Disclaimer: All HP characters are the property of JKR, the WB, and respective publishing companies and all Naruto characters are the property of Masashi Kishimoto. This is nothing more than a simple FanFiction that I have written. I have made no money from this or any of the other stories I have posted on this or other sites.
Warnings: Mild to moderate violence, character death, alternate universe (i.e. kiss canon goodbye), OCC behaviors and personalities, a number of original characters and obscure canon characters to flesh out family trees, random chosen last names to give a number of characters surnames, and who knows what else.
AN: This story is self-beta'd; so there may be occasional grammatical or spelling errors that crop up every now and then and for those I apologize in advance.
Chapter Eleven: The War
June 08, 0288 AtD, 8:18 AM
Konohagakure no Sato, Hi no Kuni
Hiruzen gently arranged the exhausted child on his couch as he felt a combination of guilt and pride well up inside of him. He felt guilty that such a young child had pushed himself beyond his limits just to complete a mission and at the same time he was so very proud of the child for his bravery and skill in evading enemies and other threats alone just to bring him an urgent report. It was rare to see the Will of Fire burn so brightly in one so young.
He only prayed that the war would not snuff out that bright light (and the dozen others like it) least Konoha's future dim and fade into nothingness. Sighing softly, Hiruzen gently brushed the child's hair out of his face and checked the boy for any serious injuries before he rose to his feet and stuck his head out of the office in order to have his secretary send for a medic. He then made his way to his desk, picked up the messenger bag the child had delivered, unlocked the seal by smearing a generous drop of blood across the paper tag securing the flap shut, and dumped the contents out on his desk.
The moment he caught sight of the two black scrolls amidst the standard red and green scrolls used for reports, Hiruzen felt the weight of his office bearing down on him once more as he read the hastily scrawled names etched on the outside of the scrolls. He had feared that Team Taka had been lost when the four man cell had gone missing between one outpost and another on their most recent circuit of the borders. Their disappearance had weighed heavily on the Sandaime and the confirmation of his worst fears only made him ache for the lives that had been lost since Iwa had declared war on Konoha.
Team Taka had been one of the more seasoned collection teams and their assigned outposts were those along the Na no Kuni and Tani no Kuni borders because those two countries in turn bordered Tsuchi no Kuni and were the portals through which Iwa shinobi typically entered Hi no Kuni. The only reason they didn't attempt to also enter through Sawa no Kuni was strictly because Sanshouo no Hanzou did not tolerate trespassers. It was the same reason why Hiruzen didn't bother sending any of his shinobi through Sawa no Kuni; one war with Hanzou was more than enough.
Shoving his memories and his regret to the back of his mind, Hiruzen collected the pair of black scrolls and set them off to one side. He then began the tedious process of unsealing the many reports that had been collected and skimmed each one of them while he waited for those he had sent for to arrive. He had managed to sort through half of the reports when his was pulled from the paperwork by a familiar disgruntled voice.
"Why is there a snot-nosed gaki snoring on your couch, Hiruzen?"
"Because he passed out on me the moment he finished giving me his initial report. And that was after he'd crossed the distance between Konoha and Na no Kuni's border in less than fifteen hours, Kasai," Hiruzen replied without looking up at the masked ANBU Commander. "I've already sent for a medic to come check on him and confirm that he isn't going to suffer any permanent damage as a result of pushing himself past his limits."
"So, that was the gaki that had the gate guards all up in arms when he sped through the gate after using the emergency code?"
"I would imagine so; he rather brazenly threw himself into my office through the window after announcing himself to the Tower's Gate Watch as well. His crash landing was rather memorable. I can't recall ever seeing a Chuunin use my desk to halt their forward momentum before. I'd almost feared he'd snapped his own neck due to the position he ended up in."
"What news did he bring you that was so urgent he couldn't even bother to properly identify himself at the gate? And where is the rest of his team? Why weren't they with him? Were they ambushed?"
