Konoha had been subjected to many things since its creation.

Madara had besieged it countless times until the Shodaime had killed him.

It had been attacked a couple times in every major war.

Kyuubi had levelled a good portion of the village during his rampage.

And now…

Now.

People screamed and ran as enormous snakes slithered free of the sewers followed by ninja wearing the mark of the musical note.

Buildings crumbled as enormous snakes ploughed through them. Some erupted into flames. Gas leaks exploded violently.

Oto-nin tossed exploding tags and kunai, mowing down shrieking civilians as Leaf shinobi struggled to mount a counterattack on the system of pipes beneath their feet. Some Oto ninja transformed into horrifying freaks of nature.

Even before the chaos erupted though, Orochimaru stepped from the shadows of Hiruzen's lonely sleeping chamber. Suna's poison had done its work: the old Hokage was no longer capable of keeping up with the long hours he was used to putting in. He slept deeply, as an old man should.

Konohamaru had been the one to discover his grandfather in his bloody and soiled sheets as he ran to get reassurance from the old man when the invasion started. A snake bite on the left wrist told Tsunade that Orochimaru had probably kept the old man disabled and taunted him. Her old teammate was twisted enough to enjoy gloating before dealing a deathblow.

What a sad, inglorious end for the Professor.

Tsunade wrote the time of death down on the chart and stared blankly at the corpse of her old sensei. How she hated him for leaving her with this mess. The Uchiha had reported that two of their teenaged genin were missing and that other teenaged and young adult Uchiha of genin and chuunin level had fought off kidnapping attempts during the attack. Itachi and Sasuke had been particular targets, but they and their parents had held the group of five monsters at bay. The kami only knew what Orochimaru was going to do with the pair he had gotten considering what he had done with the last bunch of children he had kidnapped. Knowing Konoha though, there would be whispers that the boys were traitors that had joined Orochimaru willingly.

Tucking her clipboard under her arm, she walked out of the ward, off to deal with other cases before the Elders came to give her the unwelcome but expected news that she had been appointed Godaime until the jounin had time to vote. Would they vote her in? Shizune had said that her reputation was failing, and with the insolvency of Senju, what was she?

The only reassurance was that she had to be better than Danzou. (She hoped.)

Mikoto leaned against the door to Sasuke's room, ignoring the fresh holes in the walls from shuriken and kunai thrown during the desperate struggle only hours before.

Only tenuous threads of control and Itachi's level gaze was keeping her from clutching both of her boys against her and forcing them to sleep within arm's reach.

"Mother."

She let out a breath. A light rap on the door only made her suck it in again. Itachi squeezed her shoulder and took up guard duty by Sasuke's door as she went to see who dared intrude on her house at this hour.

Naoki-san, a distant Uchiha cousin whose husband ran a butcher shop, bustled in, a basket of fresh cuts hanging from her arm. "Mikoto-san, I had to know you were well! The boys? Fugaku?"

"All well. And your family?"

"Well enough. Orochimaru's freaks apparently had no use for my daughter, with her impure bloodlines. His men were still a bother though."

A bother. Naoki-san was ever boisterous. Mikoto accepted the generous cuts of beef and pork, tucking some in the fridge and the rest in the freezer.

"Men in black with red clouds on the wall this afternoon," Naoki whispered as she helped prepare some tea. "Hoshigaki Kisame is confirmed. The other… Still trying to identify him."

"They entered the village?"

"They watched the carnage. Waited and watched carefully. Probably waiting for an explosion of chakra from you-know-what."

"So they suspect him of returning here after all the sniffing around the Red City and Suna they've been doing."

"Apparently. Or they're being thorough."

Mikoto nodded. "More likely. There are rumours of him in Iwa. Probably Jiraiya-sama's doing. It's more likely the boy went to the southern islands to lie low. He was last seen heading south towards Port Mure after Suna."

Naoki shook her head. "I've heard very quiet whispers that ANBU has watched him walk through Port Mure."

