Disclaimer: I don't own anything that has been copyrighted. I make no money out of this, I only entertain, or try to. I am only paid in smiles, reviews, and in people liking what I've shared.
Note: AU, may contain sues, crack, ocs, oocs, etc.
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Heaven Is But A Dream
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Chapter 7
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The bridge was completed a week after the battle on the bridge, it was christened The Great Naruto Bridge because Naruto had helped loads during the actual construction leading to the completion and had even gone so far as to delve into his knowledge of fuuinjutsu to make the bridge last for more than a lifetime. It was protected to the extent that an all out attack from the Ichihi would only shake it or at most chip small parts of it.
The rest of team 7 were treated as heroes as well, but to a smaller extent, a plaque was placed on end end of the bridge detailing the exploits of each member, but only Naruto got the honor of having a bridge named after him. The naming and the plaque had been placed after team 7 said their goodbyes and headed for home. Naruto was actually unaware of how he was viewed by an entire nation. Word of his deeds there would spread as well as his battle prowess, there would also be tales of how insane he was with regards to his personal health.
Team 7 was welcomed back into their home village with nary any fanfare, they didn't mind, they were already viewed as heroes of another nation, while that was saying something all they wanted to do was report to their leader and head for home, wherever each of their homes were.
Sasuke lived in his house in the mostly abandoned Uchiha district, Sakura lived with her parents, Kakashi had an apartment even though he also had a clan house that he could use if he wanted to, and Naruto had his own place or several of them like that one abandoned building that the Hokage had given him after his reformed body had been found there.
The Hokage dismissed one half of the team while having Naruto and Kakashi remain behind in his office, he needed a more detailed report from the two of them. Sasuke and Sakura were glad that they could go home and rest, while the other two waited patiently to be addressed by the military leader.
"Naruto I want a report on this new fighting style of yours," the Hokage said, "I'll burn the report once I'm through reading it as I believe you'd want them to remain as clan secrets or something to that effect. I would also like for you to go on another extermination mission, solo once again. A-rank, do you accept?"
"I accept Hokage-jiji," Naruto said, then asked, "What is it?"
"I have received reports of several bandit camps that seem to be forming some sort of alliance," the Hokage said, "They are planning on taking over the village of Chuusei which is one of the villages near our border with Wind Country. I want you to stop this force from even reaching the village. It doesn't matter whether or not they have any more ill intentions for the country, or if they are working for some greater power. I want them wiped out. Is that clear?"
"Hai Hokage-sama," Naruto replied, "How soon should I leave?"
"Now, preferably," the Hokage said, "There are forces at work in the world that plot against the village and our power. I would have them crippled as best as possible, a show of force is needed for the eyes in the shadows that our village still has what it takes to remain at the top."
"I"m on my way," Naruto said and left the office via the door unlike some other people who left through the window or via shunshin, speed or teleportation method.
"We just came back from a mission and you sent him out again, why?" Kakashi asked, not bothering to request permission, the Hokage was used to it anyway.
"He needs the money as well as the experience," the Hokage said, "He also needs to feel alive in the craziest way possible which is coming face to face with death. Its what he wants, and the village gains something from all these suicide runs I plan on sending him out on."
"But why Hokage-sama?" Kaakshi said, "Surely there are other ways..people...I don't know.."
"I see him as a grandson and a friend," the Hokage said, "As a grandfather and a friend, I want to see him happy, and if sending him off on suicide missions will give him the chance to find that happiness, I'll keep sending him to his potential death as many times as I can. Plus, the village could use his protection and the money generated from his performing these missions."
"I..Hokage-sama, I mean no disrespect," Kakashi said, "But I can't see anything moral about this practice."
"Would you rather I confine him to the village where he could go into an even more depressed state and potentially snap and go on a rampage killing everyone in the world?" the Hokage asked the jounin, "Not only is this a means for him to potentially meet his end, it also serves as an outlet for his frustrations. He's practically immortal, there is a far greater chance of Orochimaru obtaining immortality than Naruto dying on these kinds of missions so you need not worry about his safety."
