Main inspiration for this fanfic is Shezza's Life in Konoha's ANBU which I highly recommend as it depicts a much more realistic universe in many ways.
Read note at the end for description of what I'm aiming for with this fanfic.
Two men were standing in a small room deep underground, it was made of plain concrete and a small lamp gave off a sickly yellowish light. Towards the wall across the metal door there was a medical bed, a drip, some sort of monitor and a tray with assorted equipment used by doctors.
"Is this the jinchuuriki?"
"Affirmative Raikage-sama"
"Hmmf, a little too scrawny. Are you certain that's correct?"
"Hai, I wouldn't say so if it was otherwise. He was found exhausted and severely hurt. His clothes was bloodied and torn but no cuts on him, just badly burnt but he is condition is stable and he is in no danger and will recover once his body has rested. He is kept sedated and on IV for the moment but will soon be ready to be waned off and woken.
"Good, when he wakes up I send for me immediately."
Without waiting for confirmation the bulky raikage turned and walked out, the guards outside closed the door behind him.
"Go get my idiot brother, I want him to find out which bijuu he holds and find Yugito I want her on high alert outside the hospital.
He steamed through the village, over rooftops and through canyons and over the mountain peeks. He ran up the side and burst through his own window landing behind his desk. Soon after an exasperated Mabui came inside the door.
"Raikage-sama please stop destroying your own tower! The costs and amount of work it causes are too high and completely unnecessary."
"It's my village and I do as I please! Now place the sector around the primary hospital on a level 4 alert and the rest of the village on a level 3, we got an unknown jinchuuriki inside our village currently unconscious." The raikage had a displeased and slightly angered look but to those used to him that was usually the face he wore. As he talked he moved to a set of heavy weights to start pump his arms.
He grunted with exertion and Mabui turned to carry out her orders. "And get someone from Kanji division to take a look at the seal, I need details!"
Mabui walked away towards some of the the many desks and offices scattered throughout the many rooms to give orders to the assistants and couriers working there.
A yell broke the relative peace in the building. "And I want constant updates if anything changes!" Subtlety was something the Raikage didn't like to bother with.
There was voices surrounding him, that was the first thing he noticed but he couldn't make out what they were saying. He had trouble coming to his senses, his eyes were stuck together and his throat parched. The first thing he got his bearings on was the smell, it was slightly damp reminding of a cellar with tinges and disinfectants and other nasties generally associated with a hospital or clinic. Then feeling of his body started to return to him, he was restrained and sore and after that came memories. Of a wild flight running like his life was in danger and of burning pain, and then. He started to remember, how Mizuki had tricked him, told him of his fate as a monster and then attacked him. How a frozen Iruka watch the first shurikens hit him before a fuma shuriken hit him in the chest. How pain raced through his body as the multiply tools of death cut in to soft flesh but worst the fear and anger as Iruka fell clutching his own bleeding wound, after that it was just a blur of anger and pain. He groaned and tried to move but his arms and legs burned against the restraints.
"He is coming to" a soft voice said.
A much coarser voice, " About damned time."
He could make out what they said, there was a few steps and noises as someone grabbed something. He felt the cold sensation of a wet cloth carefully against his eyelids.
"There, now you should be able to open your eyes."
He tried to comply and was glad that the light was so low that it was but it was still a little blurry. He tried to speak to the man next to him, " where am I?" Was what he tried to say but it came out a lot raspier than usual and then he started to cough.
"Have some water, you have been out for a while, it will make it easier."
He complied as the man raised him a little and placed a small mug to his dry lips allowing him to drink some of the wonderful life giving substance called water.
He tried again to speak this time it came out far smoother.
"Where am I?
"You are currently in a secure facility under the Kumogakure hospital, my name is Yushiro." The now obvious medic said.
Naruto's heart hitch and he could feel himself starting to sweat, he might not have been the sharpest kunai but even he knew that Kumogakure was generally an enemy to konoha.
"I'm not a patient man and you are in MY village, who sent you and where are you from!"
Naruto turned towards the man speaking. He gulped as a large man with blond, almost white, hair stood at the feet of the bed with his arms crossed, bare chest and a white robe slung around him.
He hesitated.
"I'm from Konoha." It came out a lot lower and weaker than he had meant it to be.
He paused trying to gather himself.
"No one sent me, I was running."
The raikage only gave a dissatisfied grunt and left, barely stopping to turn his head.