"Then the Sandaime did know where he was." Why not force him back? Had the Sandaime managed to make the boy heel and placed him to be the dagger at Suna's throat, enforcing their compliance with the treaty? With Akatsuki here, the old Hokage had probably made the right choice to keep the boy out of sight and out of mind. Yesterday, she would have thought this foolishness (who better to protect things than ninja?), but that had been hours before two of her clansmen had been taken by a snake freak. Mikoto could only hope that the boy was protected or competent enough to keep other villages from scooping him up.

With the Sandaime gone, what would his successor do with the boy? By all the gods, she would have to go pray that certain people failed in their ploys to be elected Godaime. Not that there was a good successor out there in her eyes, not with Itachi too young.

No candidate would be good for the Uchiha or the jinchuuriki boy.

Behind you!

Yuji dropped and rolled to one side in one of Silicon City's market district streets. People out shopping gaped at his antics, the shattering glass window he had been walking past, and the clatter of mannequins the attacker had knocked over after going through the window. Dammit!

You're going to need speed. This ninja doesn't want to talk. He was aiming to knock you out. I saw it in the window's reflection.

Masked?

Yes.

Konoha?

I'm not certain. His mask has the style favoured by Konoha's ANBU agents. A rat.

Not my dad, I guess. More like he hoped.

Not Takashi. Taller.

The great thing about talking with Kurama in his head was that it was way faster than talking out loud could ever be. He palmed a paper seal out from where it had been hidden up his sleeve and drew a short dagger for show. He was clad in local robes. The last thing he wanted was for his place with the monks to be discovered.

Two more. Definitely from Konoha.

Shit. I really hope Itachi becomes Hokage soon so he can keep these bastards off our back. Yuji let Kurama feed him chakra in low enough levels that it would only darken the whisker marks (which were hidden under makeup) and elongate his canines. He needed the boost if he was going to take on three guys without letting Kurama out in the middle of this city.

He wasn't sure he would be able to manage three opponents; heck, even one ANBU agent should be beyond him given his track record.

Civilians were getting the idea though: they began running every direction to get away from the porcelain masks. No one paused to offer him aid.

Civilians knew that they didn't stand a chance against ninja bastards. Yuji couldn't resent them for using common sense. Little help? I could use some stretchy arms placing seals.

Which ones?

Two from the collection above my right elbow: put those on the ones behind me. One from the roll in my left pocket: a metre in front. Six from my right pocket—those ones need to go in a circle ten metres in diameter. Make sure we're in the middle. Don't charge them until everything else is ready. Yuji spun and threw his dagger as the Tiger-masked asshole behind him made a move in the reflection of the shop window across the street.

Chakra arms moved in his clothing and dove down into the earth even before the dagger left his hand.

The ninja to his left with the Dog mask tensed: chakra sensor. The other two reacted immediately.

"Too slow."

Orange-red chakra chains exploded out of the perimeter seals. The pair of seals attached to the bottom of the sandals of the two behind Yuji caused them to collapse as they accessed their chakra to dodge. The one other seal had the chakra chains slam the Rat agent to the ground in front of him. Yuji pressed the paper seal in his hand to Rat's forehead, who slumped in the chains, caught in a genjutsu of the misty plane of existence Yuji had dreamed up. With luck, the man would populate the dream with his own demons.

With the two agents behind him kept unconscious due to dangerously low chakra levels maintained by the seals on their sandals, Yuji felt pretty safe pulling the mask off the Rat. A young man, even younger than Seiichi-nii. Pushing the cloak away, he checked both shoulders. No sign of the Konoha ANBU tattoo. That meant these guys were fakes or worse: Root. Dad and Sarutobi had warned him to watch out for those guys. He forced the guy's mouth open. Yup. There was the zipper seal. That put an end to getting these bastards to talk unless it was allowed by their mission.

Shit.

Shimura Danzou. Yuji had heard some pretty fucked up rumours about that guy and some horror stories during his education from Mamoru, even if he was from the same clan his dad was. Danzou was apparently connected to every heinous thing Konoha was hated internationally for.

Great. I'm gonna need your help.

Erasing the last five minutes? Will that even be enough? If they dared attacking in the open, they likely were tracking us for a while.

How long, Kurama?

The fox was quiet for a bit. An hour.