"I still can't see how this is healthy for his mentality," Kakashi said, "I am trying to see the reason for all this as his sensei, you know, acting all responsible and all that for once in my life."
"I can clearly see your attempt," the Hokage said, "But I assure you, this is what is best for Naruto for the time being."
"Hai Hokage-sama," Kakashi said, resigning himself to defeat, and bowed to the Hokage before leaving even though he had not yet been dismissed, the Hokage decided to overlook the slight disrespect of the action since Kakashi had gone through quite a lot on such a simple mission such as the one the silver haired man had been on.
"*"
Naruto left the village in a rush, only stopping by his apartment on his way back to the gate to restock on supplies as well as to grab a change of clothing. He needed another suit one that had those self repairing seals on them that fed on his chakra to perform the repairs. The cloth was made out of chakra saturated fibers that allowed for chakra to be used in such a way. The process was like healing a person using healing chakra, but this time the healing was performed on clothing.
He stuck to the shadows once he left the village, hiding in plain sight under henge when he needed to. He didn't let any wild animals scare him and any mercenary, bounty hunter, bandit, or nuke-nin he came across that wished him harm was indiscriminately killed and the corpse swallowed up by a storage scroll to preserve the remains as proof of kill.
He did not go out of his way to attack anyone that did not cross his path, not even those two people who wore black cloaks with red cloud designs on them, even though he had a feeling that he could win a battle with such people due to just how long he could continue to do battle. Everyone tired on the battlefield save for those with nothing to lose and those that didn't have to worry about dying.
He found the bandit camps easily enough, they looked to be more organized than he had originally anticipated. There was a structure, there was no madness to find some sort of meaning of. There was a visible chain of command, there were even those among the campers that had more chakra than the average bandit, some ninja training some had it seemed. He checked all the camps that he could find, there were a lot of them, some of the biggest ones from all over the country had gathered in the forests around the village of Chuusei.
The question, other than their intention of taking the village, was why and how. There must have been another greater driving force that had united these bandit groups together under one banner, under one cause. Naruto didn't know what it was yet, but he decided to find out, after all he could just walk into a camp and kill all the people in it whenever he pleased. He didn't have to fear for his life after all.
He decided that the first thing he would be while on his self assigned reconnaissance mission was to send transformed clones into the village and into the camps, impersonating bandits and random civilians, in order to gather more intelligence on the operation. He wanted to know what seemed so important about this particular nearly border village and who was behind the attempt to take it.
The clones performed their duties as well as their creator, masterful actors all of them were, even the female clones managed their chosen roles perfectly. They learned that the village was already partially under control of the bandits and whoever was leading them. They found out that the one leading the bandits was a self styled bandit king the strongest of the bandit that any of the groups could find.
The clones found out that the bandits sought to forge a kingdom of their own starting with the village of Chuusei, from there they would move on to another border village, then to another village, or town or city, until they had overrun the country with their numbers that they believed would grow. They believed that the time for ninjas was over, they wanted to usher in a world where ninjas were no longer needed.
Naruto didn't really like that. He didn't like that they were planning on starting a war. There were a few ninja among their ranks, but these were low ranking nuke-nin at best, while this leader was something else. He was a particularly strong bandit, one that had undergone martial arts training at the Fire Temple alongside the monks that trained there.
He was a threat that Naruto believed needed to be eliminated.
So he acted just as the bandits were scheduled to show their might to the world by attacking a village they already had control over, then moving as a unified force to the nearest village of the land of fire.
They had grown to recognize ninjas as glorified mercenaries and bounty hunters. Glorified soldiers and guards. Glorified messengers and laborers with supernatural powers, powers that ordinary men could harness on their own if they so wished. They had forgotten how ninjas of old operated, those shadows that moved beyond a normal person's perceptions.
Naruto couldn't afford to be selfish when it came to this mission, it wasn't something he could just have fun performing and going out of his way to meet the shinigami again and again. He needed to act the part of a soldier here. He had a way of life to protect, innocent people to defend, and a village to prove his loyalty and dedication to.
The bandits staged their attack at night, they had made sure that there were spies in Chuusei from other countries, there were always eyes and ears that would unknowingly act as spies, bystanders that would manage to escape the attack and report what had happened to the rest of the world. That was the purpose of survivors in an attack after all, to spread the world of the deeds of the attackers.
