Anko and the ANBU squadron that had been sent to verify the disturbance on the forest looked upon the scene without even trying to hide their astonishment.
The clearing around them - and a whole mile's worth of land around it as well - had been leveled. Trees were crushed, burned, cut, and drenched with water, nicely complimenting the craters spread across the area. It reminded her of the battlefields she had seen in the last war, only there were no corpses now.
The three genin from Team 7 were peacefully sleeping with their backs supported by one of the trees. They were battered but didn't display any wounds that could have been caused by whatever destroyed the scenery around them. Anko noted a red bruise around the last Uchiha's chin but didn't comment on it.
"Anko-senpai..." One of the men said, voice trembling. "What... what happened here?"
She didn't respond. Something among the ruins had caught her attention, and she warily moved toward it.
It was the desecrated remains of a snake, twice as thick as her arms and, if the section she was looking at was of any indication, big enough to wrap itself around an adult twice-over. While the forest was home to plenty of unusual animals, the highly defined pattern of diamond-like scales around the creature's body was a clear indicator of its master's identity. She let go of it with a scowl of disgust.
"I need to make a report to the Hokage," She said, standing as the carcass hit the floor. "Medics, how are the kids doing? Good enough to continue with the exams?"
"Nothing life-threatening." One of the doctors said while looking over the Kunoichi's body. Her name was Sakura Haruno if Anko wasn't mistaken. "Some minor fractures, mild bleeding, and a possible concussion on the Uchiha kid, but nothing a good healing session won't fix."
"Leave them as they are." She commanded. "The second stage isn't over yet, and as long as their lives aren't in danger, there's no reason to pull them out. Erase any signs of our presence and come with me."
She could tell most of them were hesitant to leave, and she couldn't blame them. Seeing such a scene in what was supposed to be a test made up of children wasn't easy to stomach, which was precisely why she didn't tell them about her discovery.
Orochimaru of the Sannin was in Konoha.
And worse, he had fought against someone who forced him to use a significant extent of his powers.
She brought a hand up to the cursed seal on her shoulder. It had been years since the man marked her, and she hadn't felt a thing from it ever since Jiraya sealed its powers away.
But it had begun to pulsate, promising and tempting her with strength and power, and it had started at the same time as a massive cloud of smoke enveloped the sky and surrounding area just a few minutes before their arrival.
'I don't know who you are,' She looked back at the destroyed forest. 'And I'm not sure if I want to, but don't you dare kill him before me.'
Kankuro turned to stare back at the treeline they had just emerged from. This time he definitely hadn't imagined the sounds that came from it, or the birds that flew over the horizon in desperation, or even the small traces of smoke that still lingered in the air.
"Geez, Temari, what do you think is happening over there?" He asked, trying to get a better look at the action. "No genin's supposed to be able to pull that off of their ass, that's for sure."
"You think it's someone from Konoha?" His sister asked, slinging her fan over her shoulder. She hadn't unveiled its proper form yet, just as he hadn't revealed Karasu, his puppet, from the cocoon of bandages on his back. Both of them knew that there would be no use for it, not while the three of them were fighting as a team.
He shrugged. "Maybe? It's hard to tell with so many ninja around here and everything," A touch of hesitation. "You don't think that was-"
"Hey, aren't you two listening to me!" The man from Kumo shouted from across the clearing. He and his comrades - around fourteen of them, if he wasn't mistaken - had decided to surround Kankuro and his team in an attempt to extort their scrolls.
All of them were well-armed, and from what Kankuro could tell, decently skilled as well. Some of them grinned in an attempt to unnerve them. In contrast, others stared at the scene placidly while preparing for their attacks, showing a professional level of caution, even if they were just dealing with a trio of significantly outnumbered 'children.'
None of it would be enough. It never was.
Gaara closed his eyes and clutched his head, right where the 'Love' tattoo was placed. "Yes, mother. I understand, mother." He whispered as the words sent shivers down Kankuro and Temari's spines. When he opened his cerulean eyes again, he immediately turned to the same direction Kankuro had been looking at.
"Mother says there's something strong over there." He said. "Mother said to avoid it if we can, and to run if we can't."
