Ok so, got a lot of apologies to make.
Lets start with the obvious one, I do apologize for abandoning this story. Being honest, after reading it, it feels rushed in some places, I feel like it jumps around a lot.
The Sylvanas and Naruto pairing feels like I am hurrying it along.
Also, I think I basically lost all confidence in being able to do this story, and the probably numerous themes I have glossed over, any real sense of justice or gravitas. Also, I was hesitant to return to this because I felt I had effectively written myself into a corner as far as the politics of the situation goes.
But, as someone who has been translating this story for people who English is not their first language reminded me, you all enjoy this story and that's what matters.
Anyway, for the first time in almost five years I offer you this humble update.
Inuzuma Kofu had not been having a good week, to put it ever so mildly. At the start of the week they had been given a rather large quota to fill, sixteen tons of ore would be required by each miner per day to fill it. Then one by one throughout, each of his fellow miners, men and women he had worked alongside of since he turned eighteen, had been called into the overseer's office. Each of them had walked in with their helmet and pickax, and left without either, only a dejected look on their face, and in some cases tears. Each of them had been hard workers, willing to put in long hours of back breaking work, and slowly but surely their places had been filled with burly greenskined goliaths. If he had to give them credit on one thing though, they at least had the decency to look ashamed.
Then the dreaded moment came, he felt a tap on his shoulder as he was about to begin his downswing on a small vein of iron ore. He turned and saw his foreman, a tired looking older man by the name of Kamado Hise.
"Overseer wants to see you," he said in a sad tone, like he knew this would be the last time he would see him. Nodding morosely, Kofu made his way to what passed for an office down in the mine, that is to say a room that had been dug out of the rock and then fenced off. He slowly opened the gate that served as a door, and walked inside. Inside the office was a rather portly man dressed in the miner uniform, orange coveralls and boots, but Kofu knew that under that uniform was at the very least a shirt that would cost him a month's pay. It was also a known secret that the overseer was the nephew of the president of the mining company that employed him, so he had most likely gotten the position through sheer nepotism rather than hard work or any definable skill.
"You wanted to see me," Kofu said, trying to hide the apprehension in his voice. The overseer acted like he hadn't heard him for a brief moment, before steeping his fingers and looking at Kofu with a malicious grin on his face.
"It is with great regret mister," the overseer said, before picking up a sheet of paper and pretending to look at it, "Inuzuma, that I must inform you that your services are no longer required."
He felt, more than heard, his trusty pickax hit the floor. For twenty years he had worked in the mine, before him it had been his father that worked the mines, and his father before him, it was all he knew.
"But sir," he stammered out, already feeling the pleading tone in his voice, "this is all I know how to do, how am I supposed to feed my family?"
"Hmm," the overseer said, no longer looking at him, "shame that."
It was then Kofu felt a strong hand on his shoulder, turning he saw a big man with a sad look on his face.
"My associate here," the overseer indicated, waving his hand at the big man, "will escort you off the premises."
The big man gently pushed him out of the office and then the mine, from the corner of his eye Kofu noticed all the orcs had made a particular effort to look down at what they were doing.
"For what it's worth," the big man said, sincere sorrow in his voice, "I'm sorry."
"Well sorry isn't going to feed my family," he snarled, gathering his bag with his civilian clothes and walking out the gate to the mine.
Later…
Inuzuma Kofu stumbled into his house, it was a small thing, barely a hut, and was almost bowled over by his two children, Inuzuma Shoto and Inuzuma Fuyumi.
"Welcome home daddy," they said in unison, smiles dominating their faces.
"Hey there kids," he greeted, bending down to hug them both, "where's your mother?"
"In the kitchen," Shoto answered, frowning up at his father, seeming to pick up on his foul mood. Kofu did his best to hide his sadness from his kids as he ruffled their hair.
"Why do you need to talk to mommy," Fuyumi asked, frowning up at her father.
"He needs to discuss grownup stuff with her," he answered, fixing a fake smile on his face to hopefully not upset his daughter. With that his two kids let him go and went back to playing with their toys, although much quieter than what he was used to. Upon entering what passed for a kitchen in their house, basically a room barely big enough to fit both the stove and the sink, he saw his wife. His Sora stood at the stove, slowly stirring a pot of stew with a small smile on her face. Her stomach already beginning to swell with their child. Turning she looked at with a joyful smile, that quickly faded when she saw the downcast look on his face.
"What's wrong my love," she asked, walking over to him and placing a hand on his stubble covered cheek. He decided to take a moment to enjoy the touch before he would be forced to deliver the bad news.
"I was let go today," he finally said, feeling like he was getting ready to collapse, but instead he settled for turning to face the wall and leaning on the counter
"Did they say why," she asked, placing a hand on his back and rubbing in soothing circles.
"Same thing that happened to everyone else," he said, trying hard to hold back the tears, "they replaced us with those greenskins."
"Honey," she said, putting her arms around her husband's waist and leaning into him as a show of support, "we'll figure something out, we always do."
"Not this time I think," he replied, his voice shaking, "the only mining jobs left are in Tsuchi no Kuni, and I can't possibly leave you and the kids. Not now."
It was at this point, his wife began running her arms up and down his stomach, doing her best to try and support and sooth her husband.
"We could petition the Hokage," his wife suggested, "or maybe try and talk to Uzumaki-san, rumor has it that he's sympathetic to plight of the common man."
