To the Future

by cbehrills

Uchiha Sarada is the 9th Hokage. A legendary shinobi, the first Uchiha to have become a Hokage. However, her reign is not easy, the village is under attack from a threat greater than any that have come before. When even the Five Kage cannot stop the incoming threat there is only one person who could, Uzumaki Naruto. There is but one problem, he is dead.

172. Regrouping

BACK TO SCHOOL – REGROUPING

Beneath the Military Academy

Naruto takes the final step down the long staircase to the underground portion of the military academy, bringing his shinobi, military and aristocratic allies with him. This is one of those rare times when he has emerged from a battle without a scratch, all thanks to Juan and Nina. Truly, the two teachers that Sora has entrusted to them to are worth of their positions.

"Naruto," Hiruzen calls as he runs to his fellow Hokage, "Is everyone OK? Were there any major casualties up there? What happened exactly?"

"Nobody died, we just had to fix a few broken bones," Naruto answers, "Thanks to Nina and Juan we didn't lose anything vital."

Hiruzen breathes a sigh of relief. From down below there was no way to tell what was happening, the only signs of battle the frequent vibrations shaking the dust and cobwebs from the ceiling above. A few of them did try to go above the surface to help but the aristocrats forbade it, suggesting that even the hokage and the generals would be no help for this battle.

"No-no-no, moral support, you can't just dodge responsibility for your actions up there," Juan says aggressively, "You lost us something vital, something more important than anything else. When you want up there and showed your face, you lost us our secrecy. Now Queen Nadia and King Swen are going to know that we're here."

Nina sighs. "Don't be so upset my old drunk friend, Nadia and Swen were bound to find out where Naruto is eventually. The two of them may have already worked it out when they intercepted us on our way to the academy."

"Why didn't they come themselves?" Naruto asks.

"Because Headmaster Sora is one of very few people in the world who may be able to defeat a royal, the kings and queens are afraid of him," Nina explains, "They may well have been testing the waters though, seeing if he was here to defend us. Now they probably know that he isn't here."

Juan shakes his head. "Even if Nadia and Swen think he's still here, now it will be public knowledge that Sora is a traitor to the emperor. If we're lucky, Emperor Furst won't decide to kill the headmaster yet, but now it's only a matter of time."

An individual that Juan and Nina doesn't recognise approaches. It's an elderly shinobi with greying har and a sleepy look on his face. He approaches Naruto easily and with authority. Unbeknownst to them, Nadia isn't the only master strategist analysing the current situation, they also have their own. This is of course, the former advisor to the 7th Hokage, Nara Shikamaru.

"Sorry to interrupt," Shikamaru says, "But Headmaster Sora's time was limited since long before we came here, he probably knew must have known this would happen eventually. Either way, he sped up his death when he invited Naruto to be his student, he probably knew he was doing that too."

Nina laughs. "I like the lazy-looking old man, he's certainly thought the situation through more than you have Juan."

"Naruto, they must know that you're to train now," Shikamaru says, "I don't think that the emperor is going to let you continue to train without interruption."

"He's right Nina," Juan says, "We can't rely on the headmaster returning first, we need to think about what to do."

Nina glances at Shikamaru, wondering just how great his potential as a strategist is. Could he one day be added to the list of the greatest military minds from homeworld. It is possible that Shikamaru may be such an incredible person, but she doubts he will get to the top of that list. Second on the list of their greatest military thinkers is Emperor Furst, who has a brain capable of storing almost limitless information, a man to whom there is no comparison. However, first on that list is Queen Nadia, whose strategic foresight makes her word as good as any prophecy. No matter what any of them are thinking, it won't have escaped Nadia's mind, she will have thought of it ahead of them. Only the most crazy and unpredictable people can escape from Nadia's predictions, likely amongst those present only Naruto could do that.

"Juan, if you or I were to decide where to go next, could we remain hidden from Nadia and Swen?" Nina asks knowingly.

