On The Road to Lightning
Naruto stood waiting while the enemies closed in on him. He held his defensive stance until they group was almost upon him before he moved. His lessons in proper technique showed as he effortlessly struck at the lead attacker. A quick punch to the stomach bent the attacker over as Naruto sidestepped the falling opponent. His motion brought him into kunai range of the man defending the first's flank.
Naruto parried the blade and followed with a kick to the man's knee to bend it sideways with severe ligament damage. The blonde pulled back his foot in time to keep the collapsing man from trapping it as he fell.
Naruto spun to his side and axe kicked the first opponent on the back of his head as he attempted to rise. The dull thud of the man hitting the ground was barely heard as Naruto looked for his next opponent.
The third man was a swordsman who held his sword in a two handed grip. Naruto jumped back in time to avoid getting cut by the blade. Naruto took up a new defensive stance and pulled out dual tonfa from a storage seal on his belt. He held them with the long shaft against the outside of his forearms as the swordsman swing again.
Naruto blocked one strike from the sword while he tried to strike back but the swordsman was barely out of his reach while he kept the free tonfa in a guard position. The swordsman stepped back from his blow and swung again with a horizontal strike. Naruto went to block the blow only to find it had been a feint and he had left himself open as the swordsman spun around a fallen comrade to get behind Naruto.
Naruto dove forward to the ground and rolled off his shoulder back to his feet several paces away as he avoided an attack on his back. He was facing his opponent again but his back was to more attackers following the original three. He twisted the tonfa in his grip and extended the shaft outward as he twirled once to clear his immediate area. Several opponents took blows or dodged as he spun.
The spin ended with him facing the swordsman. Naruto rushed the opponent swinging first one arm then the other while advancing almost back to his original position. With a series of attacks to one side, he worked around the swordsman to have his back away from all of his enemies. He spun his left tonfa back into a guard position and stepped closer to the swordsman, goading the man into an attack. As Naruto expected, the attack came from his left. He parried the blow against his arm and struck the swordsman on the left bicep close to the elbow. The sound of the humerus snapping under the impact was followed by the sound of the sword hitting the ground.
Naruto stepped back as the sounds of battle faded around him. Hinata stepped into his view from one side and soon Sakura appeared on the other side. The few men standing had grouped together to make a final stand. Naruto kicked the sword away from the man who had wielded it. Sakura picked it up and looked it over before simply breaking it in her gloved hands
"Oops," she said in a cute voice. "I am soooo clumsy."
The men balked at seeing a barely teenage girl just snap steel and quickly surrendered. Naruto tossed one man some short lengths of rope and had him bind his fellow bandits. Once that was done, Hinata moved in and touched a point on each man's neck and they collapsed.
"Scratch one bandit encampment," Naruto said with a smile. "Only trouble is, how do we get them back to town?"
Anko had stood back from the fight to observe the team in action. The simple C ranked mission against a camp of bandits was a good exercise for them on the verge of departing for the Chunin Exams in Cloud. She had let them do everything as if they had been a team of chunin. From the moment they had left Konoha, she had not said a word. All she had done was trail along and munch on sticks of dango. The only thing she had said to them at all was order one of them to buy her fresh dango as they passed a town. They had planned out the scouting and attack on the camp on their own.
Naruto had gone in first to get their attention while Hinata freed the hostage. Sakura moved in from the other side of the camp to club bandits unconscious from behind with controlled blows to the head. The entire fight from the moment Naruto had entered the camp had been under one minute. Anko was impressed but would never say that without a few drinks first.
If she had been a part of the mission, she would be tempted to summon a large snake. But that would alert Orochimaru to her continued existence. He would find out if he opened the snake summoning scroll but that was not likely to happen any time soon. Instead she just sat back and munched. They had to figure something out on their own.
"A nice sized wagon should be able to carry all of these bandits," Sakura suggested.
Hinata looked around the camp. "Several would be better. These bandits seem to have been good at what they did. They do have some smaller wagons here in camp so we can get the valuable items sorted and loaded by the time someone can run to town and return with the needed transportation and guards."
