A/N: Alternate Universe that will be explained from the beginning. Only six characters from Sasuke's class, one of which is Sai. Sakura and Shino are not part of the story, Naruto is from their parent's generation and Hinata…I won't spoil the fun. Other characters will be cut because they don't matter much in the story or will be given different roles than glorified babysitters (glaring at Asuma and Kurenai).
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Chapter 1
"The Fourth Hokage, Naruto Senju, was the son of Tsunade Senju and Jiraya. He was the host of the Nine-Tailed Fox. He graduated early from the academy and joined a team with Fugaku Uchiha and Hiashi Hyuuga under Jiraya's leadership. He became his apprentice and the Toad Sage, which Jiraya never fully accomplished.
"During the Third Shinobi war, he lost his ex-genin Obito Uchiha to Iwa before saving the jounin Kakashi Hatake and the chuunin Rin Nohara, the other two who used to be his genin, from certain death, annihilating a force of a thousand shinobi with his nature chakra enhanced combination water techniques and his summon Gamabunta. Remembered as the Battle of Kannabi Bridge in the Land of Grass, this was a great step towards the peace treaty that was concluded three months later.
"He lost another of his previous genin, Rin Nohara, in a kidnapping orchestrated by Kiri, after which she was turned into the host of the Three-Tailed Beast in order to destroy Konoha, but she sacrificed herself to save the village and Naruto Senju rescued Kakashi Hatake, who had been the tool of his ex-partner's sacrifice, and obliterated the enemies except for one who secured the Tailed Beast and brought it back to Kiri.
"Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Third Hokage, decided to pass the hat to Naruto Senju and retire. One year later, he fell victim to an assassination with the objective of releasing the Nine-Tailed Fox in Konoha and destroying the village. It is supposed that the attack came from Kiri as a revenge for their failed attempt with Rin Nohara. Jiraya and Tsunade Senju defeated the Beast, but their loss weighed too heavily on them, breaking their marriage and leading to them leaving the village. Jiraya has disappeared while Tsunade has retired from duty.
"The Third Hokage was pressed into taking back the hat and as of now has not found the good candidate for the leadership of the village, his third student Orochimaru being a traitor to Konoha and a missing nin.
"Such is the story of the Fourth Hokage and the events revolving around him."
"Thank you, Sai," said Iruka Umino, the teacher. "Your presentation was excellent. You can go back to your seat."
Sai, a dark haired boy with pale skin and an expressionless face wearing a short black shirt and long black pants nodded and walked back to his seat, between Sasuke Uchiha and Ino Yamanaka. Sasuke, a dark haired boy with a duckling-like haircut and a blue high collared shirt was displaying an uninterested look while Ino, a blond girl with long hair tied in a high ponytail wearing a purple short shirt and a skinny shirt with bandage patterns was hesitating between being jealous of Sai's deep knowledge of the topic which would get him a top grade and the amazing story of the Fourth Hokage she had just learnt a little more about than what she had known until then.
The boy could read all that just from her uncertain expression and he knew that it made her even more annoyed since she knew that he could read her like an open book. As a punishment, she possessed Sai and put his pens into his nose before going back into her body. He put them out and cleaned them without giving her the satisfaction of a reaction.
Shikamaru Nara, a boy with dark hair tied in a short high tail making him look like a pineapple, sighed and his lips silently formed the word "troublesome" after watching the interaction between his childhood friend Ino and their classmate. His deskmate and childhood friend Chouji Akimichi, a rotund boy with swirl tattoos on his cheeks wearing a scarf and a green jacket open to reveal his white shirt with a red kanji for "food" in the middle, wasn't paying attention, too absorbed by the task of eating his chakra enhancing potato chips. Kiba Inuzuka, a boy wearing a fur coat in the summer season with a small white dog inside, showing its' head from the collar, was envious of the attention Sai got from Ino.
The day passed without any important event happening.
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"Let's announce the teams!" exclaimed Iruka one week after the graduation exam. "Team Seven, Ino Yamanaka, Sai," the girl glared at her classmate, "and Sasuke Uchiha!" Her eyes started to shine, while the duckling looked away from her.
"Team Eight, Kiba Inuzuka, Shikamaru Nara and Chouji Akimichi!"
Kiba smiled because he was in a team with two boys and he thought it would be better for his survival than being with a girl and he could tell stories of his epic missions while embellishing the truth to appear as a hero to the ladies who would all fall at his feet for sure. Shikamaru and Chouji smiled to each other.
