Disclaimer: Refer to chapter 1!
AN: Full Chapter Title: Blood in the Streets! Battle in the Hospital!
Kunai clashed, shuriken struck flesh, fists clashed with flesh, and blood ran from friend and foe. All of it pointed to one thing as screams of war, screams of rage, screams of grief, and screams of madness ripped through the village so many called home. War waged within the streets of Konohagakure and with war came the inevitability of death of ally and foe alike. And with death came anguish, rage, despair.
"Mari-chan!" A young husband calling for his young wife before the blade of the enemy struck him in the back.
"Gohan, come with mommy now!" A panicked mother trying to escape the carnage with her little boy before death claimed one of them. Her struggles were nearly rendered worthless when a Suna Shinobi struck at them both with a deadly wind technique.
She was one of the lucky ones. A Konoha Shinobi arrived just in time to snatch both from the ground and carry them away, her partner appearing silently behind the Suna Shinobi and slitting his throat without remorse or hesitation.
"Ganta? Ganta please no!" Another mother was not so lucky. A kunai laid in her boy's back, leaving his body lifeless as she desperately called to him.
"All of you, run to the shelter." A Shinobi of Konoha landed on a nearby rooftop, blood staining his form but imperceptible to the civilians below him. "Get to safety!"
'Like I'll yet any of them escape.'
He noticed the shadow and a trio of shuriken flew to intercept him. He forced him to reveal himself as the blade in one hand was used to bat away his projectiles. The kunai in his other hand was held close and with good reason as a fourth shuriken flew free of the shadow of one of the three. He deflected the fatal blow to his throat.
He drew and raised twin kunai from his side and made use of them to block the twin blades of his attacker. He ignored the screams from civilians as they ran. He focused not on the preservation of his life from the blade of a foreign foe but protecting those who cannot do so themselves. He pushed away his attacker and threw one kunai forward. A single swing of his foe's blade was enough to deflect the thrown knife. His other hand reached for the giant shuriken attached to his back with his now free hand.
A rain of senbon pierced his body before he could do so. Blood ran from his mouth as a thin line before a blade was sent through his body. He heard the clicking of a puppet but could not see it. His body refused to move, a combination of the poisons that coated the needles in his back and the mortal wound he had just been dealt.
"Die." A kunai was drawn across his throat. His body fell back, removed itself from the blade, and struck the ground.
'...tree leaves shall bud anew.' His eyes drifted close, embraced the darkness, just as the invader realized an explosive tag had been planted on his stomach.
"SH-!" The last act of the dying Shinobi made sure he had a foe join him in the afterlife.
"This is getting us nowhere." Ibiki threw out a handful of shuriken, piercing through a number of Sunagakure attackers with hardly a glance. He looked to where Anko stood off from the battle between Chiyo the Elder and Kakashi of the Sharingan.
It was an incredible sight.
Kakashi's hounds, a Jutsu he may have created or had simply copied, proved a match for Chiyo's puppets for the moment. They could not be trapped, could not be destroyed without reforming seconds later, and worked about as well as the ten puppets Chiyo managed all at once. It was to a devastating effect that destroyed a vast majority of their surrounding but against an enemy like Kakashi, who had added a small host of Kage Bunshin to the mix, it was ineffective in ending the battle.
'The fact that she can use ten puppets simultaneously is a testament of her skills.' Ibiki would not normally compliment a foe but this was a special case. Chiyo the Elder had truly been a terrifying foe to face on the battlefield in her youth. Now she was simply the stuff of nightmares for many. A Puppeteer had a knack for becoming much better as they aged, as they gained more experience, and Chiyo was no difference. She was an absolute monster on the battlefield and now she was much worse.
He recognized the puppets Kakashi fought against and couldn't deny the fear he felt.
The Chikamatsu Collection was said to have conquered an entire fortress by itself once. In the hands of such a skilled and renowned Puppeteer like Chiyo he worried for the safety of Konoha.