"I can get on with the sorting and early loading," Naruto said. "A lot of their goods look like trash but I think the nearby village should get whatever is left that we can't return. It would make a nice statement if we tell them it is for their benefit from the Hokage and the Daimyo."
The girls agreed as Naruto sent a trio of shadow clones to the nearby village to borrow a large wagon and some villagers to act as guards and salvagers.
Jiraiya looked over the four mission reports. Each genin had written a report for the mission and so had Anko as observer. He had made the team wait until this was his last business of the day to go over everything and give his critique of their skills on the reports.
"Hinata, a nice concise report. It tells about fulfilling the mission objectives, how many bandits captured and what was returned to the caravan. A note about informing the Daimyo about the village being given supplies in his name is a good idea."
"Sakura, your report is concise as well. Same basic information as Hinata presented. No mention about what you did with the camp remains but noting that the local village aided in transporting the bandits into custody was intelligent."
"Naruto, your report was clear but not quite as concise as the others. Detailing your team's movements is good for using this mission as a tactical exercise in the future but not needed for a mission report. I understand your previous report writing for Sarutobi needed to be like this because you used it as a briefing material for clan heads. For that purpose this kind of report is excellent. For simple reporting to be filed, such detail is not needed."
Jiraiya showed them Anko's report. It mentioned everything but fell somewhere in the middle of what the team had done. It mentioned all aspects in general, what was done by each team member, what was returned, what was given to the village and that it was done in the Hokage's and Daimyo's names.
"I would give you all a well above passing grade on this if it were a test. Even the reports were correct and with the minor items I pointed out corrected; any of those reports suitable for record keeping. Anko, any comments?" Jiraiya asked.
Anko shook her head, "Nothing major that some training would not fix. Beginning to end, these three handled it like chunin would have. They get my okay to go to the Cloud."
Jiraiya looked out the window at the sunset. "Then let's get out of here and off to dinner. You three leave tomorrow for Cloud with Tsunade.
The team walked out of the Tower together. "When did you start learning to fight with tonfa, Naruto?" Sakura asked.
"A few weeks ago. Jiraiya-sensei felt that I should have a non-standard weapon skill. I'll need to know more to make jonin but starting sooner helps. Tonfa are simple to use but difficult to master. Since I already have the strength and motor skills to wield them already all that I needed was the experience at it. With my work ethic and my skill with shadow clones, I could learn the attacks and defensive moves with more experience in a few weekly sessions than most people training can get in a year. Nothing like remembering your mistakes intimately from a shadow clone getting hit by one then a minute later remembering how you hit yourself with one."
All three laughed at Naruto's joke. The girls realized they should expand their weapon skills in the future as well. Basic kunai, senbon and shuriken would be enough to make chunin but if they ever wanted jonin rank, more was needed.
One benefit of their team format was that they were treated more in accordance with their skill level rather than their official ranks. Jiraiya, Anko and Tsunade all treated them as low-level chunin rather than as students and genin with less than a year's experiences. They took into account Naruto and Hinata's time as pranksters and Sakura had quickly caught up to them with her intelligence and chakra control. The largest weakness they had as a group was that they lacked the field experience some of the other teams had gathered.
The teams leaving for the Chunin Exams were gathered near the new northeastern gate. A road had been carved out of the forest to provide wood for new construction and to make a path to the nearest major road in that direction. New camouflaged watchtowers stood at suitable points along the road as early warning stations. Ten teams plus jonin sensei were going along with a cook wagon and supply wagon. Tsunade led the caravan personally and as the jonin sensei for Team Apprentice. The total trip time to Cloud would be ten days with two days leeway before the Exams began.
