This Fanfic is made during the time of episode 180-190, so before you say "why doesn't he just go nine-tailed fox" I thought I'd tell you he can't because of the time, this is set before Shippuden and he has not got any of the skills from that series
Thank you and enjoy.
The sun beamed down on the village, the leaves falling from the trees added a sense of tranquillity to the scene that was only broken by the travellers entering and exiting the village.
The missions they brought were only D rank with the occasional C rank that the Genin would try to get assigned to first as it was the only excitement they can get. This, however, had nothing to do with a lack of missions, there seemed to be a flood of missions coming in to the village hidden in the leaves, the problem accrued with the dry spell of C+ ranked missions.
Naruto was having a harder time than everyone else, at least they could train, but Jiraiya has still not been heard from and so he could not go off for more training.
This left Naruto wondering the village, waiting for word of him and going on the odd mission if any of the other Genin were absent from their squads, or if Tsunade decided to group him with a team that may need his skills for the mission. Or sometimes just to get him out of the way.
Little did Naruto know he was about to get a world of action land right on his doorstep.
At the time, Hinata, Kiba, Akamaru and Shino were reporting back from the last C rank mission to have come into the village.
Kiba yelled enthusiastically "Alright! Another mission completed, a bit too easy though I thought they'd put up a better fight than that, kind of depressing that twenty grown men couldn't even beat the four of us huh Akamaru?"
Akamaru replied enthusiastically "woof!"
"Th…they were just bandits Kiba" The frail voice of Hinata came quietly from beside him; "they didn't have any Jutsu, only swords and kunai."
"A fight's a fight" Kiba replied defensively; "anyway we made it fair, we didn't use any Jutsu, Shino didn't even use his bugs."
The wind was uneasy now; the leaves crashed to the ground as they were beaten down, and, in the distance, storm clouds approached and threatened to break the happiness in the village, this made the more experienced Chunin and the Fifth Hokage feel a very uneasy chill creep down their spines.
The Fifth stood at the window gazing out at the oncoming threat, her arms were folded and the look on her face made Shizune worry. They stood there for some time, quietly contemplating what to do about this unknown threat, and whether it was even worth worrying about.
Then, suddenly Naruto broke the steady silence, "Grandma Tsunade!" Naruto walked up to the desk and slams his hands down onto it aggressively; "I just heard you gave the C rank mission that just came in to Shino's group again!"
The Fifth Hokage turned around and responded defensively "Team 8 is ready and very reliable, they've successfully completed most of their missions and have a full team of three, and you have a team of 1" Tsunade brought out a file labelled "Team 7" and threw it onto the desk, she then continued, opening the file as she did to reveal the "successful missions" section; "and you Naruto haven't completed one since you split up with Sasuke and Sakura!" the folder revealed only a handful of completed missions from before the Chunin exams.
Then the Fifth Hokage turned to another section of the folder titled "damages", and then continued once again, "Not to mention Naruto that every time you go on a mission you either beat up the person you're meant to be protecting or destroy most the village with that damn Rasengan of yours".
Naruto interrupted, "No way grandma Tsunade, name the last place I destroyed!"
"Ha! About time I get an easy task" The Fifth searched through the receipts and sorted one of them to the side, taking the rest of the flood of tickets to make her point: "the land of water you destroyed the top deck of the new bridge trying to save Sasuke from the ice mirror jutsu, in the land of rice fields you destroyed a….
"OK" Naruto sighed "I get it but how am I suppose to get stronger if all I do is walk around bored all day, I mean at least give me something to do."
"OK Naruto I've got a job for you," replied the Fifth, "why don't you go and help guard the front gate there should already be some Chunin there, they could use some help".
By the time the Fifth had finished Naruto had already left and was yelling through the window, "Thanks grandma Tsunade!"
"Why can't Jiraiya and his students ever use the doors, now back to the task at hand…" the fifth's face fell as she remembered.
The storm that was in the distance had completely covered the village and turned the streets dull and black, the storm had begun and whatever the strange presence that The Fifth had sensed was closer and she could tell that there were four of them, skills unknown; she could only pray they were the sand ninja.
The fifth Hokage muttered under her breath, "With no Jonin in the village and only a handful of Chunin we can only pray, Jiraiya, where are you when we need you!"
