Wolves Of The North

by Sol Winterfang71

He was Ulfhednar. He was a hunter and warrior of unparalleled strength and unrivaled ferocity. Once entranced by a blood frenzy, his feral savagery was incomprehensible and his inhuman fury unfathomable. None will be left standing in his wake and all others still in his path were living on borrowed time. They better pray that the Gods show them mercy...because he won't... Rated M

1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Forewarning and Clarification: This is the rewrite of Beasts of War, completely redone and retitled (Take Two!).

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Wolves Of The North

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Chapter One

There were reasons why his nearly-extinct clan was feared and revered, why their fuuinjutsu was said to be the most powerful in the land, why they lived such long lives. The Uzumaki were not...native. Before the 'birth' of Chakra, his people had lived far to the north on the other side of what later became known as Yuki no Kuni, the Land of Snow. Back in those days long-since lost, they'd been little more than...raiders. Not bandits or thieves or senseless murderers...but they were not innocent in those regards at the same time. No, they were raiders because they had no other choice. In a land where they could not grow crops easily or raise livestock and the like, they had to find other ways of supporting themselves...and fishing only got them so far during the 'off' seasons, when the ocean currents didn't carry as many fish to the arctic seas.

They were a...unique group of people, their beliefs and culture far different from the rest of the world. They were...an oddity, an enigma to many that knew of them, a mystery to all others, but they would all agree on one thing when it came to the Kita no Ookami, as they were once called by the rest of the world, Norske among their own; they were dangerous and not to be trifled with...

It'd been almost two centuries before the birth of Chakra when the Kita no Ookami came to what later became known as the Elemental Countries. It hadn't been a migration of their people in its entirety, but a select number of them that had chosen to leave their homeland, Nordrljos, though the rest of the world would later refer to it as Orora no Kuni. Those 'few' Norske traveled across the seas to the south for as long as their supplies would allow them before finally reaching the shores of what became known as Uzushio no Kuni and it was there that the Uzumaki clan was first founded. To them, though, they called themselves the Aki. For years, they lived on Uzushio without much conflict with the 'local' populations, who they called Orlendr, 'Outsider' or 'Stranger', but the Aki still learned their culture and language as the years went by out of necessity.

It wasn't until centuries later, when Chakra became more wide-spread and started 'bleeding' into the Aki, who'd taken on the name Uzumaki from their orlendr 'neighbors', that the Uzumaki clan's 'rise' truly began. By blending their own teachings and beliefs with those of the orlendr 'shinobi', the Uzumaki clan's ninjutsu became far more powerful than most of their neighboring clans; especially their fuuinjutsu. Because they were relatively isolated from the rest of the world on the large island of Uzushio no Kuni, they were spared from the 'Clan Wars' that rampaged across the known world, but...that did not mean they didn't participate. Being master ship-makers and natural born warriors, they became infamous as raiders once more even though they did not 'raid' quite as frequently as their distant relatives.

Sadly, by then, the Norske of Nordrljos had fallen to the elements of their arctic homeland, never to be seen or heard from again...

As the years went by, though, the Uzumaki clan developed something the orlendr called a 'bloodline', a genetic mutation that was empowered by their chakra. In fact, they'd developed a few, but only a select few mutations survived through the generations. Chief among them were four different abilities. Three of them were the Eye of Kagura, the Golden Chains of Sealing, and a 'nameless' passive self-healing ability, but to the Uzumaki, in their native language, they were called the Gaze of Heimdall, the Blessing of Eir, and the Chains of Fenrir.

The Gaze of Heimdall granted the Uzumaki who'd awoken it the ability to see a person's 'chakra spirit' from normally impossible distances, some even spoken of being able to 'see' across entire countries; the legends were inconclusive and debated, but it most commonly awoke in Uzumaki women. The Chains of Fenrir, much like the Gaze of Heimdall, almost exclusively awoke in Uzumaki women, granting them the ability to form virtually unbreakable chains of 'golden light' out of their chakra that sprouted from their bodies; they were limited in number and length only by their chakra reserves, chakra control, and experience with the Chains of Fenrir. The Blessing of Eir, however, was possessed by almost all Uzumaki, regardless of gender, that granted them exceptionally long life-spans, allowed them to heal nearly three times quicker than most Orlendr, and made their chakra far more potent than that of their 'neighbors'.