Team Apprentice had no duties on the first day out of Konoha so they spent their time walking along near the wagons. The slow pace grated on Naruto so he unsealed his tonfa and did kata as he walked. Hinata smiled at him as he worked. Tsunade walked around to their side of the wagon and watched for about a half hour before speaking to them. "Naruto, why now show Hinata the basic moves with those? She might do well with a basic knowledge of them. They would also extend her reach. Some opponents like swordsmen keep at longer than an arms length distance." Naruto smiled and unsealed a second pair for Hinata and a third for Sakura. He then spent the rest of the day showing and correcting the basic movements and counters. Since they could easily keep pace with the wagons, they were able to stop more than once for a quick no contact spar between the girls. Naruto was impressed with the speed the girls showed in learning. Both complimented his teaching ability. By the end of the day, all three had learned something about the weapons and Naruto insisted the girls keep the tonfa he had leant them as he had more.
The second day of the trip, the team was on duty. They were assigned to the left flank patrol about a half mile off the road. They spent their time tree hopping and checking out anything they found that might be a security risk. Several abandoned loggers cabins had been checked out but nothing worthwhile had been found in their area of responsibility. Having guard duty that night as a team for 3 hours finished their day.
The third day went much like the first. The team work on tonfa training as they walked. Hinata seemed to do best as she was more used to controlling her movements more exactly due to her Flowing Fist variant of Gentle Fist.
She and Anko had finally settled on the official name for Hinata's variant and recorded the basic movements for the Hyuuga clan archives. Hiashi and the remaining clan elders had been pleased. The severe reduction in the Hyuuga had given them cause to record some aspects of their style for the first time. Hiashi also took the drastic step of forbidding further use of the Caged Bird Seal on Branch members. He formally petitioned Jiraiya as the only seal master in Konoha to look into finding an alternate means to protect the Hyuuga bloodline.
Now Hinata was doing something else past what any Hyuuga had done in living memory. Learning a fighting technique that did not require their bloodline to use. Hinata however decided to make the skill into something else that might benefit her clan in the future. She activated her Byakugan while fighting with her tonfa and was defending against both Sakura and Naruto from opposite sides. The largest surprise of the day came when Hinata gave Naruto a chakra shock when she scored a light hit on him. She had without thinking about it channeled chakra through her tonfa. The team put their ideas together and realized this could be a benefit if Hinata could become precise enough to hit tenketsu points with tonfa tips instead of her fingertips and close them down. Tsunade agreed that this idea had merit and wrote it down for further consideration.
The days continued to pass. Day Four was on duty again, this time to the right flank. Day Five was a day off. Day Six as the forward scouting party. They passed into Lightning Country near the end of the day and the groups were called in to only a fifty yard perimeter. The forest gave way to open areas of waist high brush with copses of trees. Squads of Cloud ninja led and trailed the group with a single team walking with the wagons. Tsunade ordered all Leaf ninja that no training be done until after reaching Cloud village.
Day Seven dawned rainy. The Cloud ninja were used to the rain and paid it no heed. The Leaf ninja grumbled but were glad for the cook wagon and being able to get a hot meal at lunch. The Cloud ninja all looked longingly at the wagon but ate their cold rations in silence. The first sign of trouble came when the left flank reported movement that their Cloud escorts said was not their people.
Dozens of ninja wearing slashed Sound headbands fell upon the left flank. The Cloud ninja who traveled out further out were overwhelmed and went down. Tsunade took charge of things quickly. She turned to the Cloud team in with the wagons, "Order your people away from those Sound ninja. If they are after us, they will leave yours alone. If they are after you, your people can form up on the far side with us between you and them." The Cloud leader nodded in agreement and called for his remaining squad on the left to retreat. They were only a genin escort, not meant to fight a war.
Tsunade then turned to the Leaf ninja, "NARUTO! CLONE WAVE LEFT!"
Naruto heard the shouted order and grinned. He was getting to show off. A hand sign and seconds later, more than one hundred shadow clones raced to meet the incoming Sound ninja with kunai and tonfa. The hoard of Naruto met the Sound ninja and many vanished in puffs of smoke.
