The Shade of Uzu

by defiasstone2

The village of Whirlpool was destroyed in the third Shinobi war, and the few survivors that weren't wiped off the map were scattered across the entire elemental nations. However, there are those that were not present in the village during the time of its destruction, whether for good reasons or ill. This is one of their stories. Naruto-centric, OC's

1. A shadow of the past

The Shade of Uzu, A Naruto Story:

It had been almost 16 years since the end of the third Shinobi war that had ravaged the elemental nations for almost a decade. The casualties on all sides were tremendous, and the war seemed never ending to those that were either involved or caught up in it. Several minor hidden villages of ninjas were wiped out in their entirety, including the secretive and feared village of Whirlpool, which was based in a small island chain off the coast of the land of fire.. The village, whilst small had been very well known for its sealing techniques and powerful ninja.

As such, when they sided with the village of Konoha in the great war, the great villages of Iwa and Kumo, two of the 5 most powerful villages in the elemental nations allied together to destroy the village, with a force of such magnitude that had never been seen before, including the most powerful of each villages ninja's, known as the hidden shadows or Kages. They mustered almost half of their combined fleets, and set sail, whilst their spies amongst Konoha forces made them believe that they would be attacking on the northern front of the land of fire to draw away any possible support that could besent to aid Uzu.

Against such a force even the powerful defensive sealing techniques that the Whirlpool village had set up as a defensive measures to stop any ship from landing upon their shores were overcome using powerful earth ninja techniques to build an artificial harbour over the top of the deep reefs that Uzu had placed their seals upon to create their defences. The siege lasted a week, and the losses to the attacking forces were such that when they finally won the battle, and every member of the village had died in battle, even the children were killed or snuck out of the village with retainers and dissappeared into the far reaches of the world, the attackers could only fill a tenth of the boats they arrived with.

A year later, the 4th Hokage, known as the yellow flash for his incredible speed technique, effectively ended the war by felling over 400 enemy ninja in a single battle using his signature technique, the opposing villages quickly sued for peace, and the war ended, with Konoha the lauded winners, and the sacrifices of the Whirlpool forgotten by all but a few souls that had managed to evade the destruction. This story tells the tale of one of those survivors, and his quest to restore the glory and heritage of his home village to its former glory once more.

Nobunaga Kage, known more these days by his bingo book name 'the shadow of Uzu' walked surely and slowly through the small village that was on the outskirts of Hi no Kuni. He had not been to the country in almost half a decade, and with good reason. He was still considered a missing ninja of the whirlpool village despite its lack of existence, and as one of the only survivors of the once famed ninja village of Uzu, or the Whirpool hidden village as it was commonly known, his knowledge of the Uzu jutsu and sealing techniques were attractive prizes to the minor villages, and even the great five wouldn't turn down the opportunity if he was captured by their ninja and pumped for information. Shrugging off these rather morbid thoughts, he walked up to the door of the village hall, which served as both the residence and work place of the village mayor and his administrative aides.

The hall also contained the wanted posters and arrest warrants, which was how he got by these days, petty criminals and bandits didn't stand a chance and it was decent pay. Entering inside, he found a few Konoha shinobi there already, dressed up for a mission, and the leader of the four was asking the village mayor for information about something. They were all chuunin and relatively young, so he had no reason to worry about being spotted, the descriptions of him in the bingo book were vague and hazy with only a photo of him from his genin days and none of them were old enough to have fought with him 20 years ago. As such he walked past them and to the board, which he perused half-heartedly, there didn't seem to be any new bounties, and the ones that were up he knew were obsolete, he had already completed most of them and brought the bounties to other villages.

His keen hearing caught the words of one of the leaving chuunin, and it caused him to freeze in place as a word that he had thought would never be mentioned in idle conversation again. "We better find these bandits quickly; the last thing I want to miss is the Uzumaki hunt, best part of the October 10th festival, watching the demon squi…' He was cut off by the impact of a fist to his solar plexus, sending him to the floor in a daze. Kage was already striking the next one a debilitating blow to the knee, shattering the bone easily with a chakra infused strike. The two remaining chuunin were reacting now, caught off guard by the attack on their home turf as it were by an unknown shinobi. The shorter of which was reaching into his kunai pouch when Kage roundhouse kicked him with enough force to send him through the open door to the hall and skidding down the street, the man flailing helplessly as he did so.