"His team stumbled upon the sole surviving member of Team Taka. The initial evidence indicates that the three youngest members of the team were held captive and tortured for information by a group of Iwa Nin from the moment that they had disappeared at the end of last month. Jounin Hayama and the rest of Team Fourteen remained with the surviving Chuunin in order to seek medical care for the teen at the nearest outpost while sending Kojimaru-kun back to the village to report on the situation. He also brought with him the outpost reports his team had collected during their mission and the bodies of the two dead Chuunin that were uncovered outside of an abandoned Iwa campsite inside of Hi no Kuni."
"Chikushou, Team Taka had a considerable amount of information on the locations of every last one of our outposts, the positions of our forward troops, and the names and locations of any number of key individuals," Kasai cursed grimly as the current generation of Team Ino-Shika-Cho entered the room alongside of Team Minato, a vivacious redhead by the name of Uzumaki Kushina, two squads of masked ANBU, another two Jounin led Chuunin teams, a medic whose name escaped him at the moment, and a handful of his advisors.
"I've already called for a number of those elite squads that are in the village so that I can send them out to spread the word of a possible compromise in our security. I also plan to send a retrieval team to fetch the rest of Team Fourteen and the teen they stumbled upon. I do not know if the teen will have survived; Kojimaru indicated that his injuries were critical and that moving him would be a delicate matter."
"What happened to Team Fourteen?" Shikaku demanded with a slight frown as his eyes searched the room before falling on the unconscious redhead sprawled on Hiruzen's couch. "What happened to Kojimaru-kun? Where is the rest of his team?"
"He exhausted himself to bring me urgent news from the border," Hiruzen answered before he addressed the medic. "I believe the child is unharmed aside from a severe case of physical and chakra exhaustion as I found no visible sign of any injury."
"Did you wish for me to treat him here or may I transport him to the hospital so that I can give him a full evaluation?"
"I would prefer for you to treat him here in the event that we need time sensitive information or answers that only he can provide. However, if you find any sign of a serious or life threatening injury while scanning him, then you have my permission to transfer him to the hospital immediately."
"Wakarimasu, Hokage-sama."
"What is the gaki's surname?" Kushina demanded as she stared intently at the redhead child.
"Unknown; his parents were killed by bandits when he was three. He was brought to the village not long after that by his godfather, Maruboshi Kosuke. Why do you ask?" Hiruzen answered as frowned at the volatile kunoichi.
"Even exhausted as he is, I can tell that the gaki has some rather impressive chakra reserves for such a little thing, dattebane," Kushina replied as she moved up to the couch and leaned down to finger the child's red hair. "And he has red hair. Those are two very prominent traits of the Uzumaki Clan and I know that those members of my clan that survived the fall of Uzushio scattered themselves in order to better hide from their enemies."
"The little gaichuu is no Uzumaki; he is too even tempered," Kasai interjected with in a dry tone.
"Oh, I don't know, Kasai; Kojimaru's earlier entrance was quite spectacular and his shinobi file contained a long list of impressive pranks that he pulled off during the four terms that he attended the Academy. He also tends to get very angry if any one picks on his lack of height or insults his friends and teammates."
"Half of those pranks were actually instigated by the gaki's teammate," Kasai countered and Hiruzen could practically feel the man's growing annoyance. "Besides, the gaki's hair is the wrong color red and his eyes are the wrong color blue and there are a number of Suna Clans that also have red hair."
"Why is it such a big deal if the kid's an Uzumaki?" Uchiha Obito, one of Namikaze Minato's students, asked as he tried to peek around the medic who was currently scanning the child for internal injuries.
"Because I'm an Uzumaki!" Kushina roared as she clobbered the tactless pre-teen over the head.
"Dobe," Hatake Kakashi, another one of Minato's students, grunted as he side-stepped out of the way of his now flailing teammate.
"Shut up, teme!"
"Knock it off, both of you; now is not the time," Minato ordered in a stern tone laced with exasperation that indicated the Jounin was long used to his two students fighting amongst themselves.