However, their most powerful, but rarest 'kekkai genkai', as called by the orlendr clans, was called Ulfhednar. In the Old Tongue of his ancestors, it meant 'Men in Wolf Skin', derived from the word ulfr, meaning Wolf, and hed, meaning Skin, which gaveway to Ulfhednar; Men in Wolf Skin. It was said that only a small handful of Ulfhednar appeared in each generation, numbering no more than a dozen and no less than three. Unlike the Uzumaki clan's three other kekkai genkai, the Ulfhednar bloodline was neither subtle nor 'invisible' to the unaided eye like the Gaze of Heimdall or the Blessing of Eir. It was just as it sounded. An Uzumaki that had awoken the Ulfhednar bloodline became, what was best described, as werewolves, allowing them the ability to change between man, wolf, and werewolf at will once they'd learned to control it.

At all times, it granted them incredible strength of body, the senses and instincts of a wolf, and a much stronger Blessing of Eir; where other Uzumaki would take a couple weeks to heal, an Ulfhednar healed in a matter of days. However, it came at a cost. Not only were they both man and beast in body, but also of mind; it made them extremely tempermental and, typically, rather violent individuals when aggitated or provoked. Their instincts were as powerful as their bodies and their hearts 'sang' with bloodlust that was very difficult to quell once incensed. They were natural born hunters and warriors, even moreso than their kin, but they were also 'loners', oftentimes isolating themselves from others and avoiding 'civilization', choosing to live in the wild instead of around other people...

He was an Ulfhednar...

And one of the few remaining Aki in the world...

"Settle down before you cause a scene, sveinn." The woman's gruff and thickly accented scolding tone made him grimace irritably, but he still reluctantly silenced his quiet growling. Sighing quietly, the woman continued talking in a consoling tone, her fierce amethyst eyes softening with apologetic understanding. "I gave my word to this village's forn skati that I would bring you back once you completed your training in our people's ways. We are honor-bound, nefi. Once we give our word, we must follow through with our promise, no matter what. Trust me, nefi, if it'd been up to me, you would never have to leave Uzushio if you didn't want to."

With her blood red waist-length hair woven into dozens of slender braided dreadlocks and pulled back into a low-set pony-tail with a leather band to hold them in place, the Aki woman stood just a couple inches shy of six feet with a lithe, though muscular build fit for a battle-hardened warrior without taking away from her womanly figure. She was in a pair of skillfully hand-crafted brown elk-skin pants that hugged the contours of her toned legs like a second skin, black knee-high animal-hide boots with light grey wolf fur lining the inside of them, a backless elk-skin halter top that left her well-defined abs in plain view, an elk-skin satchel pouch that was strapped to the side of her left thigh, and twin leather bands tightly wrapped around the middle of her biceps with the one on her left arm bearing the spiral-engraved plate of her Uzushiogakure hitai-ate on it.

"I know that, tante..." The sixteen year old grumbled quietly from his spot beside her as they walked down the broad street that led from Konoha's main gate and straight into the heart of the village, his startlingly bright crystaline blue eyes half-lidded with distrust and ire towards the people around them. "I just can't help it. Afi's the only one in this damn village that ever cared about me. I don't even have any friends here..."

"You'll be fine, minn litit drengr." The woman retorted with a slightly mischievous grin as she reached over and playfully mussed up her nephew's hair a little bit, blatantly ignoring the pointed look and quiet wolf-like growl she was given in response as he smoothed back the stray hairs she'd brushed out of place. "Have a little patience. You'll make friends in no time, just like you did back in Uzu."

Having taken to his people's culture and teachings like a fish to water, he kept his sun-kissed blonde hair buzzed down along the sides and back of his head, the golden strands having been pulled back and twisted into a tightly woven braid that reached just past his shoulder blades. He was dressed in a pair of dark brown elk-skin three-quarter length pants not too dissimilar to his aunt's, a dark brown leather vest-like harness that crossed over his chest and the back of his shoulders in an X-like fashion with a couple small pouches attached to it in front of his right shoulder, elbow-length fingerless 'gauntlets' of toughened dark brown leather on his forearms with dark grey metal plates armoring them from his knuckles to his elbows, and similarly made greaves that covered his shins from his knees to the tops of his feet.

