Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto (either the story or the character) or any of its component parts or associated bits of intellectual property. I do think it's pretty cool, and enjoy examining it through the looking glass of "What If". The originator, Masashi Kishimoto, is a creative guy and deserves credit for his work.
Jiraiya had mixed feelings. It was good to be back on the road again, in a way. He'd spent so much time travelling that he'd become used to it, and being home had felt strange after the first few days. Even with so much going on, staying in one place had put him on edge. Besides, with Tsunade firmly stuck in the Hokage's chair, he knew that hanging around the village wouldn't get much done. He was a better fighter than most, perhaps, but not necessarily a better planner. No, having Jiraiya sit around and talk or attend meetings was a waste of time.
Far more important, however, was the message he'd received from one of his agents not long before Orochimaru's attack on the Leaf Village, warning him that Akatsuki was preparing to make its move at last. The organization, which Orochimaru had previously been part of, was a fearsome one. Its reputation was terrifying among the very few people in a position to know it existed, and the fact that its name and existence remained such closely-held secrets was more frightening still. Maintaining secrecy was arguably one of the world's greatest challenges, and Jiraiya still had only a limited knowledge of who ran Akatsuki, what their goals were, and how they intended to achieve them.
What little he knew was troubling enough that, until Orochimaru upset everyone's plans, Akatsuki had been his top priority. He'd cast a wide net in his efforts to learn about the group, but accomplished little more than locating a few minor informants who reported to it, and he was fairly certain that they were selling the same information to other parties.
Now, Jiraiya was also concerned with finding Orochimaru's connections and any unknown allies he might have, and he had to worry about the other powers on the continent. He did his best work on the road, and the situation facing them now would demand his best work, if they were to survive it and keep the Leaf Village and the Fire Country intact.
Jiraiya was only two days out from the Leaf Village, stopping in a trading town where he sometimes received messages, when he collected one from his source; clearly the man had anticipated that he would be home or close to it, to get him word so quickly. The coded message was blunt, only a few words long.
"Akatsuki will soon come for the nine-tails. Others may also be targeted."
Jiraiya crumpled the note in his hands and looked south, cursing.
"If this isn't terrible timing I don't know what is," he muttered under his breath.
He set out as quickly as he could, praying that he wouldn't be too late. The boy was strong, but the only Akatsuki members he'd identified were all S-class missing-nin with impressive kills. They'd eat him for breakfast if they caught him by surprise. If he saw them coming, things weren't likely to go much better. They probably wouldn't strike while he was surrounded by allies, but if they waited until battle began…
This could get messy. Jiraiya started running out of town.
…
Sarutobi Hiruzen moved with difficulty, but also with determination. He forced his rebellious limbs to obey as he walked to the classroom's chair and sat down, leaning back slightly. The room was fairly large, able to accommodate a few dozen students. His last class had included Konohamaru, who seemed a bit torn between wanting to impress Hiruzen himself and wanting to look cool, which involved not caring too much about what they were learning. Hyuuga Hanabi was there as well; Hiruzen had found her extremely attentive, which caused him no surprise whatsoever. He was pleased to see that she seemed able and willing to socialize with her peers, though. The insular nature of a few clans – the Hyuuga and the Aburame, in particular – had been a long-term concern for most of his life.
Many academy students were more serious in their studies now, but social imperatives still applied. Largely because of their family connections, Sarutobi Konohamaru and Hyuuga Hanabi had a fairly strong lock on the top social positions in their class year, closely followed by one or two others who were also intelligent and skilled, but less well-connected.
Hiruzen was quite happily rediscovering that he loved teaching. Now that he was back with students, he couldn't imagine how he'd lived for so many years without doing it much. He'd been splitting his time between instruction and advising Tsunade, and it had been Iruka's suggestion that he spend some of his teaching hours on the younger students, particularly those in their last year or two at the academy. Hiruzen suspected that Iruka had convinced Tsunade by saying it would be good for him to spend more time around the youths, but if so he didn't mind.
The pace of teaching had been accelerated. War meant casualties, and that would require new ninjas to fill the posts of those who fell. Iruka was determined to prepare his students as much as possible before need forced them to enter combat and fight for their lives.
Now, with the last group done for the day, Hiruzen took a minute to gather his strength before leaving the room. While he had stepped down as Hokage, he knew that seeing him walking and talking reassured people, so he did his best to hide signs of weakness unless he was alone, or in private with close friends and family. Sitting there, he found himself marveling at how young his students were; he could remember learning basics himself, but picturing himself at that age was a challenge. Of course, at Konohamaru's current age he'd been preparing for combat, not learning in the academy – which hadn't existed yet.
Hiruzen sighed regretfully, but didn't allow himself to wallow in guilt over the fact that Orochimaru had plunged them into war. He'd done it already, and likely would again, but for now there was no point. It was a waste of time, and he was expected outside.
He permitted himself one more minute to feel old, then promptly stood and walked out of the building. In the practice area outside, he found more waiting students, but they were older, both more and less prepared than the children he'd been lecturing earlier in the day.
Among the waiting group was Morino Idate. The young man, like some others, had attended and graduated from the ninja academy, but been allowed to pursue civilian life at some point afterwards. In peacetime, the Leaf Village had routinely taught more academy students than it could employ as active-duty combat personnel. With no war, fewer people died, which meant that more of them retired or shifted to non-combat duties. Now, many of the capable citizens who had passed basic training were volunteering to fight.
It was a good thing, from the Hokage's perspective. The second Hokage, Senju Tobirama, had always wanted the academy to train more people than the Leaf Village could use, in the hopes that they would serve as a reserve force if an emergency should arise. Some had returned from civilian life in the past, but never so many.