The puppeteer shared a startled look with his sister. Gaara, who was always anxious to fight someone, who always took the opportunity to exercise his bloodlust, said that they should stay away from a fight? That Gaara? He would have been worried that their body had been replaced with someone if he didn't know just how ridiculous of a notion that was.
"Playing tough, eh?" The Kumo man scoffed. Kankuro had almost forgotten about him and his band. "Very well. If you don't want to give us your scroll, we'll just have to take it off of your hands when you're dead!"
Kankuro winced when the man threw a kunai at Gaara with an explosive tag tied to its handle. Once the weapon was less than ten feet away from the boy, a copious amount of sand escaped from the gourd tied to his back, enveloping the knife and muffling the explosion that followed it.
'Classic mistake, buddy.'
"You're... just like him..." Gaara said, clutching his head with both hands. Kankuro stepped back from him, as did Temari. "I'll use you... to PROVE MY EXISTENCE!"
The two of them spent the next couple of minutes talking to each other, trying to pretend as if dozens of people weren't dying slow, painful deaths around them. Kankuro found that even while practicing the often-times revolting art of puppetry and having taken multiple lives by his own right, seeing Gaara work never got any easier.
Shikamaru and his teammates held their breaths while crouching down underneath an incredibly thick log to avoid attracting any attention to themselves. He would have forced all of them to undergo the transformation jutsu for some extra security if he wasn't afraid even that might have given away their presence.
The dark-haired boy saw that Ino was mere seconds away from throwing up that morning's lunch, and Choji wasn't any better. He held onto their shoulders with an iron grip, partly to assure them that everything would be fine, and partly because he needed to remind himself that they were still there.
"NO, PLEASE I'LL GIVE YOU MY SCROLL, N-!" One of the men shouted before his words were interrupted as sand poured into his mouth. Shikamaru morbidly wondered why his body hadn't been encased in the sand like all of the others when the red-haired boy suddenly opened his fist, forcing the material to rapidly expand from his insides.
Thankfully, their screams helped shield the sounds of Ino's retching.
'The exams? Don't worry about it, as long as you all act like you do in training, everything will be fine.' Asuma had told them.
Shikamaru, who had never shied away from learning something new, who was always secretly fascinated by Iruka's lectures about the nature of war, forced himself to look away as Gaara slowly and deliberately crushed a man, limb by limb.
He only wished he could have shut off his screams as well.
'Why won't he just stop screaming,' He thought. 'We should have gone on missions before this. We should have known we could come across something like this. Naruto was right, why didn't Asuma-sensei tell us?'
He already knew the answer to that. There was no doubt in his mind that his father, as well as Ino's and Choji's, had seen similar things, if not more horrible, during their time at war, and they were all well aware that their children would be exposed to the same experiences in their careers.
The heads of such major clans undeniably had a lot of pull and power within the ninja system, enough at least to say, force a teacher to shelter his students from the horrors of their world. And now their short-sighted attempt at parenting had condemned them to an unimaginable hell.
He patted Choji on the back after seeing tears form in the Akimichi's eyes. Shikamaru wished he could cry too, but a leader had to present an image, even in times like that. Especially in times like that.
'We're not going to die.' He promised himself as Gaara finally seemed to grow bored with his game, ending the lives of his opponents in the blink of an eye. Shikamaru only wished he was brave enough to utter those words to his friends as well.
"Should-" The blonde among them swallowed before continuing. Shikamaru wondered why she and the man with purple markings were put together with that monster if they seemed to be just as disgusted as he was. "Should we get their scrolls, Gaara?"
"Do as you will." He said with an immaculately detached tone of voice before turning to stare right at where Shikamaru and his friends were hiding. Ino stifled a gasp, and Choji's eyes widened, but the Nara's hands kept them still, even as sweat dripped from his body and hit the ground underneath them.
'Forgive me.' He thought, meaning to direct those words to his teammates. 'Forgive me, Ino, Choji, but if he tries to do that to us... I won't let him.' His eyes steeled with resolve. 'I'll never forgive myself, but I won't let him do that to you.'
But Gaara didn't attack. Instead, he simply turned and started to walk away while Temari, as the boy with make-up had called her, grabbed a scroll off of their bodies.