'This is bad.' Each weapon the puppets wielded was dripping with a thousand different poisons, poisons designed by the old Shinobi herself and no doubt every single cut, even the slightest scratch, would prove to be absolutely lethal. The poisons she created for the war were only ever countered by Tsunade of the Sannin after all. 'How long can Kakashi keep this up? How long can we last with here until we can get reinforced? How long can we last after that?'
The Head of Torture and Interrogation wanted to curse at the fact this all had to happen now, the village still extremely weakened from the rampage of the Nine Tail so long ago. If that chaos had never consumed the village, claimed the lives of so many great and powerful veteran Shinobi, claimed the life of the Fourth Hokage himself in the end, then Sunagakure would have never thought to invade a village so abundant in not only powerful Shinobi but skilled Shinobi as well.
'It's a bad idea to lament the dead during a time like this.' He avoided the barrage of shuriken launched by a trio of Sunagakure Shinobi and responded with a pair of kunai as he dashed forward. Two crumpled to the ground, the Chakra enhanced kunai ripping through their Flak Jackets, hearts, and out through the back. The last Suna-nin drew a blade to meet the scarred Shinobi in close quarters combat when Ibiki pulled on the wire strings attached to the kunai. He crossed his arms, crossed the Chakra laden wire strings, and he bifurcated the Shinobi foolish enough to only focus on what was ahead of him.
'It's time to focus on keeping myself alive and send these invaders to join them.' He rushed forward, his eyes locking onto two more attackers even as a third was slain by a expertly thrown shuriken finding its mark in their throat.
Away from Ibiki and the battles waged among the stands, a group of four of Sunagakure's equivalent to Konoha's ANBU Black Ops awaited outside a door.
"You know your jobs." In the medical area, the ANBU assigned to be the leader looked to the three Sunagakure ANBU with him. The three nodded as he lifted a hand to the door.
Information gathered just before the invasion commenced revealed that Hinata Hyuga was present on the other side of the door. In addition to her, Kiba Inuzuka and Shino Aburame were said to be with the Hyuga heiress.
Two valuable hostages and a Hyuga was simply too perfect.
The fools didn't know what awaited them on the other side of the door.
No words were needed among the team anymore as they readied themselves. Three stepped away as the masked Shinobi channeled his Wind Chakra to his fingers in preparation.
He ran his fingers over the perimeter of the door, silently severing the hinges. Two moved forward, silently taking hold of the door and sticking it to their palms with Chakra. The Sunagakure ANBU who had cut the door away stepped back, the other ANBU coming to his side and both prepared themselves to enter the room. The two holding the door silently performed the same Wind Chakra technique as their leader and split the door in half. A minor application of Chakra made sure the door didn't separate just yet.
A hand signal was given.
The door halves were silently pulled away.
The four ANBU entered the room.
"Halt." The shields of Naruto's Praetorians forming an impassable wall stopped them from continuing much further than the doorway. A centurion at the head of them leveled his sword at the team of Sungakure's ANBU with bloodlust in his eyes.
'The Kyubi's Jinchuriki's clones?' The ANBU stepped back at this unforeseen development. He drew a kunai to his hand in the blink of an eye and ran Wind Chakra down the blade as he took in the sight of the dozens of blondes in the room. 'This is unexpected.'
"Surrender or die." The centurion spoke the words that the most elite of Sunagakure's forces needed to decide their fate with.
The ANBU's eyes looked past the centurion and towards the far end of the room where another smaller group of Praetorians surrounded the bed of Neji Hyuga, the Genin still unconscious. Within that circle of flesh and steel it was clear to see not only the Hyuga's heiress Hinata Hyuga but her teammates, Kiba Inuzuka and Shino Aburame as well.
'The mission is to retrieve the heiress and any valuable hostages.' The ANBU tightened his grip on his kunai. The ANBU assigned to the extraction team already knew what to do.
The mission mattered more than anything else to them all. Only the mission mattered because only Sunagakure's supremacy over all others mattered in the end.