"What's your name boy?"
"Naruto. Uzumaki Naruto."
And then he left.
"Don't worry okay, I'll make sure that you will heal just fine and I'm sure things will work out for the better." Yushiro said.
He just gave a weak nod.
"I'll be giving you a sedative and some painkillers for you to be able to sleep, once you are rested and wake up I'll make sure you'll get some food, okay."
Naruto didn't respond as the medic prepared to syringes which he carefully injected into the IV and it wasn't long before darkness once more took Naruto.
Outside walking out from the hospital, or rather jogging, the raikage gave orders to his guards.
"Once he has regained some strength I want C to interrogate him and I want my lazy brother here now to tell me which bijju he contains!"
It was late but Kumo's kage was still up, he stood facing the great windows looking out over the countless peaks and buildings. Lightning flashed every now and then not far away, it was calming watching it strike, quick, powerful and possibly deadly. Just how a ninja should be. But as the saying goes, where lightning strikes once, a ninja strikes twice. It was a coming topic of debate in the bars down below. Some argued it meant that Kumo only needed one strike to put someone down, others that it meant that no matter how good a ninja you was mother nature would always have the upper hand. There were those that said it meant that ninja just was faster and better skilled. Many a fist fight had broken out over this deep philosophic question.
As he stood there soothing his mind he kept one hand busy pumping his weight, the other still held the report from Kanji division on the jinchuuriki's seal.
The report was good news for the boy, at least for now and bad for him as it put him with multiple choices. The seal was solid, leagues more complicated than anything Kanji had developed. It was an eight trigrams seal with many smaller additions and possible features interwoven containing distinct Uzumaki designs. It was a magnificent work of art and he no longer held any doubt of who had created it and what it held back but he still wanted confirmation.
It wasn't as Kumo was completely in the dark about Uzumaki business, they considered them self the premier source of knowledge pertaining to the sage of the six paths and knew where the Uzumaki heritage stemmed from. They knew a lot of basic Uzumaki sealing but they lacked the flair and insight that Uzugakure had held as they had almost desperately searched for their immense knowledge on the subject once they had fallen.
There was some commotion outside his office and as a large man the same size as the kage broke inside his office he threw his weight at him with blinding speed but the man was surprisingly nimble and dodged instead the weight severely dented the wall, eliciting a yelp from Mabui sitting outside as plaster fell to the floor. Another man, identified as C, one of the kage's closest men strolled inside not even bothering to raise his eyebrows at the action.
"Yo bro it ain't nice to throw stuff at folks."
"Bee.. just tell me which one he holds before I throw you out from the window! I wanted you here three days ago!" He crumpled the paper he held in his as he raised his fist threateningly.
"Yo yo yo it's all mighty fine and what you got there got to be number nine! Fool!" Bee, or better known as Killer B rapped out, poorly, and crossed his arm and struck a pose.
"Sir if I may?" C spoke up to defuse the situation before his volatile kage did a lariat on his younger brother and destroyed the office, or building, which would just increase Mabui's workload.
"Go ahead" was gruffed out.
C straightened and went in to report mode.
"After initially being suspicious and hesitating the boy Naruto and jinchuuriki of the kyuubi quickly opened up to us. A detailed psych profile has been prepared for you to read at your leisure but a quick summary would be that he is attentioned starved and restless, generally act or speaks before thinking which seems to stem from either neglect or scorn."
"He holds few loyalties and seems to value those few close to him more than his village, the only people of note seems to be the Sandaime which he refers to in familial terms and a teacher from his academy which from his account seems to have died on the night of his departure. From what we gathered he hold little to know information of any value except his relation with his kage and even there…."
Inside the raikage's head gears was turning on how to dealt with this situation. As C went on with his report an outline of a plan became more and more apparent to him.
Naruto was nervous, no scratch that he was scared shitless. It had been a few days since he had first woken up. He quickly felt a lot better and got started on solids. He had been told that his injuries had come from a mixture of cuts and the corrosive effects of uncontrolled bijju chakra.
He had been thoroughly interrogated which had been a lot less painful than his imaginative mind had thought it should be. But here he was, being led to the leader of a foreign village and one of the strongest men in the world and a man that had a short fuse and prone to anger. Naruto wasn't generally the most perceptive of people but even he could see from their short interactions that the raikage was easy to anger.