"We weren't doin' nuffin'," Kojimaru unexpectedly grumbled in response to the order as he twisted around and curled his arms around one of the couch cushions. "You can't pin that bucket of angry fire-ants that you walked into on me 'n' Tenzou, Nam'kaze-san. S'not our fault that you walked face first into the prank we set up for the teme that had stolen my tea."
There was a brief moment of silence before several individuals burst out laughing at Minato's expense as the blond began growling under his breath in response to the sleepy confession that Kojimaru had just given; Hiruzen included as he well remembered the day that Minato had walked into his office for a meeting covered from head to toe in fresh ant bites.
"I'm going to strip the little brats bare, bath them in honey, and bury them up to their necks in an anthill just as soon as the gaki's partner in crime returns to the village," Minato swore as a vein on the side of his forehead began throbbing even as the child's breathing evened out; an indication that he had sank back into a deeper sleep once more.
"Yes, well as entertaining as it is to learn that you were bested by a pair of seven year olds; we really don't have time for this right now," Hiruzen intoned as he recalled the reason why he'd called everyone to his office upon hearing mention of the popular and often rather painful torture technique (depending on the type of ants living in said ant hill) that was still used in Sunagakure. "I summoned you here because Kojimaru-kun brought us grave word from the borders; Team Taka's disappearance has been confirmed to be the work of a group of Iwa shinobi. Two members of the team have been confirmed dead, another is presumed dead – his body unaccounted for, and the final member is in critical condition."
"Kuso," several of the Jounin present swore as they immediately understood the implications.
"My sentiments exactly," Hiruzen gravely agreed. "We will need to move quickly in order to mitigate any potential damage that can be done with the information that was potentially extracted from Team Taka and the reports that they were carrying at the time of their disappearance. Minato, I want you and your team to head to the border and meet up with the rest of Team Fourteen and the hopefully still surviving member of Team Taka in their care."
"Is the child going to be up to escorting us to the last place he saw his teammates?" Minato inquired with more than a little concern as he cast a quick glance in said child's direction (his annoyance over the earlier prank not blinding him to the fact that the kid was still just a kid).
"No, the child's reserves are dangerously low," the medic answered in Hiruzen's place. "I found no sign of any physical injuries but I doubt he'll be waking up any time soon due to the severity of his exhaustion."
"I suspected as much; given the fact that the child pushed himself to his limits on his mad dash to Konoha from the border."
"Oh…? How long did it take him?" Kushina asked curiously; the kunoichi looking to find out if the child had beaten her record for the shortest recorded journey time between the village and the eastern borders.
"Approximately fourteen and a half hours without a single rest stop," Hiruzen replied as he folded his hands together and propped his elbows on his desk as he watched the medic withdraw from the room. "I suspect that it'll be at least another year or two before he threatens your record of twelve hours and fifteen minutes, Kushina."
Kushina snorted in amusement as she retorted, "I guess I'll just have to work harder to beat my own record before the adorable little tyke beats me, dattebane. Anyway, what do you need me to do?"
"I need you back on the front lines to deflect attention away from our main troops in order to buy us some time to move people around in order to negate any advantage that Iwa potentially now has over us. With luck, the group that captured Team Taka will think any information that they extracted from their prisoners was outdated or nothing but false leads at that point."
"The rest of you will need to carry new instructions to the outposts and the front line to get them moving and warn them of potential ambushes. I will have everything prepared within the next thirty minutes so that you can be on your way before the hour is out. Are there any questions? No? Then you are dismissed so that you can prepare yourselves. Minato; you'll need to stick around for a moment if you want information on Team Fourteen's last known location."
"Go pack for a two week mission and meet me at the front gate in a half an hour," Minato ordered as he made shooing motions at his students. "And, Obito, don't stop to help any old ladies or fetch any cats out of a tree; lives are at stake and we won't have time for any tomfoolery."
"Hai, sensei," Obito replied with a slightly petulant tone in response to the public (if mild) chastisement.
"Minato; you and I will have words about you hiding the knowledge about the possible existence of a potential relative of mine from me the next time we're both in the village," Kushina threatened darkly before she stalked out of the room in the wake of the three pre-teens; leaving only a handful of individuals inside of the office.
