A New End

by: Jikoo

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

This is a alternative universe fanfiction, set a few years into the future, after a third great shinobi war. In the aftermath of the terrible destruction caused by the war, the shinobi face a new and unexpected enemy. This might be the hardest challenge our heroes have ever faced. And worst of all, it might make them question the actual worth of their way of the ninja.

Chapter 1:

Boots

These damn boots, he had been staring at them for a full week now. Sometimes he could swear that they stared back. As much as he wanted to take his eyes off those damn boots, tormenter of his poor feet, he couldn't. And that's was because of the blasted heavy backpack, making him hunch over, like an old man. Endless marching, going nowhere, searching for something that was impossible to find. Or at least that's what it felt like most of the time. But then again, when you finally found it, you wish your were back in the monotone column of men going nowhere, again. The scraping sound of dragging feet around the clock was enough to drive a man crazy, and make you ponder upon the meaning of it all. The sound was a constant reminder to everybody in his unit, that they were not were they wanted to be, and by god, they were not headed there either. So far from a nice warm bed, a good home coocked meal or the touch of a loved one. The simple things that made life worth living, existing only as a faint memory in the back of their heads. They were all smack in the middle of hell, searching for what they hated and feared more than anything in the world. It was not logical; no one in their right mind would ever do such a thing. But no one in war is in their right mind. They were all stark raving madmen that were perhaps the only sure fact Koji could cling to.

The one thing Koji had was a purpose. They all had a purpose in Fire Ant Unit 06.

It was to fight them

Find them, fight them, resist them, apprehend them, wound them, and stop them.

Kill them

That was all that mattered now, after three long years of constant battle, sleeping in ditches with one eye open, afraid of every shadow that moved in the night. The numerous skirmishes he had been in, scared shitless, among the frenzied cries of his comrades and mind numbing blasts, from the crude repeater rifles. All he lived for now was the sight and sound of a kill. The happiness after you have survived yet another encounter with the things your mother had told you stories about to scare you when you had been disobedient as a child. Killing them was a relief, and the only times Koji could lower his shoulders and relax, if only for a moment. And he knew all the other poor sods in his unit felt exactly the same. But after each kill, the same old fear crept up on them, time after time. The killing was becoming an addiction. A thing you hated, but loved at the same time.

Night after night he saw the slightly deranged looks on the faces of his comrades, not daring to go fully to sleep, and it made him hate them even more. And filled him with the morbid desire to kill them. Kill them all.

Kill these abominations, these merchants of death, heralds of woe, killers of children, disturbers of peace

Demons

As Koji watched the flickering of the small campfire they had made die out, a word crawled up his throat and slithered like a parasite across his tongue. In the dying embers of a fire, Koji uttered the name of what he hated with every fibre of his being.

..Shinobi...

Know your enemy. That is one of the foremost principals of warfare. And quite rightly so. If you don't know what you are up against, how can one know how to fight it? Koji thought he knew his enemies well. The infamous Shinobi, warriors, ninjas. But who were they really? Back in boot camp, Koji's head, and all the others as well, had been filled with propaganda about all the foul and hateful acts committed by these abominations. Koji found it bitterly ironic, that these were the same people that had been their protectors not so long ago. Even though now it seemed like ages past.

Within every country there was located a hidden village. It was the home of the shinobi of one particular country. The shinobi were powerful warriors that served as a county's military force. Warriors that protected the masses, a system that had worked for nearly a hundred years. The problem was that the shinobi grew powerful. Very powerful, and their leaders, the legendary Kages, grew more and more secluded and sly, plotting against one another. Hidden villages waged wars against each other, not caring what their original leaders told them. They became independent, forgetting their original purpose of protecting their whole country, not just their own village. War raged, and peace were only held together by dodgy treaties, broken at the drop of a needle.

As the shinobi cut them self of from the civilian world, people became afraid of them. The masses had always been in awe of their once proud protectors, but awe had turned to fear, when they were no longer controllable. Rumours were whispered in the streets, about the horrid rouge ninja wielding impossible powers. And their own civilian leaders stood powerless to oppose them.

It became clear that peace would not be attainable; stability could not be regained because of the sneaky nature of their former protectors. But how? These warriors were know to manipulate the very essence of life, the chakra flowing through every living thing, harvest it and hone their skills from when they were children. They were killers almost from the moment they were born. At first Koji had a hard time believing the stories about ninjas breathing fire, smashing rocks with their bare hands, and even kill at a glance. As he sat up in the ditch, Koji shivered at the realization that it was in fact all true, and in some cases even worse. It made chills run down his spine, each and every time. In the three years he had been fighting, he had seen nins moving at impossible speed, seen soldiers having their head removed with a mere kick. He had seen raging demi-gods killing his comrades, and many a time he had watched with a morbid fascination of the grace and skill of these deadly beasts. It was really a miracle he was alive.

How could a mere human do battle with these things? 10 years ago such a thought would be considered the ramblings of a madman. But the seclusion of the shinobi would prove to be their downfall. As they shut themselves of from the world, submerged in their own affairs, they were oblivious to the advances in technology that had been made these last years. And from the collective mind of the civilians came the tool to be used to restore peace, and remove these blind hogs of war from their lives.

Koji patted his R-3 Repeater Rifle with a slight smile on his face. No shinobi had ever been faster than a bullet.