Meanwhile, Naruto had quickly arrived at the gate where three Chunin guards ran, fleeing to the small wooden hut they had been provided, complaining about the sudden turn in the weather they sat at the desk and watched as Naruto approached. "Hey Naruto" shouted one of the Chunin guards "what can we do for you"
Naruto replied enthusiastically "Grandma Tsunade sent me to give you guys a hand, so what do you want me to do, Kotetsu, check people for weapons, check there identification".
Kotetsu interrupted "no nothing like that Naruto we just sit around and look for suspicious characters, like people wielding giant swords or people from ninja villages with the headbands on;" Kotetsu gazed in thought and put his hand on his chin "then again no shinobi would be dumb enough to walk into the village with their headbands on and giant weapons on show".
"What like those four" Naruto pointed out objectively "there are four guys coming this way"
"Don't even joke Naruto we have no Jonin to protect us if anyone really does attack only seven Chunin, you and team 8 who just got back from a mission"
Naruto responded nervously "no joke there are four shinobi coming this way wearing headbands and two of them have really big swords"
The leaf Chunin ran out hastily and lined up, the look on their faces dropped as they confirmed what Naruto has said, four people were walking towards them slowly, just like the approaching storm they were an unknown factor, "they could just be passing through, they could have been ally's lending a hand, or…"
Before Kotetsu finished Naruto interrupted "or they could be coming to destroy us because we have no Jonin" Naruto gulped.
Kotetsu turned around to one of the other Chunin and gave his order "go and get the Fifth Hokage if these people really do want to start a fight she will be our only hope!"
The Chunin responded "right!" he then span around so that he faced the Hokage's building and jumped onto the roof tops in a desperate attempt to get to her in time.
Naruto turned around to face the visitors once again; he then shouted "one of them has disappeared!" the remaining two Chunin turned around to check, then in the blink of an eye the missing visitor returned, carrying some dark object.
Naruto scrunched up his eyes to try and get a better view of the object, but the Chunin already knew what the visitor was holding, then Naruto realized, "I…it's the Chunin you sent out.. But…" Naruto looked behind him trying to find a sign of what happened there was none, "it must have happened in an instance" realized Naruto.
The visitors were at the gates by now and the one who had attacked the messenger Chunin chucked him over the threshold, Naruto and the two remaining Chunin jumped back and drew their kunai knives to try and buy some time for them to figure out how to defeat the visitors. They had made there intentions known by attacking the messenger Chunin that Kotetsu had sent to get the Fifth, they clearly did not want the Hokage to interfere yet.
Now that they were close the visitors could clearly be recognized as shinobi, they were each dressed in the same long cloak that spread from their necks down to their feet which were barely visible, they wore large steel-capped boots that had their village logo painfully carved into them, although these boots were not visible from the angle they were now stood in the three leaf shinobi had seen them earlier on.
The village symbol was not recognized by Naruto, it was a strange image, the main part was a tree, and then on the trunk were some strange markings that Naruto could not make out.
The visitor's mouths were concealed by the top part of their cloaks which, combined with the headbands, created a shadow that consumed the rest of their faces, making it impossible to see their eyes. Also due to the cloak, there was no way to determine their physique or muscles mass, making it impossible to tell just how strong they were.
The cloak was plain black, but its usefulness in concealing their bodies, faces and even any ninja tools or weapons they may have had on them was unmistakably invaluable. In fact the only thing that set the four apart was their hair and the large sword that two of the visitors had strapped to their backs, the swords were identical, they each were longer than the person carrying them but were stretched across their back diagonally so that they could be carried off-hand.
Other than that the swords were not all that unique, they had no guard and the hilt came directly out of the blade and had no shape whatsoever it was just rounded to fit to their hands, the blade was flat edged, not curved at the end and the sword, from what they could tell, was double sided.
The most unique and off-putting thing was that there was no sheaf, the swords were both held in blood stained bandages, this was the only thing that separated the two swordsmen, the blood patterns were different for each sword.
The swordsmen both even shared the same haircut, they had grey hair, which was spiked up and looked so firm that they could use them as senbon needles. The other two, who were in-between the two swordsmen, had different hairstyles from this, one had rebellious black hair that stretched out in random directions, almost in search of light, and the other, who they presumed was a woman due to the hairstyle, had fair, soft hair that had been well brushed and tied behind her head in a ponytail.
