The Crashing Sun

By: Orpheon

Disclaimer: Don't own Naruto
AN: In this first chapter, nothing is what it looks like.

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The day had begun in a terrible way, the weather reflected it as well, the storm clouds were gathering in the sky, and the village below was in a sorry state ever since the attack a month ago. The visiting villages had formed an alliance to destroy Konoha, which was the villages name, but even then they shouldn't have been of much worry had the attackers been normal militia, but this time the enemies of the village had opted for a more effective way and had unleashed their elite, the Ninja.
Fabled warriors that held control over different techniques that made many tremble at their power. And the last attack had finally broken the veil that the civilians had placed around themselves to help them forget the horror of the last ninja war.
But the day was getting worse by the second, a pink haired girl was making her way through the village, trying to reach the tower in the north end of it, gasping for breath and her face set in a unresting grief that unnerved the villagers around her, as tears ran through her cheeks. There was a man beside her, he had a green vest and some bandages over his face, his partner had left earlier to the tower they were traveling to, to deliver the message that had the girl in such a state.

According to reports from the witness, aka: Haruno Sakura, a male from team 7 had deflected to Orochimaru, and had a 8 hour advantage traveling in direction to rice country, more accurately: Otogakure no sato (Hidden village in sound).
That had been 3 hours ago and now a team of 5 people were in course to intercept the target and eliminate any resistance; either coming from the target or any possible ally found in the way.

2 days later:
Forest of fire
42 clicks to rice border

"Stop, we need a plan" the leader of the group stopped and waited for the others to make a circle around him "We are currently 15 meters away from the target, and we have one more hour before sunrise, after that we have 9 hours to intercept or disable the camp before they cross into enemy territory and we lose them, so there's a window of 40 clicks (40 kilometers) to the border for us to secure him and/or incapacitate the guards"
"So what's the plan Shikamaru?"
"First we need a clear knowledge of their perimeter, because of the time they've been here there can't be traps before the 8 meters to their camp, so we need Neji to scout as much as possible for the traps, to help us define their defense lines, next we need Kiba to stir local wild life as much as possible..."
"Wait Shikamaru, for me to do that I need to transform into a great beast and the chakra spike would alert them to us..."
"There's no need for that" they all turned to see a fat, bulky man crash in front of them with 3 other behind him, a man with 6 arms was carrying a barrel with seals on the top.
"Who are you?!" The man just laughed "For ninjas, you sure are lousy excuses, an enemy never answers questions"
The group was prepared to flee when the man stopped moving and all looked to his shadow, it was connected to Shikamaru's who was crouching in the floor with his hands placed together "Kagemane no jutsu: success" his smirk was quickly reversed when the man resisted and slammed his palms in the floor.
Immediately after that, a dome made of earth closed all around the group "Wha...?!" the other 3 simply stared and a red head asked "How long will this take you fatass?! we don't have all fucking day!"
"Shut up Tayuya, just go on, I'll catch up later"

Inside the dome the 5 kids were trying to break out, but no matter what they tried the dome kept repairing itself " What's this!?"
Neji remained silent and then activated his Byakugan, the Hyuuga family bloodline, and looked in the walls, after a few seconds he stopped and said "This dome is eating our chakra and giving it to the man outside"
A choked voice answered him "That's right runt, even if you escape, you'll be too weak to try anything!"
Shikamaru who had noticed something when Kiba attacked the wall, acted and decided to test a little theory of his: "You sure? because from here it looks like the wall is crumbling!"
"Haha! good try but I know nothing is wrong, so just lay down and wait for the end!"
Having achieved what he wanted he turned to the others and said in a low voice: "The man is directly behind me on the other side of the wall, so this is the point where the chakra is concentrated the most, in the previous attacks we saw how the wall repaired itself, but the farther the strike went from this point, the more it took for it to repair..."
"In other words, if we strike enough the opposite point, we should be able to escape, right?"
"Exactly"
"Wait" everyone turned to Neji who said: "We only have 2 shots at this, any more and we'll be too tired to do anything, even IF we defeat the man outside, there's the other 3 and any possible ally, so we need to plan this carefully"
Shikamaru just said: "I know, so here's what we'll do..."