But then, the Leaf Village had rarely been the site of any battles. Usually, Leaf ninjas did the fiercest fighting at the borders, or even across them, and their home remained relatively untouched.
Now, Tobirama's foresightedness and the efforts of five Hokages to build identity and unity linking the ninjas and civilians of their home were paying off, but the young men and women standing before Sarutobi Hiruzen still needed training to refresh their basic skills, renew their conditioning, and hone their minds before they would be of any use. While the years they'd spent at other work might help in some ways, nothing else kept people conditioned for ninja combat.
"Welcome to your first day of training," Sarutobi Hiruzen said. "I would like to thank you all for your willingness to fight in defense of your home. Before you do so, however, the Fifth Hokage and I wish to make certain that you will win that fight and survive it. It has been years since any of you sparred, or trained in our academy. So, today I will see how much you remember, and how much you have forgotten."
It was interesting to watch their faces as he spoke. Already he could tell that some were remembering old habits more easily than others. Mostly, the younger ones who had left the academy more recently seemed to find it easier to adopt the appropriate mindset, but a few of the older ones were looking ready as well.
Hiruzen marked those so that he would recall them later.
"First, however," Hiruzen continued, "We will see how out of shape you are. You!" He pointed to Morino Idate. "You will lead the group on a run around the training grounds. Five laps. Everyone fall in behind him. If you cut corners, I'll make you all start over again. Move!"
Idate complied quickly, settling into a jogging pace that he could maintain for five laps. When he saw Hiruzen watching the group, he had second thoughts and sped up a bit, pushing himself.
Hiruzen hid a smile. He'd heard that Ibiki's brother had been one of the ones who'd pushed the idea of volunteering. During the coming weeks, he fully intended to find out whether Idate had the leadership potential that implied. He was going to dissect each of these youngsters for every strength and weakness.
Once that was done, he would take part in repairing the weaknesses and enhancing the strengths. Tsunade had been clear that she had no desire to send the under-trained out to fight…but a Hokage sometimes had no good choices. So Morino Idate, Sarutobi Konohamaru, Hyuuga Hanabi, and their peers would all have to be pushed as far and as fast as possible, for their own good as well as the village's.
…
Meeting in private, Akado Yoroi and Tsurugi Misumi were miserable. The pair of them had been increasingly jealous and irritated as they labored in the shadow of their longtime teammate, Yakushi Kabuto. The man had always stood higher in their true master's estimation, and now he'd been promoted to chuunin as well, proof that the Leaf also had a higher opinion of him, while the pair of them were eliminated from the chuunin exam by a couple of rookie girls before the final round could even begin. They hadn't covered themselves in glory during the battle, either.
It was embarrassing. Ever since, they'd been casting about for some way they could redeem themselves. They'd have settled for impressing their Leaf superiors, as humiliating as the realization was. No one was laughing at them, of course, but the two remained certain that was only because everyone was too busy to waste the time.
So they spent their spare time training with each other or lurking about, trying to spot anything of interest that they could report to Orochimaru, with little success. Now, Kabuto was being sent out on some important and massive operation, while the two of them were stuck at home manning the wall. It was boring. They did their jobs competently enough, knowing that their current squadmates would notice if they didn't, but most of their energy was spent wishing for something better to spend their time on.
When they returned from duty at the end of the day, they were surprised to discover that their superior – the unknown figure who received their reports and passed them instructions – had left them new orders.
When they read those orders, they weren't surprised; they were shocked. Fortunately, the orders made it clear that they were to prioritize secrecy over speed, but haste was still called for. While it was not stated, it seemed obvious that their preparations were meant to be carried out before the large force which had just left returned. That could happen anytime, depending on what its objectives were, so they had to get moving immediately – that night.
The two men sat down to begin making plans. What they were tasked with was obviously a distraction, more than anything else, but getting away with it in the middle of the Leaf Village – without their third teammate to help, in the middle of a large number of vigilant ninjas, including those cursed Hyuuga with their eyes – would be a tall order at the very least. There would likely be an investigation afterward, and if they left any clues pointing to their identities they would be caught, eventually.
Fortunately, their superior had thought of that. Their orders included a few specific provisions apparently meant to shift the blame toward someone else, though who wasn't specified.
Yoroi and Misumi were eager to do the job. At last, a chance to prove their worth to Orochimaru; they knew that remaining undercover required stealth and subtlety, but it had been months since their last truly new orders to genuinely attempt to pass the chuunin exam, and they knew that their failure was unlikely to help their standing in their master's eyes.
…
Kurenai was a bit relieved when they received new orders recalling her team and a few others back to the village. While Shino, Hinata, and even Kiba seemed to be doing pretty well, Kiba's leg wound had turned out to be bad enough that more medical attention would help it heal faster, and all three of them were still a bit on edge. Their brief battle had been intense, and the emotions they felt afterward weren't fully settled yet.
Hearing that the Fifth Hokage had been chosen while they were away was also reassuring. Tsunade was certainly capable enough. The fact that she'd been confirmed in the position and started issuing orders so quickly was hopeful, to Kurenai's mind; hesitating would be the worst thing they could do.
They started back right away, a few squads moving together. Others were transferring from further east to replace them, apparently. Looking at who else was headed back, Kurenai thought that Tsunade was bringing some of the less-experienced individuals back closer to home, which made a certain amount of sense but had some drawbacks. If they drew guard duty, she could use the time to drill her students more and hone their skills further, at least. It would be a welcome opportunity.