No words needed to be exchanged. The four silently vanished from sight in a blitz forward. They avoided the blades of those in front of them, two remained behind in the rear of the circle of shields to battle the clones of the Jinchuriki while the other two continued forward.
The centurion gave a shark like grin.
"Have it your way." The centurion drove his shield into the ground and Chakra rippled across it. The Praetorians behind him mirrored his actions just as a hurricane of swirling blades raced forward. Those at the door changed the direction their shields faced, clashed with the twin wakizashi one of the ANBU ran Wind Chakra through and the single katana the second wielded with their swift blades and the unmoving shields.
The shields of the Orange Legion's strongest, amplified by a surge of Chakra that appeared as a rippling blue light across their surface, obtained a decisive victory over the blades of the two ANBU.
'Dammit.' Anger was carefully hidden as the ANBU threw himself forward with his partner, another kunai joining the first and Wind Chakra running across the blades of both. He exchanged a silent look with his partner and received a silent nod as a scroll was readied by a flick of their wrist, a seal tattooed onto his skin releasing it into his palm.
"Charge!"
"HOO!"
As one, the soldiers of the Orange Legion tore their shields free of the ground, held their swords at the ready, and charged forward.
The two ANBU attempting to insure their exit clashed with a half dozen blades each. Chakra running across the blades made it difficult to make such a thing a reality. One fell against the onslaught of blades, a bloody gash across the chest his end as his katana clattered to the floor. The other saw the fall of their comrade and leaped up to the ceiling. Their feet stuck the surface as they sheathed their paired blades and drew the large iron fan off their back.
Six crescent shaped blades of Chakra soared at him from across the room, ripped through the fan when it was raised to defend, and a bloody corpse fell to the ground.
The ANBU didn't stop his charge forward and neither did his partner, shock did not cover their faces at the reality of two of Sunagakure's most elite dead at the hands of a Genin.
The Praetorians on the other hand seemed to take glee at such a fact, bloodlust in their eyes and eager grins on their faces as they charged for the blood of Suna's Shinobi to stain their polished blades crimson.
A surge of Chakra down his partner's arm brought forth a trio of small puppets, no bigger than the birds one would find among the trees of Konohagakure during a time of peace. Chakra rippled from what approximated from their beaks, spread to cover the small creations, and Wind Chakra turned them into deadly drills. A single hand was all that was needed to command the simple puppets as the ANBU allowed a simple mechanism to activate and open the beaks. A seal tag hidden inside activated with a single pulse of Chakra and a barrage of senbon shot forward.
"Shields!" More than one voice commanded the raising of the defensive instrument and they were followed. Each Praetorian came to a halt in the blink of an eye, Chakra channeled to their feet helping them avoid sliding across the tiled floor. Their shields were driven into the ground as they hunched over behind them, Chakra rippling across the surface once more.
The shields in front of the puppets of course held they were riddle with the sharpened needles but they were not punctured through in the slightest.
With a single hand seal the explosive tags carefully wrapped around the needle before being sealed unfurled, burned, and detonated.
The Chakra enhanced shields of the Legion didn't allow the normally devastating attack to be as effective as it normally was. It was diminished.
His partner charged forward with his kunai held at the ready, slipping past the shields of the Praetorians in the smoke and lengthening the reach of his weapons with a surge of Wind Chakra to each of them. They were lethally sharp blades as he cut down the Praetorians on either side of him. He leaped into the air and threw the two kunai into the unprotected, less protected than their front at least, backs of two more of the armored clones. The blades of wind ripped through the Praetorians from front to back, both letting out what amounted to a death rattle as their blood spilled to the floor.
The Praetorians were distracted by the swift fall of their own, a handful turning to their fallen brothers in arms with something close to shock crossing their faces as they observed them slump forward, the wind blade that had taken their lives the only thing supporting them as the tips cut into the floor. One turned back to the ANBU they battled against, one of the Wind Chakra covered bird-like puppets batted away by the Chakra layered shield the Praetorians wielded. He slashed forward with his Chakra wreathed sword, a fire like arc of Chakra erupting forward to crash against a slash of Wind Chakra unleashed by the ANBU with a swipe of his fingers. Two more joined him in his assault, striking out at the ANBU with two more roaring blades of Chakra.