He had never ventured above ground, he was frightened and afraid of what would happen to him but he couldn't suppress his curiosity of what this foreign village looked like. First he was led down through corridors and sewer like structures which he had gotten a short answer that they were actually storm drains and then it just went up and up.
In the silence that surrounded him and his guards he conjured a multitude of scenarios in which most resulted in a gruesome and painful death either for being a spy or a monster because they had been awfully interested in the burden he carried and called him a jinchuuriki, but he held few answers for them because not even a week ago he hadn't been aware of what was sealed inside of him.
It felt like an eternity but at the same time it was all too soon damp most tunnels had changed to that of the more normal interiors of an office building and most definitely too soon he once again had to face the most imposing man he had ever met.
"Boy do you know who I am?"
He swallowed and gave a court nod.
"Speak up! Do you know who I am!?" 'Shit' Naruto thought. 'I haven't said anything and he is already angry.'
"Hai" "Raikage-sama" He quickly added.
A grunt of what seemed to be approval.
"I have thought about what to do with you and I suggest you listen carefully. I'm going to make you an offer and consider it carefully what it entails."
Panik permeated him, he had been given an order and in two short sentences he was already lost, entails!? He didn't even know what it meant but didn't dare to ask.
"If you refuse my offer you will either have to be locked away or ransomed to Konoha where you most likely be handled as a common traitor, do you understand?" He smirked to himself, a little fear was always useful to instill in people.
Naruto's mind was racing with pictures of all the people that had mistreated him celebrating him being executed or imprisoned.
"I'm giving you a chance for life, a place to belong and a place to call home and people to call comrades and friends. You will be given a chance to prove yourself that can become a Kumo ninja, my ninja. If you can pass a few months training and live up to our standards."
He was stupefied. He wasn't going to be tortured but he would be a ninja, he would have friends!? Completely ignoring the ifs and buts that he actually had to fulfill.
A, the raikage didn't show the smile that threatened to grace his lips at the shock and joy the young boy showed for his offer. This was all too easy and now for the deathblow.
"I'm also told that you are an orphan, unwanted and neglected."
Anger and sadness.
"But I can fix that."
Curiosity.
"I know a lot of your heritage."
Hope
"Become a genin in three months and I will tell you who you mother where."
Suprise. Joy.
"And become a chuunin, loyal and respected ninja and I'll tell you who your father was."
Bliss.
The magnificent view of the village and surrounding mountains that the room in which he stood provided completely ignored.
I'm using this map here by xShadowRebirthx as my guideline of the elemental nations and surroundings: art/Elemental-Nations-Geographical-Map-317422439
I suggest that you take a quick look at the scale of the world especially as I feel that it is something that many people tend to make a lot of mistakes with.
But in short it makes the map on naruto wikia out to be roughly from western France to eastern Austria wide and northern Denmark to southern Germany high. For the Americans out there that is something like western California to eastern Wyoming wide and northern California up to the Canadian border high.
Criticism is appreciated to help me work out chinks in my writing as well as correcting mistakes when it comes to usage of Japanese.
I've got an outline of the plot and I aim to make it believable. But it isn't set in stone to accompany changes but to avoid contradictions or lack of direction. I hope to portrait a wide array of characters, something of the hardest thing to do, that are believable in their motivations and acting.
My take on fights will come from what I enjoy to read and I generally prefer plots and character development/interactions and I dislike drawn out fights. Multiple fights and skirmishes that together can be classified as a battle will take place and the best illustration of what I mean is there wont be single chapters dedicated to something as a single fight in a chuunin exam but an event like the chuunin invasion could span multiple chapters.
Naruto will be smarter/better than in the original manga/anime but dislike modding and super power ups. No character knows everything, is all mighty and can be everywhere.
When it comes to politics and military matters I want to create a realistic world of a feudal society and the best way to describe things would be to consider how politics works in the games Europa Universalis and Crusader Kings. Europa Universalis for nation level events and internal nobel affairs is best illustrated by crusader kings but I don't intend to delve in to this but just a consideration of the how the machinations of this world will work. If this aspect interests you check out the EU3 or EU4 and CRK2 AAR ( after action report) forums for a lot of great reads.
And finally I get to give something back to this community that has provided me during the last two years with over 20 millions words worth of reading. It's hard to give an exact estimate but it's way more than everything I've read before not counting rereads. HP is approximately 1.2 million words total and WoT 4.4. Just to give you a scale of the different works here on Naruto fanfic. Enjoy. ;)