AN: Welcome to the war on Sunagakure! I'm super grateful for the response to this story since posting the last chapter - a few reviews in particular made me driven. Thanks!

Chapter 3

"Nothing in life is promised
except death."

If Iruka noticed the blond hokage suddenly sitting in the back of the classroom, he didn't voice it, and merely acted to tidy up the end of his lecture on 'cool ninja'. It was a lesson he'd crafted particularly for these eight year old hopefuls, and he'd had fun with it.

"-at's right, Konohamaru," Iruka said, "now what do we know about our new hokage?"

Hands were raised all around the room, 'pick me!' was chanted aplenty and Iruka made a show of thinking about it before choosing a girl in the first row.

"He has a really big hat!"

Iruka snickered, "that wasn't in the lecture." He pointed at another random student.

"Hokage-sama is the shortest hokage-sama," a boy said.

"That's right," Iruka said, picking another student.

"His daddy was the fourth hokage, and his grandpa was the third hokage!"

Iruka laughed, "that's not quite right, the third hokage wasn't really his grandpa, he just acted like he was his grandpa." He pointed at another student.

"He protects us from demon foxes!"

"Uhh," Iruka paused, "somewhat, yes. That's a different lesson, we'll go over it tomorrow." Iruka motioned to another student.

"I heard he likes ramen," the boy whispered conspiratorially. "I think the ramen makes hokage-sama stronger. I'm going to eat ramen too, like Hokage-sama."

"Yes," Iruka said, "the hokage likes ramen - but ramen is unhealthy! Diet is important for a shinobi, remember that. Less ramen, more vegetables and more exercise, got it?" Half the class muttered quiet agreement, unenthusiastic. Iruka pointed to another student, "last one."

"Uhh," the girl stuttered, "Hokage-sama is very loud!" The rest of the class eagerly agreed with her assessment.

"Hokage-sama was loud during his speech because of the seals used on the podium," Iruka said, "you'll learn all about that next year... finally, what say you - Hokage-sama?"

The students paused in their mutterings and slowly, eager but fuelled with disbelief, turned in their seats to look towards the back of the room, where their teacher was staring.

"Well, I think the new hokage is pretty awesome, maybe a bit young, but that's just me," Naruto said, standing up and bowing to the students.

"You could have said anything," Iruka said blandly, "and you chose to self-promote."

"I'm the best hokage," Naruto nodded sagely.

"You're still doing it."

"I'm still the best."

"You're the only hokage, so you're just as much the worst."

The kids finally realized what was going on, and their bickering kicked into overdrive.

"Woah, it's Hokage-sama!"

"He's so cool!"

"Iruka-sensei knows Hokage-sama?!"

"I want an autograph!"

"No, I want an autograph!"

"Boss?!"

For the next five minutes, Naruto soldiered through the attention of several dozen children. He was immensely relieved when the school bell rang, signifying the end of the school day, for it allowed him to breathe again.

"S-so, uh - how do you deal with that everyday?" Naruto asked, shivering and hugging himself ineffectually.

"I don't," Iruka said. "I'm not as interesting as you are, since I'm always here... Hokage-sama."

Naruto walked down the classroom, moved a chair from one of the front desks and sat down with a pleasant sigh. "How've you been, Iruka-sensei?"

"How've I been? You're the one that's hokage all of a sudden, I should be asking you that question."

"Ahah, yeah, about that..." Naruto shrugged, scratching the back of his head. "It just kind of happened."

"I know."

"I would really rather be a genin still, y'know?"

"Yeah, I know."

"I just- oh," Naruto muttered. "You have new students now, huh?"

Iruka nodded. "Yeah, but they're hardly new, I've had them for almost six months. How is it?"

"Being hokage?"

Iruka shook his head. "Not just that, everything. I can see it, you need someone to talk to, spill."

"Oh jeez," Naruto said. "Where do I start?"

"From the beginning?" Iruka helpfully supplied. "Though, I'd really like to hear why you're sending us into a war."

"U-uh, well..." Naruto shrunk. "It's their fault?"

"..."

The mass-funeral was a long, gruelling experience for all involved. The bodies had all been buried in a mass-community undertaking that spanned over the larger part of the day, and speakers had risen to the podium one-by-one as the darkness descended and the sunlight waned.

Naruto felt out of place, personally. He didn't want to make another speech and he doubted anyone thought this was a great time to ad-lib, so he wasn't asked past his initial refusal. He sat with most of team 7 and team 10, who had all (except when it came to Sasuke, who didn't really have friends) been their closest friends in their classes during the academy. None of them really talked, but they took comfort in one another as the day drew to a close.