5 hours later
16 clicks to border

Tayuya, the red head, was carrying the barrel in the treetops of the Forest of fire, and she was cursing her teammates, they had all been either killed or incapacitated by those runts, and she had no way of knowing if they had lost a team member or not. Just then she heard a branch break and turned to see the boy with pineapple head standing in the branch before her.
"I'm sorry to say that you're handing that over" "Like hell I will cocksucker!"
"Tayuya" said girl turned around to see an albino standing there "Kimimaro! How? I though you were..."
"Kabuto-san, but enough with questions, we need to get going there are other 3 approaching, and one could very easily overpower you with help from any of those 2" He said signaling to the boys.
"Talking like we aren't here won't make us any less dangerous, Now!"
The two turned to see the other boy fleeing with the barrel, but Kimimaro stopped him dead in his tracks when a flurry of bones shot out of him and pinned the boy to the tree by his clothes: "Such a defiance in your eyes, so full of hope, and... anger?, so you're th other boy my master marked, shame you won't be there to see the boy in the barrel turn into the strongest mortal in the planet"
"He'll turn you down! he won't hear your lies!"
"They were truths, boy, but I grow weary of this meaningless chatter and your weakness, Tayuya, get the barrel out of here, now!"
She didn't need to be told twice, she knew what would happen to her if lord Orochimaru's new apprentice wasn't with her when she returned, and as it was now she would be terribly punished for failing to bring the other.
Shikamaru turned to his teammate: "Go after her, we don't have much time, at that speed she'll be at the border in 2 hours! Go!"
The boy only nodded and ran past Kimimaro, Shikamaru noticing this asked
"Why didn't you try to stop him? I thought it was of prime importance for him to reach Orochimaru"
Kimimaro waited for the boy to get out of hearing range and said:
"There's no need, by the time he reaches her, the barrel will burst and the seal will be at level 2, there will be no way to stop him from reaching Orochimaru-sama after that, shame you'll be too busy dealing with me"
"Your speech is filled with regret for your enemies, and that is a weakness that could be exploited"
"We shall see"

Kimimaro then charged at incredible speed through the trees, while Shikamaru was taking some Ninja wire out of his pocket and wrapping it around a shuriken.
He then launched it at a tree about 10 feet in Northwest direction when Kimimaro approached: "Too slow!"
Shikamaru then took hold of the wire reel and dropped to the ground while propelling himself forward in a swing motion.
Kimmimaro saw this and started launching bone spears to the trees around him and started propelling himself towards the boy using the bones and the rebound created from the flagpole effect. As he was about to reach Shikamaru, the boy loosened his hold in the reel to allow more wire to come out and making him go lower, when he was reaching the peak of his swing, he released the reel and was launched to the treetops closely followed by some bone projectiles from Kimimaro, who was already approaching Shikamaru's landing point in the treetops.
"What's that? I don't think it's possible to use your bones like that, a bloodline?"
Kimimaro was starting to loose his patience, the other 3 had already encountered the others from the sound 5 and possibly defeated them, and there was still the other boy he had felt, that made 3 and one who was left behind helping the team from Konoha.
"Time for interception, 15 minutes"
Shikamaru was cursing his luck, just when he though he got a fight where gis brains would bail him out, this living armory comes and takes the redhead's place.
"I won't last much longer with this tactic, the wire will end soon and I haven't laid a single finger on him... wait... that's it! I don't have to hit him, the environment can do it for me!"

