Okay, so I am back. Please don't murder me, just read the note at the bottom.
It had been a week since Sasuke had been admitted to the hospital for treatment of injuries he had suffered in the match against Yugito. In the time he spent in the hospital bed, counting the hours till he got out, he did a lot of thinking. Naruto and Shikamaru visited him daily, telling him that they were going to investigate soon, however their detective work was going to interrupt with training for the Chunin exams.
Sasuke resented himself for failing. He tried justifying it by comparing Shikamaru and Naruto's opponents to his own, in the preliminaries. Yugito Nii was strong indeed and it was a shame they had to face each other, Sasuke though she easily deserved to be in the finals, along with him, Naruto and Sakura. Sasuke sighed, remembering that dwelling on fate was not proper, and realizing that the free time he had on his hands could allow him to work on finding out more about Suna's so called betrayal.
His mind then moved on to his training. Itachi had told him to meet at the compound. Sasuke wondered if the demons that Itachi had been holding on to would revisit him at the compound. It was there Sasuke had grown up, idolizing his brother, trying to do everything like him, trying to be him. Sasuke smiled, those were the days when he loved his brother like nothing else, Itachi was the only person who respected him and treated him the way he was supposed to be treated. For the rest of the family, he was the little brother who could never be as good as Itachi, but for Itachi, it never mattered, Itachi loved him anyway.
Sakura was still mad at him, she hadn't hit him yet, but had promised him lots and lots of pain once he got better. Sasuke hoped she was off training before he got out of the hospital for that very reason.
Haku also was angry at him. She had stormed in one day, Sakura had told her about the battle. Haku slapped Sasuke and walked away, telling him that he was too reckless and that he could only speak to her when he had come back to his senses.
Kakashi sensei had told him not to think much about it, for that, he said was the way of the woman, they were irrational badasses who could fuck you up.
"You get out tomorrow" Naruto had suddenly appeared from nowhere outside the window in Sasuke's room. Sasuke jumped and reached for his Kunai, before realizing that it was only Naruto.
"Good to know you're still sharp Sasuke" Naruto said smiling.
"Naruto, do you mind letting me handle this investigation by myself?" Sasuke asked Naruto. He figured that Naruto would be too busy with his exam preparation and so would Shikamaru.
"No way man, I have to help you out here, come on, we're not the detective boys for nothing" Naruto groaned. "Are your emo tendencies showing up again?" he asked Sasuke who groaned.
"First off, I hate that name, let's lose it. We're shinobi, not stupid detectives, second thing, you're busy with your exams aren't you, how on earth are you going to make time for both of them together?"
"Meh, Ero Sannin is going to be training me, so its not really a problem"
"Come on Naruto, you have got to take Neji seriously, he is a credible opponent" Sasuke said to him.
"I am taking good care of that problem Sasuke, I know what is at stake, its time I pull the giant rod up his ass, like I pulled yours out" Naruto responded.
"What?" Sasuke asked him in shock, at which Naruto started laughing.
"Just messing with ya buddy" Naruto said as Sasuke blanched.
"Anyway" Sasuke said ignoring Naruto's laughter. "I think you should train, I on the other hand, can work on my stealth skills."
"What stealth, you don't make any noise at all?" Naruto said to him, curios.
"Oh come on, I lost to that Yugito woman, I shouldn't have lost to her" Sasuke said, angry now, his anger finally showing.
"But didn't you draw?" Naruto asked him.
"A draw, a loss, same thing" Sasuke said, shrugging. "I should have beaten her, but I was pathetically weak" he said, his voice bitter.
"I don't think you could have beaten her, she's much above Chunin level" Naruto remarked quietly, his voice had that knowing tune in it.
"What do you mean?" Sasuke asked him.
"I mean you should not feel bad for losing her, she's strong, you should feel happy for drawing, I think the next time you take the test, they'll promote you just for drawing with her" he said.
"And that is because?" Sasuke continued.
"She's two"
"She's two-"Sasuke repeated Naruto's phrase. "You mean she's two tailed?" he asked him. Naruto nodded.
"Okay, seriously, how many of you are they?" Sasuke asked, exasperated.
"Nine, Gaara is one, Yugito is two, I'm Nine" he said.
"So is Nine the strongest?"