"He's not an Uzumaki!" Kasai barked irritably after her at the same time as Minato cried, "I never saw the kid's face before today or I would have strung him up by his ears the day I got caught in his prank trap!"
Hiruzen wondered who put a burr up Torifu's ass and why his old friend was so adamant that Kushina not see the child as a distant relative. He had the vague feeling that he was missing something obvious before he pushed the masked man's behavior to the back of his mind as he focused on more important matters. Such as salvaging the current situation least Iwa crush Konoha.
"Kojimaru informed me that their team was roughly three hours travel from Outpost Eighty-Seven when they found the injured member of Team Taka. The Iwa camp where the two dead Chuunin were found was an hour's walk directly east of that location and there were obvious signs that the sole survivor dragged himself out of that camp before he collapsed in the area where he was found. The teen's trail was at least eighteen hours old at the time of discovery and the camp itself had been abandoned for roughly twenty-four hours."
"So, basically, a group of Iwa shinobi had Team Taka and worked them over for nearly two weeks," Minato deduced with a grimace. "Do we have an estimated time of death for the dead?"
"No, I still have their scrolls with me but Kojimaru-kun said the bodies were partially decomposed; an indication that they have probably been dead for quite some time."
"That also increases the chances that they died before they were forced to give up too many secrets," Shikarou drawled from where he was propped up against the wall.
"True but it is better to expect and plan for the worst case scenario than get caught with our pants down," Kasai retorted as he made his way over to Kojimaru and crouched down to inspect the child's face.
"That's also assuming that the missing member of the team is actually dead and not still in the hands of their captors," Hiruzen added tiredly before he turned his attention to Shikarou's teammate. "Inohiko, will you be able to view the child's memories of the past twenty-four hours now or will you need to wait until he wakes up?"
"It would be best to view them now, while he is still sleeping," Shikarou interjected with a frown. "Shikaku was there the last time Inoichi-kun mind-walked through the child's memories after a mission when the child revealed that he relives the memories as they are viewed. If I recall correctly, my nephew also stated that Inoichi later confessed that the child had far more control over his mind than expected for a child his age."
"I recall having a similar conversation with my son," Inohiko added off-handedly as he knelt beside the couch and placed a hand on the child's forehead before activating the jutsu that would allow him to slip into the child's mind.
Hiruzen watched for a moment before he began cleaning up the stack of paperwork that Kojimaru had accidentally knocked over when he first arrived. He then sat down to finish skimming through the outpost reports; handing the reports over to Shikarou as soon as he finished skimming them so that his Chief Strategist could help him come up with a way to salvage the mess created by the capture of Team Taka. Kasai eventually gravitated towards the pair in order to add his two cents as well, though the masked shinobi continuously cast glances towards the child on the couch.
"You seem overly distracted, Kasai; is there a problem?" Hiruzen asked after he caught the man glancing towards Kojimaru for the seventh time in ten minutes.
"Ask me again in seven years," Kasai replied as he turned his back on the pair by the couch.
"Hnn," Hiruzen grunted in annoyance over the fact that Kasai was being intentionally evasive; a clear indication that there was definitely something going on.
Something important and Hiruzen couldn't help but feel as if he should already know what. It also wasn't like his old friend to make allusions to a far distant future that Hiruzen may or may not survive to see; a shinobi's life was fraught with danger and death and a Kage's life could be ended just as easily as a Genin's under the right conditions. Hiruzen let out a huff of exasperation before he refocused his attention on the reports and the discussion on the current war strategy.
It would be two days before Kojimaru woke up and another four days before his team returned to the village alongside of the Chuunin they had rescued. Those four days were pure torture for the young Chuunin; it being the longest time he'd been separated from Tenzou since they had become friends four years earlier. He was more than a little upset with the Hokage for not allowing him to leave the village in order to rejoin his team as quickly as possible. As soon as his team did appear, Kojimaru's bad mood evaporated after he made certain that both Aoba and Tenzou had made it back to the village unscathed.