He had a deep red-orange sash wrapped around his waist with one end left hanging down just beyond his knees in the front while grey cloth were wrapped around his feet, ankles, and half-way up his forelegs in the place of shoes that left his toes and heels uncovered. Over the sash was a thick belt of dark brown leather that held his twin hatchets, which hung from metal ring-like hoops at his hips, and his twin hunting knives, which were mounted horizontally to it along his lower back in toughened elk-skin sheathes with the handles set behind his hips. An elk-skin satchel pouch was strapped to the side of his left thigh while a pair of kunai holsters were strapped to the side of his right thigh with a leather strap, a small bird skull no bigger than his thumb having been attached to the flap of his satchel pouch.

He also wore a dark grey metal mask shaped in the likeness of a snarling wolf's fang-filled muzzle that covered the lower half of his face up to the bridge of his nose with dark brown leather straps holding it in place, his whisker-marked cheeks kept hidden. His most precious possession, though, was a dark teal blue hexagonal crystal the same length and width as his pinky finger, which hung from his right ear lobe by a small and simple ring of golden metal.

What truly made him stand out, however, were the ancient Norske runes he'd tattooed onto his body, the markings of midnight black ink constrasting heavily with his sun-bronzed skin and blonde hair. Runes of empowerment encircled his biceps and forearms under his gauntlets, runes of protection ran along his collarbone like a necklace and decorated his chest, and others covered his flanks, leaving his well-defined abs completely untouched.

On his back between his shoulder blades was a wolf-like yin-yang symbol formed by two wolf heads with the black wolf 'chasing' a black sun while the white wolf 'chased' a white moon; a blending of the teachings of yin-yang and his people's lore of the wolves Skoll and Hati, who endlessly chase the Sun, Sol, and the Moon, Mani. It was further decorated with runes that circled around the design while two Norske-tribal ravens sat just below them with two black triangular marks flanking the ravens. Resting below them was a tree that ran half-way down his spine before giving way to its entangling roots that ended just above his tail bone; the ravens were Huginn and Muninn, companions of the Norske god, Odin, in his people's culture while the tree was that of Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life and another piece of his ancestors' culture and beliefs.

A slightly tense silence fell over the two Aki as they kept walking, neither in a rush to reach the village's main administrative building near the base of the Hokage Monument. Ragnell threw a momentary glance towards the son of her deceased younger half-sister, Uzumaki Kushina. At the tender age of six, Naruto had awoken his 'lupine soul' during the Fox Festival, an annual celebration of the Kyuubi no Kitsune's defeat at the hands of the Yondaime Hokage, who'd given his life to take down the monstrous Bijuu...by sealing it away in the navel of a newborn infant; Naruto.

The 'forn skati', the Sandaime Hokage, had foolishly announced it to the village as a whole not long after the catastrophic and sudden attack, the old orlendr having wanted the villagers to see Naruto as a hero. He'd misjudged the depth and severity of everyone's pain, both physical and emotional, however, and the villagers came to loathe Naruto's very existence. A dozen attempts had been made on little Naruto's life within the first week, prompting the Sandaime to instate a law, potentially punishable by death, that forbid anyone that knew the truth from ever mentioning the Kyuubi or its sealed presence inside of Naruto; not amongst themselves, not to the younger generations, and especially not to Naruto.

It'd been during the sixth annual Fox Festival, which also happened to be Naruto's birthday, when a drunken villager had stumbled upon Naruto and decided to exact their 'revenge' against the Kyuubi that night. Dragging the boy into a dark alley where no one would be able to interrupt them, the villager began to ruthlessly beat him, fully intent on killing the poor child with his bare hands by night's end. During the beating, the pain and fear of dying had caused the 'wolf in his heart' to stir from its slumber, causing him to suddenly transform as he awoke his clan's Ulfhednar bloodline. The villager, who'd been choking him at the time, had unintentionally lightened his grip as he watched the 'demon child' transform into a lycanthropic creature right before his eyes. In that moment of distraction, Naruto's newly-minted claws raked across the man's face with blind feral instinct, freeing him and allowing the Aki child to escape, fleeing to the forests almost instantly...

Later that same night, the Sandaime had found him and revealed a great many things to him once he'd managed to calm the terrified and hurting beast-like child. One of the things he'd revealed to Naruto was his heritage as an Uzumaki, an Aki. The following day, he'd sent word to the surviving remnants of the Aki in Uzushio, which had been ravaged by Kumo during the Third Great War, seeking an audience with the clan's leader. It'd been by sheer luck that it happened to be Uzumaki Ragnell, Kushina's older half-sister; their father had been unfaithful to their respective mothers, but it did little to separate the two half-sisters in their childhood before Kushina had been forced to move to Konoha. Even over such a great distance and after so many years without seeing each other, Ragnell had immediately journeyed to Konoha in response to the Sandaime's letter, having not been aware of her nephew's existence, let alone the plights that had befallen him in his then-short-lived life.

