Hello. This is a rewrite of a previous work of mine that was in desperate need of attention. It takes place at the end of Part 1, a couple of weeks after Sasuke defects. I hope you enjoy, and please don't hesitate to leave feedback.
CHAPTER 1: THE END OF THE WORLD
"Well, since this room is only used in the event of world-ending catastrophe, I brought beer."
A man set down a twelve-pack of beer onto a table before sitting in the chair in front of it. He had dark hair and beard, and he wore dark-blue sweatpants and a matching sweatshirt with a large, green flak vest over it. Tied around his forehead was a fabric headband with a metal plate across the middle baring the insignia of a leaf. He looked across the table at five other occupants, all with either grim or puzzled expressions.
A woman with blond hair tied into pigtails and wearing a green jacket over gray vest saw the beer, and her foreboding expression lightened a little. "Oh, Asuma," she said with a grin, "You always know how to make the tough times easier."
"Anything for the Leaf, m'Lady," Asuma said with a sly grin. He opened the carton and started passing out bottles.
"Where's this from?" asked another woman as she eyed the bottle curiously. She had long, brown hair, and she wore a white blouse in the style of bandages with thorn patterns across it, and one long, red sleeve visible from underneath.
"It's from America, Kurenai." Asuma answered. "Japanese beer tastes like piss."
"Agreed," complied the blond-haired woman before taking one long swig.
"So," Asuma said after taking a drink himself, "why are we all here?"
"I asked Lady Fifth to gather the six of us here today."
The speaker was an older man with a grizzly mane of long, white hair that went down to his legs. He wore a mix of red and green, short kimono and matching pants, with a red haori over it. After the delight of alcohol, he had resumed his ominous demeanor.
"And why is that, Jiraiya?" the blond woman asked, looking at him patiently.
Jiraiya looked directly in her eyes, knowing quite well she was not going to like what he had to say. After a moment, he finally said, "We need to bring him back."
The woman looked at him in confusion for a short moment before realization hit her like a shovel. Her eyes widened, and she said, "What are you talking about? That could cause the entire Shinobi World to erupt into war."
"I know. Trust me," Jiraiya assured her, "I know."
"Forgive my intrusion." Jiraiya and the blond woman turned to look at a man with silver, spiky hair who wore the same sweat clothes and flak jacket as Asuma, but had a mask covering his nose and mouth. He had a headband just like Asuma's as well, but it was pulled down to cover his left eye.
"Are you talking about the one who was sent away?" the masked man asked.
Jiraiya and the blond woman looked at him with equally dark faces, and the masked man watched them both with speechlessness. After a moment of gathering himself, he said, "Why? That plan has worked out perfectly. Why would we breach it now?"
"Because the cards in play warrant it," Jiraiya answered.
"Who? Orochimaru?" asked the brunette woman, Kurenai Yuhi.
"He just got his hands on the Uchiha kid," Asuma interjected. "It would make a whole lot of sense to go after this one as well."
The blond woman waited silently for Jiraiya's response.
"That is part of the concern," Jiraiya confirmed. "It certainly wouldn't be beyond that sociopath to go after what that one would have to offer. However, that isn't my biggest concern. I've recently acquired intel stating that someone else is going after him. Someone far more powerful and far more dangerous."
"What? Who in the world could fit that bill?" Kurenai asked.
"I can think of a few people," the masked man offered. "Most of them are dead."
"Have any of you ever heard of Saisho Teki?" Jiraiya asked.
"I've heard stories," Kurenai answered. "I thought he was just a myth."
"No," the blond woman countered. "He is anything but a myth."
"He has a hand in just about every despicable act known to man," the masked man stated. "Drugs, terrorism, human trafficking. He's the kind of guy you'd only think to find in Mexico or Africa. But he has influence in just about every corner of the world."
"I hate to be the one to tell you you're absolutely dead on," Jiraiya told him. "He's acquired a rather scary following over the past couple of years. No one knows what his endgame is, but word on the wind seems to be that the world is about to find out."
"I crossed paths with Saisho some time ago."
The room turned to the sixth and final occupant, a man of large build with black, bowl-cut hair and a green flak jacket over a green jumpsuit.
"I don't believe you've ever told me that, Guy," the masked man stated with interest.
"No, I didn't, Kakashi," Might Guy confirmed. "Because I spent every waking moment afterwards trying to forget it."
The rest of the room waited with greatly-renewed interest, hardly daring to breathe.
"It was the one time in my life I've ever felt fear," Guy told them. "I was assisting a squad in an espionage operation when we were caught by Saisho. He slaughtered the squad like sacrificial chickens and left me to live. I guess he felt I just wasn't worth the effort to kill. What I will never forget is the sheer apathy with which he killed those four people. As he spilled their guts on the dirt, he never blinked, never wavered, never showed any sign of emotion. In twenty-seven years of being alive, I've never seen anything else like it. Master Jiraiya, I'm begging you. Please tell me Saisho isn't who we're dealing with here."
