Disclaimer: I don't own anything in Naruto.
AN: So far, I doubt there will be any pairings in this story...but well, we'll see how it goes. I aim to explore a very different Naruto - one who has been tempered by countless years. Essentially, a cool, calm and collected all-round BAMF. Enjoy and please leave feedback.
From his perch in the darkness, twelve year old Naruto could easily make out the 73 bandits that made up the camp which was his target. His superior hearing picked up the whimpers and subdued crying coming from the tent pitched in the centre of the clearing, where he knew the kidnapped women – girls – were being held captive. He had been going on such bandit clearing missions for months now; knowing that the smaller villages in Fire country often lacked military protection and were thus susceptible to bandit raids. So, he would sneak out of Konoha and go to those villages, offering his services for free. Of course, he sometimes had to explain to the people that he was more than capable of carrying out the mission – though, he had found that simply fixing them with a look got things moving pretty quickly. Ever the meticulous one, Naruto performed last minute checks before beginning what he had mentally termed operation wipe-out. His self-made high quality kunai and shuriken were all accounted for and easily accessible. His all-black fitted outfit was ready as well – no loose material to flap and give him away or hinder his movements. Finally he used his chakra to probe the complex sealing array on the back of his hand which was hidden by the black fingerless gloves he wore.
The seal, a customized limiter seal was something he discovered he needed during the first of such secret outings to wipe-out bandit camps. On that first pro-bono mission he had snuck into a bandit camp, navigating to the tent holding the captives without being detected by any of the bandits. His intention was to get the captives free, via use of his clones, and well on their way back to their little village and their loved ones before he commenced with taking down the bandits. The bounty placed on them had requested that the women captured be returned unharmed and the bandits taken in dead or alive, and knowing that it was actually more difficult capturing enemies alive than dead, he had chosen to keep them alive. Well, that was his intention before he had slipped into the tent to find that the captives had all been brutally raped and murdered and the oldest had been only fourteen.
Silence spread unnaturally fast through the clearing as all the normal sounds of the night-time forest stilled. The bandits, quickly sensing the tense atmosphere, began to reach for their weapons. As the first man's fingers brushed the hilt of his sword, the very air in the clearing detonated with the force of a dying sun, instantly killing every single living human present - not a single drop of blood was spilt, not a single sound was made, no flames, no lightning, no jutsu whatsoever was cast. Sixty lives were extinguished by raw, ferocious and quite frankly, godly, killing intent.
After Naruto had turned the bandits' bodies to ash and returned the murdered victims to their loved ones he reflected on the mission, if it could be called that. Realizing that the level he was at could turn a simple face slap delivered in anger into a beheading strike, he set out to rectify the situation. Years ago, when he had lived the life of an Uzumaki clansman, he had heard of theoretical limiter seals intended to drag beings on par with the Bijuu down to the level of common ninja. These seals would be heads above the generic limiter seals which merely limited chakra or provided resistance to physical exertion. No, these theoretical seals would have the power to infiltrate not just the chakra system of the target, but also the neural system as well. Their activation would lock away a stipulated portion of the target's chakra capacity – thereby both limiting the amount of chakra they have as well as their rate of chakra regeneration. They would also limit the rate of transfer of neurons along their neural network, resulting in slowed down reflexes, loss of strength and a general diminishing of the targets capabilities and attributes. Under the effects of the seal, gods would be as men.
It took four months of constant work using a veritable horde of shadow clones, but Naruto did it. He implemented seven levels; level one, being the inactive state of the seal, to level seven placing him on par with the better jounins of Konoha. He also designed the seal with a quick release mechanism allowing him to jump in levels with but a thought.
Silent as the shadows he hid in, he made his way towards the improvised prison. Slipping inside, his nose, covered by a black facemask reminiscent of the one worn by Kakashi, picked up the scent of blood, sex and tears to his right. Praying, and yet already knowing that it was futile, he turned to find a girl – a child – of about nine years old spread eagled on the bed and staring blankly at nothing. The movement of her chest and the sound of her heart beating assured him she was still alive. The blankness of her gaze and the fluids flowing down her thighs – which his nose informed him were from three different men – told him that she was dead in other ways.