"You're damn right it is" Kurama said from within Naruto's mindscape.
Naruto just nodded. "That's what he says anyway"
"You mean he talks to you?" Sasuke asked, amazed.
"You'll be amazed, he never seems to shut up"
Somewhere inside Naruto's mind, the fox growled.
"Are you sure pissing him off is a good idea?" Sasuke asked him.
"How did you know he'd be pissed?" Naruto asked him. Sasuke just shrugged.
"I can't wait to get out of this stupid place" Sasuke said groaning. "Once I'm out, I can train with Itachi, and I can figure this invasion thing out, we need to keep as quiet as we can about it" Sasuke said to Naruto.
"Yes, no talking about it in places where we could be eavesdropped on, right Shikamaru?" Naruto said turning back, talking to seemingly no one, before Shikamaru materialized from out of nowhere.
"Good, you caught me immediately, we need to stay vigilant, constantly" Shikamaru said, sounding bored.
"And Sasuke is right, he should be doing the most work among all of us, he has relatively more free time, he'll only be training with his brother" Shikamaru continued, still sounding as bored as ever. Sasuke and Naruto's eyes widened.
Shikamaru sighed as he saw their facial expressions. "The secret is safe with me, I don't know why you're training with a known murderer, but it would make sense as he's working with the Hokage, which means there's more to it than meets the eye" Shikamaru said.
"How do you know he's working for the Hokage?" Naruto asked Shikamaru, shocked that someone could actually overhear so much.
"I didn't, I took a gamble. You just told me" Shikamaru said shrugging as Sasuke slapped Naruto on the head.
"Are you going to tell me?" Shikamaru asked Sasuke.
"There's some reason, that I can understand" Sasuke said to him cryptically.
"Oh, you mean the Uchiha coup. Makes sense" Shikamaru said nodding. "What doesn't make sense is how you could understand"
"What is going on here?" Naruto asked, not able to comprehend what was happening.
"I've heard from places about an Uchiha uprising, and now its pretty obvious Itachi was hired to quell it, and you happened to be someone Itachi loved too much to quell, you were also probably innocent" Shikamaru said calmly.
Naruto and Sasuke had given up on saying anything else, they were just listening mesmerized.
"Well" Shikamaru said looking at their faces. "I came here to give Naruto a message, Jiraiya-sama is waiting for you, so you have to meet him at the waterfall" he said before walking away.
As Shikamaru was leaving, he was not done. "You should be glad I'm on your side, you guys are not really that secretive" With that, he left the room.
"Fuck Chunin, I'd make him Kage right away" Sasuke said to Naruto.
"Yeah, I'll wait for him to kick the bucket so that I can succeed him. The question is, how the hell did he escape my senses?"
-x-
"So, are you going to visit Sasuke after all?" Sakura asked Haku. Sakura did not like her, but she knew that Haku was a good person who held no grudges against her or anyone else in this village.
"No, Sasuke is a big idiot, reckless, I won't visit him till he apologizes to me" she said to Sakura.
"Sasuke might not apologize at all, he's crazy like that" she said smiling. Haku smiled too.
"To me, he better" she said. Sakura laughed.
As they moved to the frozen foods section, they came across Temari, who was fiddling around with the soda cans.
"Temari-san?" Sakura asked her, politely, keeping in mind that she was a guest in Konoha.
"Oh, pink hair, Shikamaru told me about you, you're Sakura Haruno" she replied. She then looked at Haku. "He did not tell me about you though"
"Haku Momochi" she said smiling.
"Zabuza Momochi has a daughter?" Temari asked curious.
"Adopted" she said. Temari nodded.
"Must be tough, life on the run like that, how did you end up here then?" she asked her.
"I'm afraid Temari-san, but I can't reveal that to you, village secrets and all" Sakura said butting in. Temari nodded.
"Fair enough, you wouldn't want to know about the plans my village has right?" she asked them.
"I suppose" Sakura said hesitantly.
"Can I tell you something?" Temari asked Sakura and Haku, who nodded.
"I wish Shikamaru was in my village" she said sighing. "My life would be so much easier"
Sakura smiled knowingly at Temari. She had heard a lot about her from Ino, the two had become friends again after their fight, and Ino had not shut up about the Sand-blonde taking up all of Shikamaru's time and trying to steal their team secrets.
