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A New Dawn

Chapter 7: Far, Far Worse Than Before


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When Naruto walks into Wave, he is expecting to see a grand bridge with his name on it and a thriving economy. He is expecting to see an older Inari happily working with his grandfather, diligently learning how to be a carpenter.

But what greets his eyes is a bandit town.

Houses are overrun with thugs.

Children are nowhere to be seen.

There are hundreds of graves, most of them built for men, but over thirty build for someone a third of the size.

Women weep openly at their fate, only to be beaten by the men who hold them captive. All of them are bruised, battered, and covered with filth. Shackles adorn their legs and burn marks on their arms openly brand them as slaves.

Naruto's jaw clenches and his eyes burn. Kurama is silent as he feels the rage of his vessel erupt into a raging inferno. Without any prompting, the great nine-tailed fox melds its strength with Naruto's.

Twenty-six minutes later, every single bandit has been obliterated by a man cloaked in golden light. They lay haphazardly through the streets, unseeing eyes staring up at the sky. The women are fearful of him at first, but after he dispels the light and reassures them that he's human and that he wants to help them, they throw themselves into his arms and sob.


It takes Naruto a full day to find Tsunami. She had been held captive in the town's only inn, forced to do the cooking and cleaning. Compared to many of the others, she got off easy, but Naruto still flinches at the soullessness in her eyes.

He realizes instantly that she is changed from the kind woman who in another world welcomed him into her home. This woman has lost her will to live. And Naruto knows that nothing he says can make it batter.

Gently, he leads her back to her house. They don't speak a word to one another the entire way.

Naruto doesn't have to ask her to know what happened to Inari and Tazuna. There are more graves than he can count, enough to make him wish that he had killed those bandits a bit more slowly.


The resident ANBU Captain Uchiha Sasuke starts slightly along with the Commander, Uchiha Itachi, when the doors to the headquarters slam open. They blink in unison when the Hokage's wife storms in and stops right in front of Itachi's desk.

She slaps a piece of paper in front of him. "I need two teams of ANBU under my direct command immediately."

Itachi busies himself with with the document.

Sasuke's brows furrow in confusion, but it is the expressionless Itachi who asks, "And for what purpose do you request these shinobi?" His tone is strangely strained.

"I'm looking for someone," comes the immediate reply.

Itachi looks at her impassively, as if searching for the real reason, but Kushina doesn't back down. If anything, the fire in her eyes grows stronger. Ultimately, Itachi bows his head.

"It will be done. Sasuke will head the team that will serve under you. You can have them for two weeks, but no more. Konoha cannot afford the loss of eight ANBU for any longer than that."

Kushina nods graciously, "Thank you, Itachi-kun."

Just as she turns to leave, she glances at the youngest Uchiha in the room. "Sasuke, you should probably talk to Naruko. She's been whining lately about not seeing you."

Kushina stays just long enough to enjoy the a blush that would put tomatoes to shame spread across Sasuke's face. The corner of Itachi's mouth twitches in a ghost of a smile.


Sasuke stares at his brother long after his aunt in all but blood left the room. Itachi is occupying himself with the piece of paper that the woman left behind.

"Brother?"

"Yes, Sasuke?" Itachi doesn't so much as glance up. Inwardly, Sasuke sighs. His brother is a bit challenged when it comes to properly reading the atmosphere. Not as bad as Sai, but still, pretty awful. It's more than a bit ridiculous, considering that he's an unparalleled genius.

Sasuke grimaces at the reminder of his inadequacy.

"What's on the paper?" he decides to ask.

Itachi pauses a moment before holding said document up for his little brother to read.

Sasuke almost faceplants at the contents.

Itachi-kun, if you don't give me what I want right now, I swear to you that I'll start helping your mother try to find you a wife. Not that you aren't old enough or anything. You're 22, aren't you? Have you started looking for any girls yet? Are they cute? Do I know them? Ooh! Are they shinobi? Kyaaaa~! My little Itachi-kun all grown up and finding his own woman and—

Sasuke stops reading for his own sanity. Aunt Kushina can be just as weird as Naruko sometimes. Speaking of Naruko, he's supposed to meet her at Ichiraku's later today . . .