The sight and smell before him caused his body to still and his eyes to turn flat and frigid. Peripherally he was aware that the captives he had come to rescue had drawn back from him in terror, but he could not bring himself to care about that at the moment. Turning back to the entrance to the tent he spoke in a voice that impossibly managed to come out soft and soothing,
"Elder Kayaba sent me for you. Please, stay here while I take care of the filth outside."
Before any of the people inside the tent could utter a word, a clone had materialised beside Naruto with no prior warning and Naruto stepped outside. Naruto touched his hand to the tent flap and a shimmering blue wave passed over the tent signifying that a combination sound and physical barrier had gone up. Inside the tent, the clone set about soothing and calming the captives as well as healing those who needed it using medical chakra.
Naruto forwent using any method to disguise himself as he calmly and nonchalantly walked towards the main camp fire. Some of the men in the camp had obviously noticed him judging by the sound of swords leaving their sheaths as well as the malicious chuckles emanating from some of them. A huge bear of a man, obviously the bandit in charge, stepped forward and in a voice that indicated he was simply going through the motions addressed Naruto,
"Hey gaki, you lost? We could help you find your way back…but then again, you could just as well stay with us and entertain urk!"
Naruto flicked his ninjato to dislodge the blood clinging to it and watched dispassionately as the lead bandit bled out from the second mouth on his neck. The other bandits glanced fearfully at the place Naruto was standing at the start of the leader's speech and only the quickest of them caught a glimpse of the fading afterimage left behind when Naruto moved at blurring speeds. Finally realizing that they were way outmatched, one of the smarter bandits turned to flee and collapsed only for his head to roll away from his body. The rest of the bandits had finally caught on to the situation they were in and the camp erupted in chaos as most chose to run for their lives.
Fifteen minutes later it had all ended in a blur of black, gold and silver. Naruto had blazed through the throng, slicing through bodies, armour and swords as though he were performing katas in open air. His cuts were quick, clean and efficient, granting instant death to all he struck at. Even though the men were little more than despicable beasts, he would not reduce himself to making them needlessly suffer. Casting his senses around the encampment, he confirmed that all 72 bodies were accounted for. He gave an unnoticeable smirk as he turned to return to the captives' tent.
His eyes widened as a blade erupted from his chest. He gurgled as the attacker ripped the blade free with a malicious smile on his unseen face. The smile was abruptly replaced with a grimace of pain as the body he still had a hold on dispersed with a surge of lightning. After his muscles had stopped twitching and he had regained mobility again he spun in a circle, searching for his elusive prey. Naruto's calm and vaguely amused tone floated through the clearing,
"I wondered when you would show yourself. It figures that trash like you would wait till the last moment to attack from behind."
The mysterious assailant, a ninja no doubt, gave off a vicious snarl at Naruto's statement. In a tone filled with hatred attempting to mask the fear underneath he said,
"Why don't you show yourself if you think you're not trash, huh?"
He immediately paled as he heard a chuckle from about a foot behind him. He spun, swinging his sword at chest height – neck height for Naruto – intending to end this fight quickly, only to find that his opponent – the child – was actually much farther away. He quickly assessed the figure in front of him and was taken aback at the fact that the other was completely at ease. The first emotion he felt was fear, fear that the person was so skilled that he didn't need to pay attention to him. However, fear quickly gave way to anger as the situation reminded him of the way people in his home village of Kumo had dismissed him as someone who would never amount to anything…and now, I'm the leader of the biggest and most infamous bandit group in Fire Country…well, I was at any rate. Seeing as he never ascended past the rank of chunin, he had been unable to follow Naruto as he cut a swath of destruction through the bandit camp. His realisation did not translate into caution however, and he switched to an offensive stance and with no more discussion, sprang at Naruto.