"Your jounin leaders will come pick you up in a few minutes, please wait for them. I wish you luck in your career, dear students!" And Iruka Umino left his classroom waving at the young people.
Kunai flew past by each of the three boys in team eight and grazed their cheeks. They looked around for the culprit and Kiba and his dog Akamaru sniffled the air to try and locate the intruder. They jumped on the spot when they felt a blade to their necks and a chill run down their spin when a tongue licked the spot where a tear of blood was leaving the spot where the kunai had been pressed to their jugular.
"Hello boys…big sister Anko is gonna take good care of you…training ground eight in two minutes or else…"
A snake slithered around their bodies and looked them in the eyes. Suddenly, the scary woman was not there anymore and the serpents had disappeared with her. The boys did everything they could not to look at their wet pants. Kiba and Akamaru couldn't avoid the unpleasant smell coming from the boys' clothes. They started moving immediately, not willing to discover what she would do if they arrived late.
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Three hours later, a gray haired man entered the classroom. The noise of the sliding door woke Ino up and a bubble of snot popped under her nose while saliva was running down her chin in a small stream. She instantly put her hand up to hide it and blew her nose into an embroidered handkerchief before pointing an accusatory finger towards the man.
"You're late! We've been waiting for three hours!" she shouted at him.
"My first impression…I'm unimpressed," he said on a bored tone. "Meet me on the roof in five minutes."
He left just like that.
"What the…HEY!" she exclaimed in indignation.
"So I was right. It will be Kakashi Hatake. With Sasuke in our team, there was no choice," thought Sai out loud.
"Why so?" asked Ino.
"Because Kakashi Hatake is the only jounin with a sharingan. No one else can help Duckling here use his kekkei genkai, or at least no one with the appropriate rank."
"We should go on the roof, in case he doesn't show up in three hours," said Sasuke as if he was talking about the weather.
"Indeed, let's follow Duckling, Pop Corn."
"Don't call Sasuke Duckling! Wait, did you just call me Pop Corn?!"
"Your hair is yellow like corn and your snot popped when Kakashi entered the classroom, so you're Pop Corn," explained the boy with an irritating forced smile.
"Run."
Sai lifted an eyebrow.
"Run!"
"Why?"
Ino jumped on his back, scratched and bit him.
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"Did a cat attack you?" asked Kakashi, a tall man with a green flack jacket, a blue long-sleeved shirt underneath and long pants, his forehead protector covering his left eye. His gray hair seemed to be magnetized to something on his left side.
"Just Pop Corn, she doesn't like her nickname. I wonder why. I've read that friends give each other nicknames."
Kakashi facepalmed. Ino fumed. Sasuke looked away.
"Next time, try a gentle nickname rather than a mocking one. Although it fits her…"
He dodged a shuriken the girl had sent his way.
"Don't play with pointy things, little girl. It's dangerous."
She jumped him but he dodged again. Until he realized that she would fall down the building. He walked on the vertical surface of the building and caught her by her shirt before sending her back onto the roof.
"Well, first lesson will be tree walking, I guess…" he thought out loud.
Ino was rubbing her butt after landing on it.
"Oh, and you should build some fat and muscle, it helps take hits better. Unless you want to die on your first mission."
Ino went from glaring to feeling cold sweat run down her back.
"Y-Yes, Kakashi-sensei…"
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"How was your afternoon, guys?" asked Ino to her childhood friends of team eight.
Shikamaru smelled really bad, his clothes all wet from sweat. He took a few seconds to react to her voice.
"What did you say?"
"How was your afternoon?"
Chouji was even more drenched and panting.
"…That woman…she's gonna give me nightmares…" replied Shikamaru after a while.
"She's…fuah…she's a slavedriver…fuah…she told us to dodge…fuah…and she spent the next hours playing cat and mouse with us…fuah…sending kunai and shuriken at us…I thought I was gonna die…" added Chouji.
"You don't look drenched in sweat," noted the pineapple, "what did you do while we were trying to survive that crazy bitch?"
"Stop calling girls bitches, even if that one's nasty and crazy, she's not a bitch," scolded Ino. "We spent the afternoon learning how to walk on trees. Vertically."
"Wow, seems useful. And how did it go."
"I managed on my second attempt and by the end of the afternoon I've climbed the highest tree of our training ground. Ten times. Kakashi-sensei told me to repeat the exercise to build my chakra reserves. Sasuke took all afternoon just to be able to stick, he was trying to force his way but it kept bursting the surface he was trying to stick to."
"And Sai?"
