This is not an update as you can see, it is, however, something that pains me to the fullest. After much thought and discussion with others as well as reviews pointing out grievous errors and inconsistencies in the story as well as my own realization that there were some things that were not thought out very far, I am ending this version of Tip Of The Spear.
I am not leaving it unfinished, I am rewriting it to correct things that have added a 'butterfly effect' on the story as a whole. I wish to fix things that are broke or have no consequence to the overall tale. For the most part, things will be the same, Naruto and Sakura will still be a couple from the beginning, they will train in our world and they will return bearing the technology and weapons they grew up with. What will change will be how they live as children before their exile and Sakura's relationship with her parents. It will no longer be as antagonistic as I had originally written but there is still a strain.
Both Naruto and Sakura will now be supported from the shadows as Hiruzen takes steps to ensure his successors' safety. However, this will eventually fail as you will see and Kurama will remove the pair and attend to their training himself. I have been considered this for a long time and have been struggling with the next chapter for months. It didn't help that I've had a week-long hospital stay and while in there I still couldn't think of how to end the mission in Suna and bring Temari to Konoha. I tried all I could think of and then some. What were the final nails in the story's coffin were a PM telling me that that person was not reading the story any longer because I sprung adding Temari to the relationship without warning and I was making Naruto a 'baby making machine' and turning Sakura into a lesbian.
I would like to point out that I had been hinting at these things for a long time and to me, it seems that most of what I had written was skipped over and only the parts with Naruto and Sakura interacting were read. The last nail was a review that pointed out an uncompleted sentence that when I read it I drew a blank on what I was planning on saying. These two things along with my own dissatisfaction are the driving reasons so please don't think poorly of me for doing this.
Those that I communicate with via PM I wish to thank for your support and the occasional idea or two. The fact that I do have people here that I can trust with my plans and ideas is the reason I stay. So, I wish to thank you all for your unwavering support and I hope I still have it after this post.
To may readers in general, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I never thought that I would get as many reviews, favorites, and follows that Tip Of The Spear garnered. I promise the I will do all I can to keep what worked in the original and try not to get as sidetracked as I have on occasion, (the Wave arc and overstaying in Tanzuka Town anyone?) as well as toning down the amount of OC's that I add in.
As to OC's, Sakura's little sister is still in as well as Umeko and her brother Eiji. I'm up in the air about Jiraiya's other wife in Tanzuka Town and her daughter, however, I still like the idea of him having women in other towns and villages running his network. The sea stories and other things such as the Easter eggs will also stay except for one, the Kinzoku clan are no more. This was a reference to the J-Pop group Babymetal that my granddaughter and I enjoy listening to. With the departure of Mizuno Yui from the group the joke isn't as funny as it once was and to continue it would be a waste of time, besides, not too many got the joke.
So, farewell for the time being. I'm not leaving the site as I have other works to write but Tip Of The Spear is done in this incarnation. It will return once I have the new first chapter and at least several of the original chapters redone.