My apologies for not updating in a timely manner. Life, school, and, well, other people's fic's have been a bit of a distraction. If the gods were feeling cooperative, then we could have this up to Ch.15 by now, with two other fics well mapped out. As it is, well, Ba'al's been yanking me around so that if I find time to write, then I must be losing sleep.
The Siege of Konoha is planned out to be about 18-20 chapters long, but there is a (hopefully small) chance that that is going to change. The Psy-nins are supposed to be based on a Latin culture, like how the Leaf-nins are based on a Japanese one, but seeing as how they are nomads, that makes things a little bit challenging.
If there are any questions from any of you please don't hesitate to e-mail us, don't worry how trivial or abstract your question. At the worst, it'll be ignored (accidentally or purposely, who knows?), and at best it'll motivate us to A) clear up whatever the misunderstanding is, and B) write more, get the next chapter up, and try to appease these curses called muses.
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SLAMU: We own Naruto and all things ninja!
Shicat: (poke poke) Hey, wake up . . .
SLAMU: (snerk snort) Five more minutes . . .
ShiCat: Anyway, we only own Naruto (and Shikamaru and Gaara and Iruka and Jiraiya and...) in our dreams, sadly.
Siege of Konoha
Ch. 1: Got the Message?
Konoha's Kakashi-led Team 7was returning from a (largely uneventful) C-Ranked mission of protecting a merchant's daughter while she traveled to visit her father. The father was a mildly well to do merchant, and they weren't very popular in the mercantile community, but they were frequent Leaf customers.
As they neared Konoha, they passed the last of the checkpoints where they were supposed to be checked out by security forces. This was a precaution for mostly harmless travelers who had taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way, and were usually guided back to the main thoroughfares with the use of genjutsu, and for less inoffensive guests, the village was warned. All arriving persons were to be met by someone, usually a disguised ANBU, by the time they passed the final checkpoint. Failure for this to occur meant trouble was here, or not far in coming.
They had yet to see a soul.
Kakashi signaled them stop, conceal yourself, wait here, and went ahead to check the situation. Creeping along to a better vantage point, the former ANBU set eyes on a ghostly imitation of Zabuza's nest, a cocoon of a silvery-wire like thing that faintly resembled Konoha. The chances of this being something as harmless as a prank was slim, considering one of the prime culprits was pretending to be a rock right now, and the other's needed him there to give them suggestions. No, there wasn't a chance Konohamaru did this.
Pulling free a shiruken, he burned a message onto it with his chakra and hurled it on a best distance course for the administration buildings, and hoped against hope for a peaceful answer.
Hyuuga Hiashi frowned as he wandered back to the Hyuuga estate. The meeting with the Hokage had not been any more productive than any of the previous ones since the start of Konoha's current situation. He snorted at the gutless phrase the council members insisted on using to describe what could only realistically be considered a siege.
Six weeks ago, Konohagakure had lost contact with everything more than 500 yards away from the walls and outlying areas of the town. The night watch had reported seeing flickers in the trees, but when a few watchers had gone to check the anomalies out, there had been nothing out of place. No body heat, no chakra trail, not even a broken twig.
It was not until dawn that Konoha had concrete proof that something out of the ordinary had occurred. The first rays of light glinted oddly in the crisp morning air. The beams of light seemed fractured, warped even. The watch had immediately sent word to the Hokage. By ten o'clock, the changing angle of the sun had revealed that the entire village had been covered in fine threads of chakra, effectively cocooning them in. All attempts at contacting the outside world had met with failure. Anything thrown at the barrier was absorbed momentarily and then flung back into the interior at a slight change in angle.
The Hyuuga abruptly leapt to the side as automatic reactions put him out of the path of the incoming shuriken. Leaning down, he pried the shuriken loose from the fence beside him. Hiashi looked around trying to find the idiot who had thrown bladed weaponry this close to the barrier. He frowned when he could not find anyone even with the Byakuugan. Frustrated, he looked closely at the shuriken to see if there were any distinguishing markings so he could return it to its owner – point first. When The Hyuuga saw what had been engraved on one side of the hapless weapon, his eyebrows climbed a full inch and a half. This needs to go to the Hokage. Now.
As another razor-edged disk flew past Kakashi's ear, the Jounin noted the speed of the reply, almost as if they had expected the message. Grabbing the-deeply-imbedded shiruken and used his chakra to spin it quickly counterclockwise, until the bare message was relayed. Mhm, okay. Crap. Shit. Oh, Damnit!