"You know Shikamaru right?" Temari asked them.
"Oh yes, he's in my best friend's team after all" she said. Haku merely nodded.
"Shikamaru-san seems to be very smart, but for reasons unknown he hides behind a veil of laziness" Haku commented.
"Oh its not really a veil" Sakura said. "He really is that lazy"
"That's him" Temari said, fondly. The invasion was making things really hard for her.
-x-
"Okay Naruto, its time I trained you in Advanced Fuinjutsu" Jiraiya announced grandly. Naruto just shrugged.
"Are you sure I will be any good at this, I only have your word for it. I mean, I've done some mid level stuff, but am I really cut out for the kind of stuff you're going to be teaching me?" Naruto asked.. Jiraiya's face fell.
"Don't you trust your own Godfather?" he asked.
"Shut up pervert" Naruto said. Jiraiya shrugged.
"Anyway, your father sealed a demon inside you, your mother taught your father a lot of things he knew about sealing, they were both better than I could ever aspire to be at sealing things, I think its pretty clear that you are going to be good at this" Jiraiya said, "So you have to learn this"
"Alright, give me the books I need to read, I'll do it. Do you think this will be useful in the fight?" he asked Jiraiya.
"I'm not training you to be a Chunin, Naruto, I'm training you to be a Kage, alright, trust me on this"
"I trust you, so the book?" he asked Jiraiya, who handed him a book he himself had written.
"The writing in this thing is crap" Naruto said flipping the pages. "Did you write it?"
"Yes I did, anyway, you can go home and do this, I'll have the material sent over"
"Are you sure, I mean shouldn't I be doing this under supervision?" Naruto asked him.
"Yes, use clones, you'll learn from the pain" he said. Naruto nodded before doing a two fingered salute and vanishing in a sparkle of lightening.
'That thing is cool' Jiraiya thought to himself.
"Naruto sure has some showboating tendencies doesn't he?"
"I thought I sensed you, come out Itachi"
Itachi Uchiha stepped out from the cover of the trees in the vicinity. He had been hidden, following the three infamous ninjas as they went about spying, not that they had done much of spying, but he liked their enthusiasm.
"How did Sasuke take the big reveal?" Jiraiya asked Itachi, who shrugged his shoulders.
"About as well as you could expect him to take it, I suppose I'm still alive so I guess it couldn't be that bad" Itachi said to Jiraiya who laughed.
"That brat is too weak to kill you Itachi" he said to Itachi, who merely stared.
"Yet" Itachi replied as Jiraiya nodded.
"Fair enough" Jiraiya said before pulling out a paper and handing it to Itachi. "This is all the information on Oto I have, I want you to look into it, can you do that?" Jiraiya asked Itachi, who nodded.
"There is a jinchuriki here" Itachi said calmly to Jiaiya. He had sensed it, and he was sure a seal master and a ninja of Jiraiya's caliber would have sensed it too, the sand nin who was the son of the Kazekage was the person they were both talking about. Like the Kyuubi gave Naruto advanced regeneration, Ichibi gave Gaara a sand armor that was nigh impenetrably, and Itachi was worried about it.
"You think they'll use him as a weapon?" Jiraiya asked Itachi, who nodded. They were both thinking along the same lines, he considered that was a positive thing.
"Do we need to stop these detective boys yet or are you gonna let them continue sleuthing?" Jiraiya asked Itachi, who smiled.
"Let them, they are going to hold positions of power in the future, its good for them to learn more things by themselves" Itachi said.
Jiraiya nodded, just like his sensei, and his senseis before him, and Minato, Itachi also possessed the will of fire that had been passed down through the generations. Jiraiya was glad that he was able to knock some sense into Itachi's head, or Sasuke Uchiha would have been consumed by the curse of hatred that plagued the Uchiha clan for several years.
"You have a lot of belief in the future generation don't you?" he asked Itachi, who merely nodded.
"They will carry this world, hopefully it will be one of peace" Itachi said to Jiraiya who at that moment, completely agreed with Itachi.
-x-
"So how was your training?" Shikamaru asked Naruto. Both of them had managed buying a bottle of sake without Kurenai managing to find out. Naruto took a shot and gulped, making a funny face as he felt the burning sensation go down his throat. He could get used to the pleasant sensation in his chest that followed.