And you didn't say anything. We're gonna have a chat about that later.

We are. It's pathetic that I had to tell you.

Whatever. Later. I can't erase a whole hour. I'm not a Yamanaka. I might as well fry their whole brain.

You could. It would be safest: they did know to find us here instead of in Port Mure. Other ninja agents are going to appear soon. If a chakra sensor in this group could find you when you aren't even wearing a henge, now that we've activated ten seals…

I get it. But dumping these guys in the lake isn't going to be subtle. Someone's gonna come looking for them.

Who's to say you killed them?

Yuji froze, horrified, but the fox was right. No burn marks or Rasengan then. I'm gonna question at least one first though. He pulled out some paper and a pencil and began scrawling out a quick sealing pattern. One after another, he stashed the Root guys away with it. After carefully nabbing his chain and target seals, he wall-walked further up the street before blending his footprints in with the rest of the crowd's.

Yuji sat on a bench with a frankfurter smothered in onions and resting on a bun in hand—food from the western nations was pretty common in Silicon City. He'd ditched his old robes in favour of a costume change and had shut Kyuubi out again, favouring the silence in his head and the idea of hiding from anyone capable of detecting him using chakra.

The scroll he had sealed the Root agents in weighed heavily in his pocket. A complication. A responsibility.

"I'm not even fourteen," he hissed under his breath. "I shouldn't be dealing with maniacs like Danzou."

The onions were unsympathetic.

The temptation to simply leave the Root agents in the scroll was strong. He left all sorts of stuff sealed away; why not these bastards? The obvious answer was that he had no fucking clue how well they would keep there. Heck, they could already be dead.

Or, worse, they could have escaped.

He kept his fingers from twitching as the urge to verify that they were still bound grabbed hold of him.

The best kept secret between more than one person is between someone and the other person's grave. Dad had fed him so many variations of that line over the years. It was true too. If he let these guys live, there was no way to be sure they would not escape and take the secret of his fuuinjutsu techniques with them back to Konoha.

Bile rose in his throat as he contemplated Kyuubi and his dad's option: murder. Permanent, definitely. Bodies could be cleaned up. Complications with Konoha? Possibly, if he was ever implicated in their deaths, if their bodies were found.

"Fuck but I wish I was a Yamanaka." Erasing their damn memories of ever finding him would be so much easier, but not cleaner. They would be questioned. People would figure out what had happened.

Fuck.

Rat–192 squinted as light dissolved the misty expanse he had been wandering fruitlessly in ever since his vision had gone dark with him at the feet of the failed jinchuuriki. Dog–79 had assured him that the chakra was right, but Danzou-sama had not mentioned the boy knew advanced sealing techniques. Indeed, the information he had been provided with stated that Namikaze Naruto had been trained by Rat–67, an expert in leading evasion and undercover operations, and that his time with Jiraiya had been spent studying toad summoning and Rasengan.

What had the boy learned after leaving Konoha's delegation at Suna?

Rat–192 had not been told why Danzou-sama expected the boy to show up in Silicon City, only that he and his team were to capture the boy and drag him back to Konoha for reconditioning or resealing of the Kyuubi if the boy proved useless as a proper host after reeducation.

While he went through his information, Rat–192 had been attempting to escape the chair he was bound to with seals, but he couldn't even get it to rock. Some sort of force absorption or balancing seal had to be tying it to the ground despite his efforts.

"Are you going to tell me why you're after me?" said a young teen's voice behind and to his left. It was steady and cold.

Rat peered into the darkness behind his left shoulder, but the container was well beyond the circle of light his chair sat in. He considered what to say as he tested the give of the paper seals restraining his wrists, knees, elbows, and ankles. The boy had been well taught: the bonds wouldn't harm him despite his efforts, but they didn't allow any movement either. There would be no using blood as a lubricant to slip free. His chakra level was being kept very low as well.

If he wanted to die, he would have to bite off his tongue.

"Kyuubi is to return to Konoha."

Soft footsteps, rubber sole on concrete. "And I wouldn't live past the gates." The voice came from behind his right shoulder this time. "You think I didn't hear horror stories about what happened to jinchuuriki that failed, that disobeyed?"