Hayate saw them off, but his orders were to continue to command the detachment. In fact, Kurenai was the senior-most individual returning home, so she was in command of the small impromptu unit that they formed.
She found herself wishing for an uneventful trip back to the Leaf Village.
…
The further from home they got, and the closer to the Land of Rivers, the more focused Kakashi became. He, Shikaku, Chouza, Hiashi, and Asuma had each roughed out plans they would make if opposing the Leaf in a number of different scenarios and compared notes before leaving. Kakashi was confident that they had the best plan possible with the limited information available, and he trusted the others with him to do their jobs, but this operation could have a major impact on how the war went. It was the Leaf Village's first major offensive operation in a long time, and he couldn't help being a little nervous. He knew it would pass once the battle began, but for now the uncertainty kept him from relaxing. His senses were keyed up and he had to make an effort to tap into his years of experience and avoid wasting energy in anticipation.
When they were one day away from the border, Hiashi sent back a message that he was deploying scouts to make contact with the "guides" they'd been promised. Later, an update indicated they'd found the guides and were planning to move out toward the Hidden Valley Village the next morning at dawn.
There were no messages to send back. Hiashi's forward group could send clandestine messages and remain confident they would go unseen, but now that they were accompanied by Valley ninjas any replies might tip off the enemy.
Tomorrow, Hiashi would cross the border, and if Kakashi's instincts were right, battle would follow within a few days.
He gave orders to make camp and called the officers to meet with him. It was time to go over their plans and signals. One last check before things got complicated.
Then he'd have to find some way to sleep.
He glanced at Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto as he waited for the others. They were preparing to bed down for the night in a fashion indistinguishable from the more experienced ninjas around them. There were a few other young teams – Asuma's, for one – but most of his force was made up of veterans, thankfully. His team would be part of the reserve force, which Kakashi intended to command personally.
It was possible that they wouldn't see battle, but he didn't kid himself. There were too many unknowns for things to go that smoothly. No, his genin would almost certainly fight by his side in a real battle for the first time. He'd just have to make sure they came through it.
If he'd been more of a spiritual man, Kakashi would be praying for Orochimaru to be busy travelling back to his village right now, someplace far from the Land of Rivers. Since he wasn't, he just mentally thanked the Hokage for the ANBU squads sent to shadow them and intervene if the man showed up.
And then he prayed that the preparations they'd made would be enough. He wasn't very spiritual, but Kakashi mused that it never hurt to cover your bets.
…
Mitarashi Anko glanced at her team. They were sitting in the middle branches of a copse of trees, looking down at a small town beneath them and to the north.
Conventional wisdom said that scouts should avoid population centers. While civilians had little chance of spotting a trained ninja, it had happened, but the greater risk was due to the fact that ninjas generally clustered around important towns. They held people and goods that the ninjas were typically assigned to protect. At the same time, they were rarely top-priority targets, since they had little military value; destroying them wouldn't stop the enemy from continuing to fight in the short term.
Anko knew Orochimaru. She knew the man wouldn't care about protecting the civilians in the Land of Rice Fields; the Hidden Sound Village would pursue his goals and his goals alone, and expend no effort whatsoever to guard the civilians who lived in the country he'd chosen to blight with his presence. As a result, patrols in the Land of Rice Fields were clustered around the borders, and presumably around the Sound Village itself, but Anko expected that Orochimaru's people would barely care about the civilians unless they were stealing from them, extorting from them, threatening them, or killing them. He was smart enough to know that his enemies wouldn't burn the countryside and slaughter the common people just to inconvenience him. Sarutobi Hiruzen wouldn't even listen to such a suggestion, nor would most of his subordinates, and suggesting it would not be received well.
The small town they were looking at now lent strength to the explanation she'd given before leading her scout team across the border. The place was barren. The harvest had clearly been collected, but there were no people visible now. What they could see were signs that the village had been abandoned, along with some uneven destruction.
One field had a furrow in it that was too deep for any plow. There were weeds beginning to grow in what had clearly been well-tended gardens. A few buildings had been knocked over or had holes in them, and one had quite plainly caught fire.
"What do you think happened here?" Yamanaka Santa asked her.
Anko was silent for a moment, peering at the scene below. "I'd say he made them gather up their harvest, took the food and some of the people away for some reason, and then fed the rest to his pet snakes," she said evenly.
Santa was silent, his face twisting with disbelief, then disgust as he realized she was completely serious. Nearby, Masuda Isamu and Murakami Reika reacted similarly.
Anko looked at them. "He's a sick bastard, but he wouldn't go to that much effort for no reason. The snakes are powerful allies, but sometimes they demand sacrifices. As far as Orochimaru is concerned, I'd say these people are as expendable as anyone can be."
Anko let it sink in for a minute. "It's time to move on. We've learned all we're going to here." The others followed obediently.
Santa was young but experienced enough that Anko felt comfortable relying on his chakra sensing abilities to help her pick the right course. She'd been able to skirt the edges of some patrols and weave through the others, so far. Her knowledge of Orochimaru's habits and methods helped her steer them around obstacles, but she couldn't read the bastard's mind, and Santa was responsible for helping them dodge at least a couple encounters with the enemy. His auburn hair was long enough that anyone but a Yamanaka or Hyuuga might have thought it was like a girl's, but his angular face was manly enough.
Masuda Isamu was experienced enough, and very near to her own age, but the guy was serious all the time. Anko had found that a bit of humor now and then was necessary to stay sane in a ninja's life, but Masuda was one of those people who were like machines most of the time. She knew he had a family, and apparently they managed well enough, so maybe he just saved all of his emotion for them. It rubbed her the wrong way, though. She suspected he'd latched on to the Aburame as an example of what good ninjas were like and tried to emulate them, down to the concealing coat he wore. At least he didn't wear dark glasses all the time.