Naruto had envisioned that he'd be more involved with the funeral somehow, but in the end it just didn't work that way. The third did receive particular attention during the procession, but that only meant an extra half hour of eulogies that even Naruto believed did the old man justice.

Even just a thousand was a lot of death - Naruto facepalmed at his use of 'just' - almost every single man and woman in the village, military or otherwise, had lost a family member - distant relation or not. A lot of tears had been shed during the burials, and they seemed to reign anew during the opening speech. The speeches primarily spoke of the courage, and the honor that those deceased had died with while protecting their homes, but they also spoke of the cowardice of the enemy and of spite - civilians made up a large portion of the casualties. In all, the speeches were a little bit convoluted, but it was rough times.

Very few had dry eyes, and Naruto was - uncomfortably - part of the few. He had completely panicked at the mere thought of the third's death, but he got over it. He was practically forced to get over it. In regards to the others, he was an orphan and he didn't have many friends, so he simply didn't know any of the other deceased in any meaningful way. That didn't mean he was unaffected by the mood, he just wasn't crying.

He was also terrible at consoling, and after his initial vain attempt to console Sakura - who had lost her father, and moved shortly after the speeches started to grieve with her mother - he'd given up. He could tell that everything was making Sasuke uncomfortable too, but that was less problematic.

Even as the speeches died down - the speakers were all volunteers, and there were many of them - most of the village remained unmoved. It was difficult to believe most of their military would be fully mobilized within twelve hours, but then again, they were ninja, and ninja were fast and could store tonnes of supplies in pieces of paper.

"Oi, Hokage-sama," came a familiar drawl, drawing attention from those close to the blond.

"Shikaku, huh? Is it that time already?"

It would be boring if it wasn't so important that he know what they were doing. Basically, his jounin commander was just taking the time to explain what he'd already decided to do... and Naruto was still wondering where the loveseats in his office were.

"But then," Naruto interrupted him, "if we're all doing the fighty-fights, then who's taking care of the daimyo?"

Shikaku hesitated, "define 'taking care'?"

"Killing, I guess."

"We can't really kill the daimyo, Hokage-sama." Shikaku chuckled dryly, "but if we replace his military he'll be forced to abdicate by right of our own daimyo... you don't want to know the amount of work I had to do to get that organised on short notice."

Naruto nodded, "...and then we kill him?"

"No."

"Ah."

Shikaku took a sip of tea from his cup. "We could kill him, but that risks the wrath of other daimyo, and that would rightfully bring more war onto our heads. It's cheaper to let them keep a small cut of the taxes and have the daimyo and his family live in their mansions as they squabble over their gossip."

"Okay... so, what was that about outposts?" Naruto asked, finally resigned to his boredom and lack of sleep.

"We have a single wood user in our Anbu," Shikaku answered, "he can fabricate large enough towers often enough that we can use them to send emergency signals between army groups, and we'll also use him in the forward group to produce well-defended camps as we move along."

"That... sounds like cheating."

"We use what we can."

"Can we use him for campfires too?"

"That's perhaps a bit too frivolous, his chakra is a commodity," Shikaku said. "Continuing, after the first group makes it to..."

The planning went on through the night, other shinobi made their way into and out of the office, and the best part of the entire evening - in Naruto's mind - was when his head finally hit the pillow.

The best part about being hokage was breakfast in bed.

The worst part about being hokage was that everything was going to be his fault if this somehow flipped on its head and all his ninja died.

It was morning, but not particularly early morning. They'd only been moving for two hours, but Naruto was all nerves. His security detail was no longer as hidden as it usually was, and he wasn't wearing the scarf he'd stolen off the third. The good news is that the back of the haori had finally been embroidered, and the bad news is that it was warm out. Go figure.

Naruto wasn't in the front of the procession, moving at a fast but not tiring pace, but he was close to the front and surrounded by his more important ninja like Shikaku. Speaking of, Jiraiya was leading it somewhere forward. Naruto hadn't had much chance to talk to the pervert, he visited the village shortly before the invasion, fought in it, and had been more or less grieving since.

There had been no altercations yet (as there shouldn't be), and moving at their current pace through the trees they'd be running through the land of rivers by tomorrow and along the sand-dunes by tomorrow evening. Glancing towards the red-headed cat-masked extra to his left, there were a lot of thoughts running through his mind, foremost the likelihood of Gaara's betrayal.

"You still with us, Gaara?" The redhead nodded, leaving Naruto to sigh, easily ignoring the looks his statement earned him.