There were some Konoha-nin stationed within the village, but they were only of Chunin rank and power, they would be no match for the army of bandits that the self styled king had amassed. They were also part of the reason why Naruto had left a sizable force of clones within the defensive walls of the village.
It was a rebel alliance against the shadows of the night for every shadow that the bandits passed their numbers grew smaller and smaller, by the time they reached the walls of the village to begin their siege their numbers had already been cut in half. It would be several days before anyone would stumble upon the remains of the fallen, their bodies cold to the touch, and their eyes wide in fear.
The Konoha-nin stationed in the village had no time to act, not that they needed to, since around the time that the bandits were about to scale the walls and break in through the village gate Naruto and his clone army emerged from the inky blackness. Their forms seemingly melting out of the shadows as if once being parts of the very shadows that blanketed the playing field.
They made no sound and used to visible jutsu, but when they attacked, all that they touched fell. Torches were snuffed out, and lives were lost forever, but it was a silent death that met the ears of the onlookers, both friend and foe alike. Not a word was spoken as each rogue was put down painfully.
The pain they felt was so unbearable that each victim screamed a silent scream, a pitch so high that not even canines would have been able to hear it, music to their killers' ears. Those that screamed were very few, they were the ones whose skin was flayed or whose bones were broken beyond recognition and or repair.
Shadows danced in the darkness, in the lightless void of the battlefield. The rogues all fell, one after another, cascading to the earthen floor, helpless to the silent death that ended their lives prematurely. The gods of death, in view of any that could see them, swooped down on the dead and dying. Their black and white cloaks filling the sky as they gorged themselves on the banquet of souls that were leaving their mortal shells for their afterlives.
Not a single shining of any blade, not a single piece of steel shone in the darkness. The rogues had no time to draw any form of defense, they all fell unarmed. It was euthanasia of a mass of people. More than just torches were snuffed out.
Then when only those members of the unified bandit army that had hidden within the walls of the village were left, only then did the silent surgeons of death revealed by the light of the island of light in the sea of blackness. Naruto and his clones, all clothed in pitch entered the light. They climbed up the walls or jumped over the gate. They did not falter, no one knew who they were, not even the Chunin that hadn't been home for a while, they had yet to see Naruto in his professional costume.
His army of clones, and himself, walked through the streets of the village like an army of zombies, they even stalked the rooftops, all of them moving zeroing in on their targets for the night. All of them knew where they were going, no communication was needed as they were all of one and the same entity, they were all Naruto, and Naruto was all of them.
He learned a new trick while felling his foes in the inky black darkness that resembled the void that all things had at one time come from. He learned the art of illusions, false illusions, ones that did not need any form of energy to activate. All that was needed were the clone that was to disappear to walk over to a shadow and gradually dispel itself, or seem as it it was fading or merging with the shadow, merging with the darkness. They were creatures of shadow anyway to begin with, why not return to being such creatures while still being the same clones that Naruto knew how to masterfully make use of.
The bandit army members, the rebellious louts that had hidden themselves within the village soon joined their brothers who died beyond the walls. No one bothered to stop the stalking shadows for any that tried failed to even touch one of the clones or the original for that matter. The clones all used that false illusion of dispersal into black mist or merging with shadows to fool those that tried to stop their movements.
The clones that had remained in their transformed states within the village and in close proximity to the rebels there were the ones to end the lives of those traitors to the land. Their faces and forms would go unnoticed, no one would be able to recall what they looked like and no one would think to blame them for the deaths of those people that had gained the ability to call themselves citizens of the village before the siege.
When the rebel leader, the self styled king, was the only one remaining, his might could not be felt as he shivered and curled up into a ball within the room of the house that he stayed in. Outside the paper thin walls he could see them all, the shadows that milled about and destroyed his forces. He watched his ambitions all come crashing down around him.
He heard all death wails of those that had come under his banner, all those that had been ready to overwhelm the current government with their numbers. He heard them all, he heard their pleas for help, their cries for aid. He heard them all call out for him to fight for them, to defend them, to protect them, and to fight alongside them, like a leader should or would want to. But he did not come out of hiding as soon as the fighting began.