"No chance," Juan answers, "King Swen has read my mind on multiple occasions, and just by knowing our histories Nadia can probably work out exactly where either of us would go."

"Then these guys need to begin their quest to take down Furst without our directions, do you honestly think they're ready for that yet?"

"Of course I don't," Juan admits reluctantly, "They already know how to fight with divine energy, they know what they need to do to breakthrough, but that alone isn't enough. They need to master fighting with divine energy, they need to learn to pioneer, just as they once did with chakra."

Nina nods. "Two of them would be enough, they could teach the others couldn't they? Knowledge can diffuse quickly through a united community."

"I agree."

"OK then, we already know which two will learn the fastest. Moral support and his little disciple, I hope the two of you can work to a deadline," Nina grins at Naruto and Sarada. "The techniques that we have been trying to teach you are two of the hardest any warrior can ever practice. If you can master these techniques then I am happy that you will be able to inspire others to fight as they will need to in this conflict."

"I don't know if I'll succeed, but I'm certainly willing to try," Sarada answers.

"I couldn't have said it better," Naruto agrees.

"This collection of the downtrodden, these shinobi, captains, colonels and generals, they are just the beginning of an uprising against Furst Jonas," Nina says cheerfully, "We need that uprising to be as strong as possible. Ming Dai!"

Ming Dai runs from his nearby position, coming to an attention position at Nina's side. He has spent years training for the day when the world would fight back against Furst Jonas. It would seem that now his diligent practice, his longing for vengeance and his eagerness for freedom will finally be put to good use.

"How can I help?"

"Go upstairs, summon every willing aristocrat from the academy to come down here and start teaching. I mean every last one," Nina instructs firmly, "We need to increase our strength as quickly as possible, no excuses."

Dai nods, accepting Nina's command before running upstairs. He uses his status as Sora's direct student to rally as much support as he can. The time has finally come.

"Nina, this plan is too risky," Juan says firmly, "The two of them should leave now to avoid Nadia and Swen, we don't have time for them to master these techniques."

"But you admitted yourself that without these techniques, they won't be ready."

"They definitely won't be ready if they die, we just think it's impossible for them to win without them, we don't know that for certain."

"We do!" Nina shouts, losing her temper momentarily. "You and I are the best teachers available, if I can't trust your judgement then you must trust mine. They need to do this, otherwise they will lose."

"We don't have time!"

"Oh really?"

Suddenly, Nina turns to attack Sarada.

Everyone tries to stop her. Juan asks what she is doing as he reaches forward to grab her by the shoulder. Naruto tries to position himself in front of Sarada. Minato reaches for Sarada's back to teleport away with her. None of them are quick enough though, not even the 4th Hokage who is famed for his speed. Nina's reactions are lightning compared to the rest of them.

But Nina doesn't hit Sarada. Her fist stops just short of the 9th Hokage's face.

Everyone breathes a sigh of relief, everyone who moved to stop the attack. However, there is one person amongst them who didn't flinch at the strike, Sarada herself. The 9th Hokage never bought into the attack.

"Amazing," Naruto gasps, "How did you work out that she wasn't going to hit you Sarada?"

Nina turns to Juan with a smile, "Do you still doubt them Juan?"

Juan shakes his head, resigned to the same conclusions that Nina has drawn.

"I don't get it, what are you talking about?" Naruto asks.

"That was the 'Future Sight' ability we've been trying to teach Sarada," Juan explains, "Sarada used a level of intuition that normal people can't access. She could tell instantly what Nina was going to do. It's an incredibly difficult ability to even begin to learn."

"They can do it Juan," Nina insists, "You know they can."

Juan relents. "Fine, let's get a move on with it then."

Nadia's Residence

Nadia and Swen sit across the table from one another, each comfortably resting back in their chairs with their feet on the table. Nadia smiles across the table at her friend, who almost looks as if he is sleeping. As a royal, she does her best to enjoy the privileges she is afforded and relax during her spare time, but Swen does so far more effectively. At times, she wonders if he is even conscious.

