A/N: Naruto now has a guardian, one who knew his parents well, one who he considers family. A prodigy who managed to kill a tired Third Raikage after decimating his fleeing troops by redirecting a natural thunderbolt, much more powerful than chakra made lightning. Well, he passed out for two weeks and took two months to recover even with medical ninjutsu, but he basically evened out the battle and the situations of Konoha and Kumo, both being without their Kage.
Konoha is more weakened than Kumo because the Fourth Raikage should be more able to deal with intruders than an old, tired Sarutobi Hiruzen, two of the Sannin are missing and the other one is leaning dangerously towards becoming a missing nin, more akin to join enemies of Sarutobi than to oppose them, but Kakashi is probably around the black lightning or Bee's level, Gai exists and I'll make Asuma an actual Sarutobi (you know, having the monkey summons contract as he should have in canon).
Ready to see how the story changes with Naruto who knows his parents, no Jinchuuriki hunt, actual power struggle between rival countries and how Naruto not being ignored could alter the timeline? How Sarutobi being slightly different can affect Konoha? How the absence of Obito could change the Uchiha massacre event? How the absence of a Bijuu can change how the Uchiha are viewed in the village and thus avoid a great hit to the Leaf? Then read this chapter and see where it's leading the story. More and more AU as it goes further and the world changes accordingly.
I'll also change the genin treatment. I find their genin years make no sense. They should be trained in the academy until they can become chuunin, have a few field missions to test their aptitude and then be put into teams of three under a jounin instructor, increasing the level of missions progressively (looking at Kakashi's team 7, it's what they did during the Third Great War, they were already chuunin at the beginning of the war and progressively went in more dangerous missions and finally Kakashi was promoted for lack of manpower and needing to spread forces more, that's much more believable than Naruto era promotions and co).
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Chapter 2
Naruto had made some friends. Kakashi had some distant cousins in the Inuzuka clan, which helped by making a meeting between Kiba and Naruto just a week after his uncle got out of the hospital. Kiba being an extroverted kid, he brought Naruto with him and they soon gathered a small band. Ino Yamanaka, who brought her friends Shikamaru and Chouji in, Hinata who found their self-confidence inspiring, Sasuke who was going out with them sometimes, but not completely integrated and Neji who was mostly watching over Hinata and didn't want to be mixed with their band, just staying around as a guardian angel for his mistress.
As Naruto's adoptive uncle, Kakashi often had to pick him up at his friends' places and thus got more involved with the clan heads. He could also get a front seat to witness clan politics from a close outsider's point of view. He nurtured a close link with them and got their trust in return as a neutral party.
Two years passed and Itachi Uchiha became Kakashi's protege. The Uchiha wanted the best jounin no less to be their prodigy's jounin leader now that he had made chuunin. The Hokage had tried to slow Itachi's ascension in the ranks by rejecting his examination for chuunin rank in order to keep the Uchiha clan under control, but he couldn't anymore. He let him under Kakashi Hatake to appease the clan.
Naruto met Itachi and saw Sasuke more often due to his brother being in the blond's uncle's team. Their link strengthened over time. Mikoto also knew who Naruto was and she was kind to him, like an aunt.
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"Kakashi, keep Naruto and my boys close with you tonight, please," said Mikoto two years after Itachi had been assigned to him. "Protect them."
The jounin suspected the Uchiha clan to prepare a putsch or something like that. Their clan was one of the founding clans and had been kept away from power from the beginning. They had never had a Hokage and Fugaku had been refused as a candidate after the Fourth Hokage's death. The tension was reaching its' peak and something was bound to happen.
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Indeed, that night chaos was unleashed once more in Konoha as Fugaku and his supporters broke into the Hokage's office to ask for higher responsibilities or else they would ask to demote him. They had gathered the support of other powerful clans and it could cause a civil war in the village of the Leaf.
"Ha, I had warned you, Hiruzen! The Uchiha can't be trusted! They're power hungry and the executive power of the police isn't enough for them! They're after the hat!"
"You…you were right, Danzo," whispered the Hokage. "It is time for me to remind them of their place."
"Who are you talking to, Lord Hokage?" asked Fugaku.
"Hmm? I'm not the Hokage, Lord Fugaku. I'm Danzo. And tonight is the night I will end your thirst for power! I'll make an example out of you so that your accursed clan understands that it will never get its' filthy, traitorous hands on this hat!" exclaimed Sarutobi Hiruzen.