June 11, 0288 AtD through December 31, 0290 AtD
Konohagakure no Sato, Hi no Kuni
The next two years would become a blur of missions, fights, and training for Team Fourteen.
The number of missions that Team Fourteen were sent on continued to increase as they picked up those missions that normally would have gone to an older team as the casualties of war continued to grow. The number of enemy shinobi that they faced on a given mission continued to increase as well when both Kumogakure and Sunagakure were drawn into the war as allies of Iwa and Konoha respectively. Kirigakure would inevitably be drawn into the war as well but they played both sides; the Mizukage seeking to regain the power that their village had lost during the Second Great Shinobi War.
More and more often now, Team Fourteen was coming home injured at the end of a mission as both sides of the war grew more desperate to gain the upper hand. Kojimaru hated the fact that his teammates were starting to collect scars while he walked away from their battles unmarred and virtually unhurt since his injuries usually healed rapidly except when he was suffering from chakra exhaustion. Not even Tenzou was quite as lucky when it came to injuries, since the amount of scarring he acquired from injuries was only reduced and not prevented entirely.
Aoba and Tenzou usually cheered Kojimaru up when he grew depressed about their scars by teasing him about being the pretty boy on the team. They occasionally went so far as to declare him the unofficial kunoichi of their team; a comment that always sparked some serious prank wars between the three boys whenever they were in the village. The prank wars served to relieve the tension and stress that the ongoing war piled onto their team in addition to cheering up the artificial redhead. They also served as a form of training since it forced them to plan on their feet, helped to increase their situational awareness, and nurtured their creativity.
Due to the increase in injuries that the team acquired during missions, Hayama and Tekuno increased the level of their training. Their elemental training was taken to next level as they finally mastered changing the nature of their chakra into their individual elements (Tenzou and Kojimaru's Kekkei Genkai not counting). That basically meant that they were now being taught how to use their affinities to increase the effectiveness of their elemental jutsu as well as increasing their repertoire of elemental based ninjutsu attacks.
In an odd role reversal, Tenzou's ninjutsu arsenal became heavy on defense while Kojimaru's ninjutsu were mostly offensive in nature. The reason for that was due to Kojimaru's natural wind affinity (which was still far stronger than his earth or water affinity) and Tenzou's natural earth affinity; wind being ideal for offensive attacks while earth was more suited for defense. Kojimaru still learned the same defensive doton based jutsu as Tenzou; he just didn't feel quite as comfortable using them as Tenzou did and therefore would not master them as quickly or as thoroughly as his friend.
Aoba's ninjutsu arsenal was split evenly between offense and distraction as he learned a handful of genjutsu on top of the katon jutsu that he was taught. His role in an all out ninjutsu battle was relegated to offensive support and he was most often paired with Kojimaru or Hayama who would then use collaboration ninjutsu to enhance Aoba's fire attacks using their wind affinities. The results tended to be rather explosive and extensive; wiping out large swaths of terrain (much to Kojimaru's everlasting dismay) and mowing down enemies that weren't quick enough to escape.
The Mokuton's ability to grow trees in any condition meant that their team didn't permanently destroy the environment during those battles where they were forced to pull out their more destructive attacks just to survive. Growing trees was also one of two facets of the Mokuton that Tenzou and Kojimaru could both perform without any obvious differences; though Kojimaru had far more influence over the types of trees being grown. The other facet of the Mokuton that they could both use was the ability to sink into any wooden surface. If not for those two shared facets, it would almost appear as if they had two completely different Kekkei Genkai.
The two boys didn't mind though, since the fact that their abilities were so different meant that their abilities were more complimentary rather than being redundant. It also meant that there was even less of a reason for one of them to be shifted to a different team. Tenzou's love of architecture and his ability to grow wood planks and beams out of his chakra meant that he was able to grow almost any construct imaginable. Kojimaru, on the other hand, could twist trees to create more natural looking hiding places or turn the very forest against their enemies.