Naruto flinched as the memories flooded in on him, "These guys are good, Tsunade-sensei. All the enemy that my clones engaged are chunin level or better. Five clones bypassed the incoming ninja and went past to check for survivors in that Cloud patrol further out. One clone self dispelled. Two Cloud dead, two alive but badly wounded and being evac'ed north" Naruto paused and he thought, "I count 37 still incoming but fighting right now, 5 chunin enemy level down already."
Naruto flinched again as a large group of clones and the entire left flank patrol vanished under a massive fireball, "That one was a jonin, really strong one too." The enemy had closed to twenty five yards out when Tsunade yelled out more orders, "Teams form up on your senseis. Naruto I need another clone wave out of you. Dog pile the jonin if you have to. These are fanatics and you are going to have to kill some of them." Naruto nodded slowly and made the clones. He had killed once before but it had been an accident. This time he was sending clones to do nothing less. The second wave of Narutos swarmed out.
This time the clones hit the incoming enemy alongside the other teams. Chunin level ninja fell quickly as the clones distracted and overwhelmed enemy and the jonin teachers entered the close battles.
One Sound ninja swung a melody arm which dispelled a half dozen clones only to fall to a kunai to the back of his head from a 16 yr old Leaf genin.
A team of 14 yr old Leaf genin fell to a Sound jonin before their teacher avenged them killing the Sound jonin. Two Sound chunin wounded the jonin before they died. One more Sound chunin stabbed the jonin in the back before dying under the kunai of several Naruto clones. The clones then dragged the wounded jonin out of the battle.
Sakura yelled "Shockwave" and punched the ground hard. Leaf ninja all jumped as the wave passed but not all the Sound ninja were lucky enough to. More then a dozen were killed on the ground, two of them jonin level. Hinata engaged sound ninja that made it out of the brush to the road. She gave no warning and attacked like she had when she had been attacked years before. Four Sound ninja fell under her hands.
The Cloud leader had not been quiet. He had turned when he saw the Sound were after the Leaf party. He had his ninja move to flank the Sound ninja. Cries came from the ends of the battle as the Cloud ninja fell upon the Sound. Several Sound ninja tried to break away but within minutes, the entire attack force had been killed.
Naruto clones pulled Leaf wounded back to the wagons and the clones that left north returned with the pair of wounded Cloud ninja. Tsunade, Sakura and the few jonin who knew healing jutsu set to work on the worst of life threatening wounds. Those that did not bandaged up the wounds of their teammates and recovered the bodies of fallen Leaf ninja. The Cloud recovered the bodies of their two fallen as well. The heads of all the Sound ninja were removed, sealed into scrolls and the bodies burnt. The Sound headbands were collected and brought along with the group.
Only one more died once the battle was over because she bled out due to a sliced artery before Tsunade could stop the bleeding. She fought back her hemophobia well enough to do her work and remain focused.
Naruto kept moving around in a daze until Tsunade noticed and made him sit down. Once he sat, he just lowered his head and sat there. Tsunade sighed, as she knew the price he was paying for the shadow clone technique. In order to make the second wave of clones combat capable, he had to add more chakra into them. These clones had been more self-aware and the memories hit Naruto much harder than normal clones he used. Dying violently eighty times in less than five minutes took its toll on even the most resilient mind. She sent Hinata over to sit with him until he looked up.
"How do you do it, Hinata? How do you cope knowing that you killed someone?" he asked in a quiet voice.
Hinata took his hand, "The first time I killed I was defending my Father and Sister. That is how I was able to deal with it. After that, I knew I could kill. I learned to become Rabbit when I have to do something like that. I do it because I need to defend not just my friends and precious ones but I must defend myself as well."
"Seventeen. My second wave of clones killed seventeen of them, Hinata."
Hinata leaned close and kissed Naruto softly on the cheek and whispered to him, "If you had not, they would have killed everyone here; Sakura, Tsunade, me and everyone else. You killed them to protect us all, Naruto. Thank you."
Naruto just nodded but didn't smile or blush at the kiss.
