Disclaimer: I own nothing
AN: I'm really sorry. I didn't even realize that the year has changed, and it was past the quarter of the year to boot. Therefore without further delay, enjoy.
Beta'ed by a machine.
Chapter 7.1: Kurotsuchi, It's going to be War
The blond giantess likes to be called Gold while the other class 3, which looks like a male for the lack of twin mounds on its chest, introduced itself as Coffee. They are the names they picked for themselves, and if the ninja have to guess, it's probably related to their past as humans, although, it seems like the giants don't even realize that. They don't remember much actually, because they later find out that the memories triggered by seeing an airship can only revolve around that.
The giants turn around to face them, and then they sit down, curiously on their knees, almost as if they know instinctually that this sitting position is the easiest to appear submissive, maintaining their claim or masking a more sinister purpose. Kurotsuchi then signed for her squad to raise a platform of earth for them to sit down so they can converse more chakra while sitting eye-level with the giants.
"I remember seeing an object in the sky when they drag me out of some room. I remember that I felt immense pain all over my body. The object in the sky was an airship, rather different from the one I saw here but an airship nonetheless. They covered my eyes and I can see no more."
"Who are they?" inquires Takigawa, the ever sharp kid, as well as her star pupil.
"I don't remember, but they're the ones responsible for my pain. I think I was tortured by them," Gold answers, her voice suddenly have a sharp edge.
The younger members of the squad flinch. Although their generation was one of the best, being a shinobi after giants invasion deprive them of the true terror of warfare between fellow ninja. Somehow, they become softer than the previous generation. And that's both a good thing and a bad thing. The good thing is, seeing as there is no more obvious discord between The Great Five or most of the other smaller shinobi countries, their unsuspicious nature facilitate a greater bond between the various ninja from all over the Elemental Nations. The bad thing, however, a lot of trainings in the gruesome category were deemed to be not necessary anymore. Included in that list is the lesson of extreme torture—torture that result in lost limbs and shattered minds, only select few are trained in that art these days.
Therefore, the flinch is almost understandable.
Kurotsuchi had to smile when she notices that not all the youngling flinch, one of the most talented young man under her guidance, Yuuki Arata.
"Were they other titans?" Yuuki asks.
Coffee shakes his head beside Gold at this question. "No. They were human, as was I, as were all of us. They were the one who turned us into titans."
"How did you turn into titans exactly?" One of the team's medics, Satoshi asks.
"I remember a pin prick at the base of my neck very clearly; then the next moment, I was living in a nightmare." There is a minute shudder that shook the giantess at the memory.
"We were injected with spinal liquid of a titan," Coffee added, prompting collective surprised reaction, both from the giants and the ninja.
"How do you know that?" one of her pupil asks, but she doesn't notice whom, her mind is filled with a dread and sudden urge to contact Shikamaru again.
"I think I was a doctor, an Eldian doctor, I was caught and—"
"Wait, Eldian?" the Commander cut him.
Gold and Coffee look at each other and after a second they both nod, coming to an agreement.
"Not everyone can turn into a titan. Only Eldians…Ugh…" Coffee raises his arms to his head. His big fingers pushing at his temples, "I'm sorry I can't remember more."
"That's probably as far as he can tell you, unless more memory triggered, we've been doing this in the past two days and every time, we got headaches when we tried to remember more."
Coffee nods, "We hate our torturers. I don't think they're Eldians and we were preparing for a war against them before I was captured."
'This is so messed up, why me?!—' amidst her internal rant, she feels another mind virtually knocks into her conscious, a Yamanaka messenger. The situation must be heating up on the other end too. She grants permission to the messenger and in the back of her mind she notes that they must not be that far away from Leaf Division.
"Yamanaka-san, what is it?" she asks before the messenger wasted time with greetings.
"The Recon Squad led by Hyuuga Hanabi and the clone of the Supreme Commander encounter another civilization, few times bigger than Onion Land—" Kurotsuchi can't help the twitch at the mention of the ridiculous name "—and they require back up, Commander Naruto has informed Commander A of the situation with this group of Giants. Commander A and Head of Central Intelligent Nara have confirmed that they will see to them. Your squad is to provide the support needed by Squad Leader Hyuuga Hanabi. As soon as Commander A comes to your location, you are to give him the recording tape of your conversation with the giants to him and to immediately depart to the north-east direction where a clone of the Commander Uzumaki will show you the way. Do you have any question?"
