8. Another Bad Day For Renvall

Introduction: After the ambush at the Adlas Plans fails, Eirika's group continues onwards to Renvall in order to pick up Ephraim's trail. After the beating the Fortress took from Ephraim's violent leaving of the theatre a week ago, Grado's higher ups thought they had worked out how to fight against Konoha Shinobi. Too bad they have never met Naruto before.

Three Miles North West Of Renvall, Mountain Pass

"They've engaged." Naruto said suddenly.

"Already?" Eirika asked in surprise next to him.

"Perimeter patrol. My clones knocked them out and hid them then created some more to take their place." Naruto explained before frowning and said "It's strange though, there were two more members than we usually encounter in Grado patrols and they were both archers."

"Perhaps it's a counter designed for your teammate. You did tell us that she is rather strong so perhaps the thinking is to hit her from long range if she is spotted again." Seth suggested.

"Yeah maybe." Naruto said before his eyes widened and he said "Woah, that's a lot of bowmen." Before the pair could ask him what he was talking about, Naruto stopped walking and formed a shadow clone which immediately turned into a ten foot square table with a 3d map on it. Most of the map was an indistinct blur, but the route that the advance scouting clones had taken was highly detailed. What was also highly detailed were all of the troops stationed at Renvall, little icons mounted above their heads showing what they used. Seventy five percent of the forces arrayed outside of the Fortress were bowman. And there were a LOT of soldiers outside of the fortress at the moment. (No surprise given the massive holes in said fortress' walls Naruto's map showed.)

"That's, a lot of bowmen." Eirika said in surprise.

"Indeed. I do believe Vanessa should remain with the Supply Convoy during this battle." Seth stated.

Naruto frowned and said "I know you guys don't like the idea of my clones doing all of the fighting for you but I think that for this one ALL of you should stick with the Supply Convoy and let them handle it."

"What were you thinking, simply flood the area with clones to make them waste their arrows?" Seth asked.

Naruto shook his head and gained his prankster's grin as he said "Nah, or rather, not JUST that. We know that monsters are beginning to appear right? Well, what if we unleashed some monsters of our own? Some that have rock like skins to counter the point attacks of arrows?"

Eirika and Seth both blinked at the mental picture before Seth smirked and said "That is both genius and mildly terrifying to picture."

"Alright Naruto, we'll hang back until your clones have cleared the field of battle." Eirika said.

Naruto nodded and said "Then I guess that just leaves the question of if we'll be taking the time to raid the fortress for supplies or if we should immediately leave the area after my method of tracking has Sakura's trail."

Seth frowned and said "Time is of the essence, but even if were to fall back to Frelia the moment we joined with Prince Ephraim's group, we would still need supplies in the way of food and water for the trip back."

"Yes, but it would also leave any surviving soldiers to starve until the Fortress can be restocked, and Naruto's shown a propensity to knock out the majority of the Grado Soldiers he comes across unless they're either the commanding officers or were taking part in the Adlas Plains battle." Eirika stated.

"Noticed that did you?" Naruto said, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.

Eirika put a hand on his shoulder and smiled as she said "I think the fact that you leave the soldiers who are most likely just following orders alive is very admirable of your character Naruto." She then looked at Seth and stated "If our supplies can last until we are out of Grado controlled territory then we should leave the Fortress supplies alone. Otherwise, we should only take what we would need to last us until we reach the Frelian border."

"I shall speak with the quartermaster." Seth said with a nod.

He returned a few minutes later and said "I was told that it was doable if we began making our return trip in two days but that everything would have to be strictly rationed and we would be down to hard tack food wise. Also, we need to restock on water rather soon."

Eirika nodded and looked back at Naruto as she said "Have your clones take no more than a quarter of their stores."

Naruto nodded then closed his eyes for a brief moment to come up with what he wanted his clones to turn into when they appeared. (It made their efforts uniform rather than whatever the individual clone came up with) The next moment, his eyes snapped open and the mountain pass filled with smoke. Before it cleared, there was a second, bigger outburst of smoke.