"So," Swen says, proving himself awake, "How bad do you really reckon the damage will be, the aristocrat Juan isn't that good is he?"

"No, but if he wanted to keep his partner's identity secret she must have been," Nadia replies.

"I don't the damage will be that bad. I know, let's bet on how badly they lost, I bet it won't be so bad as you say, yep!"

Nadia looks incredulously towards Swen, he usually recognises that it's quite stupid to bet with her. "One blue coin?" she suggests.

"You're on."

The two of them have to wait only a matter of seconds before the large heavy doors to Nadia's hall are thrown open. In come the two generals returning from the military academy. Odion and Dodi are usually both diligent in keeping their uniform pristine, but as they enter it is in tatters. Dodi's usually jade white skin is covered in bruises and Odion's dark hair is partially burnt and falling out. Needless to say, they are each in a terrible state just as Nadia predicted.

Swen rolls his eyes and uses his telekinesis powers to send a blue coin from his pocket into Nadia's hand.

Nadia grins. "Well look at the two of you," she says, removing her feet from the table, "Elite members of the imperial guard, we hand-picked you to be our respective generals, yet for all your skill, power and talent, it seems you have been sent away with your tails between your legs."

"I deeply apologise for disappointing you, Queen Nadia," Dodi bows.

Swen doesn't bother to lower his legs. "Odion, tell us what happened please, all this grovelling is unsightly, yep!"

General Odion explains in detail what happened to the two royals. He explains that he saw Clyde, Lara and a pocket worlder together outside the academy, that he battled against the aristocrat known as Juan and that Nina isn't as dead as they had once believed. Most importantly he explains that he saw a young man using the power of 'life' to heal fallen allies, that it could only be Uzumaki Naruto.

"That's all very interesting. So, Marti Nina is back I see, I remember hearing stories of her misdemeanours."

"Does that excite you?" Swen asks.

"Not at all," Nadia answers, "She was always so predictable that it was boring. I'm just surprised she survived her ordeal with General Nero, the imperial guard is looking more and more incompetent now."

"Please forgive us, Queen Nadia," Odion bows.

"Yes-yes, I get that part already, now tell me, did you sense anyone strong around the military academy?"

"My queen, she was incredibly strong, she didn't just wield two elements simultaneously, but her skill was remarkable and-"

"I'm obviously not talking about Nina," Nadia interrupts with a pronounced sigh, "I'm talking about someone with strength on par with a royal, perhaps even greater, did you sense them."

"I…"

Dodi remains silent for longer than he should, contemplating. After a couple of seconds, King Swen gets bored of this. His eyes flash purple and 'psychic' divine energy swirls around his extremities. It lasts less than half a second before his eyes return to normal and the divine energy dissipates, that's all the time it takes for him to read a familiar and willing mind.

"I read his mind Nadia, he didn't sense any such person."

"Are you absolutely certain?" Nadia asks.

"You're being paranoid, that's rather unusual. If someone with our power were in the academy, the two of them would definitely have sensed it."

"I'm not so sure Swen."

Swen puts his feet down and looks straight across the table at Nadia. The two of them have been close friends for a long time, during that time there has never truly been a crisis that either of them couldn't have handled individually. During the time they have allied with one another, Nadia has never really been uncertain of herself like she is being now, it's a new experience for Swen. Is all this because of Uzumaki Naruto?

"What has gotten into you?" Swen asks.

"Swen, there are some exceptional people in this world who have weird and wonderful powers like you and I," she explains, "Powers like yours make you predictable, but there are those whose power make them unpredictable. Even I can't see through people like that."

"Headmaster Sora isn't even in the academy," Swen says surely, "He's gone like you said he would be. We have to attack the academy while it's weak, yep? If this Uzumaki Naruto is as special as Carmen thought he would be, we have to bring him to the emperor now."