"No, thank you." There is a flash of lightning, "Commander A has arrived, and we will follow your instruction." There is a mental nod then the connection is cut.
"This is going to be another war," the ex-Raikage says by way of greeting.
Kurotsuchi handed him the small recorder to him. "It's not like we have a higher function than that," she looks at him, amused. "Feeling old yet, Raikage-sama?"
"Hmph. Just go to that crazy brat we call Supreme Commander," A huffs, annoyed and probably topped with a headache.
"Yes, of course, Commander."
Kurotsuchi then explained Commander A's role to the giant, and that from now on he will see to them since she is about to checks out a civilization, which has a high probability of it is being their land of origin.
Done with that, she says good bye to them then signed for her squad to follow her and to use diamond formation. She then explained to them what had just transpired in the course of few seconds she zoned out and why suddenly they're heading to a different direction than the StingRai's.
"This is going to be a great discovery, aren't you brats lucky, you get to be in the front seat this time," she grinned at them, maybe a little too crazed because they unconsciously furthering their distance in the formation by a foot. Damn, Anko must be rubbing off on her.
"Commander, in what capacities are we needed?" this time it is a seasoned shinobi that asks, actually the only seasoned shinobi other than her.
"If I have to guess, they will require man power. The squad led by the Commander and Hyuuga Hanabi consist of just ten people; and with the size of the new land we'll need more people to cover more ground. Even the Recon members from the main squad will probably be drafted to help," she explains after a brief consideration.
"The Supreme Commander, even a clone, can still make more shadow clones, can't he, Commander Kurotsuchi?"
"Yes that would be the case if not for the amount of special clones he had to make to pose as the recon members who will be departed into the country as soon as they can create a distraction, and he has to make about a dozen of them, that's almost the equivalent of making two thousands earth-clones."
There is an awed silence, until,
"What Commander A means by saying that this is going to be war, Commander Kurotsuchi?" her star pupil asks. Nothing escapes this kid, huh.
"Seeing as this is going to be a rather long journey, why don't you guys try to answer that? It will train your sense of reasoning. Let's base it on what we know about giants and our recent discoveries about them. Masa-kun, you go first."
"Y-yes, Commander, uh… I think it is because the giant's power is created rather than something natural. And to them, I mean people with no access to chakra; a giant is a powerful weapon. And with the discoveries of Class giants they will now fight over chakra."
This kid is not bad, as expected of her chosen pupil, "That's good insight, Masa-kun, now let's hear what you think, Aizawa-chan."
Chapter 7.2: Pixis, Acknowledged
Dot Pixis goes through the next few hours after the titan massacre almost in a daze, given that he can't quite believe what's happening anymore. The moment the last titan falls, three of the ninja raise a hundred feet tall barrier made of fire, instantly incarcerating the ones still rushing to their direction. Few moments later, none of the shinobi can be seen other than Sai and Sasuke. Both ninja seemed quite satisfied with the display, if they can look smug, this is it. Amusement shines as they regard the lords and ladies with a look that express, "We warned you."
They all made their way to the air-ship's landing spot inside Wall Maria. The soldiers walk with the squad leaders and higher ranks mount their horses, the lords and ladies go into the prepared carriages, and the commanders and Chief Commander rides at the front of the formation.
From the horse back, Pixis can see people reaction more clearly than when he was on the wall. Some of them are terrified and keep shooting their fear filled eyes to the resident shinobi, some of them even react as badly as to scream, fortunately his soldiers can calm them, for now anyway.
Most of them, however, regard the shinobi with undisguised awe, as if they find their gods walk amongst them, and it is a quite true depiction, not that he can blame them, as even him, an old weathered soldier, is overwhelmed by the picture now painted in his head.
This terrifying and otherworldly race of people is walking with them, they offer help and guidance, and they, this isolated humanity, scoffed at their claim. Even after this spectacle, people will scoff at their sincerity, he included, but this is the extent of what they can do. Because after such display of supremacy, it's not as if they can possibly oppose them without consequence—and knowing them, their body might not ever be found.
That if they resort to such methods.
However, he gets the suspicion that this is not how it works this time. They're still looking for something, information, secrets, he doesn't know but, until they have them, he's reasonably sure that these superior beings aren't here to annihilate them.
A funny observation, even if it comes to that, the majority of people might just justify the act of destruction as the Wrath of Gods, they will accept them as such and convince non-believer to believe. Because from the adoration he can see in the eyes of most prominent figures in the political sphere, these ninja will get away with anything.