Reika was talented, but relatively new. She'd made chuunin after the last exam, one of the bright youngsters of her time. Still, while Anko wasn't happy to be babysitting, at least Reika's personality fit with hers better. The younger woman had a taste for victory and killing the enemy. It wasn't encouraged in the Leaf Village like it was in some places, but Reika was talented enough that no one would complain unless she started going overboard. She hadn't yet. Her file indicated she was psychologically stable and loyal to her home, but just happened to take to fighting very naturally. She wasn't sadistic or cruel, just…very eager.
Anko could relate. Even better, Reika's lively face and manner meshed well with Anko's own attitude toward life. They were both professional when on a mission, but also recognized that people who didn't live while they had the chance might well die without ever doing anything interesting.
Of course, Reika didn't have the shadows and history that Anko did, so she was even less weighed down. The only danger was that she might rush forward a little too recklessly, given a chance. Anko knew she would have to watch for that.
For now, at least, things seemed to be going well. Anko led her team deeper into the Land of Rice Fields, staying close to the roads and towns and examining them whenever possible. They found one other that looked like the first, while the rest appeared to be filled with people going about their business as usual…except for the fact that everyone had a fearful air about them.
It was likely that they'd been warned what had happened to others, or possibly even seen some of it for themselves. Orochimaru might have let a few survivors escape to spread the tale. He might have chosen the two destroyed villages at random, or selected them because they refused to obey him in some fashion, to make an example. Anko couldn't be sure, but she was confident that the people here were cowed and broken.
She suspected that they'd find similar results throughout the country by now. Orochimaru wasn't one for half measures. He'd use the peasants to feed his army, recruit those he found useful from the population, and let the rest wither and die if they couldn't serve his purposes in some way.
It was a risk, but Anko took them toward the capital of the Land of Rice Fields. It wasn't the largest city around, by any means, but it was sizable. Much of the country's rice had been a valuable export for years, and its history of neutrality had made it something of a trading center. When the Leaf and Stone Villages fought each other, merchants from their two lands could still buy each other's wares in the small country without fearing for their lives. Unlike the Land of Iron, unfortunately, the nation's neutrality had been preserved for so long due to a combination of economic influence and the fact that all of the other nations had been unwilling to see their competitors conquer it.
Orochimaru had avoided the problem neatly by starting up his new village within the borders, ostensibly to defend the small nation. It wasn't entirely clear whether he'd coerced the country's ruler into allowing him to do so from the start, or convinced the man to allow it openly and deceived him until now, and Anko suspected they would never know the whole truth. With Orochimaru in the open and the Sound Village at war against the Leaf, she couldn't think of any use he might have for the former lord of the Land of Rice Fields.
It took them three more days to get near the capital undetected. The small city straddled both sides of a river, and had begun as little more than a trading town where farmers could bring their crops and meet buyers, or buy new tools. Over the years it had grown into something more, with streets that bustled year-round and others that were usually quiet, until the time came for the harvest. The "lords" of the Land of Rice Fields had started out as little more than particularly wealthy men, but in time they'd managed to gain loyalty and earn the right to speak for their country, eventually gaining recognition from others.
While wealthy and ambitious, most of them had been wise, as well. The result was that the capital was small but always busy, and the lord's home was the most visible landmark there, situated atop a hill, but it wasn't impractically huge and expensive.
When the city came into view, Anko's teammates gasped in shock, but she wasn't surprised.
It was a ruin.
Wrecked buildings covered parts of the streets, the lord's proud house was reduced to rubble scattered across the landscape around its foundation, and there were bodies visible in places, including a few floating in the river. The only signs of movement were a few Sound ninjas supervising some battered and terrified peasants as they dragged the remaining corpses to massive pyres. Some were obviously weeping in grief and terror as they worked, while others had horribly emotionless eyes. Anko could recognize the signs; these were people who'd seen horrors beyond their imagining.
Santa's face was ashen. Isamu, stoic as always, was betrayed by tightness in his face. Bloodthirsty Reika looked like she might be sick.
Kids, Anko thought to herself. Age had nothing to do with it.
Anko did a rough count in her head, but concluded that there were too few bodies. The living and dead together weren't nearly enough to account for all of the city's inhabitants. The missing ones were likely more tribute for the snakes, or experimental subjects in Orochimaru's laboratories. Or perhaps he was forcing some of them to work directly for him in some capacity; making weapons, farming, or performing other work. There was always a use for untrained labor. He might even have sold some of them to unsavory contacts.
She gave a silent prayer that they would experience quick deaths and be guided to a kind afterlife. She cursed Orochimaru, wishing she could peel his snakeskin right off and then roast his unprotected innards.
One day, perhaps.
They surveyed the scene thoroughly before moving on. Anko led them in a short sweep of the nearby territory before turning for home, but they found only one small Sound encampment and no signs of anything larger. There were some traces of a large force – likely the one that had attacked the city – but they were old and fading. Anko estimated that even an Inuzuka dog might not be able to follow the residual scent.
Still, they looked closely to try to estimate how many Sound ninjas had been there, and how long it had been since they passed. Anko estimated perhaps one hundred enemies, most of a week prior. It was hard to be more precise. Her teammates came up with similar assessments.
They didn't linger any longer than necessary. Anko decided it was time to head home, before they found trouble or trouble found them. She'd have preferred to find the Sound Village itself, of course, but that would have been a difficult task, and at least her information would inform future expeditions. No, for now it was time to get back and report in. They'd already been gone almost as long as the mission plan allowed for. Getting back late wouldn't be the end of the world, but it wasn't ideal, either.