The remaining leaf shinobi stayed in their stances, it had been five minutes since the visitors had even moved. Then, with no warning the first strike was made, in the blink of an eye three of the visitors had struck, knocking out the two Chunin and sending Naruto flying into the nearest building. The villagers had already noticed the visitors and had, up until now, just watched with curious faces, however this serious act of aggression had changed all of that, they stood staring, until their silence was broken by one woman who screamed, after that they all ran to try and find any leaf shinobi that they could. Through the mist of dust and fleeing people a shadowy figure arose, the figure walked towards the four, now re-grouped, visitors.
From the roof tops the four Chunin that had been protecting other areas of the village arrived to see what all the commotion was about, after seeing their three comrades beaten on the floor they attacked the visitors. Their strikes and jutsu were perfect, a barrage of kunai knives and shuriken hit their targets dead on and shredded the visitors, and then the paper bombs that were attached to the kunai exploded causing whatever scraps that remained to be destroyed even further.
Then one of the Chunin spoke "I can't believe that someone who could fall for such a basic trick could have defeated Kotetsu".
"Maybe we caught them off guard" replied the other Chunin "I mean no shinobi is perfect and they didn't seem to be from around here, maybe they didn't know the technique". The other Chunin moaned nervously and not even the Chunin who said it believed the theory.
As the dust from the explosion cleared the truth was revealed, they were only logs, and the real visitors used the substitution jutsu and had been behind the four Chunin for some time waiting for them to realize their mistake.
The visitors struck the four Chunin down, they moved as one entity and with one strike from the palm of their hands caused the Chunin to cough up blood and then seize over in confusion of what just took place. The shadowy figure was clear to see now as the Fifth Hokage, the four visitors returned to their position just inside the gates to the village, they stood there, just as they had before they attacked Naruto and Kotetsu, waiting.
The storm was now almost at it's peak but showed no signs of ending or ever giving up, the thunder was so fierce that it shattered windows and the lightning violently lashed out and struck the Cliff side where the Hokage's faces were carved, leaving a huge scar that lead through into each face. The falling rubble from the mountain caused even more to fall, leaving rock slides that devastated the buildings, luckily no one was killed due to everyone evacuating to the top of the mountain. This evacuation left only the injured Chunin, the four visitors, Naruto, the Fifth and team 8, who were helping with the evacuation, in the village.
The Fifth approached the four visitors, then the visitor with the black hair stepped forward and spoke, still hiding his face in the shadow cause by his cloak and headband "you must be the Fifth Hokage of the village hidden in the leaves" the black haired visitor's body didn't move, it was like the voice was coming from nowhere as there was no movement or sign of any body language either. "We are the shinobi from the village hidden in the blood; we have come to assess your village's shinobi and to determine at what level you are currently fighting" the voice didn't have any emotion or any uniqueness about it, it was the kind of voice that would be heard in the village everyday, and you wouldn't pay any attention to.
The Fifth responded in great disapproval "assess us? What are we cattle to you? Are you trying to see if we are strong enough for your use, or if we pose a threat? Answer me! What do you want with the shinobi of the leaf village?"
"Our motives will become apparent later on until then all we can do is assess you on you combat abilities and tell you were you stand compared with the rest of the hidden villages" the black haired blood ninja still stood just one step in front of the other visitors.
Without moving or even seeming to breathe he spoke "so far we have assessed that your Chunin are above the standards of the Chunin from other villages and yet are disappointing in the fact that they let there guard down after they thought they had defeated us, even though they were suspicious about our demise, however, there is one Genin still conscious and impressively he is waiting for the right time to attack, trying to catch us off guard when we speak with you"
Suddenly Naruto sprung from the building he had been kicked into and launched a surprise attack with his shadow clone jutsu, creating ten clones armed with kunai knives, the black haired blood ninja commented on his tactic and use of high level jutsu "hmm interesting", even though he said it his voice lacked the emotion of anyone interested in anything.
Then he put up his left arm, and without moving his body in any way dispatched the ten clones with next to no effort. Then, out of the building's shadowy wreckage flew three kunai, the black haired blood ninja easily evaded them with a simple lean to one side "clever but you'll have to do better than that to defeat me" his voice had a slight sense of emotion now, like the better Naruto was the more his emotions began to show.
