Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto
Summary: After rescuing Sasuke from Orochimaru's grasp, Naruto's rewards consisted of being hated more by the villagers. After an attempt on his life, Naruto finally cracks and vows revenge on his former home. With Naruto an enemy of Konoha, what disasters will befall Konoha? From the twisted individual who brought you Shinobi Extraordinaire, comes the story of a boy's revenge against those who had hurt him…
THE PRICE OF HATE
Chapter 2 – Ultimatum
5 years later…
A dark figure stood hidden in the forest outside the gates of Hidden Cloud, a shinobi village situated in Lightning Country, on the peak of her highest mountain. Standing among the shadows of the forest, the man waits for someone to arrive.
Finally, the person he was waiting for appeared with a poof in front of him. The person who had waited raised a non-existent eyebrow. "Your late." The man who had just arrived rubbed the back of his head. "Sorry, just ran into some bandits."
The first man shook his head. "Why don't you just tell me that you hunted for some bandits instead of thinking up some crappy excuse." The second man grinned. "Ah, you caught me. 'He' got a little hungry so we had to, you know…"
The first man shook his head and stepped out of the shadows, his companion following close behind. The man who had waited in the forest wore a black cloak with red flames covering them, and a cone hat, hiding all identifiable traces on him. Strapped on his back was a large gourd, almost as big as the man himself.
His companion wore the same clothes, but instead of a gourd, he had a Katana strapped by his side. They both continued to walk towards the village. As the pair approached the village gate, they both took off their hats.
The gourd carrier revealed himself to be a redhead, wearing a hidden sand hitai-ate that was slashed horizontally across the middle, while the Katana user had spiky golden locks of hair and three pairs of scars on his cheeks that looked oddly like whiskers, wearing a hidden leaf hitai-ate slashed in the same way. As they walked, the blond gave his companion their instructions.
"Can you believe it? Those fools actually had the guts to disregard our warning. The council had given the orders to have them all exterminated." The redhead walked on with the same bland expression on his face. "Really? Well, shall we count our kills again?" The blonde grinned even more at his companion's response. "Why not? Though I doubt you'll beat my score."
When they finally arrived at the village gate, the pair was surrounded by Hidden Cloud ANBU. "State your business with our village." The squad leader, the woman who spoke, moved towards them. In response, the two missing-nins smiled at her.
Looking back at his partner, the blond gave an insane smile. "Shall we, Gaara?" In response, Gaara gave a signal, surprising the unsuspecting ANBU with a rising wave of sand. In only a few moments, all of them were encased in the said substance. "Let's start, Naruto."
The screams that followed gave the rest of the village a preview of what was to come.
-------------------- Konohagakure: 2 days later --------------------
Tsunade stood at the briefing room, before the most powerful person in Fire Country. Oda Yamamoto, An old balding man and the Prime Minister of Hidden Leaf's host country, and the rest of his government were present. Also in the room were all of the ANBU squad leaders. The tension was running high, and the silence was deafening.
Finally, Yamato decided to break the silence. "My dear Hokage-sama, have you heard of what had happened at Hidden Cloud?" Before the Gondaime could respond, one of the ANBU present in the room simply exploded.
"What do you mean by that?! Of course the Hokage-sama heard about it! Every damn person in the world knows about it!" Tsunade motioned for the hysterical ANBU to stop. "What he meant, Anko, was whether we had been able to know about what had caused Cloud's destruction."
Tsunade turned to the Prime Minister. "I'm so sorry about that, Oda-sama. The news of the disaster had raised alarms on my village." Yamato shook his head. "It's okay, Tsunade-sama. By now, I'm used to people going hysterical in my presence, with the news and all…"
Yamato's wife, the Lady Oda Tsuruko, looked worriedly at the Hokage. "Were there no survivors, Hokage-sama?" Tsunade shook her head. "No one escaped. Nobody even noticed the carnage in the village until the mountain itself exploded. We would have even attributed the village's demise on a natural disaster, except for the fact of how the bodies were found."
Tsunade grimaced at the memory, remembering the grisly scene the ANBU who had investigated the site painted in her head, and the scene that greeted her in the hospital five years ago. As for Tsuruko, she understood the expression on the Hokage's face and declined to ask more questions.
"Who do you think did it, Hokage-sama?" Tsunade forced the memories of the hospital scene away as she answered Yamato's inquiry. "There are several, Yamato-sama, but the most likely suspect is the Akatsuki, since they were the only ones with the reason to attack the village, and the strength to succeed."
Yamamoto raised an eyebrow. "Reason?" Tsunade gave a sigh. "Hidden Cloud stole an important document from the Akatsuki, the list of all the members who had ever joined it. Since the group was sure that the seal they placed on the document wasn't broken yet, they gave the village an ultimatum: either to return it, or face total annihilation. Cloud refused, and the result was…"
Silence followed. Everyone knew what had happened after that. The destruction of Cloud, the deaths of over fifty thousand men, women and children, all for a piece of paper. Yamato was about to break the silence with another question when suddenly, the Hokage's secretary, Shizune, barged into the room.
"I'm sorry for the interruption Hokage-sama, but it's very important! We found a survivor!"