…
Hyuuga Hiashi stayed calm, betraying nothing as his forces entered the Land of Rivers, trusting his bloodline's eyes to let him watch Ichikawa. The Hidden Valley ninja had provided only his family name, and his three comrades had followed suit.
Hiashi had already designated others to watch the guides, as well as some to keep an eye out for an ambush. With a number of Hyuuga clan members present, including Hiashi himself, the most likely scenario seemed to be that they would be shown to the Hidden Valley and attacked there, probably the first night when most of the Leaf ninjas would be sleeping in barracks. That would render them vulnerable and lull them into lowering their guard, if they weren't already suspicious for coming treachery, and any commander would want his men to rest before they were deployed if possible.
Still, the Hidden Valley's leader might opt for a more direct ambush, especially if he somehow detected Kakashi's second force shadowing Hiashi's across the Leaf-Valley border.
They went south toward the coastal part of the country, which was more heavily populated and wealthier. After two days of travel, crossing numerous rivers and streams, including a few that showed signs of combat, they were drawing near to their destination.
"It seems the Sand and Sound forces have pulled back for now," Ichikawa told Hiashi after a bird flew overhead, chirping in an obvious pattern. "Would you rather camp for the night and set out in the morning, or press on? We'd reach our home village before dawn, I think, if we keep moving."
Hiashi looked at the man and pursed his lips, thinking carefully.
"I don't think arriving a bit earlier would help unless your village was under attack," Hiashi said. "I'd prefer not to exhaust my people before the fighting even begins. Besides, if we press on we might get careless. This last stretch before your home is the perfect place for the Sand and Sound ninjas to set traps."
Ichikawa acquiesced without argument, but Hiashi thought the man looked a little disappointed. Perhaps he'd hoped that the Leaf ninjas could be convinced to tire themselves? If they were resting during the day, after covering extra ground, they might be slower to react.
Regardless, Hiashi felt confident he'd made the right decision. He gave the orders to make camp, allowing Asuma to take the first command watch so that he and Chouza could sleep, then went to sit down briefly. He appeared to be doing nothing except thinking, but as he sat in plain sight he hid his hands from the Hidden Valley ninjas by the simple expedient of sitting with his back to them, and his hands flashed in a number of signs which another Hyuuga dutifully observed. The man nodded to indicate he had received the message, then went to pass it on to Kakashi, completely unnoticed by their foreign guides.
Hiashi was not entirely certain that Hatake Kakashi had been the right choice for the new jounin commander, but he did agree with the man on some things. Kakashi seemed to understand that simple plans were the best, and that the best solution to any problem was a permanent solution. Hiashi didn't enjoy violence, but there was satisfaction in a mission accomplished or a threat eliminated.
He brushed the thoughts aside. Calling on a lifetime of discipline and experience, he closed his eyes and willed himself to rest.
…
Mitarashi Anko's squad was two days from friendly territory at a slow, stealthy pace when Yamanaka Santa signaled the rest of them to hide. The four concealed themselves as best they could, using subtle transformations to blend in to their surroundings while employing a minimum amount of chakra.
They stayed still for a few minutes before Santa indicated they could move again. Anko had him describe what he'd sensed: a few faint chakra signatures moving together, probably Sound ninjas using their abilities to boost their movement speed slightly. The signatures were small, so Santa knew they had been close; otherwise, he wouldn't have detected them at all.
On instinct, Anko had Santa guide them to the enemy's route; they followed it south for a time, staying parallel to the well-travelled path. To Anko's eyes, it was a classic trap. Leaf forces following the path backward would likely find themselves guided into an ambush, with Sound ninjas prepositioned to observe the route and watch for people heading deeper into Orochimaru's territory. She thought it unlikely that there would be similar watchers looking for them on the way out, but either way she had no intention of actually treading the path.
It made a certain amount of sense to have a set route. Patrols had to be organized somehow to minimize openings in their coverage, and standardization inevitably came at the price of some predictability. In this case, each patrol probably travelled in a preset path that started in approximately the same place. Even knowing that this path might lead her squad to an enemy undetected, Anko was in no position to take advantage of the fact, since her main objective was returning home. In fact, her orders were to avoid contact with the enemy entirely, if possible. Any larger group looking to do more than scout Orochimaru's territory would expose themselves by following the path.
Still, Anko made certain to have her whole team memorize the route, including the two branches they found. Patrol squads would be less vigilant on the way to their assigned areas than they were once they arrived; it was inevitable.
As they moved, it occurred to Anko that Orochimaru's whole strategy seemed to be based around the inferior numbers his side possessed. From what she could tell, and what she'd been briefed on before setting out, his forces were deployed to detect and crush scouting expeditions and evade anything larger. A few probes by larger Leaf forces had been met with Sound retreats and obvious bids to draw them deeper into enemy territory, where they could be cut off and outnumbered.
Orochimaru had turned his disadvantage – lesser numbers – into an advantage by predicting how the Leaf Village would think. There had to be some way to do the same thing to him.
Anko stayed focused on the work at hand, but she couldn't shake the thought, which persisted in the back of her mind.
She was forced to abandon the idea temporarily when she sensed something strange ahead. She couldn't put her finger on it, at first, but she soon realized that there was a trap.