Nadia is also experiencing something very rare from her companion today. Swen's teenage appearance and laid back attitude are in keeping with his character, he's seldom serious about situations like this. The appearance of this pocket-worlder has led to changes that neither of them could have foreseen. If Swen is this concerned with his fate, then Carmen truly must have thought that Naruto would change things, that he would be the reincarnation of Endou Akashi.

"Alright Swen, even if Sora does return, the two of us should be enough to defeat him."

"I agree."

"My King and Queen," Odion stands at attention, "shall we prepare for your departure towards the military academy."

"We leave in the morning," Nadia declares, "We won't be needing your services. The two of you may return to the imperial guard headquarters and file your reports with Head General Safura."

"Very good, my queen."

The two generals leave the room, ready to file one of the most important reports that the imperial guard will have ever seen. The betrayal of Headmaster Sora is the greatest act of treachery since Furst Jonas came to power, one can only imagine how he will respond.

"You didn't need to send Odion away as well," Swen grumbles.

"Oh?"

"He could have prepared me some food for my journey tomorrow, yep!"

Nadia laughs. "Don't worry Swen, I'll get some servants to do it for you. Besides, right now I'm not sure the imperial guard can be trusted with anything."

Beneath the Military Academy

Naruto collapses, falling face first onto the ground in front of his strict teacher. Juan has been trying to drive the One True Sense into him for hours without rest using techniques so consuming that even the 7th Hokage cannot endure them without end. As Naruto collapses he tries to get back up but finds that he truly has reached his limit and that his arms aren't listening to the commands he is sending them, as if his body weighs a tonne.

"Can you really not go any longer?" Juan asks.

Naruto gasps for air, just about managing to wheeze the word "no" between two of them. He sends 'life' energy to work on his limbs, compensating for just how dead they feel, but to get them ready for more training will take time.

Juan picks his student up and hoists him over his shoulder. The normally abrasive teacher is behaving unusually gently thanks to Naruto's current condition leading the shinobi to wonder if he has finally earnt a measure of respect from him. Juan finally sets Naruto down so that he is sitting against the wall next to his fellow exhausted trainee Sarada.

Naruto and Sarada just about manage to nod an acknowledgement to one another.

"I must admit I'm pretty tired myself," Juan says, "I'll go and get the two of you something to drink, or perhaps water if you're not fussy."

As Juan leaves, Nina comes over to have a chat with the two of them. "How do you think you are doing moral support?"

After ten seconds or so, Naruto finally gets his voice back under control. "I can still sense the way people are moving through the ground. The pain makes it hard but I can still sense it, that's good isn't it?"

"That's very good, well done," Nina says.

"Nina, those two who attacked seemed surprised that you were still alive," Naruto recalls, "Who are you really?"

"Do you really want to know?"

"I do," Sarada says, wishing she could raise her hand, "It's only natural to take interest in your friends."

"Oh very well."

Nina sits down opposite Naruto and Sarada with crossed legs. She rocks back and forward as if she were a child, hearing a bedtime story. Neither hokage buys into her little joke though, they can tell just from looking at Nina that her story is no fairy tale and that her physical and mental scars must run deep.

Nina shakes her head, thinking the two of them are no fun and stops rocking, promising them to take this more seriously.

"When I was a young girl, probably about ten years old, I lived in a city. The city wasn't particularly rich, in fact it was quite poor. It was a young city, only built in the last ten years, but it was an OK place to live. I used to think it was beautiful when I was a naïve fool.

"Anyway, my parents saw that I was well educated and looked after. I was a good little girl and we all played happy families every day and everything was fine. Think of all the fancy stories you have heard about nice life before tragedy, it's just like that really. It's just a bit more sickening when it's your own life.

"Anyway, believe it or not, one day we couldn't play happy families anymore because something went wrong. Our suburb was attacked by bandits, we were unprotected at the time, so they demanded we hand over all our money. It doesn't take much guessing who stood up to them, it was my parents. I always thought highly of them, they were my parents, but not after that. They stood up to the bandits like fools, so they died. Just like that, they left me alone because they wanted to do the right thing.