-------------------- Hospital Room --------------------
The Hokage and the Prime Minister stood by the bed. Lying on it was the sole survivor of Cloud, an ANBU who led the squad that guarded the village gate. Thankfully, her injuries were minimal, and she was able to recover a little amount of strength almost immediately after arriving in Konoha.
The woman gave a small smile when she saw she had visitors. "Greetings, Hokage-sama. My name is Misato, and I thank you for saving me from that… hell hole." The Hokage smiled in return, then started on the grisly task on finding out what exactly happened.
"Do you remember anything of what happened two days ago?" The Misato's face showed fear for the slightest instant, then quickly returned to a bland expression and nodded.
"There were only two men. When we saw the slashed hitai-ate, we knew they were missing-nins and surrounded them. The red-haired one suddenly engulfed us all in sand, and kept half of us alive while we listened to the screams of our comrades and the rest of the village." Tsunade gave a start at the description of one of the attackers, but Misato went on.
"When the screaming stopped, the other one - I forgot what he looked liked - did something with his hand and… and blew the mountain apart as easily as a house of cards. The blast knocked me out, and when I woke up, I saw the Konoha shinobi and called out to them." Misato squirmed uncomfortably at the memory.
Tsunade decided to ask one more piece of information. "Did you hear them call each other by name?" The woman nodded. "The redhead's name was Gaara, while he called his companion -" Misato never got to finish her sentence.
Before the woman could tell the name of Gaara's accomplice, a spike of sand came from under her and went through her head, coming out through her mouth and splattering Yamato with blood, silencing Misato permanently with the cold touch of death.
Before the startled Tsunade and Yamato could react, a dark figure appeared. "Greetings, Hokage-sama. Don't worry, I'm not here to kill you… yet." Tsunade stared at Gaara's Suna-bunshin.
Gaara had hidden a small packet of sand on every person they met on Hidden Cloud, ensuring that no one survived by impaling it on vital areas, but the sand that was supposed to finish off Misato failed to receive its signal. Gaara managed to activate the sand, but not before the woman revealed their identity.
The Suna-bunshin looked at both Tsunade and Yamato and smiled. "I'm sorry to cut your talk with Ms. Misato so short, Hokage-sama, but please understand, we have to keep ourselves anonymous." With that, the bunshin dispelled and melted away into nothingness.
-------------------- The Hokage Monument --------------------
The two missing-nins stood atop the great Hokage Monuments. "You've grown sloppy, Gaara. One of them managed to survive." The redhead looked at his partner. "You're right. But at least I managed to keep up with your score." Naruto grinned at his companion. "But you're still behind by twenty. Face it, you're never gonna beat me at this game."
Both men allowed themselves to smile for a moment. Suddenly, Gaara looked at Naruto and asked a question that had been bothering him since they came back. "Do you still want your revenge on Konoha?"
Naruto fell silent for a moment, looking over the village. Finally he turned away and started walking, Gaara by his side. "I'm not sure anymore, Gaara. I mean, plenty of them deserved to die, but a few were nice to me. I'm not sure I can still do it when the time comes." At this Gaara could only nod. He understood perfectly how his partner felt, being in the same situation.
Gaara had become Naruto's partner soon after joining the Akatsuki. Ironically, the reason Gaara fled Konoha was to protect his siblings. A number of Hidden Sand shinobi had blamed the Kazekage's death on him, and went to Konoha to take him out.
He was surprised when Kankurou and Temari stood by him, and were thus severely injured in the following battle. Shaken by their show of love towards him, Gaara left them so that they wouldn't be hurt anymore because of him.
At first, Gaara was surprised to find Naruto allied with the Akatsuki, as Tsunade had just announced his untimely death. Partnered with the fox-boy, Gaara and Naruto had fully developed a strong friendship, to the point that Gaara had dropped his cold exterior and allowed himself to absorb some elements of Naruto's personality.
Both men were interrupted from their thoughts by a rustling in the leaves and looked up to see Itachi and Kisame. "Congratulations on your mission, kids." Kisame gave them a warm smile. Naruto and Gaara had learned that the Shark-man can be pretty nice to people he respect, and they both lead the list just below Itachi as Kisame's most respected people.
Naruto and Gaara returned Kisame's smile, and stood in attention at Itachi. Being a senior member of the Akatsuki. Itachi was the one who gave the Naruto-Gaara duo orders from above.
"You did well, you two. For your efforts, the Council has decided to promote you both to the senior ranks. Report to the council early tomorrow for your next assignment." After uttering what had been the longest speech both Naruto and Gaara heard him say, Itachi disappeared, followed closely by Kisame.
The remaining pair looked and grinned at each other. Finally, after five years, they had been promoted to Senior rank. "We did it, Naruto! What do you think will be our next mission?" After getting no reply, Gaara looked at Naruto to see him looking soberly back at Konoha.
Gaara following his gaze. Both of them were silent for a long time, the silence speaking more than words could allow.
Finally, they both disappeared into the darkness of the night.
End of Chapter 2
AN: Sorry for the hiatus. Been working on Shinobi Extraordinaire's chapter one, and two new fanfics. Be sure to look out for them! Can't say if I can update within the rest of the month of November. I got a French and a History project, plus the endless supply of the dreaded scourge: Homework. Just wish me luck so I can pass them (And not do them over again) and stay tuned for any early updates.