Shikamaru dropped to his knees once the trio was finally gone from their sight. Ino yelled out her anguish, and Choji finally stopped resisting and barfed all over their cover. He didn't realize up to that point that tears were running down his face, born out of the sheer terror they had just experienced.
'I was really - I had thought of-' He looked at his teammates, and an overbearing, devastating sense of shame filled him. Shikamaru quickly looked away, digging into the earth with his fingernails. "We're going to live." He said, watching as the liquid dropped to the ground. "We're going to live." He repeated, wishing he could believe in his own words.
Tenten sighed as the man slipped off of her blade. The trio from Takegakure, the village hidden in the waterfall, was the second one so far to try and steal their scroll, and the result had been the same both times.
Neji tried to warn them that they had the same scroll; they ignored his words and attempted to launch a surprise attack, were succinctly separated by their techniques, and dealt with accordingly.
Unfortunately, Tenten wasn't skilled enough to deal with threats to her and her friends' lives without using lethal force, and as such, the girl was forced to stand over the body of yet another victim. She hesitantly pried her eyes away from the boy to look over her teammates.
Lee had an outstretched hand pointed at a massive man who had ripped off a tree from the ground to use as a weapon. He now had fist-shaped holes adorning his upper-body and drool mixed with foam dripping down from his still-open mouth.
Neji was looking over their scroll, ignoring the still-twitching body of a girl who had finger-shaped marks running across her exposed flesh. Tenten had seen that particular sequence before, and she knew it was only a matter of time before her heart finally gave out.
"You guys okay?" She asked while sheathing her weapon, just to be sure. Lee nodded in an unusually subdued manner - Even after a year of ninja work, taking a life had never become any easier for him - and Neji simply glanced at her before going back to his inspection.
"It's getting late soon." She said, looking up at the sky. "We should probably find a place to sleep for the night and look for someone with the right scrolls tomorrow."
"Alright!" Lee yelled, seeming to have already recovered from his previous mood. Tenten knew better but appreciated his act all the same. "I'll find a good place before you, Neji! And if I can't, I'll run ten laps around the entire forest! And if I can't do that..."
His voice began to fade away as the two of them walked away from Tenten, and the battlefield left in their wake. She spared a glance at the three Takegakure bodies again, letting out a small prayer while clasping her hands together before running to catch up.
Getting annoyed at Lee's loudness and Neji's cold dismissiveness always helped her forget the things they had done, and for that, she would forever be thankful to them.
Naruto grunted as he pushed a large pant off of his face. The sun had already set a long time ago, and the moonlight was obstructed by dense clouds, barely providing enough illumination to traverse the forest.
He was tired. The gas's effects were still haunting his body, and as a result, the boy was forced to use almost fifty percent of his chakra just to keep himself awake while carrying his teammates.
Kiba had clutched onto his consciousness for long enough to explain what had happened before passing out, and Hinata still hadn't woken since the tunnels, which was worrying, to say the least.
Akamaru had been the first among them to recover, and now warily walked in front of him, occasionally looking around the trail and trying to sniff out any potential threats.
After deciding that he was simply too tired to continue, Naruto stopped by the shores of a deep stream, carefully setting both of them down from his shoulders.
He had ripped off a piece of cloth from one of the dead Iwa boys, carefully wetting it on the stream and wiping Kiba and Hinata's foreheads with it, just like he remembered seeing the adults from the orphanage do to children who were ailed with fevers.
Naruto realized, thinking back on that memory, that he had never really been sick before what had happened at Yakegake.
Even when Konoha had been assailed by a particularly bad flu season, the boy was utterly unaffected while every other boy of his age was confined to their beds. It was something he hadn't thought of ever since leaving the foster home, right until Jiraya told him about the Kyuubi.
Naruto raised his shirt and looked at his stomach, where the man said his seal array was supposed to be. 'Just what the hell am I?'
One of the sage's theories, which Naruto had refused to even acknowledge until then, was that the creature had somehow merged with his consciousness, creating something that was neither Naruto nor Kyuubi, but a mixture of both.