Almost instantly, she'd taken legal parental custody of Naruto, being his only living blood-relative and immediate family, but the elderly Hokage had made her swear that he was to be returned to Konoha the moment Naruto finished his training under Ragnell in the ways of the Aki. It hadn't been so that Naruto could learn how to fight or defend himself; it'd been to give Naruto time to 'heal' from the traumatic experience of nearly being beaten to death as well as to gain control over the nearly berserker-like kekkai genkai he'd awoken that dreadful night. Now, a little over ten years later, he was finally returning to Konoha, a fate he was begrudgingly forced into accepting.

"Naruto, before you go inside..." Ragnell suddenly spoke up as she gently grabbed Naruto by his shoulder, stopping him just a few meters away from the entrance to the Fire Tower. As her nephew looked up at her in mild confusion, the fourty-two year old Aki matriarch withdrew two items from the pouch on her leg. One was an Aki clan sealing scroll made from the tanned hide of an elk instead of a long sheet of parchment like those used by orlendr shinobi, the rune for Berkana burned into the leather to act as an indentifying marker. The other item was a smooth and polished dark grey river rock just a tad smaller than her palm that was covered in assorted runic markings on both sides. Using her free hand to grab Naruto's, Ragnell offered her precious nephew a small, joyless smile while placing the two gifts in the middle of his upturned palm. "I want you to have these. There's some specialized chakra control excercises to help you work on controlling your bloodline a little better and a couple decent techniques for you to learn and practice in your free time. As for the stone-"

"It's a runstan charm; I know." Naruto quietly cut in, the scroll automatically getting stashed in the pouch on his leg while his bright cyan blue eyes were glued to the rune-marked stone still grasped in his other hand. A small, wry smile of his own tugged at a corner of his mouth as he gingerly brushed his thumb across its smooth surface before stashing it in an unusued pouch on his harness for safe keeping, finally looking back up at his aunt. "After spending the past ten years with you, tante, I think I know what a charm looks like by now, you superstitious old seidkonor."

"Che...Veslingr..." Ragnell half-heartedly growled out at her nephew for his taunting remark, both Norske descendants sharing a small and cheeky smirk a moment later, though Naruto's remained hidden by his mask. Wrapping her arms around him before he could properly react, Ragnell hugged her nephew tight for a few long seconds before reluctantly pulling away from him. "I'm going to miss you, nefi. Take care of yourself, okay?"

"I'll be fine, tante. Don't worry so much." Naruto mumbled back quietly before his aunt started backing up, only to turn and leave without another word. Naruto grimaced slightly as he watched the red haired woman leave, waiting until he'd lost sight of her completely before finally turning back towards the main entrance of the Fire Tower and walking inside. Blatantly ignoring the looks he was getting from the people he passed along the way, he went straight for the Hokage's office, still vaguely remembering the way to his surrogate Afi's office despite having not set foot in the village in a decade. After only a few minutes, the blue eyed bearer of the Ulfhednar bloodline found himself standing before the door he'd been searching for, kind of wishing his aunt hadn't left so soon. Then again, she and Afi didn't quite see eye-to-eye, having been at odds with one another, in a sense, ever since Ragnell had come to Konoha to get him ten years ago...

After taking a few moments to compose himself, he raised a gauntleted hand before lightly rapping his metal-capped knuckles against the wooden slab...

"Come in." Sarutobi Hiruzen called out after hearing someone knock at his door, casually gathering up some of the papers in front of him and setting them aside as his unexpected visitor opened the door and entered his office. Seeing only a blonde haired youth wearing what looked like hand-made clothing and gear that had been crafted from animal hides, Hiruzen found himself staring at them in confusion and curiousity...before his eyes slowly started to widen with recognition as the blonde teen leisurely reached up and pulled his metal face mask down. "Na...Naruto? Is it really you?"