She should have thought of it sooner. Seeding traps parallel to the obvious path was classic tactics, meant to counter anyone doing exactly what she was doing. The trap itself was a bit unimaginative for Orochimaru, but she guessed that it had been designed and built by someone following his teachings, whether directly or indirectly. There were explosives, shuriken, and a subtle genjutsu seal that she barely spotted. It was so handily concealed that she nearly set it off in the process of finding the thing.
Almost didn't count for much in war. They marked the position of the trap, memorized the elements, and detoured into the less tamed forest which extended south into the Fire Country's massive trees and west into the Land of Woods, continuing their push for home.
Leaving the path, they nearly set off two more traps meant to detect enemies, rather than hurt them. When Anko began to detour eastward, Santa warned her that he could sense unmoving chakra signatures nearby. Anko and her squad hid while she thought; the unmoving signatures were probably here to watch over all the traps and respond if they were triggered.
As they skulked through the woods slowly, trying to spot anymore traps and get a sense for the terrain, Santa soon reported another patrol coming south along the path they'd recently moved away from. That group reached the end of the trail and approached Anko's squad, passing close by on their way to their scheduled patrol. To evade them, Santa guided the group further north and a bit west. For a few tense minutes they waited, until he gave the all-clear signal.
Anko signaled the others to regroup with her.
"They've stepped up patrols and there seem to be more traps than there were on the way in," she said. "Either something important is happening that warrants higher security, a superior came by and said they were slacking, or they've detected a security breach of some kind. I'm guessing some of our comrades were found."
She glanced at Santa. "Between the two of us, we've managed to stay unnoticed so far, but we're back in the most densely-patrolled zone, and I don't think it's going to work if they've stepped up security. We can't just head back blind. We need an edge."
"The observation squad," Reika said immediately. "Guard duty makes everyone lazy and sloppy. They'll be tired of standing around, and sleeping in shifts. If we're right, most of the traps in this area report to them; kill them and no one will know even if we do trip one. Then we only have to get past the active patrols and avoid any lethal or disabling traps."
Anko nodded slowly. "That might work. The detection traps are harder to find, but if no one realizes they're going off they won't matter. Any other ideas?"
Santa said nothing. Isamu grumbled unhappily, but shook his head.
"Then let's get it done," Anko said. "I want to get out of this stinking country and head home as soon as physically possible."
It took them about an hour to work their way through the woods without making noise, but eventually they managed it and found themselves looking at a squad of four Sound ninjas. Two were barely more than boys, one was an even younger-looking girl, and the last was a man in his prime with two scars on his left hand. One of the boys was moving around the perimeter of the camp, ostensibly making sure no one snuck up on them, but his efforts were halfhearted at best and downright lazy at worst. The girl was sitting and watching a sheet of paper spread in front of her on a tree stump, with different markings on it. After looking closely for several seconds, Anko realized that the positions of some of the markings on the paper corresponded to the positions of the detection traps they'd found; it was some sort of tool crafted to let one person easily and conveniently check on all of the traps at once without any obvious auditory signal or anything like that.
She'd never heard of such a thing, but Orochimaru had spent years inventing and learning techniques; he could have come up with the idea or taken it from anywhere. A destroyed clan or a rogue ninja might have come up with the idea. Most detection traps gave off a sound, light, or other obvious sign when they were triggered. The downside of them was that intruders always knew the enemy had discovered them, and knew exactly what position the guards would be drawn to. With something like this, the guards could learn of the enemy's presence without warning them they'd been discovered, pick up their trail, and then follow them until a good ambush opportunity presented itself.
Paranoid, Anko took a quick look around, but there were no signs they'd been followed. Entrusting an advantage like this to inexperienced guards seemed like an uncharacteristic mistake for Orochimaru, and Anko couldn't shake the feeling that some other enemy squad might emerge at any second to surprise her from behind, but nothing happened.
After a minute, she was able to calm down, reminding herself that Orochimaru couldn't oversee the deployment of every last squad under his command; there wasn't enough time in the day, now that he had a whole Hidden Village serving him. So, perhaps one of his subordinates made this mistake? That might also explain why they'd found the traps as easily as they had; Orochimaru himself would have been more subtle, surely.
She gathered her wits, the brief fear receding, and confirmed that her people were ready, then assigned targets to each of them before ordering the attack.
Santa struck first. With the Sound girl unmoving, she was easy prey for the Yamanaka's mind techniques, and she could do little more than watch in horror, trapped but dormant within her own body as she stood, approached the boy on patrol, and slit his throat. Her other hand covered his mouth, and he instinctively bit down on it for a half-second as she struck. After that, he was busy trying to hold his throat together with his bare hands, but the effort was useless as the light quickly faded from his eyes.
As Santa took control of the girl and killed the watcher, Anko and Reika struck at the two who were sleeping. Reika plunged a knife into the other boy's eye, while Anko did the same to the older man. Neither had time to awaken, let alone react usefully. Isamu watched all of their backs throughout this, but things went smoothly enough that he didn't need to interfere. Santa left the girl's body just before Anko knocked her unconscious, while Reika restrained her.
Anko lowered the last surviving enemy to the ground, where she and Reika quickly stripped the girl to her underclothes and searched her for any concealed weapons, seals, or other potential problems, then tied her up. Reika kept watch on their new prisoner, Anko looked through the equipment of the four enemies, and Isamu continued to watch the perimeter – doing it far more attentively than the careless boy they'd killed moments ago, who was now responsible for the loss of his entire squad.
Santa was gathering his chakra and preparing for a far more complex technique, not usually performed in the field.
He opened his eyes when he was ready, walked over, and began to delve into the girl's mind.