"They would probably take the greenskin's side," Kofu replied, already seeing their options were thin, "besides we don't have the money or resources to gain an audience with the Hokage, and that as an aside, why would she involve herself in a civilian matter?"
Sighing to himself, he rubbed his face with hand and fought to keep the tears down as best he could, when he heard someone knock at the door. Wiping his face with his sleeve, detached himself from his wife and walked to the door. Upon opening it he found a small gathering of the miners he used to work with.
"What do you want," he asked, his voice sounding tired from the emotional strain of the past week, "if you're here for dinner I doubt we'll have enough."
Looking nervous one of them shuffled forward, a middle aged man that still had some dust smeared on his face.
"We need your help," he said, looking nervously, "you see we decided to try and appeal to the Hokage."
"So what do you need me for," he asked, his voice coming off as a bit more aggressive than what was probably necessary.
"Well," the man said, the others behind him shuffling nervously, "you're easily among one of the most respected miners here. So we figured that you might be the best possible person to talk to the Hokage about our plight."
Kofu clenched his jaw and made himself ready to shut the door, when he felt two somethings wrap around his leg. Looking down he saw that his two children looked up at him with hope in their eyes.
"Come back in the morning," he sighed, "you'll have my answer then."
He then closed the door and shuffled, his kids still clinging to his legs, over to the table where they ate dinner.
On the other side of the world in Kalimdor…
Onduk Dualhorn was a middle aged orc warrior, and he didn't trust any of the Alliance member races to not stick a knife in his back. Hence why he never took his armor off, a set of plate armor and with the helmet fashioned into the shape of a boar head. Some of the younger generations had tried to persuade him to give them a chance, and for every instance they provided about how humans and orcs worked together to achieve a common goal he provided five about orcs getting screwed over by the Alliance, most of which had happened to him personally.
Currently he was on watch duty, which mostly consisted of patrolling the town. He was trying to go out of his way to patrol the part of the town that more or less belonged to the Horde, when he noticed something. At first he had thought to ignore it, but then that feeling he got in the back of his skull that warned him of danger so effectively in the past flared. So gingerly, he approached and noticed a pair of plate armor boots, attached to a pair of human legs. Once he rounded the corner he saw an orc female, dressed in hunter leathers, staring at an alley wall glassy eyed, slumped over, and holding a bow with a human man, an arrow made of a black wood and a the fletching made of brown feathers with black stripes piercing his neck, laid on his back in a pool of blood. Immediately, Onduk grabbed his war horn, a trophy he had taken from the bowels of a great dungeon, and let out a loud horn blast.
The reaction was almost instantaneous, people of various races rushed outside holding a menagerie weapons, most of the people lacked armor though, to see what had caused the commotion. Upon noticing the corpse and the two orcs, one looking like they held the murder weapon. The two sides began shouting, each began shouting at the other. Accusations began flying, one side accused the other of the murder, the other fired back claiming that the other had set it up as a frame job. It was then Varian Wrynn and Thrall let out a shout.
"Part," Varian shouted authoritatively, "Let us through."
"Stand aside," Thrall ordered, shoving his way though. Upon reaching the cause of the disturbance, they glowered down at the scene.
"What happened here," they asked, a rather simple question but the cacophony of voices once again started along with the accusations. Snarling like a cornered wolf, Varian snatched the war horn from Onduk, and let loose a mighty horn blast that rattled the windows in there panes and caused some of the more sound sensitive members of both sides to cover their ears.
"Disperse all of you," Varian commanded, knocking the air out of Onduk's lungs when he rammed the horn into his gut.
"You stay," Thrall commanded, pointing to Onduk. After five minutes of waiting the crowd dispersed, the leader's of the two factions turned to look at him.
"Is this how you found them," Thrall asked, receiving a sharp nod they walked past him and felt their faces set into a grim line.
"Setina Raptorgouger," Thrall said, gently laying a hand on her shoulder and looking at her eyes, "she's been drugged."
"Looks like the deceased," Varian replied, "is her friend John Galloway. Though why these two?"
Sighing to themselves, they kept looking over the crime scene, noting the arrow lodged in John's throat, the wood it was made from, the position of the body, the angle the arrow appeared to enter, and the state both he and Setina had been found in.
"We'll have to have someone investigate this," Thrall stated, sighing to himself with his face set into a grim mask of determination.
"We'll assemble a team in the morning," Varian replied, feeling massive weight on his shoulders. Apparently the transition from the Horde and the Alliance being bitter rivals to a sort of co-operative partnership had not been as smooth as they would have hoped. But now, they would have to carefully select the team that would investigate this crime, they themselves couldn't do it because of how high profile they were, and pray that they didn't accidentally have the killer investigate their own crime, have it solved before they set sail, and all the while they would need to keep both sides from tearing at the other.
Ok so, what I tried to do here was simple, I felt like I had only really explored the situation from the perspective of Naruto and Tsunade, aside from the murder of Doogg.
What I had attempted to do here was kind of explore this situation from the angle of the commoner, and from what actually taking two sides with a near century or so of hatred towards each other would look like.
Also not gonna lie, I had completely forgotten what I was going to do with this chapter, and I just hope this kind of meshes.
So anyway let me know what you think and remember…
Grins malevolently as I press a button on a remote showing riots happening in the streets.
The apocalypse will be televised.