Pain walked into the Consul tent, quiet but clearly displaying her rankings and caste on her forehead protector. The broken red line followed by four solid blue lines signifying her as a leader of a combat unit was as great a source of pride as the outline of a spider's web that marked her as a member of the Spinster's caste, the leaders and administrators of the Clan.
As she ducked into the dusky, warm confines of the tent, her garments took a bluish hue -the color of a person sent for- that offset the outline of a clenched fist with a 6 emblazoned upon it
She approached a figure in white, a color reserved for those on duty, or so high in status that they were above orders. Thankfully, this was a mind-broke, the lowest caste in the clan. Rarely were these meat puppets made from members of the Clan, and only then because they had committed an indiscretion so heinous that death was deemed too good for them. No, the majority were captives that were too troublesome to be left alone, or enemies that were unfortunate enough to be taken alive. The slave gazed dazedly at her and handed her a scroll.
A disturbance in the chakra barrier has resulted in the communication between the settlement and an undersized patrol that the initial sweep missed. Enemy's probable course of action: call for aid with any/all allies able to assist. Your mission: prevent help from coming. Following the message was a table of pertinent information, estimated reliability of said information, sources of information that were allowed to be disclosed, and a map of where they were sighted.
Pain assessed at the scroll, then quickly rolled it up and stored it in one of the myriad number of pockets that her attire provided for use at a later date. The mission needed to go underway as soon as possible, so she would need to gather those ingrates she commanded. However, as she stepped out into the bright world beyond the Consul tent, she was met by Cassius, the mind-broke assigned to Fist 6, who bore a message. The impeccably dressed drone looked as though he was about to step into a board meeting and fire everyone because he could, a far cry from the mindless menial he was. In a former life he was a relation to a tycoon of some sort, but after he had failed to pay the ransom, she Broke him and was allowed to keep him. Cassius was better off with Fist 6 than any other group, having his mind maintained so that he didn't slip into a vegetative state, until finally he was just left on the roadside, though whether her vigilance was pride of workmanship or something else Pain didn't want to think about.
Bowing first, Cassius calmly relayed the communiqué verbatim, mimicking the intonations and gestures as well as the words. "Mistress Pain, Mistress Despair has already gathered the others, and they are waiting for you at the edge of camp." He then proceeded to lead her to her awaiting subordinates.
Despair was lounging against a tree, filing her nails. A coniciorete, her official job was support: personnel, traps, security, scouting, etc., but found that her self-appointed task to flirt with anything on two legs (preferably male, but was perfectly willing to make exceptions in times of shortage) far more enjoyable. More slacker then warrior, Pain's green-eyed aide-de-camp was not the type to take the initiative to send Cassius out to round up everyone. Someone else was probably setting her up to take a fall. She'd have to keep an eye out.
Dread, by far the physical superior of the team, was the most likely candidate. A nepa, his job was the laying of evidence to lead people into traps, and terminating them. The nepa were the lowest caste other than the mind broke, as only those with the least talent in the other areas were in that caste, and were usually the most dour people in the Clan. He was very capable of spite, and let you know it. The brown-eyed mini-behemoth looked up and glared, as if to say what took you and why do I have to carry your shit?
The shortest member of the team, Agony, was the senior of the two incursus; fighters who drove their victims mad with psychological warfare -singularly unpleasant methods encouraged. He played the part of 'lady's man' so well that it was surprising that he and Despair didn't get along like a roof on fire. His subordinate, Horror, was so far from Agony's boisterousness that he would probably fade into any background. When she looked at the little introvert, all she saw was prey, a veneer not far from the truth. However, the current heir to the Praedico-acies was not to be taken- too- lightly.
Doublechecking the map, Pain started off in the most probable direction of the other patrol with a confident - almost too confident - smirk on her face and strode into the damnable forest.
There will be a few clans that need to be introduced. When that happens, their background will follow this format. Some of these clans are cannon, howeverothers Kishimoto-sensei has forgotten to mention.
Iruka's Ninja Genealogy-
The Authors' clan
Affinity clan
Affinity: Stories
Known members of clan: see hold inscrutable meaning in them, far beyond that of mortal comprehension. (Read: we're too lazy to put something better here)
Authors have the almost God-like ability to create and manipulate universes, requiring only such things as pencilpen, paper, a small amount of exposure to a fandom, a muse and the smallest amount of initiative.