Jiraiya looked on at Guy, silent for a time and not wanting to say what needed to be said. Finally, he closed his eyes in remorse and said, "I'm afraid so."
Guy's fist slammed into the table, and he trembled uncontrollably as his breathing became heavy and uneven. He looked at the blond woman and said, "I don't know the full story of this one who was sent away. But if what I have heard is true, there is simply no way we can let Saisho Teki get his hands on him. You're worried about war? This will be mass cataclysm."
The blond woman interlaced her fingers and rested her chin upon them as she considered everything she had heard up until now. The other five people of the council watched her in complete silence. After over a minute, she looked at Jiraiya and asked, "What do you need?"
"Lady Tsunade, I need to requisition a team," Jiraiya answered. "Someone to travel to America to locate the one we sent away. Someone no lower than Jonin rank to talk to and reason with the boy, get him to come back here. And the most elite ANBU team you have in case one of Saisho's lackeys shows up."
"Really? You think he would just send a henchman?" Kurenai asked.
Jiraiya looked at her and said, "The one that Saisho is after has no idea what he is and no way to defend himself. He's an easy grab. Saisho has made it a point to stay in hiding, and he won't want to go out into the open to risk being caught, even so far away from here. He'll send some lowlife criminal he's hired to go and retrieve the target."
Tsunade watched him in silence for a moment. Finally, she said, "You know how dangerous that is. We've worked hard to keep the Shinobi World hidden from everyone else for over a hundred years. If we go out in the open, into the United States no less, that could lead to an army marching to our front gate. Is this mission really worth the risk?"
"You weren't around when the call was made," Jiraiya said to her. "This boy was sent away because the potential he had was unlike anything we or anyone has ever seen. With enough time and the right training, he could single-handedly end the world. If he came under Saisho's influence, there would be nothing we could do to fight back. We need to get him here and we need to keep him safe. We do not have long."
Tsunade took deep, even breaths as she watched Jiraiya for a moment, and finally she turned to Kakashi and said, "You're one of the few people who can do this right. Are you prepared?"
"I am," Kakashi answered unwaveringly.
"Then there's no sense in waiting," Tsunade told him. "ANBU Team Ichi will meet you at the gate. You are to leave immediately for the United States. Bring the boy back safe."
"Understood, ma'am," Kakashi said with a nod.
[Matt's point-of-view]
Roaring Falls, Wisconsin is an interesting place to grow up. To see it from the city's center, you'd view modern, suburban living at its finest. However, you go half a mile in any direction and you seem to fall off the face of civilization. You get nothing but farmland for the next forty miles. You have one interstate that passes right through the heart of the city, and then one state highway coming in from the North. Beyond that, you're looking at backroads boondocks that don't ever seem to lead anywhere.
See, the thing about living in a two-hundred-year-old town with a whole twenty-five thousand people is that you get all kinds. The thirty-year-old guy with the brand-new Mustang who works as a CEO of a small web-design company is best friends with the sixty-year-old man driving the twenty-five-year-old Silverado who has farmed the same field since he could walk. The city center comprises a large market district as well as a small park, with a creek running through it and gazebo in the very center. Main Street, the central hub of the Market District, runs straight through the center of town, north-to-south and touching the west side of Falls Creek Park. This is constantly the busiest part of town, no matter what time of year it is.
So, I live right on the southwest corner of town. It's not necessarily the poor spot, but we're not living in mansions over here. The mansions are on the backroads just outside of town. Oh, and I guess my name would be nice. Matt Warren. I'm twelve-years-old and I've lived in Roaring Falls my whole life. I go to school. I do homework. I…well, I don't really hang out with friends because I don't have a whole lot of friends, but my point remains.
I could go back a long, long way to discuss how average my life is. I could talk about my parents divorcing shortly after I was born and my Dad moving to Las Vegas to help run one of the big casinos down there. I've only met the dude once or twice, and to be quite frank I'm not looking for a trilogy. I could talk about my Sister moving out the minute she turned eighteen to shack up with some dude whose name I honestly forgot. Last I heard, they broke up, he disappeared, and she's been in a trailer on the southeastern edge of town struggling to make ends meet. I could go on and on about my average grades, my hilariously pathetic attempts at sports, or my nonexistent ability with girls. In other words, this whole destined-for-greatness schtick pretty well passed me up.
It was a Tuesday. I walked out of our small, two-bedroom house on Kenwood Street, making my way for the bus stop at the top of the neighborhood. My Mom had already left for work, and I was still fighting to stay awake as I stumbled half-heartedly up the road. As I approached the bus stop, I saw the usual crowd of people there. There was a girl who was in the sixth-grade class with me, a seventh-grade guy and his sister in the same year, and an eighth-grade couple who had started dating this year. I wasn't really great friends with any of them, but they lived in my neighborhood, so I had the occasional offhand conversation.
