand dissolved into the air around them quickly as Shikashi held his teammate in place.

"Working awfully hard at this, considering it's your family's hiden jutsu," Tamaki commented, not able to see Shikashi's face, but noticing him struggle with this basic form of the shadow bind technique.

"Haven't used it in a year," Shikashi muttered. He slid his foot away from Tamaki, and their shadows stayed connected. Convinced that it was holding well enough, Shikashi turned to face Tamaki, and Tamaki was forced to turn away. Shikashi drew a kunai, making Tamaki do the same, and held the point near the back on Tamaki's neck, who in turn held his to the trunk of the tree in front of him.

"I believe I've won," Shikashi grunted, trembling from using the shadow technique that his family was famed for.

"Thank again!" shouted Ai as he punched him across the face, sending him straight to the other side of the clearing. "That's for calling me a whore!"

Tamaki sighed and turned to face her, only to find that both she and Shikashi had vanished. He blinked and looked around, but couldn't find any sign of them.

Shikashi lay sprawled out where he landed, staring up at the sun through the leaves. Judging by the way Tamaki was looking around with that dumb expression on his face, Ai had trapped him in a genjutsu. Genjutsu had always been Tamaki's greatest weakness. Well played, Ai, he thought as he watched the girl approach him. And from the looks of it, she was ready to tear him to pieces.

A/N: This is the first chapter of my next generation Naruto fanfic, Naruto: ATO. I've been working on the characters and story for over a year now, and I'm finally putting the first few chapters up to get an idea of how it will be received. Since there's almost a completely new cast of characters (as the main plot of this story takes place about twenty years after the current Naruto storyline), characters will be introduced a few at a time.

In this chapter, we meet Team Anju:
Aburame Anju, 29, is a member of the Aburame clan, and a cousin of Shino.
Hyuuga Tamaki, 16, is a branch member of the Hyuuga clan, and the son of Neji and Tenten.
Nara Shikashi, 15, is the son of Shikamaru and Temari, and as such, he has lived in both Suna and Konoha.
Haruno Ai, 15, is a medic under the tutelage of her mother, Sakura. Her father is Sai.