He holed himself up where he thought he was safe, and prepared himself to simply accept the praise that would be showered on him, he prepared himself for his coronation. None of which would ever come to pass. No one would ever again think of rising up in rebellion in such a manner again. No one would ever trust some commoner, some reject from a way of life that he wished to change in revenge. No one would bother with such a thing when what already existed was more than good enough for the majority.
"No one will ever again come under the command of a coward," Naruto whispered coldly into the man's ear, "No one will ever again have to suffer for another man's useless ambition. No one again will have to deal with a pathetic insect..such as yourself."
"NO! Wait!" the man shouted and tried to move but all he managed to do was move his head and look into the colder than ice gaze of Naruto, whose cerulean orbs had transformed into something more like glaciers, "I..I.."
"You who dared not face a real foe, you who dared not reach for something greater with your own hands," Naruto said as he grabbed hold of the man and lifted him up with his ghostly chains, "Your greatest crime in this life was to betray your comrades. You are worse than trash. So DIE!" it came out as a shout and the self styled king was the only one to suffer a gruesome fate, his body ripped to shreds by the chains that had grown barbs that dug into the man's body and squeezed more than just the life out of him but also his physical form. The extent of the damage extended to his already deformed soul, the death gods were glad to come take him, and a portal into the fiery pits where his rotten soul was dropped into to be added to the war machine of hell.
Since it was all over, Naruto left the room, and the house, and the village. He didn't bother leaving a bloody trail behind as he didn't need nor want to be followed. He didn't leave any survivors from his assigned target. He made sure to kill them all, the only ones he had left alive were the civilians, spies, and his fellow shinobi. The village had lost a fourth of its population, while the surrounding forest was stained with the cold corpses of the would be rebels, those bandits and traitors that had dared to try and usurp the present order with their criminality.
It couldn't be helped that his actions would be leaked to the rest of the world. The Hokage hadn't said anything about not being seen or noticed. He hid his identity as a Konoha-nin just in case, but aside from his identity and allegiances he hid nothing else. He left the bodies of more than 250 criminal elements out for anyone to see, as well as a room that had been repainted crimson and refurnished with what was left of a person.
Naruto returned to the village with a week to spare before the Chunin Exams, he was sure that his team would be entered into it as they had experienced much during their short stint as genin. He reported his success to the Hokage but need not mention his failure at dying permanently due to his still being around to submit his verbal and written report. The Hokage congratulated him on a job well done and informed him that new intelligence on the movement had arisen that shed light to how it had all began.
Orochimaru had something to do with it, manipulating the leaders of the bands while in henge, and inserted some agents into their ranks to further manipulate them. He had been hoping to provide a distraction for the forces of Konoha in order for him to have an easier time plotting against and possibly attacking the village.
It was with this information that the Hokage informed the blonde that his team had indeed been entered into the upcoming chunin exams, and that Naruto was expected to report any suspicious activity of people, more suspicious than usual that is. He was also instructed to avoid revealing just how special he was.
He gave no promises on that front, and left the Hokage's office and finally headed for home, where he was met with quite a mess. Some people had decided to redecorate his home while he was away, and desecrate it once again. Since they could no longer hurt him directly, they saw fit to do it indirectly once again. He didn't mind, he was used to it by now and simply created some clones to go about getting things back in order, while sending some to his other properties which consisted of abandoned buildings found in the most unlivable district of the village, which was near the village cemetery and prisons, Anbu and the regular one. Those ones were to prepare one of those places for him to move in, which he could legally do.
He went to bed at around midnight.
Since his old apartment didn't have anyone living near where he had stayed, he filled his old apartment with high class explosive tags and notes as a present for anyone that wanted to make his life even more of a living hell. He did of course warn the Hokage of what he did via clone.
In the morning the village was awoken by the sound of an explosion coming from one of the residential districts, the place where the explosion occurred had half of a building demolished and a number of people laying either injured, dying, or dead. The injured were quick to confess what they had planned on doing, which brought to light that the village pariah was now willing to fight back.