"Everyone, prepare for a fight! The Hokage has gone insane!" shouted Fugaku.
This night, the blood of the Uchiha clan was spilled, for the Hokage had prepared for this a long time ago and had obtained Orochimaru's support, as his student wanted to study the sharingan. Ten ANBU, Orochimaru and Sarutobi Hiruzen trapped Fugaku and his supporters and slaughtered them.
The next morning, their heads were impaled on pikes and ANBU went to the Uchiha compound to show them the treatment reserved to traitors. Some of Fugaku's remaining partisans who hadn't come with him the previous night were arrested and sent to jail.
Itachi was split between the rage caused by his loss and the understanding that his clan had gone too far for their pride and had been punished for it. He decided that it was normal for the Hokage to get rid of opponents before they could provoke a civil war, but he couldn't stand the Third Hokage anymore. That man was wretched, probably because of all the trauma and paranoia caused by having lived through three wars and lost a lot of people, including his friend Shimura Danzo who he had executed himself for insubordination and plotting behind his back, officially at least…
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There had been no ceremony. The Uchiha clan's honour had just taken a hit and there couldn't be a ceremony for traitors. Not willing to aggravate the situation, the Hokage didn't force them into a walk of shame, but their pride had been severely damaged already. They had lost their leader, twenty of his supporters and were divided between the moderates and the ones who wanted the clan to be considered for the seat of Hokage among other political seats.
Naruto had asked Kakashi to go see Sasuke and Mikoto and present their condolences, to offer them a comforting presence from outside their clan politics. They had gone and Sasuke had taken the blond boy in his arms, Mikoto hugging both of them at once. The Uchiha, mother and son, had cried in this hug without anyone being able to see their tears, then they wiped them with their sleeve and did their best to try and behave normally. Itachi was absent all day and Kakashi didn't know where he'd been.
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Two years after the Uchiha rebellion, Jiraiya of the Sannin had come back briefly and the Hokage had offered him the seat, but he had refused it. He liked his freedom as the spy master of the Leaf and wouldn't sacrifice it for a role that would remove this freedom and put a huge responsibility on his shoulders. Orochimaru was too busy with his research to consider taking over and Tsunade was still nowhere around Konoha, well into retirement.
The clans spent the next year trying to decide who was the best fit for the hat. Asuma refused it, too young and carefree to accept such responsibilities. The other clans were too deep in the village politics to be considered, their rivalries could spark another conflict.
Sarutobi Hiruzen then decided to take Kakashi as his apprentice. He didn't make him sign the monkey summoning contract like he had done with Asuma because it was a Sarutobi exclusive contract, but he honed Kakashi's skills and taught him how to lead the village. Of course, the jounin still came back in time to pick up Naruto at the academy, he only spent seven hours per day in his apprenticeship. The old man hoped that Kakashi would be the link between him and Naruto, the son of the Fourth Hokage. He wanted to give a chance to the son of the best Hokage he had ever hoped to have, only for it to be over in a few years due to a treacherous invasion by Kumo.
Under the Hokage's mentoring, Kakashi managed to become even more of a legend. He soon became a match for one of the Sannin and the village was eager to see him succeed to Sarutobi Hiruzen, the old man's mental condition worsening each month that passed. He was now completely split between his representation of Danzo and himself, changing personalities whenever something triggered a switch. Kakashi had already started taking decisions in his stead and managing the clan politics, notably the Uchiha clan.
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Three years later, the old man passed away, the medicine to calm him finally causing a heart attack as the dose kept increasing. Asuma was there at the cremation ceremony, alongside Kakashi and the clan heads. A six year-old Konohamaru was standing in his uncle's embrace. The Uchiha clan was absent at the funerals.
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Itachi had taken over the Uchiha clan at the age of nineteen. He was a jounin since he was fourteen, but he had wanted to stay free for a few years before taking the responsibility of leading his clan. In the meantime, he had bonded with a Hyuuga from the branch family and had faced some resistance among both clans but in the end, they were allowed to be together. After all, she was only a branch member, not a main house one.
Kakashi officially took the hat and a ceremony gathered all clans, including the Uchiha, now led by Itachi. As a strong gesture towards his student, he took his first decision during the ceremony, announcing that the Hyuuga should stop treating their branch family like slaves and putting a deadly seal on them to keep them loyal and tamed. This got him some indignation from the Hyuuga clan, but everyone else approved this decision and soon they were forced to give up on their barbaric tradition.