He had quickly dismissed the theory, and Naruto was more than happy to ignore it ever since hearing it for the first time.
Still, he couldn't help but wonder about its validity, especially after becoming haunted by the thoughts hammering inside of his head, those who shared his voice but didn't originate from his mind.
'Jiraya doesn't know what he's talking about.' He threw the cloth aside and sat by Kiba, allowing his body to relax for the first time in almost half a day. 'I'm not a monster. I'm not.'
'Would the Hokage have attacked someone who wasn't a monster, though?' That damned voice spoke in his ear again. 'Why do you think he was so mad? Would the real Naruto really have said what you did?'
'Shut up.' Naruto took off his jacket and used it as a blanket, trying to think about fending off the cold rather than the silent conversation in his mind. 'I don't want to hear it.'
'After all, you became mad at him first, didn't you? Because he wouldn't protect you and your friends. Where are the men who attacked you by now? Planning something else? To kill their clans while they sleep? But that wouldn't trouble you, would it? In fact, you'd be happy about it. Happy, because then all three of you would be the same, isn't that right?'
"Shut up..." He growled. Akamaru twisted around to look at him.
'Nothing would make you happier to know that they were just as unloved as you, isn't that right?'
"SHUT UP!" He roared, jumping to his feet. Akamaru was startled by the sudden noise, whining and stepping back from him.
He stared at the dog for a few seconds before turning away from him. "I- I'm sorry, Akamaru. I didn't mean to scare you, I'll go hunt for some food. Kiba and Hinata will need it when they wake up. Bark if you notice anyone coming up, I'll be here as fast as I can."
He had already spat out the apology and walked away before the dog could even react, altogether forgoing the fact that he and his team had already packed enough food to last a month, let alone a week.
The puppy tried to walk toward him, but Naruto was already too far away. He gave another low whine and went to lie down by Kiba, resting his head on his paws.
Naruto sighed as he knelt in the middle of the stream, water reaching up to his stomach. After making sure that no one was around him or his team, he compelled his seals to shut off the majority of his chakra, and the voices in his head subsided as soon as he did.
He found his thoughts drifting toward the dead Iwa ninjas they had left behind by the cave's entrance. Anko said no one was allowed to leave until the exams were over, which probably meant that some wild animals would come across their bodies long before they got an appropriate funeral.
Of course, he had been far too busy with making sure that he and his friends stayed alive at the time to concern himself with something so trivial.
The boy put his hands together and closed his eyes, letting out a silent prayer based on Sarutobi's previous lectures on the topic. Naruto had never cared much for religion, but even he knew that someone's soul deserved to be ferried into the next world.
'Do they even believe in something like that in Iwa anyway?' He wondered, opening his eyes to look around the dark forest. 'What do they believe in? And do they all wear clothes like that? I wonder what they eat. Those restaurants in Yakegake were so different than back home...'
In the few months Team 8 had been together, he had come to realize that there was a lot that he didn't know about the world.
Not just when it came to Kiba and Hinata's interests, but many other things as well. Everyone in that forest came from different villages, different walks of life, experienced different hardships and conquests, and believed in different things.
They probably had loved ones waiting for them back home, or parents who would grieve for their loss, teachers who would be exalted at their growth, dreams for the future, and aspirations that pushed them forward.
And when he looked at them, back at the academy, Naruto hadn't taken any of that into consideration. Instead, he found himself wondering how strong they were - if they were a threat to him and his friends, and how he should deal with them if they were.
Now that everything was said and done, he felt sorry for their deaths, but would Naruto have even considered trying to take them to the tower if Hinata hadn't demanded them to do it?
He wondered if he'd be happier to be back home, going to a movie theater with Kiba or checking out the botanic gardens with Hinata.
Naruto imagined how his life would be like as a merchant's apprentice rather than a ninja for a brief moment. Spending each day learning the tools of his trade, getting up to some mischief with Kiba as they pranked the high-and-mighty civilians, going back home and having some stories told to him by the old man...
Or maybe he could have been a cook. Spending entire days inside of a steamy kitchen, laboriously tasting every ingredient, slaving over a stove, feeling the sweat drip down from his forehead while doing the most precise cuts in his life, all to serve a prestigious lord. Maybe he could have made a name for himself like that, traveled across the world, cooked in all sorts of different countries, going back home and making some dinner for Hinata...