"Hey, Afi...It's been a while." Naruto greeted quietly with a slight smile, sincerely happy to see the man he called 'grandfather' after so many years. The young Aki's eyes suddenly went wide with surprise when the Sandaime moved faster than Naruto could properly track, moving around the desk and closing the distance between them in only a second or two before embracing him tightly. Neither said a word as Naruto gently hugged his Afi back, his pale blue eyes closing serenely as they both savored the long awaited reunion...

xXx

Closing the door and locking the deadbolt, Naruto turned around and leaned back against the front door of his newly-gifted apartment, blankly staring at nothing in particular as he slowly took his mask off. He was by himself. For the first time in ten years, he was all alone again. It was...cold, emotionally. Pulling out the charm his aunt had given him, Naruto stared down at it absently while slowly rubbing his thumb back and forth across the Vegvisir rune a couple times before turning it over in his hand and rubbing his thumb along the bind rune engraved into the river rock's polished surface.

'It hasn't even been two hours and I already hate it here.' Sighing heavily as he closed his eyes, Naruto tucked the stone away into his pocket before sluggishly starting to tug at the straps securing his armor pieces and gear to his body, taking everything off as he moved to the side and sat down on the plain navy blue couch. Leaving his gear in a pile on the floor next to his cloth-wrapped feet, Naruto finally took an actual look around, but the place was sparsely furnished. There was the couch he was sitting on, which could seat up to three somewhat comfortably, a simple wooden coffee table in front of it that was almost as long as the couch was, a plain square wooden table over at the edge of the medium-sized kitchen across the way with only one chair, and a little end table back near the front door. Guessing there was a bed in the back room, Naruto grimaced slightly; he'd dealt with worse before...and less.

After unwrapping his feet and lower legs, he turned and lazily lounged across the couch with his hands on his stomach, blankly staring up at the ceiling as he mindlessly fiddled with the runstan charm he'd been given. It was going to be a long time before he adapted to being alone again. At least things weren't like they'd been back when he was a little kid. He could defend himself properly now without losing control of his lupine soul. He also knew why he'd been so hated back then, having taken to wearing his wolf-like mask because of it. He'd always been so easily recognizable because of his whisker-like birthmarks, but so long as he kept them hidden from the general populace, the villagers shouldn't recognize him as the 'demon brat' for quite a while. Hopefully...

"Stop thinking about it, fifl..." Naruto quietly growled under his breath at himself as he closed his eyes and draped an arm over his eyes, his superstitious aunt's runstan charm gently cradled in his upturned palm. Tomorrow, he was to start attending the Academy for the last week of classes before taking the Genin Graduation Exam at the end of it. Not the slightest bit worried about any of it at the moment, however, he forcefully cleared his mind and slowly let unconsciousness wash over him. He was tired...

xXx

The following morning, Naruto had always gotten up with the sunrise and ended up getting to the Academy extra early. Having arrived long before any of the other students and even some of the Academy's teaching staff, he picked out a seat in the very back near a window and quietly sat down. Slouched in the chair with his arms crossed under his tattooed chest, he simply stared out the window, not even really looking at anything specific as he waited for the day's class to eventually start. It wasn't too long, however, before some of his new 'classmates' started to steadily filter into the room, each of them chatting animatedly amongst each other.

"Tch...Must they all be so damn loud? Bunch of daufi havadamikill born..." The now-irritated Aki grumbled under his breath while glowering at the others out of the corner of his eye for a moment before trying his best to tune them all out, staring out the window again. Unfortunately, what little bit of patience he still had was quickly being worn dangerously thin when a single loud-mouthed student finally noticed his presence and spoke up...

"Who the hell are you?!" Naruto closed his eyes with a quiet, aggitated growl that was drowned out by the noise generated by the others before slowly turning his head to look at the person who'd voiced the question; an Inuzuka in a black leather jacket with a waist-high white-furred canine companion. "Oi! I'm talking to you, dumbass! Who are you and what are you doing here?!"

"My name is Uzumaki Naruto, not 'dumbass', and I'm a late enrollee." The blonde answered coldly with narrowed icy crystaline blue eyes, his gaze matching the snarling visage of his mask. "Now...hljod, ek skreyja bikkja."

"Wha...?" Inuzuka Kiba responded dumbly with similar mutterings from some of the others in the room, not understanding the 'gibberish' the blonde stranger had just said. "Are you...retarded or something?"

"I said. Be. Silent. You incompetent. Bitch." Naruto snarled a little louder and more aggressively, speaking slower and more pointedly as he sat up in his chair, bracing his elbows on the desk in front of him as he leaned forward. "Did you get all of that this time or do I have to spell everything out for you, too?"

