Historical fantasy AU with a few different eventual ships (but NO ships will be the main focus, it's not a romance story).

If you're averse to any of the following, you've been warned up front: sasunaru, madasaku (no age gap), implied jiraiya/orochimaru/tsunade, shizutsu, and maybe some others. The story is plotted and outlined but not necessarily complete, so I'll add more ship warnings if they become necessary.

Happy new year FFN, xox

-Vivi

NARUTO

The morning that altered forever the course of Naruto's life was bizarre.

Well, bizarre was all a matter of perspective. He spent every night asleep in a mound of old hay, snuggled beneath a coarse, thickly woven blanket of low quality. Horses snorted and sighed in the stalls around him, the sounds familiar and comforting. But as he stretched out his arms and legs, not quite ready to get up yet, a shrill scream echoed just outside in the palace walls. He shot up, confused even as his pulse began to race.

He yanked his simple clothes from the nearby hook, dressing in a hurry before leaping over the low gate and rushing to the stable's courtyard. As he fastened the frogs of his vest, he saw many familiar faces darting past and up the polished wooden staircase that led to the side entrance—the servant's entrance—to the palace. He looked toward the direction the commotion was headed, expecting maybe to see a plume of smoke or even the destructive flames of a fire itself. But all was quiet aside from the panic of the palace residents, and he pursed his lips in curiosity. The Old Man Hokage had let Naruto off the hook for his antics and prying plenty of times, but before he took even one step, a strong hand clasped him on the shoulder.

"Don't be so hasty," said Jiraiya, all of the usual levity in his voice curiously absent.

Naruto spun to look up at him. The hermit had taken an interest in him only within the last year, but they'd bonded greatly in that time; Naruto knew at once from his expression that something was deeply wrong.

"What is it?" he asked. The evidence of sleep was still thick in his voice, and he cleared his throat against it.

"The Hokage is dead."

He froze, not expecting to hear something so horrible. Sure the old man was, well, old, but old enough to—

"That can't be right," he pressed, interrupting his own train of thought. "He's...he wasn't even sick!"

Jiraiya's chuckle was humorless. "He kept many things to himself. A troublemaker who earned nothing but lecture after lecture from the man need not worry himself over the details." Affectionately he ruffled Naruto's hair. "Ready your quickest horses. The council will want to send word with haste, both of his passing and the naming of the new Hokage once his will has been read."

"But what about—"

"Naruto!"

He knew better than to argue when the sage took that tone with him. He swallowed and did as he was told, busying himself with securing saddles and blinders upon the steeds there in the stable. It did little to calm his stormcloud thoughts, and he felt electrified down through his fingertips and his toes from his growing anxiety. As if in response to his unease (or perhaps retaliation), he felt a great, deep rumbling within him. Somewhere in his belly he could feel it, that familiar rage he'd spent his entire life trying to keep at bay.

The old man is keeping secrets, as always.

"That's a lie," Naruto mumbled. Ero-sennin was unconventional, sure, but he'd never given Naruto a reason not to trust him. He'd departed so much knowledge and so many skills in their short time together as student and master, and he rarely talked down to him even when discussing high-profile things well out of Naruto's scope of knowledge as a mere stablehand. He'd taught him the secrets of chakra, the basics of ninjutsu, even when the Hokage had advised against it.

You remember the way he looked at you, said the sinister voice, when you were but a child. What then could change his heart but the heavy hand of guilt?

"I don't even know what you're talking about," Naruto said, and he meant it. Often the voice said strange things, things that made so little sense that he was confident in some moments that he was losing his grip on reality. Maybe one day he would go mad, given into those thoughts.

"Who, me?"

Naruto flinched and glanced up quickly, embarrassed to be caught murmuring weird things to nobody in particular. Standing there at the stable's doorways was Iruka, his former teacher from his brief time spent in the palace academy—before the Hokage had kicked him out for being too unruly. At the sight of his old sensei, he felt the panic in his heart calm for the first time since he'd woken.

"Iruka-sensei," he said with a not-so-formal dip of his head. "Tell me it isn't true. Is Gramps really...?"

The man's expression was solemn, a line of worry between his brows parallel to the long scar across his nose. "I'm afraid so, Naruto. Jiraiya-sama must've beat me here."

"He did," he replied heavily. He noted that the frantic air of the courtyard had quieted, the initial rush of panic worn off. "I really thought..."

Iruka smiled sadly, taking Naruto's shoulders in his hands to bring him in for a hug. "I know you were hopeful to be his successor, but we'll just have to be sure you train your hardest to catch the attention of whomever takes his place."

"It's not that," Naruto said in earnest, shaking his head. Well, part of it was that—but he wasn't so selfish to be so upset about it at a time like this. "He's been Hokage for so long. How can anyone do all that he did?"

"There's a long line of Hokage, Naruto, and before them was a long line of emperors. All of them ruled over times both good and bad. The most important thing we can do is live on strong for him; that's what the Will of Fire is all about."

Naruto had never put much of his faith into the Will of Fire, but if Iruka insisted, he would do his best.

"Oi, sensei," he said then, trying to distract himself, "are you being sent to deliver the news?"

"Not quite. I'm here to fetch the steeds for the jounin being sent out."

"They're sending people of that high a rank?"

He answered with a tired hum. "It's tricky business, the passing of someone of such importance. If we were to send simple messengers, any territories harboring secretive ill will towards the Leaf may see us as vulnerable. If we send our best instead, it's a show of strength."

"That's stupid."

"That's politics," he said with a laugh. "Keep your head high. Something tells me that whoever is next in line will be eager to meet you."

"You always say weird stuff like that." Naruto handed him the reins to one of the horses, and as Iruka bowed in gratitude, he smiled. Then, before he turned and left, he said one last thing:

"It's just a teacher's intuition."