Those were all different paths he could have chosen in the past. But he hadn't, because of her. For the last five years of his life, every moment, every decision, everything in his life had been dictated by Kushina Uzumaki. By what she had set off for him to do, instead of what he truly wanted.
For the longest time, Naruto thought that he would finally be loved if only he could beat her. That he would understand why she had chosen to leave him behind in a village that hated him, why she had never thought to take him with her...
But then Kiba came along. And Hinata, and Kurenai, and even Akamaru. Then he realized Hiruzen and Tokugawa had already been looking after him for years.
Every time Kiba told a joke, or Hinata asked him for help with some drill, or Kurenai congratulated him after a particularly nice day of training, he found himself thinking about her less and less.
Could Naruto have thought about himself in such a way if he hadn't ever been made into a genin? Would he be second-guessing his dreams if Naruto was still confined to fighting in the arena, getting hurt, and hurting others for his selfish desires?
He looked down at his own hands, taking in the red lines that now ran down his fingers.
Maybe... just maybe... he didn't need to beat her to be happy.
He looked down at his drenched clothing, realizing that the stream running past him was utterly unaffected by his presence.
Despite all of his training, all of his hardship, the good moments in his life, the bad, the pain, the joy, the fights, his victories, his defeats, despite all of that, he was nothing more than a pebble to that river.
Maybe it'd be best for him to let her go.
Maybe it would be best for him to let being a ninja go.
"What are you doing?" A voice sounded from behind him. Naruto would have been startled that someone managed to come that close without being heard by him, even if his chakra output had been restricted, but he was far too preoccupied thinking about who that 'someone' was.
It was a voice he had heard before, years ago, but stuck to him for the rest of his life. He turned, slowly, as if simply looking too fast would cause her to evaporate from his sight.
There she stood, the same as before.
Tall, taller than him, even, with a dark-red, sleeveless shirt that did nothing to hide her ample muscles, a neck that was as thick as a tree, calloused fingers that led to scarred knuckles, and the same cruel, indifferent green eyes that seemed to glare through Naruto's soul.
"Abandoned your teammates to take a bath?" She asked, crossing her arms. That was when he noticed something unusual for the first time - there was a surface-level cut on her right cheek, less than three inches long, with a trickle of blood coming out of it.
He stood to face her while his body involuntarily tensed. Naruto had spent years of his life thinking about what he'd do at that moment, about how he would beat her, and what he would say while doing it.
The boy had a vast list of questions to ask, and one pressing demand, but now that their eyes finally met for the second time, only one thing ran through his mind.
'Did she hurt Kiba and Hinata?'
As if she could hear his mind - or maybe he had just said those words out loud - Kushina turned to look in their direction.
"So that's the team you've been stranded with. An Inuzuka and a Hyuga. Hmph, not what I expected, but I suppose it'll do. Although it seems they have weakened you, haven't they?" The look she sent his way froze him. And then her mouth split open in a toothy, white grin. "Maybe you'll be more motivated if I kill-"
She didn't have the time to finish her sentence. The water parted with Naruto's advance, and in a second, he was already in front of her.
The stream glowed blue as he unleashed the full brunt of his power through the seals while pouring all of his resolve into one, significant strike. He only realized he had thrown the punch after having done so.
He felt the impact, knew that his knuckles had reached her skin, and saw that Kushina hadn't made a move to dodge.
What was meant to shatter her nose hadn't even made her blink. Naruto wasn't finished though, the half-spoken threat still ringing fresh in his mind. He took half a step back and began to kick her - in the temple, knees, ribs, chin, every vital spot he could think of.
Once that had proven itself to be ineffective, he moved on to elbows, and then a mixture of the two. Even the most unconventional of fighting styles he had seen in his life, even the ones he hadn't even gotten close to mastering - At that moment, Naruto used them all.
He was well aware of how strong he was. Despite having faced some significant roadblocks in his path, like Asuma or Hanayama, Naruto knew that every one of those strikes should have been hurting, especially since she made no attempt to block or avoid them at all. And yet, Kushina seemed to be more amused by his attempts than anything.