The last managed to draw the blade at his waist and struck out at Kage, cutting a large gash into his side, and smirked superiorly for a moment, only for it to turn to shock as Kage dissolved into what could only be described as shadows, before a chop to the back of the neck knocked him out almost casually by the real Kage who had appeared from his own shadow. The one whose knee had been injured was grasping for a kunai or other weapon in his pouch when suddenly Kage was there, in front of him, a terrifying mask of shadows clawing and reaching for him, miniature faces of horror and terror flitting across it, as if there were souls of people trapped inside, trying to get out.

"WHERE IS THE UZUMAKI!" The voice was dark, and promised an eternity of pain and suffering, though this did not stop the chuunin trying to be brave. "S-Screw you demon, you are just like the brat, Konoha will deal with both…" He cut off with a scream as Kage wrenched his shattered knee. "TELL ME, OR YOUR FRIENDS WILL DIE SCREAMING IN FRONT OF YOU!" As if to prove a point, one of the other chuunin moaned in obvious pain and the man decided that it would be best to talk. "The Uzumaki brat is in Konoha, there, I told you what you wanted to know, now leave us be!" Kage growled again, tempted to hurt the men further, just for what had been discussed by them before his interference.

The phrasing of the activity 'Uzumaki hunt' sounded barbaric at best, and what was with the repeated references to demons? But regardless of what the connotations of such talk could mean, the fact that one of the Uzumaki house could be alive was not something he could ignore, and if this hunt was on the tenth of the month, he had less than two days to reach Konoha, which whilst also dodging patrols and infiltrating past the vaunted Konoha security systems would be no mean feat. With that in mind, he performed the shushin jutsu without handseals such was his experience with the jutsu, and disappeared into roiling shadows that leapt from the floor to claim him, leaving a downed Konoha team and a terrified mayor who was hiding behind his desk, in case the mystery shinobi decided that he wanted to come after him next.

Time Skip: two days

Location: Konoha

Naruto ran as fast as he could, something that he was used to doing nowadays. Knowing what day it was, he had done his best to be back inside the orphanage in time, but the matron had closed and locked the gates as he ran up, claiming that 'a night outside would make him more punctual.' The blatant truth of it was that she didn't like him, like most of Konoha's citizens, though for what reason he wasn't sure, and none of them would tell him anything other than he had killed their families and was a terrible demon, which made no sense, as he knew he hadn't killed anyone. Though this knowledge was the only constant he could remember in the 11 years of surviving he had managed so far.

Not that it mattered he thought wryly as he dodged another drunken lunge from a villager, ducking into a side street that he knew became very narrow about half way down its length so that only one person could pass through at a time comfortably. The mob following him was closing, though he knew he had managed to escape for now as he dived through the narrow point, ending it with a roll that brought him back to his feet and running, as the point in question became clogged with people all trying to barge through at once to get at him. Using the precious time he had been given, he headed for the slums, the people there were a lot nicer to him, despite their usually less than honest occupations, none of them had raised a hand against him, and even hid him on occasion when the crowds became too much for him to escape from.

Just as he thought he was about to make it, something slammed into him with the force of a cannonball, sending him flying into the street wall with a shout of pain as two of his ribs cracked. There standing over him was a man in a ninja uniform and wearing a chuunin flak jacket, snarl visible on his face as he raised a short blade over his head. "The demon thinks he gets to escape does he? Not today you don't… feel free to scream, it will make it that much more enjoy.., urgh!" The man cut off as a blade similar to the one he was currently wielding embedded itself through his abdomen. Behind him was stood a figure that almost seemed cloaked in darkness itself, bloody blade dissolving into the same type of shadows as he lowered his hand. The mob had used this time to navigate the passage and was drawing up down the street warily, seeing the injured chuunin on the floor their mutterings became more worried and urgent.

The cloaked figure ignored them; instead dropping to his knees and raising his hand to Naruto's injuries, green light like the nice men at the hospital used to heal him used emanating from his hand. The voice caught him off guard, and would have scared him if the man hadn't already saved him and was healing him of his broken bones. "Are you the Uzumaki they call Naruto?" Naruto nodded hesitantly and was shocked when the man then reached out with his free hand and gestured for him to take it. "I am Nobunaga Kage, and I am an ally of your clan from many years ago. Take my hand and we shall leave here to somewhere safe." Naruto couldn't believe it, this man knew about his family? Without having to think a moment further he reached up and grasped as much of the man's large hand as he could with his own small digits.

Everything went black for a moment before he found himself with the man in his orphanage room, bare as it was it was something he could actually say was his own. The cloaked man was rummaging in his cloak for something as Naruto finished getting his bearings. Leaping to his feet he performed his best bow to the man before expressing himself verbally. "Ano, Thank you for back there Kage-san, I was in a lot of trouble before you got there. And were you saying you know something about my family! Was that true?" Kage drew out a small scroll of his cloak as he nodded. "It was Naruto, but first I must verify that you are in fact a Uzumaki by blood, not just an unluckily named orphan, I would not wish for you to get your hopes up needlessly."