With no warning the kunai transformed into three Naruto clones "don't underestimate me!" the clones shouted then through yet another volley of kunai knives towards the black haired blood ninja from behind. The blood ninja, for the first time, showed his eyes as he lifted out of the shadow of his cape and into the sight of the Fifth, with a huge grin on his face from the pure thrill of an exciting fight he jumped avoiding the kunai that Naruto's clones had thrown and using charka strings to pull hem back into his hand, he then spun around and threw the kunai back at the clones.
He landed back in his original state with his head held up high revealing his blood red eyes and excitable grin, the kunai hit Naruto's clones, making them burst into a cloud of thick white smoke. The black haired blood ninja turned to the ruble filled building "that was impressive, combining shadow clone jutsu with a transformation jutsu, for that you can stay conscious to watch me assess the Hokage".
The black haired blood ninja jumped into the wreckage pulled out Naruto by the scruff of his neck and dragged him, kicking and screaming, back to the rest of the blood ninja. One of the swordsmen un sheaved his sword, this worried Naruto and he began fidgeting even more.
The swordsman then tied the blood-dyed cloth that his sword was sheaved in tightly around Naruto to stop him from escaping. Although the prison was made of cloth it was stronger than anything Naruto had ever felt, and had not even been knotted yet was rigid and immovable.
The Weather had not decayed yet and seemed to have no end, the torrential rain and harsh winds battered the cloaks of the four blood ninja and yet barely seemed to affect Tsunade, who hadn't moved since Naruto had launched his surprise attack.
Then, another of the Blood ninja stepped forward, it was the white haired girl, she had still not revealed her face, but there was fidgeting under her cloak.
The cloak then fell, revealing what, presumably, all of the blood ninja were armed with: the clothes she wore were very basic, they were just blue cloth that was armour plated, much like the ninja headband, in places with no joints so not to impair any movement, the armour, however was only on the front of her limbs, not on her main body or back, there were no shoulder pads and only really had the metal plating on the tops of her hands, the top of her arms and legs, the armour plated boots covered her feet. The plates on her lower arms had two separate halves of their ninja village symbol, as if the two plates were supposed to go together as a shield.
The tools she was equipped with were basic, she had kunai knives, shuriken and strangely she had a short katana that was attached horizontally across the back of her waist.
The female blood ninja now stood holding her cloak at arms length waiting for her comrade, the black haired blood ninja, to take it, as he did her arm dropped back down beside her and she drew her short katana, holding it backwards like a kunai knife. She then took her stance; she then checked her armour, almost compulsively.
After doing this and then standing back up straight again she revealed her face, she too had blood red eyes and a childish, excitable grin. She spoke in a well spoken posh accent "I do fancy a bit of girl-on-girl" she giggled to herself then continued "well shall we begin, don't keep the boys waiting now" all the while she was tapping the tip of her foot on the ground anxiously.
The tapping of her foot got faster and faster until… she vanished. Tsunade wasn't fooled by such an action and realized it was super-human speed that made her vanish; no act of magic or jutsu, the strike came quickly, vertically and with enough power to shatter a boulder.
The strike had missed, at the last minute; Tsunade had leapt back, preventing the strike from hitting her, "a good thing to;" thought Tsunade, "if that would have hit me, there's no way I would have stood back up". The crater from the strike lunged more than a meter down, and there, stood in the centre without so much as a dirt smudge on her, stood the female blood ninja, she looked up at Tsunade and teased once more "what's up love? Cat got your tongue?" whiskers grew on the side of her face and her teeth sharpened as if she was beginning to transform, the force from her charka grew so much that the earth around her started to tremble and her nails became thick and pointed "if a cat really did steal your tongue I could catch it for you" her voice was deeper now as she pulled up her newly formed claws "I'll even skin it for free"
"Ran!" the black haired blood ninja appeared to be calling the name of the female blood ninja "what are you doing! We aren't supposed to kill them yet, so get back to normal form, if you reveal your powers too early on we may have problems further down the line."