"Oho..." He continued with his assault, amping the speed and force behind every hit, but she continued to speak, unaffected. "Seems like that did the trick, huh? Still no good enough, though. Tell me, which one would you rather die first, the boy or the girl?"
Nothing went through his mind when he unsheathed the tanto, and nothing still when he swung it at her neck.
Kushina was finally forced to move, grabbing the sword with two fingers when it was less than an inch away from cutting through her skin and holding him up in the air with it.
Naruto kicked at her stomach, using the impulse to twist himself around her back and freeing the blade in the process. He kicked at her shoulder and spun in the air, descending with a cut meant to cut her in half.
The next thing he knew, Naruto's back was slammed against a large boulder by the shore. He only realized what had happened when he coughed up blood and looked down to see a hole in the front of his jacket with the red imprint of a fist on it.
"That's better," She praised while crouching and trying to grab him by the ankle. He kicked at her head with both legs, but Kushina avoided all of his attacks by simply swaying her head away. "But not good enough."
The next thing he noticed, Naruto was being lifted off the ground and held in the air like a sword. The situation was oddly familiar, although she didn't slam him in the ground.
"I'm going to teach you a lesson," He couldn't bite back the scream of agony that came when she tightened her grip until it felt as if his bones cracked. "Guard yourself well, or you may not survive."
The world shifted around him, and suddenly the stream was above him, and the sky laid underneath his feet. Another shift and he was facing the world side-ways, and then another, and things went back to normal for half a second before shifting again.
Naruto had never felt so humiliated as he did at that moment when he realized Kushina was swinging his body around the air like a human nunchuck.
Blood and bile rushed to his head. He barely had enough time to cover his face with his arms when Kushina suddenly reared him back and slammed his head against the stone. Once, then again, until his consciousness began to fade while his body chipped away at the rock, bit by bit.
By the time she finally let him go, Naruto's eyes were so swollen that they were forced shut, and blood trickled down from his face and ripped-apart arms. His body fell on the stream, water rapidly entering through his mouth and flooding his lungs.
The next thing he knew, the woman had grabbed him by the leg yet again. Naruto was about to bite his tongue off, preferring to face death rather than go through her sick technique again, but Kushina simply dragged him out of the stream and threw him on the shore.
He turned his body around, coughing out the water mixed in with quite the amount of blood and vomit. "Why..." He retched again. "Why didn't you... kill me... why did you... leave me?"
Kushina crouched down in front of him, grabbing him by the chin and forcing their eyes to meet again, just like when they met for the 'first' time.
"Do you remember what I said to you before? Do you understand it now?" He tried to nod, but her grip was too strong to allow his head to move. "No, you don't. But you will. All of these years and you're still far too weak. But you have potential. Now listen to me, and listen well..."
His eyes widened as she whispered into his ear. Before he could yell out his objections, or even try to attack her again, Kushina Uzumaki was gone, leaving him lying on a pool of his own blood.
Orochimaru took great care to break into the hotel room granted to his team from inside the building's walls, deliberately going through the watch party's blind-spots while doing so.
There was still a month left until the Kazekage was supposed to appear in the village; his 'double' should handle at least that much without arousing much suspicion. The man, having already built a secluded image for himself, helped matters as well.
Failing to mark the Uchiha was an impediment to his plans, but not a significant one. The Sharingan would be useful in his perfected form, without a doubt, but he had long since learned about the other wonders of the Shinobi world. And he was just lucky enough to have one of them in the palm of his hand.
Still, for her to be there...
He stood from his bed and walked over to the room's balcony, sitting down and pouring himself a glass of wine.
He resisted the urge to laugh at the surprise of his guards after the sudden surge of movement. It was only to be expected, he supposed, after having watched over a lifeless body all day.
There were a lot of thoughts running through his head.
Why had Kushina intervened in his attack?
'The Ogre' could have just done it to spite him. Gods knew both of the legendary ninja had more than enough distaste for each other, but that wouldn't explain why she had made sure Sasuke and his teammates came out of it unharmed.