The Wind Chakra surrounding the two thrown kunai quickly destabilized itself and the shell ruptured.
A barrage of wind bullets erupted forward and ripped through the dead Praetorians. More joined the two, blood scattering across the tiled floor as more fell to the unexpected assault from within their own ranks. The ANBU dropped to the ground in a crouch and surged forward with a fresh pair of kunai in his hands.
He clashed with the centurion present almost immediately, anger filling his blue eyes. He broke away from the possible blade lock and threw his shield forward, the ANBU not expecting it but still able to avoid the worse of the blunt force attack. He was struck by the shield but moved through the air with it, adding the force of the thrust with a push to the ground from his feet.
Three burning blades of Chakra ripped through the air once more towards his partner and two of the puppets were sacrificed in order to stop the attack. Their wings ripped free of the main body, Chakra spread and a shield quickly took its place. The separated pieces of the birds fell to the ground almost immediately after the attacks had been blocked and two more birds launched themselves forward from the scroll.
"You Sunagakure Shinobi are skilled." The centurion complimented his foe with something close to a grimace crossing his face. His blade sliced through the air, unleashed a blade of Chakra to soar towards his opponent. The ANBU didn't attempt to counter it, finding avoidance a better option as he turned to avoid the attack. He powered himself back with a push against his back and blazed through the necessary hand signs for his next attack as he threw his two kunai forward.
The centurion didn't bother dodging the two thrown weapons, knocking one off to the side with his shield and batting the other aside with the flat of his blade. The ANBU clapped his hands together before drawing them apart, a sphere of winds forming between his palms before he threw his palms forward.
'Foolish to block.' The centurion avoided the attack thanks to an innate danger sense. The roaring winds within made him cautious to block it with his shield. The attack passed by him and he threw himself forward and towards the ANBU that was his foe.
The ANBU prepared himself for combat, throwing four shuriken forward to hopefully claim the life of his opponent only to fail as his Chakra wreathed shield once again batted aside his projectiles.
'Time to e-'
"URK!" The ANBU's mask stopped the blood from splattering across the ground. He glanced down and could only see the hole the bullets of Chakra had left as they ripped through him.
He made an attempt to turn, to see the mass of Praetorians that had thrust their pilums forward and unleashed the attack, but he collapsed to the ground in the midst of the action.
ANBU knew when to retreat. The scroll burned itself out when it unleashed a dozen mechanical birds, sent all around the room as explosive clay and smoke bombs hidden inside scattered in every direction as they fired away from inside, shattering the main body of the dozen of puppets and making the Praetorians immediately raise their shields in defense.
The seals that branded all of them were activated with a hand seal in the midst of his escape, their bodies engulfed by flames to destroy any evidence of their presence in the room. The ANBU cloaked his Chakra signature a moment later, vanishing from the sight of most sensors and rushing to the extraction point where two ANBU teams awaited his arrival.
The fact he would have to report his mission as failure would prove complex.
At that moment, the ANBU bearing a plain tan mask vowed to never fall against such a force again.
"That pathetic coward runs from our might." The centurion sheathed his blade a moment later, a growl escaping his lips as he turned to some of his fallen century. The blood they shed from their wounds had spread across much of the tiles around them and their weapons fallen from their hands. The centurion approached one of his fallen brothers in arms and fell to a knee. He struck a single fist against the ground, the other crossing over his armored heart, and bowed his head to the fallen.
"Rest my brothers, you have earned it." The centurion's words were a mere whisper, the Praetorians with him bowing their heads as well and those closest joining him by letting a knee and their fist striking the ground as they silently saluted their brothers. "Our victory was gained but not without sacrifice."
The centurion rose his head, rose back to his feet, and allowed himself to let out a single sigh.