They have been acknowledged.
They have been acknowledged in the span of half an hour since their arrival, and isn't that a curious thing. The Wall Worshipper has nothing on them, not even a speck of dust, as they still need at least another decade to gain half as much influence as the shinobi seems to gain, and the walls have been here from the start of their civilization.
Damn, these people are terrifying.
Chapter 7.3: Levi, Shinobi Up Close
In Levi's opinion, this situation—with the shitty smug ninja all line up in front of their weird contraption they call air-ship; and them, on the other side with their lords, ladies, and soldier who stand without any visible order—looks like the start of a great war; the faceoff between two sides; the isolated humanity and the foreign force trying to invade them. At first glance, it looks like the fight would be one-sided, what with the small number of the foreign forces which appear to be just 50 personnel and the opposing side seems to consist of more than a thousand strong with more of them hiding and will appear on command. To an outsider, some people that did not see the battle in front of the gate, the fight will be painfully one-sided.
However, for those who witness it firsthand, the fight will be one sided, yes, but not on the side they initially assume—because appearance can be deceiving, and these ninja are the master of it.
The ninja all lined up neatly suddenly part in the middle, revealing another line of ninja consist of four people. And if Levi has to guess, they're the commanders.
From the right to left, there is the woman who spat out lava from her dainty little mouth, and what else can emerge from that misleading appearance, if she is single, he's not surprised because he doesn't think typical men, ninja or not, would dare to kiss those lips that can end them in the most painful way possible. Her visible eye sweeps the people in front of her, and for a second locks to his- then she smiles as if she likes what she sees. He can't quite contain the shudder that runs through his spine.
Beside her is a man with a dark tan and bleached blond hair, the guy is wearing a pair sunglasses tackier than the one shitty-glasses seems to prefer. Beside him is a pale man with blood red hair; and beside him is a blond kid, who wears a lot of black and orange, who the heck dressed their kid in too much orange like this?!
The four of the step forward, meeting Shadis, Nile, Pixis and the Chief Commander Zacklay.
Uninterested at their greetings and pleasantries, he moves his eyes away from the eight commanders and takes a look at the rest of the party. Immediately he finds the indecently-clad green man. Up close, he seems to be on his late thirties, there is an air of confidence in his stance, the bowl cut hair is not better, but this close he can feel that the man is one of the strongest. Moreover, he can sense that he is being observed because the green-clad man turned to Levi giving him thumbs up, a blinding grin, and a wink. He doesn't know what kind of horrified face he makes, but Erwin turns to him with concern plainly displayed. He quickly shakes his head at Erwin which can either means, "No, I'm fine" or "No, I don't want to talk about it" and both are true in a sense. He received a nod from the taller man, so he quickly makes more notes about the gathering ninja before the initial discussion finished.
Every single one of them has peculiarities in their appearance, or at least peculiar from his point of view—with their strange colored hair and similarly oddly colored eyes, they will be called freak if they're born here. He notes that there are four distinct styles in uniform.
One, where they favor dark clothing underneath a sturdy looking forest green vest with a red spiral on the back; one or two in this group wear a metal plated headband with a complicated symbol, but they all wear the same symbol as Sasuke and Sai on their left breast pocket, hmm, the sign for their division, perhaps?
Two, where they prefer light-tan clothing underneath a grey vest, styled similarly with the green one, a symbol of hour glass, probably, can be seen on their breast pocket. Among them, there are more youngsters than the previous ones.
Third, these soldiers prefer dark clothing underneath a one-shouldered white vest. They all wear a metal plated head-band with the complicated symbol on their arm and the symbol for their division is proudly displayed on their forehead. More teenagers are included in this group. Huh…
The last, he can guess belong to the only female commander, they prefer grey clothing underneath their blue vest, the same shade as the commander's. There is no teenager he can see here. But why the other two have more teenagers than the green and blue? Did the titans laid more waste in their area than the rest?
It is not something he can answer alone though. He will need to interrogate Sai or the stuck up-Sasuke if he really wants to know. And he can do that later, because the Big Eight seem to be concluding their opening. Nothing much prepared them to play host for these freaks but that doesn't mean the pathetic aristocrats didn't prepare something in case the ninja are what they claim to be and the nobles have to suck up to them.