It'd all be okay. Nobody would die, the sand would probably even surrender, and the Land of Fire would be twice as large within the week, with two hidden villages to boot. What could really go wrong?

Honestly, it was looking pretty damn good for the leaf in the near future - and Naruto would be at the head of it all. Nice. Pressure, but nice.

"This isn't at all what it was hyped up to be..." Naruto said, staring across the boring old sand to the boring old canyon that Sunagakure resided within. Arms crossed and sitting atop a sand dune, he watched as his ninja prepared the perimeter. The lack of response from the sand was... underwhelming.

It'd been three days since they left Konoha. Eventually, after ground was made and what little pockets of resistance existed (spoiler; there were only two) were crushed, they moved on to surround the sand village.

There had been one casualty - someone lost a finger while messing around with wind chakra. They wouldn't run into any food shortages for weeks, there wasn't a single damn ambush, and what prisoners they'd captured weren't making a peep. The effort was overwhelmingly successful and underwhelmingly uneventful.

Naruto wasn't exactly wishing for death to happen, but maybe he was, in a bit of a weird way? Kind of.

Gaara was becoming antsy, fidgeting as he followed him. That was a good reflection of the rest of his army, who were also waiting for something to happen.

Many eyes were suddenly drawn to the waving in the distance; of a white flag.

"Oh," Naruto said. "Can they do that? I'm the one that declared war." Was it even possible to take the village like he wanted peacefully? Didn't seem right.

After speaking with his advisors, he left camp with Jiraiya, Shikaku and his guard detail (including Gaara) on his heels. Under the gazes of thousands of pairs of eyes, the small group stopped within a hundred feet of the entrance to the village's canyon, and waited while the sand's diplomats sauntered out in response.

It was rather tense, and Naruto was more frustrated than ever at the lack of ramen in the desert.

The contingent that moved to meet them was as small as their own, half a dozen people, and Naruto only recognized one or two members. He knew one of them was Gaara's female teammate during the chunin exams, and the other might have been his teacher. The group stopped within twenty feet and bowed pitifully. The girl mouthed something to Gaara that Naruto caught but couldn't translate, but ignored it when the redhead didn't do anything in response.

"Sunagakure sends it greetings," this was said by a portly man Naruto didn't know at all, but assumed was one of their diplomats.

"It's a bit late for greetings," Naruto muttered quietly, eyeing the redhead beside him carefully.

"What are your demands?"

The sand procession eyed Shikaku as he stepped forward to speak.

"We demand complete and total capitulation of your military structure and your own exodus from the country. Relocate, or we will not accept surrender," Shikaku said. Naruto was jealous with the charisma which the Nara could portray, but it was lessened significantly since the man spoke for him anyway. The sand would never accept, but it's all it would get from them - he thought it was rather fair considering their invasion and the subsequent death of the third.

The sand's spokesman immediately coughed, and choked on his words as he struggled to structure incoherent utterances.

"Wha-who do you-why are-are you insan-" he was bonked on the head by a woman next to him, and he shut his mouth. The rest of the sand's procession seemed equally perturbed, however. This served to confuse Naruto, since what on earth would he ask for otherwise?

"Are you sure this is what you want?" a middle-aged woman asked, stepping forward. Decorated in ceremonial robes, she was likely a more achieved advisor or diplomat to the sand. "Can we not negotiate? The sand can offer reopened trade, military supplies, a mission stipend..." as she offered options and Shikaku cleanly rejected them, she grew more desperate. "The... the sand can vassalize," she offered distastefully. The diplomat seemed even more surprised by Shikaku's dismissal of that too, than she was over his initial demand.

"An exodus of your military or the war will continue."

With the thousands of shinobi behind the leaf's procession, a large man who'd grown infamous from the last great war by Shikaku's side and two jinchuuriki besides that man, the threat was as full and in-their-face as it could ever be.

The full refusal of diplomacy visibly shook the opposite procession, but not to the hopelessness that Shikaku preferred.

The woman stepped back into place, and the two in front of their procession - the woman and the man who initially spoke - bowed.

"We are sorry to have to do this, Hokage-san."

"What-"

It all happened so fast. Jiraiya surged forwards even as the sand around the party exploded and sand shinobi emerged. Naruto's guard detail immediately formed a box around Naruto, Gaara and Shikaku, and shinobi surged through the opening in the canyon from the sand village proper even as the leaf's procession was assaulted. Naruto heard the yells of their own shinobi mobilizing, even as he reflexively activated the sealing array that gave him control over the kyuubi's chakra.