"You cocky sonuva-" Kiba's infuriated growl was cut short when someone else spoke up, someone that was also well known for having a loud mouth, except...they weren't as ignorant or obnoxiously arrogant as Kiba was. Something that had surprised a few of the orlendr students that knew the girl all too well...

"You were just speaking fluent Norske a moment ago, weren't you?" Haruno Sakura inquired quizzically from off to the side, distracting Naruto from his thoughts of putting the Inuzuka whelp in his place as he looked over at her. When he nodded a tad hesitantly, though distinctly in response, her bright emerald green eyes seemed to light up with excitement. "That's supposed to be a dead language. Only the Kita no Ookami knew it, but they were wiped out a long time ago during the Third Great War, right? How could you possibly know how to speak it so well?"

"...Kita no Ookami was just a 'nickname'. We call ourselves Aki, meaning Descendants in our native language, but to you orlendr, we're better known as the Uzumaki clan...and we weren't wiped out; not entirely, that is." Naruto answered quietly, his eyes locked with hers as he slowly lost his ire. "You're the first orlendr I've met in a long time that knew damn near anything remotely noteworthy about my people without being associated with at least one of us...How?"

"W-Well...I spend a l-lot of time in the library...a-and Norske is the only other language ever encountered and recorded in history..." Sakura answered meekly, a little unsettled by Naruto's intense and unwaivering stare, but not intimidated. It's not as if he were angry with her like he was with Kiba. "S-So, wait...You're actually a real Uzumaki? An Aki?"

"That's right..." Naruto answered bluntly, though a little standoffish and cautious of the pinkette's inquiry; he was sure her questions were harmless and meant solely to satisfy her own curiousity, but it was such odd timing. Hell, most of the other students had fallen silent, listening to their little conversation with rapt attention. Even Kiba, as ornery as he had been just moments ago, was actually listening to them; struggling to understand exactly what was going on, but he was still listening nonetheless. "Could we...possibly have this conversation another time, maer?"

"Oh! R-Right..." The pinkette agreed a little bashfully, smiling sheepishly at the blonde 'foreigner'. No sooner had they come to an agreement to postpone their little chat, a chuunin with a scar running across the bridge of his nose walked in the door; the class's sensei, Umino Iruka, if he remembered what Afi had told him yesterday...

xXx

"So...This rune means 'good luck'?" Sakura asked curiously as she pointed to one of the two dozen different runes Naruto had written down on a piece of paper for her, the two having returned to their conversation from that morning during their lunch break. She was answered with a wordless nod from the blonde Aki before she pointed to another one that had caught her eye. "What about this one? What's this rune?"

"Actually, it generally also means 'good luck'. That's Fylfot." Naruto instructed, having already finished his lunch just minutes before Sakura had approached him. With nothing else to do for the remaining half-hour of their lunch break, he'd hesitantly agreed to giving the girl some rudimentary lessons in Norske runology, teaching her a few things about his people's runes. Nothing serious or in-depth, but it was enough to both enlightment the aspiring kunoichi about Aki culture and get her to ease up with all of her questions; she was just so persistent and insatiably eager to learn as much as she could. "It might seem vaguely familiar to you, though. It was a very slow and gradual process that took centuries to take root, but the fylfot rune is actually one of the very few Norske runes that was somehow assimilated into your people's written language, albeit in very specific ways. The fylfot rune is mostly used in certain mid- to high-tier orlendr fuuinjutsu arrays, often acting as a 'focusing point' or 'center' for the seals without actually affecting the seal's primary function or purpose."

"Oh, wow...Really? That's amazing." Sakura murmured in a hushed tone as she stared down at the crudely compiled runic 'cheat sheet' Naruto had drawn up for her to study. "What about this one here? It's a lot more complex looking compared to the others..."

"That is actually Vegvisir; it's a runic compass, in a sense." The slightly cryptic response made her furrow her brow with mild confusion, trying to understand what he meant by that. "For us Aki, it is both a...superstition, if you will, and a key fuuinjutsu component in our runic seal-crafting. As a superstition, it helps in keeping you from getting lost, no matter where you are or where you go. In our fuuinjutsu, though, it creates a 'homing' or 'targeting' effect in certain kinds of seals. As an example, if you manage to tag an enemy with it, and seal-marked kunai you throw that are attuned to that specific rune will actually track the targeted enemy rather accurately, even if they try to run from them or dodge out of the way. However, they can't avoid obstacles caught in their trajectory."