'Foolish it seems to believe we may remain untouched by the true cost of battle.' The centurion almost wanted to laugh, laugh at the fact that he had once thought that he and his brothers in arms would be able to avoid the ever present specter known as death. The Legion was not untouched by death, walked with it on every march, and had met it on the final path many had walked on their campaigns, from Silver Fang to the battles of Wave. He had foolishly believed they could escape its grasp merely because they could call themselves Praetorians of the Orange Legion, call themselves the elite of the elite.
It was foolishness befitting a newborn babe, not a centurion of Caesar's Orange Legion.
"Rest my brothers, rest and know the blood of Suna will stain the blade of your brothers soon." With those words the last he would speak to the dead, the centurion turned to the two he had been assigned to protect. Beyond the brief assistance through use of their Chakra attacks from pilum, the Praetorians did not break the barrier their shields formed around the bed of Neji Hyuga and his cousin Hinata Hyuga. Both were of interest to Caesar for different reasons and the centurion, along with his century, had been assigned the duty to protect them.
Caesar's finest would not fall to any foe sent against them.
"This place is compromised it seems." The centurion looked to the exit, Praetorians already moving out to the halls, their shields at the ready with their brothers. The door was blocked by a separate host of Praetorians and the centurion focused on a new plan. "We will need to move both of them to someplace more secure."
"Where are we to take them once beyond these walls?" His second in command, the decanus of his century, asked a rather important question. "I do not mean to disrespect you but the village is at war Centurion Uzumaki. We are to move them, a target so vital to the enemy they will send some of their most elite to capture her? We would be overwhelmed no matter our prowess."
"We will move them." The centurion would not be swayed, he moved to the blinds and looked through them to the chaos that engulfed the village below. "Send some of our force forth with all haste to scout out several routes to travel on. We will move down several, keeping the two separate. I will move one myself with half our force under my command and you shall move the other with the second half under your command."
"Three hundred Praetorians split across the two of us?" The decanus joined him at the window, a hand placing itself on the hilt of his blade. "It will be difficult even if all goes according to plan Centurion Uzumaki, I shall call forth archers to assist us and make our journey simpler. They will be instructed to follow us from the rooftops, scout ahead with a small detachment to keep us aware of what we may face."
"If you had not already proved yourself in battle Decanus Uzumaki I would almost believe you doubted the ability of our Praetorians." The centurion did his best to offer a grin to his second in command and the decanus did his best to offer one in reply.
Eleven of their own were dead. They had silently counted the number of bodies on the ground, Praetorians that would be honored when they were buried. They would be honored when their brothers pressed onward, slayed the enemy when they could not, and make sure the dreams of Caesar's glorious Uzumaki Empire would never be halted.
"I will head to the roof and summon more of our force to aid us Centurion Uzumaki." The decanus of the century turned from the window and headed towards the door. The centurion remained where he stood and continued to look out at the street.
Death and chaos ran unbound below. Soon he would be leading the Praetorians he commanded through such a place and he would need to face foe after foe, overcome battle after battle, and send so many to the embrace of the ever present specter known as death.
'This will be a challenge.'
A smile truly did come to his face at such a thought.
'We Praetorians shall overcome all in our path.'
He turned away from the window. He had much to do to continue the path of glory for Caesar's Uzumaki Empire after all.
And he would not fail.
AN: So, first off, what's up? Second off, I'M BACK! Sort of. This is just a sneak peak to what I have planned for Orange Legion in the future. Enjoy it. That's really all I can say. I have a lot more written up, currently going through editing and revisions as I tend to do with Orange Legion, but this chapter is good enough for me to, with a phrase explaining it best, let it go (NOT THE SONG!). Anyway, I aim to have a fair chunk added to Orange Legion's word count and hopefully leave all the readers of this story satisfied before real life once again intersects with my plans. I intend to get through the invasion, something I realized is a lot less chapters than the build up, before I have to deal with real life once more. Still not one for very long ANs so that's about it. If you have any questions, comments, and/or concerns contact me through PM.
Peace.