Even the wood clones that they learned to create were different. Kojimaru's clones were grown from a portion of a plant or tree (such as a leaf, a flower, a twig, or a seed) while Tenzou's clones were formed from his chakra and grew out of his body. Both types had their advantages; Kojimaru's requiring far less chakra to create and Tenzou's having the ability to function as a combination scout and avatar due to the fact that he remained connected to the clone until he reabsorbed its chakra into his body or it was destroyed (similar in nature to the Kage Bunshin – only more effective since he could get real-time updates from the clone).
Tenzou's ability to connect to trees and any construct he grew from his chakra made him an invaluable tracker and forward scout. It was an ability that Kojimaru wished he shared with his friend; Tenzou's ability stemming from the fact that he was a chakra sensor while Kojimaru was merely chakra sensitive. He still felt a connection to the forest but his connection only allowed him to sense the presence of living trees; not see or hear what the trees saw and heard. He also couldn't read life signs through the earth using tree roots as conductors for his earth affinity like Tenzou could. Alternatively, Tenzou really wished he had Kojimaru's ability to bring trees to life.
There were times when Aoba envied both younger boys but they never lasted long.
In addition to upping their ninjutsu training, Hayama-sensei pushed them to improve physically; driving them to become faster, stronger, and more agile. That training also saw them increasing both their stamina and endurance (two similar physical abilities that were actually quite different – stamina referring to just how long they could fight or run in peak condition while endurance referred to just how far they could push their bodies before they keeled over). As their chakra reserves expanded in response to the intense physical and ninjutsu training, they were introduced to more complex chakra control exercises in order to maintain and surpass their current control.
Those exercises included the basics of Ha no Noudo, Kinobori no Waza, and Suimen Hokou no Waza in combination with the more advanced versions (replacing leaves with pebbles or marbles, using the tree walking ability to spar or exercise on ceilings and walls, and walking up waterfalls). They were also introduced to kunai balancing, chakra strings, and chakra circulation. The first required them to balance a kunai on a fingertip, the second had them using a guide wire to practice forming strings of chakra, and the last one had them actively controlling the circulation of their chakra in order to enhance their muscles, ease muscle fatigue, reinforce bones, numb pain, and restrict blood flow to an open wound.
After their ninth birthdays, Kojimaru and Tenzou were finally introduced to kenjutsu (Hayama confident that they were finally old enough and skilled enough to not seriously injure themselves with a blade). Those lessons also coincided with the next level of Kojimaru's smithing lessons as he was finally taught how to make swords, daggers, spears, and more complicated every day tools. Once they had learned the basic stances and katas, both boys were rather quick to find a sword style that best suited their overall fighting style and once again they chose to go in different directions.
Tenzou preferred to fight with a single tanto while Kojimaru preferred to use multiple blades that fell between a dagger and a wakizashi blade in size and shape. Kojimaru was also far more likely to throw his blades at his enemies than to just use them as an extension of his arm. The reason for that was so that he could maintain his distance from those opponents that were larger and stronger than him (he was still the smallest member of their team, after all). The fact that he would eventually be able to make his own endless supply of swords through his Kekkei Genkai also meant he'd never have to worry about running out of blades to throw or wasting money to replace those that got lost or damaged.
He would still carry a small number of actual swords on his person for those times when it wasn't possible to use his Hyouton or Mokuton.
The lessons that Kosuke gave to Kojimaru (and frequently to his teammates as well) advanced at a slightly slower pace than his shinobi training due to the fact that godfather and godson saw so little of each other between missions. The same held true in the case of the lessons they received from Tenzou's adopted uncle; with Kisuke spending even less time in the village than Team Fourteen. Furthermore, Shikaku had officially been retired from his position as their babysitter just after Tenzou's eighth birthday as the current generation of Ino-Shika-Chou spent most of their time on the front lines.
The two boys still visited the Nara Compound (so Kojimaru could spend some of his limited free time with the deer) but they were more likely to crash at Tenzou's or Aoba's place if Kosuke and/or Kisuke were out on a mission. There were even times when all three boys crashed at their sensei's apartment on the night before a mission or when Tenzou and Aoba didn't want to go home looking like death warmed over least they worry their aunt and mother respectively. They could have potentially crashed at Kojimaru's place as well but Kojimaru hadn't yet learned enough fuuinjutsu to be taught how to activate and deactivate the more complex seals that were scattered about the house and gardens.