When the chakra smoke finally cleared, there were three hundred extremely burly looking figures made out of greyish brown stone, covered in seemingly random splotches of green that looked like moss had grown on them over time. They were hunched over slightly, (due to having no neck, their heads instead coming out of holes in their torso where it had curved to horizontal) but were still easily eight feet tall. Their bodies had several rocky spikes on them, including one that made them look like they had Mohawks on the top of their heads, gleaming red eyes, fanged teeth filling their mouths, and extremely sharp looking tips on their fingers. In short, they looked mean, able to take a lot of damage, and INCREDIBLY willing to return said damage with interest.

"Gentlemen!" Naruto said with an eager grin, and somehow the clones all shifted to appear to be at attention, ready to receive their orders. "Leave no bow unbroken, no sword unbent, no lance unsplintered, no axe unshattered, and no tome unripped!"

The three hundred clones let out a collective roar that sounded like a massive rockslide going off before as one they about faced and began running away with long strides.

Seth shuddered a little and said under his breath "So glad he's on our side!"

"You're getting a bit repetitive there General." Colm said with a grin.

"It bears repeating!" Seth said with slightly wide eyes and pointed at the retreating golems and continued "How the hell is someone supposed to fight those things? Weapons would just break on their skin, fire wouldn't be affective, nor would wind, and I'm pretty sure all but the most advanced light and dark magics would just do chip damage!"

"That's certainly what I'm hoping for." Naruto said with a chipper tone even as his clone map updated to include the rapidly moving group of golems as a preexisting clone gained visual contact of them and began rapidly creating then dispelling another clone as they followed from the trees so that way the original and the rest of the group could monitor their progress. Was it a waste of chakra? Maybe, but with how little chakra the clones were being made with, it was but a drop out of a very large drum for Naruto and so totally worth it.

(On a slightly unrelated note, the group of clones that had taken the place of the ambushed Grado patrol promptly did the rather prudent thing and quickly dropped their transformations to avoid 'friendly fire' incidents)

(With The Defenders Of Renvall)

The soldiers who had come to Renvall after the fiasco of Valter's attempt at capturing Prince Ephraim had NOT been having a good time of things this week. For starters, when the reinforcements had arrived they had to go about the grisly task of dealing with all of the bodies of Grado soldiers left all over the area (Including all of the wyvern corpses). The villagers from the nearest settlement had started, (Once they had felt it was actually SAFE to leave their village a day after the miniaturized war had happened) but there had been just so MANY, and a good portion of the bodies weren't exactly INTACT either.

Then there was all of the damage done to the fortress during Sakura's rapid exit. Whole walls had to be replaced for some of the smaller rooms and it was a miracle that none of the load bearing walls had been damaged to the point of the fortress collapsing on itself. (The only reason THAT hadn't happened was because Sakura hadn't wanted the ceiling dropping on her and the men she was leading out of the fortress)

Finally, as if all of that wasn't bad enough, there had been a really bad rain storm yesterday for the latter half of the day. In short, the reinforcements of Renvall were all downright MISERABLE right now. And it was about to get even WORSE for them.

It started with a low rumbling sound. At first, all of the archers on the steppes outside of the fortress and the few wyvern riders in the air merely grimaced, expecting another storm cell to be rolling in and they were just hearing the thunder early. But the rumbling didn't stop, and it was getting louder VERY QUICKLY.

Then a WAVE of rock came flowing out of the forests and one unfortunate spearman near it had just enough time before a rocky fist slammed into his chest to mutter "Aw, hell."

The soldier was flung back, losing his lance thanks to the rocky fist that had grabbed the shaft at the same time as the rock monster had punched him. The soldier weakly raised his head just in time to see the fist flex and the shaft to shatter. When the fist opened, wood splinters fell out of the fingers, and the monster grinned evilly at the soldier as it stomped forward causing him to whimper in fear. Reaching him, the monster bent low and grabbed the soldier around the waist and stood up. Bringing the terrified man face to face, it roared in the soldier's face hard enough for the poor man's lips and cheeks to flap in the created wind then idly tossed him over its shoulder. As the man landed on his back with a pained 'OOF!' the monster started stomping away to join its brethren as they tore off towards the steppes where the archers were already futility firing waves of arrows to absolutely no effect whatsoever.

The soldier shakily rolled to his hands and knees and as he watched the ensuing carnage muttered to himself "I should have listened to Father and stayed on the farm. But NOOOO, I wanted the excitement of being in the army!"

"Yeah, might have been safer there." An unknown voice said behind the soldier and he stiffened in fear but before he could do anything else, he slumped back to the ground unconscious.