The sixth-grade girl, Bridgette Shavonne, gave me a warm smile as she saw me walk up. I returned the smile, but I then looked around as something caught my eye. A guy was walking away from the bus stop down the road. I had lived in the same house nearly my whole life, so I knew the faces of pretty much everyone in the neighborhood, but I had never seen this guy. He was youngish, probably in his early thirties. He wore a light-brown, leather jacket and dark jeans, along with a black ballcap. He had short hair and a rugged beard. I wasn't sure what it was about him that threw me off. Was it the way that he seemed to be determined to not look at anyone? Or that the street he was striding down was a dead-end with about five houses that I knew for a fact he didn't live in any of? A loud engine made me look around to see the school bus pulling around the corner and would be at the stop in a few seconds. I walked briskly to the stop, exchanged polite greetings with Bridgette, and boarded the bus.
I eventually put the strange guy out of my mind, which was impressive because the school day certainly was far from interesting. C.S. Parkman Middle School, named after the guy who founded Roaring Falls, was not known for its excitement. Our activities all sucked, we never made any district or regional competitions in any extra-curriculars, and as far as the rest of the schools in Roaring Falls were concerned, we were the outcasts, to be avoided at all costs. This certainly wasn't to say that I cared. It was a quiet, uneventful place without distractions where I could reliably get my work done and go about my business. I was cool with that. I was also about the only one. Parkman Middle had a pretty poor reputation from its students, particularly the ones who were into partying and such. Most of the parents were white-collar workers who had constant tabs on their kids rather it be from phones, social media, or neighbors keeping an eye out, so the kids looked for any reason to rebel.
I walked out of Parkman, broke away from the hordes of students and strode past the busses towards the sidewalk that led to my neighborhood. It was about a fifteen-minute walk between Parkman and my house. The only reason I ever took the bus was so I could do homework I had procrastinated on the night before. I turned the block out of view from the school, and as I crossed the halfway point to my house, someone stepped out of the alley in front of me, causing me to stop cold. It was the strange guy I had seen that morning walking away from the bus stop. He still had the leather jacket and hat, and he was looking at me with cold apathy that sent chills down my spine. I looked at him with wide eyes, but a glint of light made me look down to see what I originally thought was a metal glove, but eventually I realized was his hand. His right hand was mechanical.
"Hi, who are you and what do you want?" I asked, looking him up and down suspiciously.
"Kid," the guy said in a gruff, even voice, "you need to come with me."
"How about I not do that," I said as I took a step away from him.
A sliver of annoyance passed his cold stare, and he walked towards me. "Dude, don't even try. You're not gonna get away."
I looked around at the houses around us and saw, conveniently, there was no one in sight. I was a second away from running back to the school when I heard footsteps from behind me. I looked around and raised an eyebrow at the man I saw. He had silver, spiky hair and wore a mask that covered his nose and mouth, along with a sweatband that covered his left eye. He wore a blue t-shirt with dark-blue jeans. It was the look of someone who was trying to blend in but was failing miserably.
The new guy spoke in a husky voice and said, "Listen, friend, I don't know who you think you are, but you are going to leave and never bother this boy a…gain."
The guy's eyes slowly widened, and I wasn't sure what was going on. I looked back at the first guy, who was looking at him with an icy leer.
"You," the second guy said. He tried to hide it, but fear was etched into his voice. "You're Saisho. Saisho Teki."
Some pointers: the original work that this was based off of was a very long series, totaling some 151 chapters. The Lost Soldier will most likely be even longer. It is a simple rewrite of the previous work, Naruto Chronicles, with an added eight years of writing experience under my belt. I'm organizing the story like seasons of a television show. I realize that is very unorthodox, but I find that limiting myself to a certain number of chapters helps keep the story flowing and not lagging on any particular subject. In NC, the seasons each lasted about 25 chapters; while I'm aiming for the same goal for the most part here, the first season of The Lost Soldier will probably closer to 35 chapters. Chapters will be posted once a week on Sundays, unless something changes due to my work schedule. I delved into a lot more detail in the starting chapters of this series, causing it to be a lot longer. For example, the first two chapters of NC are the first seven chapters of The Lost Soldier. After the first season is over, my goal is to be a bit more concise in my writing.
As a rewrite, the overall plot will be the same as in NC, just with reworked characteristics and elements. However, that does not mean that I won't be copying lines straight from NC that I still like into here. Not so much now, but in the second half of the story, anybody here who may have read NC will notice several scenes that are written exactly the same as the original story. The first part of the story is slow, focused on character development and world building, but eventually there will be a lot of combat, in the second half of the first season. As I wrap up this blurb and begin the journey of The Lost Soldier, to anyone who may have read NC and is now reading this, please feel free to give feedback on behalf of someone who knew how much that story needed some care. If you're new here, I hope you enjoy and feel free to leave your thoughts as well. To anyone who is reading this, thank you.