"I didn't even know something like that was possible..." She remarked quietly, absolutely dumbfounded by not just the sample of the 'compass rune's' lore in Aki culture he'd told her, but what the vegvisir rune could do when incorporated into the Aki people's fuuinjutsu formulas. That's when an idle thought drifted through her mind, momentarily distracting her from her original train of thought. "Hey, Naruto? That word you keep using...orlander? What does it mean?"

"Orlendr and it means 'Outsider' or 'Stranger'. It's like your people's word, gaijin; a foreigner." Naruto corrected before explaining, causing the pinkette to gain a thoughtful look for a moment as she mentally filed away the new piece of information she'd just learned about the Norske language. Randomly feeling a little awkward after a couple moments, however, Naruto fussed with his wolf-like mask for a moment to make sure it was still secured to his face properly, his light-colored cyan blue eyes wandering aimlessly as he avoided looking in Sakura's general direction. "Well, uh...I think that covers everything for now."

"Mnn...But there's still so much I want to learn about your people." Sakura whined softly with a slight pout, but she resigned herself to his decision nonetheless. "Could you...I mean, would it be okay if...you taught me more tomorrow? Please?"

"Haaah...I suppose I could teach you a little bit of Norske or something tomorrow." Naruto sighed out tiredly as he hung his head slightly. 'She just won't give up, will she?'

Sitting at another desk across the classroom, Uchiha Sasuke found himself staring at the new guy, both intrigued by the potential challenge he could prove to be in a fight and...honestly a little intimidated by him. Threatened, even. He couldn't tell what it was exactly, but the strange shirtless and somewhat wolf-masked blonde had some kind of aura about him that seriously reminded Sasuke of an apex predator...and he was the prey. Just at first glance, Sasuke could tell that Naruto was already decently battle-hardened despite the fact he was no older than any of them were. He could see it in the blonde's eyes, his body language, and even his mannerisms; Naruto was fully prepared for a fight to break out at any moment.

Twin hatchets, twin knives, his armored bracers and greaves, the lack of a shirt allowing his entire torso and arms their full range of movement without anything to hinder or resist them. That wasn't even including the kunai pouches on his right leg or whatever the satchel on his left leg contained. If he was as skilled with throwing kunai and shuriken as he was with his other weapons and taijutsu, it didn't matter if it was an up-close-and-personal fight or a medium-range engagement because Naruto seemed like he was ready for anything to happen at any point in time. It was...unnerving. How could someone who hasn't even graduated from the Academy have the same ominous presence as a battle-hardened veteran shinobi? Something wasn't right about him...

'Just how strong are you, Uzumaki Naruto?' Sasuke pondered with a slight narrowing of his eyes, his hands steepled in front of his face as he watched Naruto out of the corner of his eye. On a side note, however, he was a little grateful for the new guy keeping that pink haired annoyance of a fangirl distracted; one less thing pestering him every ten minutes. After staring at the blonde for no more than maybe five consecutive seconds, Sasuke eyes widened a hair when Naruto 'randomly' turned his head to stare back at him, his slightly narrowed eyes a piercing electric blue. 'How did he...? There's just no way he could have possibly noticed me staring at him so quickly...So, how?'

"Got something you want to say to me, vamr?" Naruto questioned coldly as he held Sasuke's stare, his lupine instincts having caught on to his 'watcher'. He was wondering why things seemed to get a little too quiet at that moment in time. Beside him, Sakura was actually silent instead of piping up in Sasuke's defense like she normally would have, not that Naruto knew of her usual antics. Not only that, but Sakura actually looked a little nervous, glancing between the two worriedly as the tension in the air between them thickened with an intangible malice and ill-tidings of violence. "Either speak your mind or quit staring at me. Or would you rather I come over there and violently introduce your face to your desk?"

"Hn." With a quiet grunt, Sasuke calmly averted his gaze elsewhere without making it seem as if he'd backed down from the thinly veiled challenge. Naruto simply snorted lightly while leaning back in his chair, his arms folded under his bare chest.