The Cloud leader glanced over then to Tsunade, "His first kill huh?"
Tsunade just nodded, "And dying however many times those clones of his got killed. I don't envy the nightmares he is going to have over that."
The Cloud replied, "I had heard stories of that technique. It is very powerful but now I understand why it isn't used if it can be like that on the user."
Konoha lost 3 jonin and 11 of the genin in the attack. Tsunade kept the group at the battle site the rest of the day. They got permission to gather rocks to build a small cairn. The jonin who knew cremation jutsu burnt the bodies of their fallen and left half of each ones ashes in the cairn and sealed the remainder to bring back to Konoha. They waited and laid the final stone at sunset. Tsunade then had the party move on for an hour in the last of the fading light before camping for the night.
Naruto tried to go on his assigned duty that night but most of the other genin volunteered to take his place. Tsunade convinced him to do so and Naruto eventually got to sleep.
"Wasn't that fun, boy?" the Kyuubi roared out into his dreams.
"Shut up, baka Kitsune," Naruto muttered in his dreams but the Kyuubi only laughed and taunted Naruto by flashing the faces of the dead Sound ninja each time he slept.
Hinata woke as Naruto awoke screaming for the sixth time that night. She moved over to Naruto and lay next to him as he panicked.
"Shhh, its only a dream, Naruto," she said as she stroked his forehead. She calmed him down and held his head on her shoulder until he fell asleep. After that, Naruto managed to sleep the rest of the night without nightmares.
Naruto was better in the morning but no one would let him do anything until he complained to Tsunade he needed something to occupy his mind.
Shortly before noon, four squads of jonin arrived to escort the Leaf ninja the rest of the way into Cloud. The last two days of the trip passed uneventfully.
By the time the teams reached the Cloud village, Tsunade and the jonin had reorganized the genin who lost team members and could field five teams, counting Team Apprentice. Four genin remained too rattled to compete.
The Cloud village peeked out above the cloud layer on a high mountain plateau. The defensive wall most villages had was much smaller here. The high altitude was giving a few of the Leaf ninja a tough time but they felt well enough to compete. They were surprised when the Raikage himself came to the gate to welcome them.
"Welcome, Leaf ninja," he proclaimed. "I apologize for the trouble that has befallen your group within our borders."
"Do not worry, Raikage-dono," Tsunade replied. "The bandits who did so paid for it with their lives."
"Remnants of the Sound still loyal to that Orochimaru. He raided villages within this country to feed his forces before our border patrols stopped that. He took many families to their deaths against Konoha."
Tsunade nodded but replied, "That was not your country's fault. The processes of an evil man are never to be understood."
"My guides told me of one genin who did the bulk of the work; your own student Uzumaki Naruto. I had thought he had been made a chunin after the voting in the last exams."
"In the confusion after the Third's death, some conspired to deny his promotion under a flimsy excuse. To prove his worth, we have brought him here to show that he is capable."
"Tsunade, I promise you this, if he gets through the first two parts of our Exam, he will have earned his promotion, no matter how he fares in the Finals. But, I have something else to speak to this Uzumaki Naruto about. Will you bring him to a meeting with me over dinner tonight?"
Tsunade replied, "Thank you, I accept and I shall bring him as well."
Naruto was nervous as he sat in a formal kimono in the large dining room with Tsunade and the Raikage. He had no clue why he had been asked to come along, only that he was there. He kept on using every polite manner that the Old Man had forced him to learn. He ate slow and with care not to stain his outfit. He only spoke when spoken to and answered using proper titles to both the Raikage and Tsunade. After the overall toughest dinner of his life, the Raikage finally got to the point of his invitation.
"Naruto-san, I know you are interested in knowing why I invited you here tonight. First, I must say I enjoyed you match against the Uchiha in Konoha 5 months ago."
"Thank you Raikage-sama, I did my best. He was a difficult opponent. If it had not been interrupted I am fairly certain I would have defeated him," Naruto said in a soft controlled voice.