It wasn't that Kosuke didn't trust Kojimaru; it was more that Kojimaru simply had no desire to learn more than the basics of fuuinjutsu; which included exploding tags, storage seals, basic security seals, and chakra suppression seals. Out of necessity, he had also been taught out to draw and activate the seals that altered his hair, eye color, and chakra signature so that when the seals failed completely (and they would when Kasai died) he could replace them himself instead of relying on someone else to reapply them to his face and neck.
The reason for the lack of interest boiled down to Kojimaru's dislike and distaste for spilling blood; specifically when it came to spilling his own blood as he had little to no problem spilling an enemy's blood (though he still disliked killing). He could still remember Orochimaru nearly draining him dry for months on end during the time he had spent in the Sannin's clutches. So, while he didn't mind occasionally sacrificing a drop or two of blood through necessity (usually for security seals and the higher level storage seals), he drew the line at mixing his blood into the ink for the higher levels of fuuinjutsu. And he hated getting blood drawn at the Hospital.
Konoha would be attacked directly three times during those two years; once when the Kamizuru Clan attacked, once by a combined force of Iwa and Kumo shinobi, and once by a group of high level rogues that had been hired to assassinate the Hokage and a number of other key individuals. Each time, the invading forces had been repelled by Konoha's forces but not without great cost. The Aburame Clan lost a third of their members when facing the Kamizuru Clan, an eighth of the ANBU forces and nearly half of the village's reserve forces (which was made up of retired, disabled, and below average shinobi) were lost fighting off the joint Iwa and Kumo contingent, and another two squads of ANBU were lost taking down the group of hired missing nin.
Team Fourteen had been out of the village during the Kamizuru's attack and again during the multi-pronged assassination attempt but they had been there during the three day siege in February of the year two hundred ninety.
The three Chuunin had been working on their melee fighting style when the warning klaxons spread throughout the village had begun blaring loudly. The three boys had frozen in place and stared at one another in shock (since the village had never been attacked in their memory) before they immediately headed to Team Fourteen's meeting spot in order to meet up with their sensei for orders (a protocol that Hayama had established not long after they had become a team).
They wouldn't get very far before the three of them were accosted by a pair of masked ANBU guards that plucked the two nine and a half year olds off the ground and ordered Aoba to seek out their team's sensei for instructions. Kojimaru and Tenzou had then been delivered directly to Kasai's office via Transportation Scroll. Kasai immediately deactivated their disguise seals before he ordered them to change into ANBU uniforms complete with blank, featureless masks. They were then asked to each create a clone that would take their place on their team (so they wouldn't be missed) before Tenzou was handed over to an ANBU Guard wearing a dog faced masked with blue highlights while Kojimaru was assigned to one that wore a bird mask with yellow and green accents.
The reason for their complete change in looks was to protect their identities during the siege and allow them to use their full range of skills without needing to worry about who might see them using their Kekkei Genkai. Normally, Kasai wouldn't have bothered but because their strongest shinobi were currently out of the village, he was forced to use the talent he had available to him to protect the village. And there was no doubt that the two boys were talented even if they hadn't yet reached their full potential.
Tenzou would spend the duration of the siege constantly repairing any breaches in the village's curtain wall with his Mokuton while Kojimaru attacked their enemies with both his Mokuton and Hyouton using guerrilla tactics; the ANBU squad he was placed on venturing forth outside of the village walls to fight their enemies from the shadows. Aoba and the two clones were paired up with a couple of Genin teams and assigned to assist in evacuating the civilians to the emergency shelters located inside the Hokage Monument.
Once the civilians were safe, Aoba's group would spend the entire siege keeping the younger children occupied and distracted so they wouldn't panic and distributing emergency supplies as needed (and acting as a last line of defense for the civilians). Hayama and Tekuno in turn had joined the reserve force where they were each given charge of a ten man squad and assigned to protect a section of the village's wall and fend off the enemy's attempts to breach the walls.