The next day, the branch family was freed publicly from their caged bird seal. The joy on Itachi and his fiancee's faces were worth all the trouble this decision would bring to the Fifth Hokage. The pride he saw in Naruto's eyes after the public event made him even more persuaded that it had been the right choice.
He founded a civilian middle school for children who didn't want to become ninjas but still wanted to study to get a job with responsibilities. It would allow for a middling level of information, up to chuunin rank for the highest jobs. This would make the Konoha library easier to run, as well as give the hospital more workforce, although it would need to be seriously thought out in order to work as intended. For the high levels of information, a ninja bodyguard would be assigned to make sure they didn't put their hands on sensible intel they shouldn't have access to and to protect them from spies. Assigning administrative jobs to civilians would free some administrative ninjas for the information with higher qualification needs.
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Being Hinata's childhood friend had had some benefits for Naruto and Sasuke. They had followed her regularly into the library to learn academics as well as whatever they could learn about ninja arts.
When they managed to be deemed worthy of chuunin rank, trained by Kakashi, Itachi and Hiashi respectively, they were assigned to Itachi's squad. He would be their leader and hone their skills until they became jounin themselves. In reality, Mikado Hyuuga, the Uchiha's fiancee, participated in their training and education too, making sure Itachi wasn't too rough on them. She was soft but firm, nice but not weak. She was a role model for Hinata. Itachi was focusing on ninjutsu and genjutsu while she was training them in taijutsu.
Whenever they had a break, Naruto would often escape to join the rest of the gang and play pranks in the village together. Shikamaru somehow found a way to always be the one having to clean up their mess, so he trained harder to be able to escape faster and avoid punishment. The same went for Chouji, Shikamaru's inseparable friend.
These were the good times for Konoha. Then everything went down. Again. The shinobi world didn't believe in peace, everyone soon remembering that being a ninja meant that you could be mobilized in case of a war starting, even if you were a beginner.
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No training arcs, because they're just taking time to write. I'll just state the power levels.
Naruto: Ninjutsu: Rasengan, Water clone, Mud clone, Explosion seals, Substitution, Transformation.
Genjutsu: none.
Taijutsu: with a varied environment, he's been able to learn a lot of martial arts, but the coolest is kung-fu.
Danger level: rasengan arc Naruto without summons but with explosion seals instead.
Hinata: Ninjutsu: Hakkeshou Kaiten, Mud clone, Earth manipulation (basic), Substitution, Transformation.
Genjutsu: Clone.
Taijutsu: Gentle Fist, Eight Trigrams Sixty Four Palms.
Danger level: chuunin exams Neji + Earth manipulation.
Sasuke: Ninjutsu: Fire manipulation (basic), Lightning clone, Lightning manipulation (basic), Substitution, Transformation.
Genjutsu: sharingan techniques (basic).
Taijutsu: Uchiha self defense.
Danger level: duel against Gaara + sharingan genjutsu. Actual martial arts instead of anime bullshit.
Rest of the Konoha clan children: same as canon except Ino and Shikamaru who take their training seriously and thus get to the level they are in the Sasuke Retrieval Arc (Shikamaru) and the first fight with Hidan and Kakuzu (Ino). Chouji was strong enough in canon. Sakura is gonna take an apprenticeship in the ninja library. She never had business becoming a kunoichi in the first place. Kiba has his power level and abilities from Sasuke Retrieval Arc, when he made a dent into the Rashomon Gate.
Shisui: erased from existence. Seriously, he's not a character in this fiction.
Danzo: dead years before the Uchiha rebellion. In case you didn't understand, the Third Hokage suffered mental trauma after executing him for insubordination and split his personality in two to be able to talk to him even after his death. And Danzo kept his machinations through Hiruzen's mind because that's what the old man knew Danzo would do.
Hiruzen Sarutobi: dead a few months earlier than in canon of a heart attack caused by abuse of calming medicine.
Orochimaru: surprise, you'll see. He'll become better than canon (first because he won't lose his arms and second because he won't transfer himself into a weak body, thus he'll keep getting stronger instead of becoming a sandbag for everyone. Also, he never fought Itachi, thus we can't compare them).