When a Yamanaka tries to explore the memories of another person, whether willing or unwilling, it can be very dangerous. They have training in the procedure, but doing it to an enemy ninja remains a major risk; there's no way to know in advance what kind of mental defenses might be present, especially when dealing with enemies that are more concerned with information security than the well-being of their subordinates. Past experience indicated that Orochimaru was quite ruthless when it came to protecting information at the cost of his servants' lives.
Still, this girl was lowly and not in a particularly sensitive or high-risk position. Compromising the patrols or defenses of the border was hardly an unexpected issue, and Orochimaru would have alternate defensive plans that he could transition to quickly. Santa was unsurprised to find that her mind was very nearly an open book. Unfortunately, he wasn't the most skilled at this sort of work; he was a better chakra sensor than interrogator. It was difficult for him to navigate to memories of his own choosing. The fact that the girl was unconscious didn't necessarily help, since dreams could link to random memories, while waking thoughts would probably have been focused on recent events, unless she was well-trained to resist mental probes.
…
Emi hadn't yet reached her tenth birthday when her village was visited by a trio of missing-nin. To her they were just tall, frightening strangers. They arrived and argued loudly with a few of the villagers in her hometown, a place so insignificant it had never even been named. The three men looked like deserters to Santa, from a minor clan he could barely remember that had been wiped out. Leaf Intelligence had never figured out who did it.
Whatever had happened, the three men were broken. They ordered the villagers to give them something – provisions, probably. Then they demanded. Then they threatened.
One of the villagers began to acquiesce, while another argued. Two more came over, urging the loud one to be silent.
One of the missing-nin got tired of waiting. He killed the argumentative man, then told the peasants precisely what he expected from them. The other two didn't look happy, but they said nothing.
The villagers brought food and clothes. The ninjas took all three, the violent one issuing one last threat before departing.
Emi had seen the man die. He'd been disliked, often arguing with others or yelling at children who got in his way when playing. She'd always thought it was funny, the way he complained.
Watching him bleed onto the dirt road, she couldn't remember why it had been funny.
The image stayed with her. It wasn't just the sight of the man she'd known bleeding, but the sight of everyone else standing by, too afraid to help him, that she could never quite banish.
Two days later, other angry men came. They were looking for the three. The adults told them what had happened, and they eventually accepted it and left.
Then, more days later – perhaps a week, but it was unclear – one of the first three men came back. It was the violent one, and he was angrier than before. He cursed the peasants for telling others what had happened, and breathed fire on their homes, slaughtering the men and women who fled or tried to fight him. He ignored the children, until one came running out of his home on fire – a boy that Emi remembered calling names until he'd cried.
When the angry man saw the boy, on fire and screaming, he'd stopped. He lunged and grabbed the terrified boy, then forcefully took him to the well, where he poured water over him and extinguished the flames before leaving.
Emi wandered for a while, until she stumbled over an adult who wasn't moving. The man was blackened and smelled almost like the kitchen before dinner, but it didn't make her hungry. She ran away from the man and hid behind the bushes near the edge of the village.
She didn't know how much time passed, but eventually one of the adults found her – the mother of Keiko, one of her friends. The woman picked her up and held her, and then they looked for more people.
Eventually the survivors all gathered, and they rebuilt. The orphaned children found homes with relatives or close friends. Emi liked living with Keiko, even if she missed her parents, but she never found them and Keiko's mom said they were gone.
Emi was sad about that, but Keiko's parents were nice to her, and things started to get better. She had more chores to do, but everyone did. She had two birthdays with Keiko's family, and they were kind. It started to feel like home, even if she missed her parents.
There was a bad year. Everyone had worked hard, but there were too few people in the village to take care of all the land, and then it rained too hard and washed out the soil. Keiko's mom told them it would be okay, but Emi heard her tell Keiko's dad that she was afraid.
When the pale man came, the adults seemed afraid of him at first, but he didn't get angry or demand anything. He was quiet and calm, and he told them they didn't have to give him anything or do anything for him. He said that he wanted to make them safe, and he was looking for people to help. He had some papers with a seal; Emi didn't recognize it, but one of the old men did. It sounded important. Emi didn't understand everything, but eventually he said that Emi might be able to help him.
She was nervous when he asked to talk to her. He asked her if she'd like to learn to be strong and keep her home safe, and Emi said yes. Keiko's family had done a lot for her, and she didn't want them to end up gone like her parents, but she knew that it could happen even if they never did anything bad. She didn't want to get hurt either, like the burned boy had. He never got better.
The pale man offered to teach her how to be strong, and he told her that she could use chakra. He said it could make her strong, and he showed her, running across the water and breaking a big rock with a single blow. The rock had been in the way when they tried to plow the field; he broke it into chunks they could move.
Emi was impressed, but Keiko's parents looked worried. Emi wanted to be strong like him, and so did some of the other kids. Keiko said she wanted to go learn with Emi, but her parents looked unhappy, and then the pale man said that Keiko couldn't learn what Emi could.
The pale man promised that he would look after those who went with him. There was more talking, but in the end Emi left, even though she didn't understand everything.
…
Yamanaka Santa wrenched himself out of the torrent of memory before it could carry him further along. He felt sick. The greatest danger this particular technique posed to the user was that he could see things that made duty harder, and it was carefully drilled into every student that they should avoid looking at unnecessary memories, especially older ones.
It wasn't more difficult or dangerous, from a technical perspective. But it is much harder to kill someone if you see the world through their eyes as a child. When it came to memory, too much could do more damage to the Yamanaka than too little. Santa returned to the girl's memories, trying to forget what he'd seen, this time managing to steer them toward something more recent. It figured prominently in her thoughts, so she thought it was important, at least.