"This is great, no wonder dad does this all the time" Shikamaru said grinning at the face Naruto was making, he himself seemed contended and blissful.
"If Kurenai finds out, we're fucked" Naruto shot back at Shikamaru.
"We're Ninjas Naruto, we can keep it a secret, and this one is not all that difficult to keep is it?"
They were at Naruto's place, he was the only one among them who did not have people visiting him all the time, unlike Sasuke or Shikamaru who had adults visiting them, for what seemed like all the time these days.
"Training went fine, did you find anything?" Naruto asked Shikamaru, who nodded.
"Did you?"
Naruto shook his head, he had been too busy training and reading up on the complex seals that Jiraiya had left him and he had no time to actually look into it.
"Yep, Temari, Gaara, Kankuro, Baki" Shikamaru said to him. Naruto paled at the mention of Temari's name.
"All of them? Are you sure they're in this?" he asked Shikamaru, who nodded.
"Wow, man, I thought you guys were-"
"We were" Shikamaru said interrupting him. "But if she messes with my home, I'll kill her" he said to Naruto, the pain in his voice coming through.
"There's more" Shikamaru said as Naruto spit out his sake, that was going to stain and be a total bitch to clean up.
"More?" Naruto asked. "Is Kumo in this?" he asked Shikamaru, who shook his head.
"The Raikage is too proud and honorable to sneak attack, the man will declare ware before he secretly invades us, I was thinking Oto" Shikamaru said to Naruto.
"That would explain Orochimaru" Naruto said and Shikamaru nodded.
"Should I go for it?" Shikamaru asked Naruto, who nodded.
"Well, I'm off, we'll meet, when we meet" Shikamaru said, before leaving out the door.
"Damn, don't you think the Sunshin was much cooler?" he asked, apparently no one, but obviously there was someone there.
"You knew this whole time?" Yugito Nii, the two tailed jinchuriki materialized.
"You know, I think Shikamaru did too, he did seem cagey, and he did deliver a superb warning didn't he?" Naruto asked the blonde girl. Now that he had a second look at her, he admitted that she was something else, way more pretty than Sakura, or Haku or even Ino, she was much more beautiful. Naruto mentally slapped himself for thinking that way before paying attention to what the woman had to say.
"You mind if I drink that?" Yugito asked, pointing towards the Sake bottle.
Naruto nodded.
"What do you want?" he asked her.
"To help you-"
-x-
The Land Of Waves
So this was the 'Great Konoha' bridge. Well, it was not going to exist for any longer. Gato may have died, but this was a great time to take over this still flourishing economy.
The man was from Iwa, and he had heard about the exploits of the Konoha ninjas very recently. Didn't they say that a blonde haired kid was running rampant, the pictures had shown some alarming similarities with the Yellow Flash himself.
"You are too late to be crossing this bridge, try again tomorrow" another voice sounded out.
The man from Iwa, with scars on his face turned around and looked at the face of Tazuna, the builder of the very bridge they were standing on.
"I'm here to send a message" the man said as a sharp, jagged rock emerged from the ground, piercing Tazuna's spine.
Tazuna began choking, slowly at first, before he spit blood.
"Don't fuck with Iwa. Bitch"
The man watched as the last of life drained from Tazuna's eyes. It was all over. The man smiled. That would lure the kid out, that would lure Konoha out.
Then there would be war.
A/N
So when I started this story, I was really into it, and I still am. But slowly, other things take up my time, which means I never really get the time to get to this story. Trust me, the updates will keep coming, just very patchy, but they'll come. I suggest you read my other stories to bide the time.
So Tazuna is dead, more will die, this is a funny fic, but there will be blood. The war is coming soon, Naruto and Yugito have initiated contact, Shikamaru is very smart, Sasuke will train with his brother.
Tazuna was killed because I felt like I needed to shake things up, and I am sure this does, Iwa has now come into the picture, but will they go to war. Keep reading to find out.
This Chapter's Music Album: Yeezus by Kanye West and The Raven That Refused To Sing by Steve Wilson.
This chapter actually took me two months to write, yeah, that's how stuck I was, and there might be errors, I'll correct them as I find out, but thanks for reading. Please take the time to review.