He looks pityingly at his older brother. "I can understand why you were so willing to give her the ANBU squads."

Itachi lets out a long-suffering sigh, the most emotion he's shown all day. "Indeed. I can't avoid the marriage forever, but I can do my best to delay mother's efforts." In his mind's eye, he sees the image of a chibi Kushina and Mikoto plotting to get a poor, innocent Itachi to tie the knot. The image cuts off as explosions in the background make everything blur.

Itachi shudders. Those two working together would be disaster in the making.

Then he turns a critical eye towards Sasuke. "Don't think you've been let off the hook. The only reason that you aren't being pestered by mother and Aunt Kushina is because you're pretty much set with Naru—"

Sasuke abruptly abandons the room in favor of not hearing the rest of that sentence. Colorful leaves swirl to the ground as the aftermath of his shunshin.

Itachi smiles brightly this time, a spectacle that few ever witness. Eyes crinkling in amusement, he leans back in his chair. "Foolish little brother."

He absently wishes that he could have poked Sasuke's forehead.


Naruko is very annoyed while she slurps her ramen.

This makes people stop and stare, because Naruko is never annoyed while slurping ramen. The two images just don't mix.

Ramen is calming and pure, and to see Naruko annoyed while in the process of consuming it probably signals the beginning of the Apocalypse.

Just as people are beginning to whisper about what could be going wrong, Uchiha Sasuke shunshins into the stool next to Naruko with his face aflame. He refuses to look at her while Teuchi takes his order.

"I'll just have the beef this time."

The old man nods before he goes into the back to get the necessary ingredients.

The Uchiha turns to find his blonde teammate ready to spit fire. She explodes, "YOU'RE AN HOUR LATE, BASTARD!" The last part is merely tacked on for good measure, a tradition of sorts.

Sasuke winces at her volume as the last of the red in his cheeks retreats. Her yelling at him often has that effect.

He calmly retorts, "Blame your mother. She held Itachi and I up back at the ANBU headquarters." A blatant lie, but Naruko was never the most observant of people.

The blonde girl suddenly loses all traces of her previous ire as her curiosity spikes. "What did she want? Tell me, Sasuke!"

Sasuke's eye begins to twitch as she starts to tug incessantly on his sleeves. He does nothing, though; trying to make an Uzumaki do anything is a lost cause.

"She requested two teams of ANBU which will be led by me for a total of two weeks to 'find someone', as she put it."

Naruko's pretty blue eyes scrunch up with thought, then they dawn with understanding. Just a few days ago, that really strong guy had escaped from her dad's super-secret-but-she-still-knew-about-it-anyway underground prison. What really stood out in the memory though was when he had to tell her mom. Naruko didn't hear most of that conversation, but it was pretty damn funny to watch.

Then her eyes widen as she comes across an absolutely brilliant idea, probably because she's basking in the glorious power of ramen. If she thinks of an idea while eating ramen, there's no way that the idea isn't just plain awesome . . . Exhibit A of why back when they were in their prime, everyone avoided the Uzumaki. Few could deal with the medically insane and even fewer when said insane people were fuinjutsu masters.

There was a saying that went screw with the Uzumaki and they screw you royally. And possibly more than once. Creatively, too. It was a long saying.

Naruko licks her bowl once she has drained it of the soup and leans back in her stool with a contented sigh. "Ahh, that hits the spot. So when do we leave?"

Sasuke stiffens as he looked at the girl in a panic. "We?"

Naruko nods like she's delivering fantastic news. "Totally! I'm coming with you, 'ttebayo!"

Sasuke has to resist the urge to bang his head against the counter of the ramen stand. He figures (correctly) that Teuchi won't appreciate that.


Author's Note: As always, feel free to PM me.

Here are some more authors you should check out: Blaizekit, PyrothTenka