It couldn't have been because of some distant concern for the village and its citizens. The very thought was ludicrous - Kushina Uzumaki held as much regard for human life as she did for a bug in the sidewalk. Yet, he couldn't think of any other reason for her actions.
Besides... maybe she had acted because of some sort of sentimentality regarding her son? But from what Kabuto had told him in their brief meeting, the brat and the Uchiha held nothing but contempt for each other, based on their observed meeting.
But more importantly than any of that - would the woman intervene once he finally enacted the final attack on the village?
Just how far would she go to protect her own son?
Orochimaru grinned. There was nothing the man enjoyed more in life than a complicated puzzle, especially one that directly affected his wellbeing. He would have greatly appreciated spending his days playing shogi with the woman if only things had turned out differently.
"I wonder how you'll react..." He whispered, well aware that every word of his was closely monitored. "When you find out about my little project."
Hiruzen Sarutobi loved his village.
He loved how it looked, coated in the bright sunlight from early dawn, as well as when it was obscured by night. He loved its people, from the lowest ranking ninja to his most trusted officers. He loved wandering through its streets, meeting his people, tasting from their food, asking about their days, and getting their enthusiastic responses.
Yes, if Hiruzen Sarutobi didn't love Konoha so much, he wouldn't have accepted to take over his post yet again after Minato passed away. And if it wasn't for that same love, he wouldn't be concerning himself so much about what was about to happen.
He sat above his own head, in the monument made to honor him and his predecessors, sipping from a steaming cup of tea, watching as the sun rose on the horizon. But his mind was elsewhere, in a place not too distant, where the gems of the next generation were being tested for all they were worth.
Anko had given him her report about Orochimaru's presence in the forest of death, which perfectly matched the information they had gathered earlier with their scouting party. Perhaps more concerning than that was who his former student had done battle with, someone who was at least as strong as he was. There weren't many ninja like that left in the world.
'So you're finally here to do good on your promise, aren't you, Kushina?'
Of course, merely thinking about the woman led him to wonder about the boy he had raised as his own grandson.
Their last interaction still left a sour taste in his mouth. Naruto's words, a rejection of the will of fire and everything it stood for, sounded so similar to his greatest mistake, all those years ago. For just a brief moment, he had seen the boy walking down a road so similar to his mother's, and the mere thought horrified him.
Horrified him enough to do something he regretted terribly. Horrified him enough to force the boy to run out of his office, terrified for his own life. And now he was heading into a crash-course with Kushina, and there was nothing Sarutobi could do about it.
There was a piece of paper by the old man's side, together with an already wet ink-brush and the Hokage's seal. He looked to his side, where he could see part of his successor's face engraved into the mountain.
"Ah, Minato..." He sighed, closing his eyes. "How I wish you were right now. You would know what to do, wouldn't you? I always thought you had a better grasp at these things than me, you had to, after the war..." He closed his eyes. "But there was just one thing I never understood, one question you never answered... Why her, my boy? What did you see that none of us did?"
Only silence answered him.
"Of course..." He muttered and began to write his instructions down. "I suppose I'll ask you when we meet again. For now, it's just my turn to pick up the mess again, isn't that right?" He smiled as memories of better times filled his mind, of a time when he had nothing to worry about but a peaceful death, surrounded by his loved ones.
He wrote quickly, pausing for a moment before stamping the document. A blow of air to make sure the ink had sufficiently dried was all he needed before curling the scroll and hiding it in his clothes.
"How foolish of me. A ninja should never hope for a peaceful death, isn't that right, masters?" He looked to the other side, where the first and second Hokage's faces stared back.
"The only thing I can do now is to see things through and hope for the best."
A/N: Another one!
A bit shorter than usual, but that will be balanced out soon enough. You should all know by now just how big the 'battle' chapters in this fic get, and well, we're dealing with the exam preliminaries here...
Fun!
Thank you all for the reviews, follows, and favorites once again. It seems as if the story 'blew up' a little bit after the 100K mark, and I'm glad for everyone who was involved in that.
As mentioned before, since my school is now in recess, I should be able to pour even more of my time in this, so expect frequent updates in the following month.
I'll see you all next time!