Author's Note: This bug bit me hard guys, guess getting back to my basics was really really fruitful.

Anyways having Fugaku and Mikoto be wartime young promotes to genin was the only way I could make Nawaki's ninja id being 1 before Mikoto's make sense with him dying during or before the 2nd war. Obviously the 3rd war is where Fugaku truly gets to shine, but for now he's going to be a horrifyingly young child soldier, like his son. I'm going to almost be entirely focusing on Nawaki though, unless they're interacting with him side characters will get throwaway updates as things go along.

Sidenote- I hate using ocs under normal circumstances, but I've always felt that in pre or post-canon situations where there are giant blank spaces not filled in by pre-existing characters it is necessary. Nawaki doesn't have a canon team, Orochimaru as a sensei is only implied in the anime, we only have a few canon characters from this time period (and be ready for me to abuse the few we do have as we go further here) so I gotta do what I gotta do.

Chapter 3: The Drums of War

Hiruzan Sarutobi took a long draft of his pipe and after holding a few seconds exhaled a cloud of smoke.

"War...war never changes," his deep sigh produced more smoke.

The sheer destruction of the previous shinobi war had left the entire continent sure that never again would more than two of the great nations war at once.

A mere twenty years later the Sandaime Hokage was seeing that theory proved wrong.

Danzo's ROOT spies had corroborating reports indicating that Suna was hungrily eyeing the friction between Iwa and Konoha over the border nations between them, waiting for a chance to strike at the fertile Land of Rivers and possibly steal territory from the Land of Fire itself as well.

"Damn Onoki...what were you thinking you fool? Striking into Kusa like that..."

He was very troubled that the Explosion Corps of all groups had been involved and had kept itself undercover until a team from the Leaf had arrived.

They had obviously planned on drawing Leaf out and having there be no survivors so that they could slowly bleed the ANBU teams that would follow the loss of a genin team under normal circumstances.

However Orochimaru had been leading the team, Hiruzen's student had eradicated the entire squad with the exception of one captured member who had been subdued by his genin.

The Hokage had found this quite impressive, though the report of Nawaki nearly dying to a landmine before the battle even started was less impressive.

The boy's brashness worried him at times.

Just as his musings turned to the heir of his sensei's clan the team was led in to his office by one of his aids.

He said nothing and just watched, letting the three genin sweat a little. A call to meet the Hokage himself in his own personal office was not an every day occurrence for genin.

"Team Orochimaru," he finally began after a few more moments of silence, "You have had a month and a half out of the field. Two of you have spent the entire time training, and Kurama-san has completed his two weeks of physical therapy, and something tells me he got some light training under his belt at that time contrary to Tsunade's wishes."

Katsumi had the dignity to blush with a little shame.

The Hokage continued, "You will all be rejoining your sensei, who is the division leader of our forces reinforcing Kusagakure against Iwa. The staging grounds will be Hozuki Castle and you will be leaving with a group of genin and chunin squads. Unfortunately this also includes a few of the freshly promoted wartime genin squads. Your cousins included, Uchiha-san."

Shiori's eyes widened in surprise.

"As the oldest and most senior genin...and I realize how unfortunate that is, I will expect you three to set a good example for your juniors and help support them. The primary function of the newly promoted genin is officially to be support and messenger roles but war is unpredictable, and messengers are often targeted."

The aging Hokage sighed, "In truth I see as much potential in your team as I did in my own team. I am placing a lot upon your shoulders, but I hope you three can be a shining light of the Will of Fire for your generation to inspire your peers to greatness in this unfortunate war. That is why I called you here today, to tell you in person about the hopes I am placing upon you, and that I believe you can live up to them."

That heavy proclamation was still laying upon the shoulders of the three preteens as they gathered the next day to begin deployment out to the Grass Front.

Mito and Tsunade were both there, with the former presenting her grandson with the final fruits of his month and a half of training.

"Koharu has told me that you are proficient in your great-uncle's kenjutsu style now, enough to wield a real blade in combat at least. So allow me to present to you the blade you will use until you have become a jonin and proven worthy of the Sword of the Thunder God."