Despite his guards quickly entering the fray around him, Naruto found himself ducking a swipe that would have knocked his head clean off his shoulders and kicking back at the aggressor reflexively.

"Gaara?"

"You're pathetic," the redhead scoffed, sliding back from the force of the blond's kick. He held his now aching stomach gingerly and threw away the cat-mask. "And you're an utter imbecile for even considering that I would join you."

"Those are fighting words," Naruto growled, he pushed forward and tackled the redhead, which ended with him running headfirst into a wall of sand, bursting through haphazardly and sending the two tumbling. In doing so, Naruto had left the relative safety of his guard detail, but was able to chance a glance to his shinobi as they came surging down from their encampment.

"The sand is dead," Naruto said, "there's nothing they can do now. Come on Gaara, just join us or sit this one out. There's nothing to gain by fighting me, I beat you once and I'll beat you twice."

Gaara shook his head with a dry smirk. "The sand is my domain, and it was your mistake to bring me here."

Naruto paused. That was actually a good point. "What's the sand gonna do?" he said, "get in my eyes?" he wasn't very good at trash-talking, but Gaara really didn't care.

The redhead formed a ram seal, muttered something about sleep, and fell down.

"...uh?" Naruto said, pausing. Had he just... given up? Resolute and despite the desperate combat going on around the blond, he moved to poke him. Before he could get very close, however, the sand moved.

All of it.

All of the sand.

All of the sand, as far as the eye could see, smack in the middle of a desert.

Shit.

The shifting of the masses of sand emulated an explosive earthquake; everyone stumbled as the sand beneath their feet erupted, and those that were more proactive seized the opportunity to take advantage in the sandy haze it granted.

"Fuck!" Naruto yelped as he was shoved to the side, barely avoiding being skewered by an abrupt sand construct. He could scarcely see through the sudden sandstorm, but it seemed like another body had taken his place. He gulped.

Seriously not the time to think about that.

Fuck. This was his fault, he was clearly gullible and naive. He foolishly believed Gaara was fucking stupid and insane enough to just go along with him willy-nilly and help against his own fucking village. Now, not only was he paying for it, but everyone was paying for it.

'Everyone except the sand,' Naruto thought distastefully, watching helplessly as another member of his guard detail was slaughtered in their effort to allow Shikaku escape. It was enough, but...

Only the superior reflexes granted to him by the Kyuubi's power allowed Naruto to anticipate and avoid the sharp and invisible blades of wind assaulting his position.

"This is fucked up!" he said. He couldn't see Gaara anymore, and with the sandstorm-

Naruto barely rolled under the huge sand arm seeking to grab hold of him. What the hell was he supposed to-

Breathe.

"All I gotta do," Naruto muttered, "is punch it." However, ironically, it was difficult to see sand - and ergo find the ichibi - in a sandstorm... Naruto almost slipped as he backed away from another swipe. It was getting really hard to keep his footing when everything was one color.

He ducked under a third swipe, gritting his teeth. The fact he wasn't immediately caught was due entirely to his instinct. There.

Naruto surged forwards, shoulder leading the way, and collided with the massive solid form of the ichibi. The tanuki roared in surprise as it was flung back, but it managed to catch itself on its feet completely unharmed. If he focused, Naruto could see the ichibi only by the lines of blue decorating its form.

"Kyuubi, how does it feel?" the Ichibi roared; its voice was no longer as rash as it was previously. It was more calm, still loud, and grated on his nerves significantly more. "How does it feel, knowing your end is so close?"

It was fast - so, so much faster than last time - and Naruto had no chance of avoiding the colossal fist of the tanuki as it leapt forward like a bullet, somehow striking him in a fierce uppercut and sending him helplessly flying upwards. The young hokage was sent careening through the air so high he managed to glimpse the great collision of his forces against that of the sand; blood flew, skin burned and weapons clashed. His own blood flew from his open mouth, his lungs burned and he could feel his ribs bruising his flesh. Hopefully they hadn't punctured his lungs.

Above the sandstorm; his haori fluttered as he fell, a dozen sand-crafted javelins flew dead-on to his position, the massive tanuki's tail swept for his backside, and he could hear the whistling of the wind as invisible blades soared towards him.

He grimaced, it was a terrible situation to find himself in.

Even as the blades of wind cut holes through his cloak and cast bloody gashes along his limbs, his golden aura exploded outwards; and he moved. He twisted with superhuman agility, avoided the point of the initial sand javelin, kicked once to change its trajectory and again to send it soaring towards the tanuki's tail. The second skimmed his leg and the third scraped the side of his head even as he twisted his neck.