Kakashi Hatake: no Mangekyou sharingan, but his lightning manipulation is nearing Raikage level and he's still got a thousand techniques worth of abilities and was trained by the Third for three years. Stronger than Kakuzu arc Kakashi, notably because sorry, but the chidori/raikiri is pure garbage. If you can use lightning, the last thing to do is to use it in close combat. It has the best travel speed of any offensive element, you can just shoot it at mid/long range and hit anyone who didn't dodge before the lighting was even shot. You know, like Sasuke who made tens of variations of the chidori in three years as a thirteen-fifteen year-old boy starting as a genin.
Asuma Sarutobi: add monkey summoning contract to his abilities, switch his mediocre fire jutsu with a mix of Azula and Zuko's firebending in their final agni-kai and you have what I expected the Third Hokage's son to be like. Instead of a wind nature that he barely uses directly in combat and that does completely stupid things (please, wind doesn't CUT, that's bullshit, wind is a force of nature that sends everything ragdoll in its' way), he uses his fire manipulation to coat his chakra blades and cut through everything with high temperature blades. He can extend them too, but looses in effectiveness the longer the heat blades. Instead of blowing smoke, he stores dust into storage seals each time he vacuums his flat and uses the dust clouds to create explosions. That's tactical fighting for you.
Kurenai Yuhi: not being put in a genjutsu by Itachi's Mangekyou helped her a lot. She actually trained with Uchiha since they're not all dead and they're the best genjutsu users out there, meaning her genjutsu is even better. Outside of that, she has average medical ninjutsu, a few ninjutsu techniques I need to think about and her taijutsu is high chuunin with jounin speed.
Gai Maito: canon level. He doesn't need to be any stronger, he could already wipe the floor with a lot of canon characters at that point. Let's just say that he adds fire and lightning manipulation to his taijutsu (nintaijutsu) and the gates are a little more like Kaiyoken than funny taijutsu technique name #1-8.
Itachi Uchiha: no Mangekyou hax, but he's still only one step lower than Minato (he doesn't have the Flying Thunder God but he doesn't fight by teleporting around and spamming single target rasengan anyway, so he doesn't need it). His genjutsu is still the best in Konoha even without Mangekyou. His kenjutsu is still top notch, he just doesn't have Totsukhax. He's nearing low Kage but doesn't rely on hax to get there, that's why he's weaker than canon.
Mikado Hyuuga (OC): special jounin. She took a temporary break from missions to enjoy living a little. She's low jounin level Hyuuga but her taijutsu is excellent. She also doesn't expect to fight everyone in melee like part 1 Hyuuga, which makes no sense since you can be killed by an enemy too far to be noticed. Instead, she developed her own Earth manipulation to such a level that she can perform Eight Trigrams One Hundred Twenty Eight Palms just with earth manipulation at mid range. That's why Hinata is learning Earth manipulation.
Fourth Raikage A: master in lightning manipulation, nintaijutsu specialist. Pretty much canon level. Speed a little toned down, like for everyone else, because I don't want this fic to turn into who can move faster than light to beat everyone else before they can blink. A little weaker than canon Sarutobi in the fight against the First and Second Hokage, but that's in no way weak.
Third Raikage in chapter 1: stronger and faster than Hiruzen in his Orochimaru fight, but more of a specialist rather than a versatile fighter. Also better durability.
Bee: ninkenjutsu master, basically as strong as his bro (I think they're not of the same blood but they're still bros) but with lightning enchanted beyblade hedgehog. Low Kage. No Bijuu though, which gave him more time to focus on his fighting style instead of trying to master tailed beast chakra and co. Don't forget lightning is one of the strongest if not the strongest offensive element, and the fastest one.
Kakuzu: in this fiction, he will be considerably more powerful relatively to the young characters, his power level increasing as much as Kakashi's basically. Since elemental manipulation (ATLA bending) is far better than elemental jutsu, he's basically a ninety-one year-old avatar without avatar state and with a body that doesn't seem to age. That's pretty freaking strong. Especially with his body reinforcement. High Kage level.
Elemental advantages: LightningWaterFireWind/ WaterEarthLightningWater. Wind has no advantage, but it's not used in the same way as other elements. It can be used for utility/support (high jumps, flying, acceleration, combination attacks with fire, ragdoll everything in its' way, push away an opponent, hard counter to melee fighters). Wind users are mobile and dodgy and can wave any throwing weapon away without any effort (Temari vs Tenten).