Naruto nodded in understanding, the number of times that people had given him good news on for it later to come to nothing he was kind of used to it, though the fact the man was testing him before telling him anything false was new. "How are we going to test it Kage-san? I mean, even Hokage-jiji claimed he didn't know who my parents were and that there wasn't a good way to find out, so what's your plan?" Kage paused at the word Hokage, but recovered fairly quickly. "This scroll is blood sealed to the blood of the Uzumaki, as long as you are more than a quarter Uzumaki it should open when you put some of your blood on it." Naruto beamed, this was a chance to find out if he did belong to a clan, a way to get back at all those idiots in the academy that claimed he was nothing but a clan less waste of space! He reached up and swiped a small amount of blood from his still bleeding lip and placed it against the scrolls red seal.

Nothing happened for a moment, and Naruto was about to sigh in disappointment when the seal glowed blue and a complicated inscription became visible round the scroll, and then the seal came unstuck. Naruto was overjoyed, and began jumping up and down with excitement; he was a true Uzumaki, whatever that meant. He stopped when he heard Kage chuckling to himself, the noise turning into full blown laughter as the man shook his head. "I have spent almost two decades searching far and wide, through the dungeons of the elemental nations for even a rumour of a survivor of the Uzumaki clan, and yet, all this time, there was one so close to home, in the land of our allies! Kami does like to play her little games with me." Shaking his head once more, he quieted and then became serious. "But now young heir, you must make a decision, do you wish to learn about your clan and our way of the ninja?" The man could not have said anything else other than perhaps offering ramen to get Naruto interested. "Of course I do, are you going to teach me Kage-sensei?"

The man nodded but spoke once more. "That I will, but to do so, I must take you to your clan's home, which is away from Konoha. This means you would have to leave with me for a year or two, so that you can learn all you can before your return here to become and ninja. I assume you wish to live up to your clan's legacy?" Naruto nodded, if his clan were ninja's then it would only be right to learn about them. "But what about Hokage-Jiji, I am not sure he will want me to just leave the village without him knowing?" Something of a sadistic smile came over Kage's face as he stood. "Don't worry about that Naruto, I know your Jiji from a long time ago, so I will leave him a clone that will have a chat with him about it. I'm sure it will all be okay though, so just get your stuff together." Naruto tilted his head in confusion then nodded his head, if Kage knew Jiji and said it would be fine, everything was okay in his books. Without further ado he rushed around the room, grabbing his few belongings from his created hiding places. He was going to learn and become an awesome ninja, this was great!

Time Skip: 30 minutes

Hiruzen Sarutobi rushed into the orphanage, hoping the report that he had received from a very out of breath hospital attendant was incorrect. According to the reports, an unknown man had appeared during the festival, injured a chuunin and kidnapped Naruto before disappearing somewhere unknown in a flash of darkness. This coincided with the report of a Konoha team being taken out in a village to Konoha's south west, where a man of similar description had questioned them about the boy before disappearing in the same manner only two days beforehand, the distance that he had travelled alone made that an impressive feat. Rushing into Naruto's room, he found the room bare; all of Naruto's little hiding places open for the world to see, emptied of their contents. He reached out with his senses and upon finding the hidden chakra source he moved instinctively, kunai at the man's throat before the man could even begin to react, Killing intent rocketing to massive levels.

The man in front of him seemed calm behind his bone white mask however and began talking as if they were sitting down over drinks instead of being threatened at knife point. "The Uzumaki heir is gone already, and I mean him no harm to him in anyway Hiruzen, which is better than I can say for your village. Also, you might as well put the kunai away; I am but a shade that is here to discuss what is to happen with the heir and his heritage." Sarutobi glared at the man even as he ascertained using his chakra sense that yes it was a clone and that the real man was nowhere nearby. "I don't trust the word of missing ninja Nobunaga, especially one who was exiled from Uzu on the order of the last Uzumaki head. For all I know you will try and turn the boy against us, or worse kill him in petty revenge."