She handed him a sheathed jian, one of the few types of straight swords in the Elemental Nations, with a sea green tassel hanging off the pommel. The hilt was bronze with a guard shaped similarly to the Sword of the Thunder God's vajra guard, which had been shaped in turn after half of the Senju clan symbol.

As he unsheathed it he saw it was a finely tempered blade a small amount over two feet in length. The blade was engraved with a raging storm, to include motifs of all of his elements he presumed.

Reverently resheathing it Nawaki looked up at his grandmother, "Thank you, Grandma Mito. I really...I promise I will return. Stronger than ever! And I'll be worthy of both of my families."

Mito embraced him with tears in both of their eyes as his teammates respectfully averted their gazes.

They had both had equally tearful good-byes that morning.

Well Shiori's mother had been crying at least. Her father was already deployed to the River border with Sakumo Hatake and a few ANBU squads in case Suna decided to make a move.

As Mito moved aside Tsunade took her grandmother's place hugging her younger brother.

"I love you, you little brat. I won't be here in Konoha much longer either, Sensei is just waiting to see where the bulk of the fighting breaks out to send me there. So I'm not sure if I'll be joining you in Kusa or not, but when you get there tell my old teammate that you're in his hands and if he lets anything happen to you his ass is mine!"

A large bead of sweat rolled down the side of Nawaki's face at that final declaration, his big sis had let some killing intent leak out there and she could be scary when angry.

"I love you too, sis! And don't worry! I can't be Hokage if I kick the bucket, and you gave me my good luck charm from grandpa!" At this he held up the crystal of the Shodai's necklace, "I felt something from it in my last fight. I think it makes my chakra stronger. I think you saved me with it, sis."

Tsunade's face moved from scared to awed to relieved rapidly, "I'm glad it helped you, I'm not sure what I would do without you, Nawaki. Now go out there and make us proud!"

Unfortunately for this platoon they were also convoyed with supplies being sent to the Kusa operations base that could not be stored in sealing scrolls. Livestock primarily, but also messenger birds, sealing scrolls themselves, and explosive tags in bulk.

Thus the convoy was made up mostly of genin and chunin leading those squads with one jonin overseeing the entire ordeal. Most other jonin and ANBU had been sent ahead at speed to make sure the war front was solidly defended and defined so that the supply lines could reach them effectively.

The jonin was a queer white haired man named Hiruko who was in Nawaki's words, "A weird mix between a freak and a bore."

"Bore is such a refined word for you, Nawaki. Where did you hear it? Was it in a movie? A comic?"

The boy grumbled at his female teammate's teasing. Mostly because it had indeed been in a movie where he picked up the phrase.

"I definitely remember hearing it from the villain in the latest Jackie Chun film."

The Senju heir turned to his other teammate and glared whispering, "Traitor," under his breath.

But he pressed forward, "I just think it's weird how all he can talk about is Orochimaru and the other members of his old team and keeps prodding us on our bloodlines and related skills."

The jonin did certainly seem to have an unhealthy fascination in the Sharingan and the thought that perhaps the Mokuton was a hidden kekkei genkai for the Senju line.

"Yeah I'll admit his questions about our Fantastic Realism mutation were all super creepy."

"Seconded on the Sharingan questions. He kept asking me about what situations cause it to evolve."

Yes, all of Team Orochimaru were thoroughly creeped out by Hiruko.

A few times on the five day journey Shiori had managed to get her cousin Mikoto, a recent war time early academy graduate, to join them, though she had no such luck convincing her other cousin Fugaku to do so.

Mikoto was a sweet, if overly focused, girl of eight, and apparently was quite skilled with her clan's signature fire jutsu already. Though the only other skill to speak of that she had was a talent with ninja wires and the Academy Three jutsu.

Shiori needn't voice her concerns, her two male teammates could tell every time the girl left their campfire after dinner that she was tremendously scared for her young cousins in the coming war.

While they were certainly child soldiers still, the genin of Team Orochimaru felt that at least they were fully trained child soldiers.

Eventually, after three days through the forests of the Land of Fire and a further two through the grasslands of the Land of Grass the terrain began to change. And just as a canyon began to form, denoting the beginning of another approach to the foothills of the Land of Earth, a large castle rose in the distance on one of the canyon cliffsides.

"There it is. Home sweet home for who knows how long."

"The Blood Prison."