The javelin he threw was initially harmless, but it arrested the momentum of the tanuki's great tail just enough that Naruto comfortably took the slam. He held on, tenuously made his feet grip onto it, and ran along its length with speed he was scarcely used to. Within moments he was within the beast's reach, and it threw a punch downwards with overwhelming force that the blond only barely avoided by leaping forward. The force behind the blow send the tail careening harshly to the sandy grounds, creating an awkward situation in which Naruto had nowhere to land.

The ichibi reflexively reached forward to grasp the blond.

Snake. Ram. Monkey.

If he destroyed the limb, it would be impossible for the ichibi to grip him with it.

Boar. Horse. Tiger.

The biju was quick, but not quick enough to grab him before its arm was instead enveloped in an intense bout of flames extreme enough to convert the limb into molten glass, effectively removing it from the ichibi's control and creating a steaming pit in the shifting sands. If the biju could feel pain, it would have doubtlessly been quite enraged.

Naruto landed beside its tail, but was unable to move before sand rose and curled around him in a cocoon.

He struggled to escape, but the beast laughed at his efforts as it moved the blond to its face. "Hello, Kyuubi." The ichibi's sheer height meant Naruto was still high enough to see the fighting below - or at least the waves of fire and blood. The air was invisible and water was scarce in the desert.

"Hey."

It tilted its colossal head and opened its maw. "Enjoy your last-"

Naruto watched, as if in slow motion, as a hulking ball of blue chakra emerged from beneath. In the sandstorm below, it flew - attached to a man he'd never considered as anything more than a pervert - for the head of the tanuki. The biju followed his glance, it saw the attack, but too little too late. It squeezed, hard, and Naruto felt several ribs pop and snap, even as he watched with a bated, choking breath as the absurd collection of chakra collided with and completely devastated the head and most of the torso of the ichibi, cutting off its sentence and crushing his control.

As the old man fell and Naruto was released from the grip of the sand, the roar of the sandstorm slowly died down and Jiraiya yelled.

"BRAT! YOU HAVE TO GET RID OF THE KID, I'M REALLY FUCKING BUSY DOWN HERE!"

Naruto didn't bother responding, for the sandstorm suddenly surged anew and his voice would never carry.

"YOU HAVE NO CONTROL HERE, KYUUBI!"

The voice was disembodied - Naruto didn't even know where it actually came from - but Gaara himself was visible. Jiraiya's gift - besides saving his life, apparently - destroyed the redhead's casing.

He had to kill him. There was no other way, the sand was being rallied and quickly recovering the ichibi's form and he only had this one chance.

He had a pouch, this was war. He had weapons. Weapons for killing. Naruto gulped, but pushed forward as he ran a hand into the equipment pouch strapped to his waist, and pulled out a kunai. Kunai had taken thousands of lives, this was just one more.

Naruto was only adding to the killcount.

The ichibi tried to stop him, but the sand was temporarily weakened and Naruto, even spitting blood and keeping an arm wrapped weakly around his stomach had no problem dancing around its sluggish strikes. Gaara himself offered no resistance and Naruto gripped him by the hair and sliced right through the boy's neck.

Blood. It spurted out of the wound like a tap and Naruto threw the kunai away with disgust, wiped his hands off on his legs - navy was a brilliant color for this purpose - and leapt off from the crippled and dripping remains of the sand tanuki. It was quite a fall, but the sand was reasonably soft, and with the crunch of his falling sandals against the sand, he finally noticed the lull in the fighting.

The sandstorm had dissipated with the disappearance of the ichibi.

The combatants had backed away at the sight of the corpse of the son of their past kazekage, at the bloodied kunai by his feet and at the bloodied and injured hokage; limping, aura diminished, with a trail of blood dripping down his chin and wearing a white, blood-stained and sliced to pieces haori. The 'corpse' of the ichibi collapsed into the sand and the sand themselves dispersed back into their village. Between their losses during the invasion, the death of their kage, the hundreds of corpses currently staining the sand red from either side, the death of their jinchuuriki and the failure of their biju, they retreated, broken and inevitably defeated. The initial team they'd sent out to talk with them, sans two members, remained dead on the sand.

The other two stood against them, heads down, kneeling.

They'd given up.

The war which lasted only three days contained a single major battle and brought the death of the defender's jinchuuriki.

The leaf suffered minimal casualties. What's a hundred men, when you've just conquered thousands?

Med-nin rushed to their hokage's side, which he welcomed with a smile - despite being unconscious.

And the sands stirred.

AN:

Starting next chapter, the story ramps up in seriousness. Be ready.