"Sai…he already knew how to do it. He was sparring with Kakashi-sensei all the afternoon and resting after each round. That guy…it's like he's already a chuunin…"
"Maybe he's been introduced in our group…to protect Sasuke?" suggested Shikamaru.
"…Maybe you're right…his brother…you know… Yeah, it makes sense…protect him…but maybe also to keep an eye on him…"
"Yeah, to ensure he doesn't lose him mind like his elder brother…he killed all the adults of their clan to 'test himself', was that his reason?"
"I'm not sure…I think there's something else, something the grown-ups have been hiding from us. Why would he kill all the adults, but only from his clan? Why didn't he challenge someone like Kakashi-sensei or the Hokage?"
"Maybe we shouldn't talk about that out there…y'know, might be some S-rank secret under the carpet and we should leave it where it lies," said the pineapple nervously.
"We have to find out what really happened. But maybe we should wait to be chuunin before looking for dangerous information, it would be safer. Chuunin are more trusted than genin, we'd be less likely to be disposed of if we find something dirty."
"I'm just glad Sasuke's big brother didn't kill his own girlfriend, it'd be really bad…and she's been like a sister to him after that event…" said Chouji.
"Yeah, at least he's not living alone after that," added Ino. "If only he came to me for comfort, I'd give him all the hugs and kisses he wants…"
"May your jounin leader help you find other, more interesting goals…" whined Shikamaru.
"Shut up Pineapple! When you fall for a girl, I'll remind you how mean you were!"
"Y'know what? Just for that, I won't ever fall in love with a girl."
"What? You wanna go out with guys?"
"Sure, I'll marry Chouji and we'll spend our lives watching the clouds without anyone to annoy us."
"Don't think I'll date you, Shika," replied Chouji. "I wanna find a woman who likes me for who I am and who likes the fact I eat a lot. A woman who cooks well. A sweet one."
"You just want a second mother," teased the blond girl.
"I wouldn't want a girl like my mother," said Shikamaru. "Too loud and annoying, she doesn't let me live my life the way I want to."
"If she let you, you'd die of thirst after three days doing nothing," teased Chouji. "I'm glad she forced you to stay alive so that I have a friend who doesn't say anything mean to me."
"It's just teasing, Chouji, I'm not really mean to you," replied Ino.
"But you say mean things, even if it's just teasing."
"Troublesome…" sighed the pineapple.
"Tcheh! Be it guy or a girl, I'll make sure to tell them to force you to do lots of things," said the blonde.
Since he ignored her, she kicked his side.
"Ouch! What was that for, Ino? The crazy woman spent the afternoon making giant bruises out of us, don't kick us!"
"Did you like it when she licked your neck?"
"Are you crazy? It was like I was an appetizer, a block of meat for her snakes! I can't find that sexy! Gross!"
"Yeah, it was like we were at a barbecue restaurant, only we were the meat…" added the rotund boy.
"Well, if you're gonna lie there until your moms come kick your asses back home, I'm going back home alone."
"Good riddance," mocked Shikamaru, who received another kick in the side for being mean.
"Serves you right, you jerk. Even if you were as handsome as Sasuke, with your behaviour no girl would like you once they see you in your day to day life. You better look for a guy as lazy as you, cuz that's the only kind of person who could fall for you anyways."
"Just lemme enjoy doing nothing. My crazy jounin leader will force me to exercise everyday more than I've been for my whole life put together. I just wanna do nothing when I can."
"Good afternoon, Chouji. See ya, lazy ass!" said Ino while leaving.
"Bye Ino," replied the nice boy.
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The next weeks were spent alternating between shaping the genin into something close to hat's expected from a shinobi and doing community service called D-rank missions, like retrieving a stupid evil cat, painting fences or harvesting cereals and vegetables. According to Kakashi, it was a way to learn to do odd jobs for later infiltration missions. As if…
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Meanwhile, in Kiri, a civil war was raging and killing civilians and shinobi alike. The camp holding the reins wanted to get rid of every clan with a kekkei genkai, while the opposite side wanted to restore a normal shinobi village and protect the kekkei genkai. The first wanted the most powerful while hunting every unique ability user, the second wanted to put an end to the bloody rule of the current owner of the place, who liked pitting children against each other until only one remained alive.
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In Iwa, the leader's family was rich and kept the power for themselves. Their economy was in a bad state, the people were sharing what the village managed to get from trading and from the few farms where the soil was fertile. They had lots of minerals from the rocky area they lived in, but they lacked food and fauna. They desperately wanted fertile land to be more independent from external trade.