"Tch...Fucking eldhusfifl." Naruto scoffed irritably; he gets 'challenged' twice in the same hour by two wanna-be 'Alpha' types...and neither of them have the balls to follow through. Just once, he wanted someone to stand up to him and actually try to put him 'in his place', so to speak. If his first day in the Academy was anything to go by, Naruto feared that he may never be challenged for dominance, a challenge that he truly craved with every fiber of his being...

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

Japanese Translations

Fuuinjutsu- Art of Sealing

Yuki no Kuni- Land Of Snow

Kita no Ookami- Wolves of the North

Orora no Kuni- Land of Northern Lights

Kekkai Genkai- Blood Inheritance Limit/Bloodline Limit

Gaijin- Foreigner

Old Norse Translations (Can't use the proper characters on WordPad)

Norske- A member of the 'Kita no Ookami' (by technicality, actual translation is 'Norwegian' [altered for story])

Nordrljos- Northern Lights

Aki- Descendant(s)

Heimdall- a Norse God, guardian of Asgard

Fenrir- a monstrous wolf in Norse mythology (literal translation is 'Fen(Marsh)-Dweller')

Eir- a Goddess/Valkyrie of healing

Ulfhednar- Men In Wolf Skin

Sveinn- Boy

Forn- Old

Skati- Leader

Nefi- Nephew

Tante- Aunt

Afi- Grandfather

Armr- Wretched

Minn- My

Litit- Little

Drengr- a youth man in the sense of a warrior/one who is courageous or daring

Skoll- One Who Mocks

Hati- One Who Hates

Sol- Sun

Mani- Moon

Huginn- Thought

Muninn- Memory (or Mind)

Runstan- Runestone

Seidkonor- Sorceress (a female practitioner of seidhr- a form of runic magic/sorcery)

Veslingr- Puny Wretch

Fifl- Idiot, Fool

Daufi- Stupid (also- Deaf-Mute)

Havadamikill- Noisy

Born- Children

Hljod- Be Silent

Ek- You (also- I)

Skreyja- Incompetent

Bikkja- Bitch

Maer- Girl, Maiden, Maid, Virgin

Fylfot- Good Luck

Vegvisir- That Which Shows The Way

Vamr- Loathsome Person

Eldhusfifl- 'Hearthfire Idiot' (an idiot who sits by the fire all day)

A/N: And thus concludes the first chapter of the Beasts of War rewrite! First, I know it's completely different from what it originally was in BoW, but...I really like it. It feels more...natural, I suppose, and not so 'forced'-ish as some of BoW's concepts and plot points were. I plan on expanding on things more in terms of Uzumaki/Kita no Ookami/Aki/'Norske' lore/history as the story progresses, so don't worry too much about some of the new changes. As for why I chose Old Norse/Vikings to take the place of the Shishisensou/Kurotsuki...Well, I realized that I'd been kind of screwing myself over with how I was going about things in Beasts of War originally. So, I went back to the basics and started from square one; namely, the 'introduction' of werewolves into the 'Verse'. What better than to go back to their 'roots', so to speak? Well...kind of. If I'm remembering right, 'Werewolf' is primarily Germanic, but not necessarily Nordic/Viking, even though the Old Norse translation is 'Vargulfr'. Even still, blending the lore of Nordic Ulfhednar and Werewolves was just...absolutely magnificent in my mind and I have to admit, I am quite proud with how things turned out in this chapter.

(EDIT) A/N: As most of those who have read the previous version of the first chapter to WotN, it is vastly different from the original. That's because I'd actually paid attention to some y'alls reviews about how unfairly OP Naruto had been while using his lycanthropic bloodline. After going over it again and again, I eventually realized that a lot of you had been right about it, so I started reshaping the first chapter and eventually settled on this one. As a forewarning, though, I might switch up the pairing from Naru/Hana to something else; haven't decided if I will or what the alternative will be. For now, it'll stay Naru/Hana until I make up my mind on the matter. Regardless, I hope this variation is more to everyone's liking and I look forward to hearing everyone's opinion on both the chapter's new rewrite and on the possible change in pairing; so long as it is at least constructive in some way, shape, or form...

P.S: I finally have access to a computer again and will be continuing to work on WotN alongside my other stories. Hopefully, I can get back on track to updating/rewriting them all soon...and if anyone actually knowledgable in Old Norse (even if it's only in a handful of words/runes and their translations/meanings) happens to notice mistakes in my translations, please let me know so that I can fix them to the best of my ability. It'd be greatly appreciated...because I may have included a 'few' too many Old Norse words...