The blood ninja Ran's face dropped she seemed almost upset at the order she was given "bloody hell you mean I can't even kill this bitch?" Ran had dropped her guard for the brief moment she spoke with her comrade, Tsunade saw this opportunity and attacked, unleashing a brutal, full charka kick that struck the surprised blood ninja's face dead on, and sent her flying through the wall of the leaf village and out the other end into the forest, destroying several trees and creating a massive scar in the land, the blood ninja with the black hair sighed at his comrades mistake. Ran was now collapsed at the end of the scar almost a quarter of a mile away from her original position in the crater she made.
Suddenly Ran tilted her head forward to look at Tsunade, her eyes were wide open and the grin on her face grew until the overall look made Tsunade worried, Ran looked almost psychotic. "The bitch kicked me Conall" the response seemed to be aimed at the black haired blood ninja.
"I know Ran, but remember we just need to measure their skill nothing more" Conall responded to his name and tried to calm Ran down, the black haired blood ninja was called Conall, and the female ninja was Ran, two names had revealed themselves but there was still the case of the two swordsmen blood ninja.
"Ok, so what if I assess her a little too much? Do you think Conrí would mind me killing her? Well I'll just try anyway what's he going to do? Ground me?"
By this time Ran had already got back up and was preparing for another attack "I can't believe that bitch landed a shot on me, give her a seven for power though that was almost as good as yours Conall. However, my speed will beat her brawn any day of the week".
"You know that Conrí won't be happy, but if you must, I guess he won't touch you, you being his favourite and all" replied Conall sarcastically.
"Still jealous I see Conall" Ran gloated as she tapped the tip of her foot again anxiously "well anyway, round two has just begun, I'd better get in there huh?" with the last comment she darted off at Tsunade, faster than before though. The force from her starting step left a blast crater and as she passed through the arch made by Tsunade's kick an even greater chunk was removed.
Tsunade realized there was no time to dodge or even put up a guard to this attack, so she did the one thing she could, thank god that she dropped her knife when Tsunade kicked her.
The strike was a firm and powerful kick that launched Tsunade straight up in the air, the altitude gained only reflected the inhuman power and strength of these shinobi. During the air Tsunade tried to re-balance and get a sight of her opponent's next move, it came faster than she anticipated and this time from above. A hammer kick that for some reason didn't come as a shock, it was like she saw the moves coming but was too slow to do anything about them.
Tsunade crashed into the ground creating an impact that took most the surrounding building in with it. Tsunade stood up and managed to get out of the way of the next shot in time, but only because Ran had gone back down to get her knife. "This time you're done for" Ran spoke to Tsunade with almost a sense of disappointment at her inability to keep up "well maybe someone from the sand village will be able to keep up with me".
Ran jumped back out of the impact crater from the last attack, then, grasping her short katana with both hands prepared for her finishing blow, her eyes changed, there was determination in them now, not like before, now she had to concentrate to make sure the blow was precise.
Naruto was still tied up and unable to move, even his Nine-tailed fox powers were restricted by the cloth that bound him, the Chunin were still unconscious and would be for some time.
Suddenly the weather changed and the storm began to recede, as if the storm was as good as done, however there was one last lash of the storm left before its business was done in the village hidden in the leaves. Tsunade prepared herself, even unleashing the charka built up behind the diamond shape on her head; it would be a take-all fight, Tsunade versus Ran.
"Well bitch it's been a real riot but time for you to die, you shouldn't have even released all that charka, it won't save you from my eyes" Ran's eyes began to change, the physical appearance was no different but something else came forth at Tsunade.
The familiar sensation hit her as she realized, it was something similar to Orochimaru's intent to kill, but this was stronger, this made Orochimaru's intent feel like a gentle breeze, it was more than intent, it was fact! Intent has only a slight hold on the target, slowing them, but this made Tsunade tremble, it was, raw fear.
Without the ability to move, her heart beating so fast it felt like it might rip from her chest and it getting increasingly hard to breathe, Tsunade felt she was done for. Ran darted off of her position at Tsunade, this time it was slower, almost human speed Tsunade gasped for breathe, Naruto screamed "Grandma Tsunade!" but Tsunade couldn't hear it, all she could concentrate on was her impending doom
The short Katana gleamed as the sun rose in the background, the knife struck; blood spread through the air, the fight was over.