There is another castle in Wall Rose territory that's significantly closer to Wall Shina than the castle they used to house Sai and Sasuke, it is where they plan to accommodate them—because it's closer to the capital but far enough from them. Until an hour ago, Levi can bet his monthly salary; that the castle is not even dusted. But frantic bird messengers sent ten minutes into their arrival was to change that fact, probably informing the fat lordship incharge of the change of plan; these pathetic cretins will treat the smug ninja better than kings.
He actually can't wait to see them grovel, and the best part, is that flattery will get them nowhere with these shinobi. They have their own agenda, and if anything, it is the people in the underworld, people these aristocrats detest, that have a chance of going anywhere with them. But of course, if his lordship and ladyship ready to talk of each other secret, maybe the ninja will grant them a favor or two.
But Levi knows best when it comes to nobles and their secret. And no, they will not be any use to the ninja any time soon.
Chapter 7.4: Zacklay, at the Top
There is a brief staring contest between them, until the youngest looking one break his face in a smile and introduced himself as Commander Uzumaki Naruto from Leaf Division, then he proceeds to introduce the others. There is Commander Gaara from the Sand Division. Next is B (he's not sure whether it's B or Bee, but they sound the same, so whatever) the brother of the Commander A from Cloud Division; he is here as his representative. Then, there is the only female of the bunch, Terumi Mei from the Mist Division, and she's one hell of beautiful woman.
The four commanders thank them for the welcome, it is a veiled jibe but they all ignore it. Zaklay made the call, he was the one asking for proof so it's his time to own up and admit the truth of their claim. He will not bow down to their superiority, however. They come here for a reason or another and it means they still have some ground over them even when the other grounds are completely under their control.
Nile Dawk then suggests that they move their discussion at a more reasonable place and that their lodging have been taken care of. The youngest commander Uzumaki Naruto, the one with blond hair and too many orange in his person, looks amused and as a sign of appreciation offers a ride to the castle on their sleek looking airship. There are only hundred spots available though, excluding the space needed to transport all the ninja. And isn't that impressive?
Most of this spots will go to the drooling aristocrats and their servants, since they can't function without one, and that left around twenty to thirty from the military side. He tells them as such and they tell him that they don't really care about the arrangement; it's just an hour ride at the most so it doesn't really matter.
The Commander-in-Chief is surprised at that, because he gets the impression that this vehicle moves slowly, considering the size and the time it needed to reach this land. When he asks them that, they inform him that this ship is new, meaning their first journey was a test drive, and this ship passed with flying colors, hence, there is no worrying about pushing her too much. In fact, it shall be another test for StingRai.
After that, he informs the gathering nobles and soldiers of their discussion. And as he predicted, there are 40 nobles and 40 servants to board the ship, and that left the rest for the four of them, their second-in-commands, and squad leaders. It is good to be at the top sometimes, the privilege to experience something as rare as this is not to be treated lightly.
He comes to regret his decision to board the airship, something that even he had only seen this once, the moment the ship rise up in the sky, his body feels strange and he imagines he is not the only one. In truth, other than the ninja, the rest of the passenger is in a bad shape. There is the urge to hurl his lunch, a knot in his stomach, a headache equivalent to three feet tall of paperwork, and he sweats like there's no tomorrow. Damn, even Shadis' Second-in-Command, Erwin, looks paler than normal. This is an unpleasant experience, but at least the view is distracting, and what a wonderful view it is. This is the first time he can see landscape as far as his eyes can see and it is almost magical, if only his stomach doesn't interrupt his elated feeling.
Ten minutes into agonizing flight, the medics on the ship started to get out of their seat to treat the nauseated passengers, their hands glow green and they feel wonderful, his motion-sickness symptoms instantly gone, and the pretty lady with pink hair moves on to the next patient.
These ninja are wonderful, why did he doubt them again?
-TBC-
AN: if you noticed, the character's names on each sub-chapter title explain whose POV is used at them.
I realize that I make an AU of Naruto's canon ending, but I didn't mention much on the story, some of you probably noticed, but this is the list of change. Some are more significant than others, so pay attention, and if I missed something, tell me.
1) Sasuke and Naruto didn't lose their arms
2) Maito Gai made a full recovery, the 'how' is going to be explained later
3) On second thought, I'm going to reveal the rest as the story goes.
We reach the point where I ask you for your opinion, so don't hold back, concrits are appreciated, and XO for anyone reviewing. Thanks for reading!