Naruto had been observing the ninja before him since the beginning and thus easily side stepped his initial lunge. He made no motion to unsheathe his ninjato from where it hung on his back, held in place by a subconscious application of chakra. He kept on dodging the swings of the enemy chunin, moving only as much as necessary to have the attacking blade pass him harmlessly by. As time went on, the ninja's attacks got sloppier as frustration and fear emerged to slowly overcome the rage that had initially driven his swings. All through this, Naruto kept on dodging with the same calm and amused smile on his face. Moments later, he got a notification from his clone, informing him that all the captives had been successfully returned to their home village. Finally, now I can finish up here and get back home.
For the first time during the entire confrontation, Naruto reacted to the ninja attacking him. On his next swing, the enemy ninja found an obstacle in his path in the form of Naruto's silver bladed ninjato. He only had time for his eyes to widen before Naruto sent a surge of lightning chakra down his blade, into the enemy's sword and then ground it via his body. The ninja's muscles spasmed and he let loose a pain filled scream. Naruto cut off the flow of chakra to the weapon and watched the ninja fall to his knees. He locked gazes with his opponent and in one smooth and graceful motion, removed his head.
After burning the ninja's body, he sealed his head in a storage scroll – he had memorized the bingo book and recalled a bounty on the Kumo chunin's head. He searched the bandit camp for any loot and stored those in scrolls as well, intending to return most of it to the village the bandits had pillaged. He walked to the edge of the clearing and turned back to face the camp. Then he molded his chakra, stamped his foot and intoned,
"Earth Release: Earth Land Flip"
And watched as a square section of the ground roughly the size of the camp flipped over, leaving a bare and unblemished clearing where before stood the equivalent of a mass burial site. His work done with, Naruto vanished from the clearing with a flash of lightning and a rumble of thunder.
Sneaking back into the village was as easy as ever. Naruto stealthily made his way back to his apartment door. He simply placed his hand on the door and pushed it open – having replaced all the locks with a complex, and sometimes lethal, sealing array. He took off his stealth clothes, pleased to note that there was not a single drop of blood on them. After cleaning up his equipment and himself, he got ready for bed. Tomorrow was the academy graduation exams and he had big plans.
Ever since he returned to the academy after his reawakening he had established a pattern of always missing written tests, ninjutsu practices, taijutsu tournaments/spars, as well as weapons accuracy tests. Having perused the syllabus of the academy as well as snuck in to view some of the files in the principal's office, he was well aware that it was possible for him to graduate the academy without having ever attended any of the above activities and he was very much enamoured with the idea of shocking everyone with his never before seen skills. Of course, Iruka had tried talking to him to get him to stop skipping school on those days, even going so far as to involve the sandaime hokage. Between the two of them, it should have been a trivial matter to change Naruto's mind. The two found out however that no one could out-stubborn Naruto. After he pointed out that there were absolutely no consequences of missing those class periods, Iruka tried to mention that the skills developed during those classes were essential to graduation. Naruto merely gave the two an enigmatic smile and said,
"Iruka-sensei, I will achieve the highest ever recorded score on the final graduation exam."
Naruto had delivered that statement in such a straightforward and serious tone – his blue gaze solemn, focused and piercing – that the Hokage and Iruka had been struck speechless. After the silence brought on by Naruto's declaration, Sarutobi sat back in his seat and gazed thoughtfully at the young man in front of him.
"Very well Naruto." Silencing Iruka's protests before they could occur, he continued with a kind and proud look in his eye, "I believe in you."
Picking up on the odd phrasing of that last statement, Iruka could say nothing else to that. Whatever it was the hokage had seen as he gazed at Naruto must have been something – and indeed it was. For when Sarutobi had looked at Naruto, he was reminded of another blonde haired man standing in his office, almost two decades ago, with the same determined and piercing blue eyes, declaring in the same solemn and confident tone,
"Sarutobi-sama, send me. I will end this war."
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