"Suddenly, my life support system was gone. I had spent my whole life depending on my parents, as all children should do. Not only were they gone but so were all our possessions. The city didn't have an orphanage or anything of the sort, there was no money for that, so I was left to fend for myself."

"Didn't your neighbours look after you?" Sarada asks. "In our village, I would like to think that somebody would have stepped up and done something."

"It's not that easy," Naruto says, having felt similar pain himself. "Sometimes the survivors can be hard to look at. People don't always want to be near the survivors, because sometimes we're just another reminder of their pain."

"Maybe that's right," Nina shrugs. "Either way, nobody wanted to look after the small girl as she ran around the streets begging for money and food. You know, people smile at children as they laugh in the street, they smile at happy families. Normal children never notice it, but you notice it when they stop, when they start ignoring you instead. I realised that nobody was ever going to stand up for me, I had to stand up for myself. I taught myself to fight, I understood 'fire' and 'lightning'. I became a warrior."

"You fought for justice, to be acknowledged?" Naruto asks.

Nina shakes her head. "We can't all be like you moral support. It pains me to admit, we're not all so perfect, so selfless, so free of rage. I wasn't upset, I was angry. I didn't care about the people of this world anymore. If the weak were going to abandon me when I was helpless, I was going to abandon them in return. All I cared about was myself, so I became a bandit."

Sarada blinks, "Your parents were killed by a bandit so you became one?"

"That's right. I didn't just become any bandit either, I was one of the best. I was so good at it and it felt good too. I revelled in the bullying, the stealing, the intimidation and sometimes even the killing. I was disconnected from this world. I never felt any remorse for what I was doing, why should I? These people had abandoned me when I was a child.

"But I did feel remorse one day. I attacked this little quant town, I killed people, but what I did differently was coming back the next day and do you know what I saw? I saw children wandering around, children with nobody to stand up for them, children that were begging for help and were being rejected because there was no money to help them. The weak had learned nothing, they were still abandoning their own even after it had come back to bite them, their nature hadn't changed.

"The difference was that time it was my fault. For the first time since I had become a bandit I felt guilt for what I was doing and I couldn't stand it. I felt like I was going to be sick and I had to do something. So I took the children in. I effectively adopted them. I raised them, clothed them, fed them, trained them how to fight and protect themselves. They were my students and my children."

"So, that's how you became a teacher," Sarada says.

"That's right."

"You said you were a criminal during the war," Naruto remembers.

"And so I was. I stopped killing people when I started looking after the kids. My destructive habits stopped and I started to develop a conscience, painful as it was. I had to keep stealing though, that was all I knew and I had to make money somehow. Still, in an odd way we were happy. None of us had our fairy tale, but we had a family of some sort. That wall changed when Furst Jonas came to power.

"Emperor Endou did try to stop my crimes, he tried to arrest me. That was fair enough really, I was a criminal, he should have done that. Emperor Furst did not use the same tactics though. Furst tortured my old allies for information about me and put a general from the imperial guard in charge of hunting me down. That general began a ruthless campaign until eventually she found me."

"What happened?" Naruto asks.

"General Nero is especially cruel, she attacked while we were sleeping and had no chance of defending ourselves. She left me with these disfiguring burns all down my left side. She left me half-blind, she left me wounded, no, she left me on the brink of death. My near-death didn't hurt me though, because when I managed to scratch and claw my way back to life, I wished I hadn't.

"My students, my children were not as strong as I was. They weren't so lucky."

"I'm so sorry," Naruto says.

"My students are my children, and Furst isn't going to take another of you while I'm still breathing," Nina explains, "I won't blame you if you don't trust me. I'm still a terrible person, a bandit and a killer, but I'm here because I hate Furst Jonas with all my being. I won't rest until the emperor is dead. I hope that is a good enough reason to accept my teachings."

As far as Naruto and Sarada are concerned, her reasons are more than adequate.