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In Kumo, there wasn't much fertile land, but the population was low enough to manage with what they had and their very developed economy. As the most militarized of the hidden villages, Kumo benefited from the highest mission count and with their two Jinchuuriki, they were given lots of high ranking missions. They had dethroned Konoha as the most powerful and the richest hidden village. All they needed was to diversify their clans, since they were the village with the lowest amount of kekkei genkai and they were mostly kenjutsu and lightning element users. They were in need of foreign blood to build clans with different abilities and open up new battle tactics.
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In Suna, the Kazekage's family and the shinobi were hoarding all the resources. The village was left drained by the three shinobi wars and the Third Kazekage's disappearance. Rasa Sabaku, the Fourth Kazekage, didn't really help, all he cared about was his village's power, rather than its' economy, he was more interested in making his own child a weapon than he was in building a future for his village. It caused the village to stagnate in poverty for the last fifteen years.
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Ame suffered a lot during the war against Konoha as well as the civil war between Hanzo's – the leader's – side and the rebellion against his reign of terror. The old man had become paranoid of everyone and executed and tortured anyone he thought would betray him. After his death, the village of Ame was rebuilt around the cult of the "God" who killed their tyrannical leader, a new leader they never even saw with their own eyes. Economically, it was getting back up from its' long crisis. Its' military power was mostly revolving around its' leader and his second in command, who they referred to as "Angel", or "Tenshi".
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Taki was a minor village trapped between the Land of Fire and the Land of Earth, two countries with major villages often at war with each other. The betrayal of their most powerful shinobi, Kakuzu, and his theft of their forbidden techniques had left them weakened. The village's only saving grace was the host of the Seven-Tailed Beast. Taki never managed to become more than a minor power.
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Kusa was one of the weakest hidden villages to exist. Their military was the weakest of all, they had a low population. Their only power was the quality of their land, a land for which the surrounding countries had fought to the death. It was one of the reasons for the Third Shinobi war, Iwa trying to take this land for themselves to secure a food supply and Suna trying to do the same, while Konoha was defending them as their ally. They were never given any high ranking mission due to the weakness of their military.
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A/N: A little introduction chapter. If you like, don't hesitate to tell me which direction you'd like the story to take. I have the idea of exposing the genin to death and killing before the Chuunin Exams or whatever trials might be used to decide if they can be promoted, and then sending Konoha to help the rebellion in Kiri and secure a new ally as well as a safe trade route for sea trade. I want to do something with Suna too. Kumo will be expanded upon and I really want to make Iwa more than just that powerful village with four named shinobi, three of the same family and one gone to the Akatsuki with their forbidden technique.
Ame will be a background focus building up the Akatsuki arc. It will also be a development for Konoha's unresolved matters. There could be a Chuunin promotion arc, a Kiri civil war arc, leading to sea battles with pirates and conflict with Kumo for an alliance with Kiri. Then an arc with Iwa trying to profit from Konoha focusing East and conquering the Land of Grass, but this one could be parallel to the battle for the alliance with Kiri. After that, the Akatsuki will start acting openly and try to gather the Tailed Beasts for a different reason than in canon. Sasuke will try to use this conflict with the organization to find Itachi and get his point of view of the massacre of the adults of the Uchiha clan.
The genin characters and their generation will try to understand the world they're growing up in, to learn the truth about the big events in their lives and to shape the world in a way that will make their generation and the next ones happier than the previous ones, marked by war and trauma and unable to walk a different path that the one that stained them in the first place.
Favorite, follow, comment, give me your feedback and please tell me if you have ideas for the story, characters and abilities. I won't go deep into doujutsu, I'm more into elemental, yin, yang, barrier, sealing and medical techniques.
Character stats will be hard capped: techniques are more important than body conditioning. The human body can only go so far before reaching its' limits. I'd rather use Iron Skin than tell you Orochimaru takes no damage because his body is harder than any material you can find in this Narutoverse. At that point anyone young would be irrelevant because someone who trained their body without limits for forty years would be infinitely more powerful than someone who started training one year ago. A human with a rifle wins against a martial artist most of the time, that's the only reason why the Narutoverse doesn't just raise taijutsu and kenjutsu masters (canon Gai could beat a lot of Kage level shinobi with only taijutsu, at that point why even spend years learning how to manipulate your chakra if all you have to do is running laps on your fingers every day of the year to be Kage level and beat monsters of Kisame+Samehada's caliber? P.E training for everyone and the whole verse just becomes as bored and boring as Saitama…).