…
Emi ducked and bobbed to her left, beneath a kick, then tapped her opponent's torso with her blunted practice blade, touching his ribcage. He sighed in disappointment.
Their instructor, a grizzled, white-haired woman, complimented her for learning quickly. Close combat wasn't Emi's greatest strength, but she'd come a long way since Lord Orochimaru personally selected her to join her homeland's defenders.
They reset and started again. Again, Emi won, this time fooling him with a clone and a replacement technique and "stabbing" him in the back.
Her pleasure was disrupted when Kimmimaro entered the training area. He looked serious as always. All activity quickly stopped, and everyone gave him their attention.
Kimmimaro looked at them. "I'm afraid I've received bad news," he told them. His voice didn't seem loud, but it carried through the underground chamber. Emi held her breath.
"Lord Orochimaru tried to negotiate with the Leaf Village, but they have shown their true colors and attacked after agreeing to safe-conduct," he told them grimly. "Our lord escaped," he paused as everyone breathed a great sigh of relief, "but we can be sure the enemy will come for us soon." His eyes scanned the room, his face graver than usual. "We must prepare for war. Lord Orochimaru has asked me to tell you all that he apologizes for his failure to avert this, but he knows that he can trust you to defend this land together with him. Do not be afraid; we have justice on our side, and we will prevail, no matter what treachery the Leaf Village might employ."
Emi's heart thudded in her chest with fear as Kimmimaro finished speaking, but also with pride. She was one of the defenders of her country. When she'd left home to join Orochimaru, she hadn't even known her country's name. Now, she knew so much more. She was so much more, because of him.
Part of her feared that she wasn't ready, but Orochimaru's words, conveyed by his strong right hand, silenced her fears. Orochimaru had warned them that trouble was coming, that the Leaf would never live up to their promises of peace. He'd accelerated their training and personally bestowed weapons and enhancements on those he deemed worthy and prepared.
Emi hadn't been one such, but when their lord stopped at her training center he had greeted her by name, along with her squadmates. When Emi's teachers told Orochimaru that she was surpassing their expectations, he'd smiled at her with pride and looked her in the eye.
"You set your expectations too low," he'd told them, his smile at Emi making it a joke and a compliment, and she'd nearly burst into tears and laughter with pride and nervousness.
He'd asked her squad to demonstrate what they'd learned, and even taken time to correct one of Emi's basic blocks. When he showed her how to do it better, she could feel the difference right away. He'd been glad that she learned so quickly, said that she was impressive.
She demonstrated her swordsmanship, besting each member of her training squad in turn and holding off one of her instructors for two minutes with nothing but her blade, and then he chose her to receive a gift.
It was a beautiful weapon, short enough to be easily carried and concealed in the right circumstances, but still more of a sword than a knife. There was a serpent engraved on one side of the blade, just above the hilt. On the other, there was a musical note symbol for the Sound Village.
"You've learned a great deal in a short time, Emi," Lord Orochimaru had said. "Carry this, and remember that I believe you will go far. You may be a master of the sword, in time, if you continue to work hard. Only a few others have similar blades, signifying that they have skills like yours. Wield it with pride."
"I will, Orochimaru-sama," she said, and this time there were a few faint tears in her eyes. "Thank you."
…
Santa swallowed in disgust as he pulled himself free of the disturbing memory, and stared at the girl – Emi – for a long moment before he looked at his squad leader.
"We need to take her with us," he told Anko urgently. "We don't know what we're fighting. They need to see what I just saw back home."
…
END CHAPTER
Author's Note:
Someone asked why Naruto, Sasuke (and perhaps by inference, others) weren't promoted in the aftermath of the chuunin exams and the invasion. This is a perfectly reasonable question in context, but the answer isn't going to come up in story, so I'm answering it here for the curious: Naruto, Sasuke, and to a lesser extent Sakura and Rock Lee all performed well – as fighters. In the exam as a whole and the invasion, however, their performance was judged to indicate that they weren't quite ready for the chuunin rank – which denotes that someone is prepared to lead a squad.
There are a bunch of specific factors at play. Sakura is still coming to grips with her cursed seal, and that makes people a bit nervous, plus she's just not a good enough combatant yet (in terms of demonstrated ability, not potential). Sasuke hasn't qualified mainly for psychological reasons; he's driven and intelligent, but his focus has largely been narrow in the past, and that doesn't scream "ready for more responsibility." As for Naruto, he's doing good work, but the people at the top don't want to push him too quickly for a lot of reasons. The nine-tails is a concern, as is the fact that his promotion would be a matter of record – and that could draw attention from the spies of other hidden villages who weren't in a position to see the battle, but will be struggling to learn everything they can about it. Naruto's status as the nine-tails' host is an open secret in Konoha, but that's not true everywhere. Plus, there's a desire to keep him with his teammates for now, again largely for psychological reasons, and that means he doesn't need the rank.
There's also the fact that Naruto and Sakura still haven't killed anyone. That might not have been such a problem a month ago, but in wartime they don't want unblooded unit commanders.
Kabuto was promoted because of his actions in the battle and his performance in the early exams more than anything, including the written assessment that took place after the first exam. The same is true of Shikamaru. Keep in mind that while I showed some of what they did during the battle, I didn't show everything. It would have eaten up like…five chapters if I did that with all of the characters I wanted to show at the time, so I chose to give a few slices from different perspectives and then move on.
Anyway, decent question. Hope I answered it well. I'm not planning to make a habit of this (mostly because I try not to leave loose ends unless I'm coming back to them later in the story), but I do read reviews, so answering more questions isn't out of the question.
Sorry about that.