The voice was young, but Rat felt no sympathy. Logic simply said that if this boy had wanted to avoid being another horror story, he should have stayed with Jiraiya and moved according to Konoha's will until Danzou-sama had had need of him.

"You'd pull Kyuubi out of my guts and shove him in some other poor kid, wouldn't you?"

So the boy was not entirely stupid. Pity.

"And it wouldn't even be by the Godaime's order, would it? Nooo, the old hag wouldn't even be asked. Because you don't care: Danzou says jump, so you jump. You don't care how high."

That was untrue. Rat would care how high because that would be a mission parameter that needed to be fulfilled. But this boy was nothing, obviously a failure at reeducation in the making, and so he got no reply from Rat. He was a walking corpse: Danzou-sama would retrieve the Kyuubi from this useless boy and bestow it upon someone more worthy.

"Have you got my replacement picked out? Some poor orphan? Some kid related to the old hag that'll be devoted to her now that she's Hokage?"

Rat considered how to escape and finish the mission. The boy's idiotic assumptions didn't deserve a moment's thought. He tried generating chakra, but the draining seal kept him at the same level, too little to even work an E-rank jutsu. No range of movement meant that getting at various small blades hidden on his person was impossible. His subordinates were nowhere in sight.

"Or, instead, some kid that Danzou can raise totally loyal to him… Yeah, I bet it's the last one. But you probably don't even know. Or care, really. After all, it's not going to be you. Too old. Too useful as you are. Kyuubi's a handful, not good for a Root agent."

The boy clearly didn't know what he was talking about.

Footsteps just outside of the light again. Clockwise, circling behind him and coming around his left side to the front. "Well, you've been very helpful. I hope Dog and Tiger will be even more so."

"They won't talk." Rat knew this for a fact.

A hooded figure stepped into the light. He looked nothing like the teenaged boy Rat had been shadowing through the city. This boy's hands were a pinker flesh tone as they peaked from beneath the long tan sleeves of his local robe. His face was mostly in shadow, but his teeth, especially those elongated canines, gleamed in the light as Namikaze Naruto grinned. "They don't need to," Uzumaki Kushina's heir promised him.

And then the world disappeared into smoke.

Under the cover of overcast darkness on a peninsula covered in scrubby vegetation, Yuji triple checked that the bodies were clean of any sign that he had been the one to slit their throats and sew stones into their guts, gritting his teeth to hold down his gag reflex. Dad had explained this concept of hiding pursuit corpses in their last months together. Yuji had been totally grossed out, and Dad had said he would probably never need to know it for any other reason than to know what to watch out for.

Looked like that had been wishful thinking.

Heaving the Dog agent's corpse encased in a sac over his shoulder, he walked out onto Lake Eisa to where it was deepest. "I'm sorry," he whispered over and over again, his mind soaked in guilty agony.

He didn't deserve to see his mom again after this.

He let the deadweight slide silently into the water with a prayer. Next was the Tiger. Last was the Rat.

"Sorry," he whispered again, his mouth contorting on the edge of sobs as he knelt on the water's surface, watching the result of his grisly labour sink into the black depths. "But I don't want to go back, bound and draped over your shoulder like a sac of rice, especially not when this Danzou bastard wants me back so much."

Letting the tears flow as he wailed into his sleeve to stifle any noise, he cursed mentally.

He was very sure this was not going to be the last time he would have to do this. In fact, it was probably just luck he had managed to avoid the necessity this long.

Stupid fucking ninja.

"The snake man split from the black cloaks with red clouds," the whore, Juliette, whispered in Jiraiya's ear. "He annoyed the one with a face mask and head covering. A bird told me he almost ripped the snake man to pieces, though the snake gave back as good as he got. The cloaks are annoyed: he took a ring with him."

"Is the ring important?"

Juliette giggled as though he had told a joke and caressed his chest. He struggled not to salivate. This had to be his favourite part of his job. "I've seen plenty of cloaked ones without rings. The big honchos, the ones that get sent out on the toughest missions they're hired for, they wear the rings. One ring for each finger."

She tapped his sternum with her left pinky. "The snake stole this one."