Behind him, the still Naruto shaped shadow clone under his mirage genjutsu shook out his fist then proceeded to begin the job it had been selected for specifically when it had been created. Pulling out a small glass vial, the clone uncapped it and carefully let a drop of its contents fall onto its palm. Recapping the vial, the clone put it away and ran through five hand signs before placing his bloody palm on the ground.

There was a poof of smoke and a toad about six inches tall wearing a blue vest and goggles over its head appeared. The toad waved at the clone and said "Yo Naruto, what's up man?" There was a scream that grew steadily louder and the toad and the clone looked up in time to see an archer flying through the air, flailing his limbs before he landed in the lake surrounding the fortress with a loud splash. Looking back down, the toad said "Other than the flying humans of course."

"Hey Gamatorakka." The clone said before he gestured around and said "The Boss' teammate Sakura was around here about a week ago at most and we need to find out where she and the group she's aiding went after they left."

"Clone eh?" Gamatorakka said in understanding before he looked over his shoulder as a Grado archer shouted in the distance "Not my bow, that was a present from my pappy! Wait, wait, don't throw meeeeaaaaaaaaaaah!"

The clone snickered at that and the toad smirked a bit as he actually took the time to see what was going on a fair distance behind him. Seeing the distant forms of several Grado archers running away from giant rock creatures, many of them desperately clutching their bows to their chests as they ran, (and one who did the SMART thing and dropped his bow and for good measure his quiver as he ran) Gamatorakka looked back at the clone and pointed over his shoulder with his right hand as he said "More of your clone brethren having fun with the Henge Jutsu I take it?"

The clone nodded then turned serious as he asked "So, think you can track Sakura's trail?"

"Shouldn't be too hard, even with the amount of time since she was here." The toad said and put its nose to the ground for a few moments before hopping off further into what could be called a battlefield if one was being extremely charitable and the clone followed along to ensure he stayed in the field of the cloaking genjutsu.

(Inside Renvall)

Meanwhile, while the rock golems were sewing utter chaos outside, a couple of clones wearing the stereotypical burglar outfit of black and white striped shirt, black gloves, hat, and eye mask were cackling as they raided the kitchen. All of the Renvall occupants who had been in the kitchen at the time were all tied up together in a circle back to back with their mouths gagged by strips of cloth tied in cleathe gags and loudly complaining as they watched the pair toss their food into the sacks the pair were carrying. (Which had storage seals held to the inside of the bags thanks to chakra making them look like bottomless bags of holding)

Once the clones had reached the limit Eirika had given them, one of the clones gave the Grado men a two fingered salute and said "Thanks for the donation chaps, you don't mind if we help ourselves to the treasury on our way out right?"

"MRHHMRRHRMRHRM!" The soldiers shouted in denial, one even shaking their head.

"Great! Didn't think you did, but it's only polite to check!" The other clone said with a grin before the pair of clones actually put their free arms over the other's shoulder and skipped out of the kitchens while singing a jaunty song about robbing everyone blind and enjoying the spoils.

(With Eirika's Group, Ten Minutes Later)

Naruto perked up from where he and the rest of Eirika's group were watching a much bigger version of the clone table. (Colm and Ross in particular finding the actions of the miniature rock golem clones being shown VERY amusing) Turning his gaze towards his charge/mission leader, he said "The tracker's got the trail."

Eirika gave a small nod and asked "Will the clones you assigned to resource acquisition be able to find us if we leave this area?"

Naruto nodded and said "So long as I create and dispel clones every ten minutes or so then they shouldn't have much trouble catching up."

Eirika gave a more firm nod and said "Then let us leave with all haste, I do not want to prolong my reunion with my brother more than necessary."

"Roger that." Naruto said, dismissing the clone table earning an 'AAW!' from Ross and Colm, and informing all of his clones at Renvall the news that the group was heading out thanks to the memory transfer the dispel triggered. As Eirika's group began making their way to join the Clone with the tracker toad, the Rock Golem clones continued sewing chaos at Renvall. They would remain for another hour terrorizing the soldiers there until they would meander off into the surrounding woods to dispel and leaving a bunch of Grado troops completely weaponless and absolutely paranoid of a return visit leading to several sleepless nights for the unfortunate men and women stationed there.

END