The siege would be broken on the fourth day of fighting by the return of Team Minato; the Konoha no Kiiroi Senko dealing death without mercy to the enemy for daring to attack his home. That would be the first, last, and only time that Kojimaru witnessed Namikaze Minato decimating a large army single-handedly using his Hiraishin. Sure, Kojimaru had helped the ANBU whittle down the numbers of the enemy's force and harried them day and night but they had not cut larges swathes through the enemy's forces in the blink of an eye.
Kojimaru and Tenzou would then stand witness to Kasai getting his ass chewed out by the future Yondaime Hokage over the masked man's decision to exploit the two children's abilities. Minato had been most upset over the fact that Kojimaru had been assigned to a hit and run team and deployed outside of the safety of the walls (not that the blond knew it was him beneath the mask). Kasai was unrepentant because he'd made the decision that he believed was in the best interest of the village; something that Minato knew as well, even if the blond was displeased by his methods (since the end results spoke for themselves as the village had held strong against the siege long enough for reinforcements to arrive).
Any fame that the two Mokuton users might have gained through their actions during the siege quickly faded into obscurity as their disguises were reactivated. It helped that their team immediately resumed taking missions out of the village shortly after the village had been cleaned up. The fact that Konoha recovered so quickly on the heels of the siege served to discourage their enemies and made it appear as if they were far stronger than they were despite the extensive losses they had taken over the course of the war.
Seven months after the siege of Konoha and just one month after the attempted assassination of the Sandaime Hokage, Team Minato would undertake two missions that would facilitate the end of the war and cost the well known team one of their members.
Roughly three weeks after those two missions, on October seventeenth of two hundred-ninety, the Tsuchikage would surrender and the war would officially end. Small skirmishes would continue to break out over the course of the next two months but the bulk of the armies would begin withdrawing back to their respective villages. During those two months, all five of the Kages of the Five Great Elemental Nations, the leaders of some of the smaller hidden villages, and the Daimyou of the countries involved would meet often for peace talks and to hammer out a new treaty.
Namikaze Minato would be sworn into office one week after the treaty was officially signed; Sarutobi Hiruzen had grown weary of running the village after living through three Great Shinobi Wars and wished to spend his remaining years bonding with his family. A month after taking up office as the Yondaime Hokage, Minato would secretly marry his longtime crush and girlfriend; Uzumaki Kushina. Konoha and her people would then set about rebuilding their lives and burying their dead.
And so would end the third chapter in the life of the young orphan that had been born as Harry Potter, remade as Test Subject One-Thirty-Eight through the fires of deprivation, and reborn out of the ashes of his past as Kojimaru, Chuunin Shinobi of Konohagakure.
Translations: Japanese to English
Amegakure no Sato – Hidden Rain Village
Chikushou – damn
Dattebane – Kushina's catch phrase; has no true meaning but has been translated as 'you/ya know' in the English version of the Anime
Dobe – idiot, loser (dead last)
Gaki – brat
Ha no Noudo – Leaf Concentration
Hai – yes
Hi no Kuni – Fire Country
Hiraishin no Jutsu – Flying Thunder God Technique
Kawa no Kuni – River Country (Country that stands as a buffer between Fire and Wind Countries)
Kinobori no Waza – Tree climbing
Konoha no Kiiroi Senko – Konoha's Yellow Flash
Kuso – swear word
Na no Kuni – Vegetable Country (randomly selected country for Kusagakure to be located)
Sanshouo no Hanzou – Hanzou the Salamander
Sawa no Kuni – Swamp Country (randomly selected country for Amegakure to be located)
Suimen Hokou no Waza – Water walking
Taka – Hawk
Tani no Kuni – Valley Country (randomly selected country for Takigakure to be located)
Teme – bastard/jerk (rude way of saying you)
Tsuchi no Kuni – Earth Country
Wakarimasu – I understand (formal – present tense)
11-14-15: Minor edits made to chapter to fix spelling/grammar mistakes and removed unnecessary author's notes.