With that, Shikamaru took out his last reels of wire and attached all his explosive notes in them "Well, here goes nothing" just as he extended his arm, Kimimaro blasted his way through the top branches of the tree next to him with a bone spear jutting out of his palm "Shit!"
Just as Kimimaro was about to stab Shikamaru a powerful gust of wind shoved him through several trees.
"Just in time" Shikamaru turned and saw the girl he had fought in the exams the last month.
"You? well can't say I'm not relieved by your presence"
"Well you better, I don't like saving someone's ass just to get a scowl in response"
"Sorry..." "Temari" "Temari, well let us focus because I think that guy is far from finished"
From behind they heard "Oh, how right you are"
Just before the world went black for Shikamaru "Damn, I was hoping to avoid using this" Kimimaro was about to knock her out when she blasted herself to the forest floor with Shikamaru in tow. "Ungh, what the hell..." "You better avoid getting knocked like that, next time I won't be able to haul your ass out of the way"
"Ok, now we need a plan and fast, that guy is unstoppable, I've tried everything but those bone keep getting in the way and my shadow jutsu doesn't work"
"Then what was that in your hand before I saved you?"
"Oh, right"
With that he took out the tagged reels and said "I was planning on trapping us both in t perimeter with these, but now I have other idea"
"Well, what is it"
"With your fan I want you to launch these as fas as possible in that guys direction..."
"What is it"
"RUN!" Just as the two leaped to the trees a bone spike jutted out from the floor and was quickly surrounded by some more
"As I was saying, after you do that I'll launch these reels and I'll detonate the sakura-tags you launched, blowing up everything inside"
"But that can possibly kill us!"
"Not if we use your wind to propel the flames in his direction and we take cover in those bones"
"Will those hold?" "Yes, If he was the one that summoned them, then yes, those thing are harder than the kunai"
"I hope you're right"
Once everything was set, they blasted the area, not once wondering why Kimimaro hadn't acted or found them while they were planning.

3 hours later
"Stop!"
Tayuya turned and saw the boy enter the grass clearing she was crossing, she cursed, it was only 3 more clicks and she was done.
"What do you want fucker?!"
She placed the barrel in the floor to allow her some free movement. "I won't let you take him"
Tayuya was just gave her customary answer for just about anything and kept talking to stall him from attacking her.
"Shut up! no matter what you say I'll take him back!" But just as he was about to go for the barrel a powerful aura blasted through the clearing and blew the barrel open with chakra burning the ground beneath it, then the whole clearing was once again showered in chakra that threatened to burn the other 2 to death.
"What's this terrible power?" Then a maniacal laughter filled the clearing and a boy sped off from the smoke at break-neck speeds towards rice, and further: Oto.
"That's it cock sucker, as soon as that boy left my mission ended, he's too fast for either of us to catch up" Just then a teen with white hair and two red dots in his forehead arrived
"Kimimaro! I thought that you died in the explosion back there" "No, by the time they did it I was already halfway here, I only needed to stall them"
"Damn it!" with that he shot off to find his teammate "Damnit don't let it be too late"
"Why are we letting them get past us?"
"Because that's the orders, Orochimaru-sama wants to see which is more powerful"
"And he thinks that the heaven seal will do for this test?"
"Don't think that he is testing them for how they use the seal, he wants to see what path must be taken"
"What do you mean?"
"Wait and see"
Gaara and the rest of the surviving team had already made it to the clearing and heard the whole exchange, the third boy was Rock lee and was about to attack when Shikamaru stopped him"Shikamaru-san we most stop him of doing this most unyouthful act"
"The scale of this battle will be way over our heads, besides we need to return and gather the others for medical attention"

1 hour later
0.3 clicks to border (300 meters)

"Stop"
The boy stopped and turned to see the other panting for breath.
"What do you want? If you wan to join then do so if you don't then scram, I won't be held back by that village anymore"
"Why have you done this?"
"What? deflect from the village? that's easy, they were weak and they did everything to make life there unbearable, but when I archive my full power then I'll take my revenge, and when I see the regret, the pain in their eyes, I shall break them with my words, they shall loose everything and they will take it from each other, and when they can't suffer anymore, when I can't take their strength I shall kill them"
The other boy just ram and sludged him with all his might, and with all the power of his curse seal he could use, but it did nothing, he absorbed the hit like nothing, and got a punch in the gut in return that sent him to the floor of the valley.
"Faint, weak, that's what you are to me, you might be special, but I gave my life to my training and my power grew as a result"
The other boy couldn't believe what he was hearing, where was his best friend the never stayed down no matter what?
"Why, Naruto?"
"Because I'm fed up with the bullshit they feed me evry day, no stay down or die"