"I think you had him beaten before he even stepped into the match based on your preparations. I enjoyed myself seeing him battle you. What was it that you knew that had you so prepared?"
"His ego outweighed his ability."
Tsunade chuckled at that response and added in, "By about a ton or two."
"Tell me Naruto-san, do you know anything of your family name?"
Tsunade spoke up before Naruto could, "He knows nothing of his heritage, Raikage-dono. His mother was an Uzumaki but she was not married when he was born. If his father had survived the Kyuubi attack I am sure his father would have acknowledge the boy, but as that is unknown and unrecorded, he bears his mother's name."
"My mom?" Naruto said in a small voice. "You knew who she was?"
"Yes, Naruto. I found it in the medical files after I took over in Konoha. The Third had ordered them sealed to protect both you and the identity of your father. His name was not in the file but the Third made a note that he did know your father's name. I have an idea of who he is but without seeing proof, I cannot speculate in public."
"Can you tell me anything about her?" Naruto pleaded.
"Her name was Kushina. She was a refugee from the Land of Whirlpool and came to Konoha during a war in which it was destroyed by the Land of Water and made a part of Water. She eventually became a ninja in Konoha and she died the night of the Kyuubi attack, the day you were born."
"I never was told any of that," Naruto said quietly.
"Naruto-san, I must admit, seeing you at that tournament was no the first time I have seen an Uzumaki first. 25 years ago, I was a young genin accompanying a force of ninja to the southern part of our lands. Some refugees from Whirlpool had come to Lightning Country as well. A half dozen ninja named Uzumaki were among them. Most of the people accepted the rule of our Daimyo and those people with ninja ability joined Cloud. But not the Uzumaki. They resisted my predecessor. He ordered them killed. It took the lives of 26 jonin to kill that half dozen ninja. I was there as my sensei was one of those jonin."
Naruto panicked, "I didn't do any of that, I wasn't even born yet!"
The Raikage smiled, "I am not doing this for revenge, Naruto-san. Those ninja impressed even me at my young age. They were very good. Once my sensei was down, they did not attack him. My sensei was merely defeated by them. He lost his life to my predecessor who ordered a wide area lightning strike on the battlefield. It was on that day; for that reason and one other; I vowed to destroy that man. Once the deed was done, we gathered up all the records the Uzumaki had to see what jutsu could be gathered from them. In their possession were three scrolls with blood seals on them. With no living Uzumaki to provide blood, no one in Cloud could open them. The blood of every remaining Whirlpool refugee was tried. They have remained in our library to this day."
The Raikage gestured and a guard brought in three scrolls with a symbol that was familiar to Naruto.
"That's the same symbol on my jacket! The one that the Old Man gave me to wear on my sleeve when I was a kid!" he said to Tsunade.
"Uzumaki Naruto, I will give these scrolls to you under two conditions. The first condition, of course, you must be able to open them. The second condition is that you allow us to copy any jutsu written upon them."
Next Chapter: Tests and Decisions
End Notes: I have been a busy, busy writer lately. With this chapter, I have posted some 26,000 words in the past 8 days on my 4 active stories. I have another 8,000 to 10,000 or so in the process of editing. I have been lucky to be over my blocks on all my stories at once. I hope it continues to last.
I am taking a chance here with by creating some mythical back-story for Uzumaki. I figure that some more besides Kushina would have gotten out of Whirlpool were a large family or clan. I know in a different story I made Kushina into a princess and such but each story is a different AU. There will be no bloodline or anything special about Naruto being added because of the scrolls.
Review Notes: The method of curse seal removal I did mention would not work on Sasuke since he used the thing. Anko had not and it was inactive and contained. Once the Kyuubi chakra destroyed the thing, Hinata was able to pop it like a zit.
The bit with Koharu and Homura acting against Naruto was done when there was no Hokage to stop them. As I wrote, if Jiraiya had shot them down, they had set it up to look like Jiraiya was playing favorites for Naruto.