The mask frothed and turned black, an obvious sign of the man's dislike of Sarutobi's accusations. "You know better than anyone alive that I would not raise a blade against the Uzumaki clan, not with my clans own honour at stake. I hold no grudge against them, and I wish to see them grow strong once more, my exile is unimportant in comparison." The man stalked the room for a moment as Sarutobi watched, his anger curbed slightly with the reminder of the blood debt that the Kage clan owed to the Uzumaki for saving the clan during an ambush before the establishment of the ninja villages, when the clans travelled by themselves, and were often targeted by rival clans in an attempt to eliminate them. The rival clans of the Kage had joined together and attacked at high noon, the worst time for the Kage techniques and bloodline, and with the added difficulty of protecting the non-combatants the Kage clan members were in grave danger.

Then from the trees came the warriors of the Uzumaki, their predominately red hair streaming as they brought loud death upon the clans attackers, forcing them to retreat in short order, leaving over half their number dead or captured. To the Kage clans surprise the Uzumaki did not torture or humiliate their captured foes, as many of the clans did back in that time, turning them into servants or even worse, sex objects for breeding as some of the more barbaric clans were known to doing. Instead, the Uzumaki treated the injured of both sides in short order, and then sent out one of the captured members back to his clan, with an offer of parley, and negotiation for the captured ninja's return.

Soon afterwards the Uchia and the Senju clans would settle together in Konoha, bringing people to believe that they began the era that would give rise to the great ninja villages, but it was in fact the Kage, Uzumaki and the two clans they had fought that day, that formed the village of Uzu almost two months beforehand, with all three clans swearing allegiance to the Uzumaki, and the village named in their honour as they were the most numerous of the ninja's out of the clans, and the other clans saw the Uzumaki as the best to head the village as they had no possible history with the other clans that may cause tensions in the villages future.

But, that aside, there was still the fact that Naruto was now in the hands of a non Konoha ninja who did not know of the boys burden, or in fact his lineage at all. "Nevertheless, even if you won't harm him, there is the fact that you are one of the most wanted ninja in the elemental nations, with Iwa village wanting your head almost as much as they wished to have the 4th Hokage's. The last thing Naruto needs is that level of hate directed at him at this age." Kage chuckled wryly and looked at the Hokage disbelievingly.

"You say that, when the boy is chased through the village, locked out of the orphanage he calls home for no good reason, and is threatened with bodily harm, no actually that's not the correct phrase, it was actual torture, by your own ninja? I think that being with me and having to deal with the occasional glory hunter will be a nice break for him." The man stopped pacing and chuckled "Not that it matters whether you approve or not really, we are already gone from the village, and you know what happens to hunter ninja who are sent after me, so I wouldn't bother. What I more want to know is when can I send Naruto back here so he can become a ninja?"

Sarutobi observed him in surprise. "What do you mean? I thought you were going to teach him the way of the Uzu?" Kage shook his head and clarified himself. "I will teach him just that, and as much of the Uzumaki knowledge as I was privy to whilst I am at it. But I refuse to let the Uzumaki simply die out, they must be reborn somewhere, and Konoha is as good a place as any to do that, despite the feelings of the civilians here, it is better than Kumo or Iwa. So therefore he must be a Konoha ninja not a ronin or mercenary." Sarutobi relaxed, Kage would not be able to reveal any of the secrets that he did not yet wish Naruto to know about his heritage, or give him knowledge of his tenant, but at the same time would train him in the way that his mother would have wanted, and return a much stronger ninja because of it.

"There are two more years before his age group enter their final year of academy, so you have until then to train him, I expect him to return by the start of June that year. I also want a report every 6 months, and you are to stay away from Kumo and Iwa, they are those that would most take advantage of you having a student to try and use against you." Sarutobi felt the years falling off him as he dictated the terms of this rather forced training trip, no longer was he the old man, forced to return to work after the tragic events on the night of Naruto's birth that led to the death of his successor, he felt like the commanding officer of Konoha's army, the rightfully feared 'Kami no Shinobi'. Kage nodded "Sounds fair, and I will be around after that, your security is bad enough that they couldn't stop me anyways. See you in two years old man!"

And with that the clone was gone, obviously on its way to report to its master. One of his ANBU guards appeared from under his genjutsu hiding place. "Shall we follow him Hokage-sama?" Sarutobi shook his head; there were other things to deal with. "No Boar, we shall not, Naruto will be safe with him. In the meantime, I want the orphanage staff rounded up; evidently someone has been lying to me about Naruto's well being here. Also, that man in the hospital, have him to Ibiki the moment he is well enough, I think he has falsified his statement about what happened between him and Nobunaga." Two of his ANBU left, and were less than a minute later replaced by two more members, it wouldn't do to leave him under guarded with a rogue ninja possibly still in the village after all. With a sigh he moved off at a more sedate pace this time, there was still paperwork to be done before he could return once more to his home; hopefully he would be able to see his daughter before she went to bed this night yet.