Chapter Nine – Five Months Remaining
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Sorry I was late. See, first my cat was on my computer chair and I had to evict him, then when I tried to type I saw that I couldn't find my keyboard, which resulted in Stephen Hawking showing up to explain that there was a black hole between me and the keyboard that was drawing away all the light from the keyboard meaning I couldn't see it (see Simpsons episode "Don't Fear the Roofer" for the joke), then when the black hole evaporated from giving off enough Hawking radiation aliens broke through my window and tried to kidnap me, which resulted in me blowing up my condo to kill them, then the government took me in and asked me a bunch of questions, and I didn't get out of questioning until yesterday. Needless to say I have been busy!
Sorry about the short chapter, too. I've been feeling slightly unmotivated lately, and this will probably be the only chapter for a bit.
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The situation in Wave was worth sneering at, Naruto thought to himself as he walked through the streets during midday, a Henge over his body causing him to look like a native Wave citizen. Gato had managed to cow an entire country into submission simply by killing a single man. Where was their resolve? Did they not love their country? Why had they been unwilling to fight back? True, Gato had many mercenaries, but even he would hesitate over killing too many citizens; after all, the labour that the stronger men of Wave provided for what scraps of food were available were what supported the ex-tyrant's business. One thing was for sure, however – Tazuna had been the exception in Wave, perhaps drawing off of Kaiza's sacrifice, and not the norm.
Tazuna had already delivered the news to the villager about Gato being dead, and already joy had spread throughout the populace. Pathetic. One man, no matter how trained he was, had managed to eliminate most of Gato's army and slay the dwarf himself, and suddenly they went from looking miserable to throwing their arms in the air with a cheer? To summon the energy up from nowhere just like that meant they had the energy to defy Gato from the shadows.
The flaxen-haired genin (though a brunette in his disguise) let out a sigh, and decided to cast his judgements aside for another day. Kakashi was still bedridden, and Sasuke and Sakura, both helping out at the bridge as guards against any leftover bandits, thought that the real Naruto was somewhere amongst the hundred Kage Bunshins that he had left behind to speed up the pace of the project. The Kage Bunshins were necessary, too; Kakashi might not be up too full strength, but he would still be able to travel again within a few day's time, and Naruto wanted to get back to Konoha as quickly as possible.
And so here he was, off in a deserted part of the village. After the people of Wave gave up, many had left the country in a rush on what available transportation was still left. In the ensuing confusion, many houses and entire districts were left abandoned. That just made it all the better to place a safehouse in if it was ever required. There were many discrete symbols that the Akatsuki had created to place over items of interest over the years; in this case, Naruto managed to find what he was looking for when he spotted a house with a stone chameleon statue on the porch (the statue itself was nailed solidly into the porch to deter possible thieves).
Extending his senses to make sure there was nobody about to catch a sight of him, Naruto walked up the stairs and pushed open the unlocked door to gain entry to the house. He took a cautionary sniff before taking a deep whiff of the air around him. It was faint, but there was the smell of flowers in the air. Good then, this was the right house.
Taking a flight of stairs down into the basement of the house, Naruto found what he was looking for; a pair of scrolls, with Hakko Awai's trademark calling card for drop-off locations, a vase with several white lilies in it, next to the scrolls. Finding the first scroll had a chakra lock on it, Naruto went through a small series of hand seals before holding his hand to the scroll to unlock it. A chakra lock required chakra manipulated in a certain way to open it – since every hand seal sequence caused a different manipulation of chakra to be formed, the more hand seals that were added on made the unlocking sequence more difficult if a non-Akatsuki member should somehow pick up on a safehouse.
Reading over the scroll, Naruto's eyebrows rose. Gato had that much money? Damn. Much of the info that was in the parchment detailed Hakko's infiltration of Gato, his working under the criminal tycoon, and all the knowledge he had garnered while in his organization. After rereading it over, Naruto locked the scroll back up, and set it aside. Eyeing the other scroll, he rolled up his right sleeve; although invisible to the naked eye, there was a sealing mark just above his elbow that was used as a storage space. He would need to hold onto this until later, when he could get to an open area, where there was an even smaller chance of being discovered than there was here.
It was interesting just how powerful information was, such as the info that had gotten him this scroll. For example, only a handful of people knew, but Kumogakure in fact already had a Hyuga, a willing male member of the Branch Family who had pretended to go missing on a mission into Kiri before carefully covering his tracks and heading north. That a male was far more valuable than a female, not to mention that he had secretly learned the Hakke Rokujūyon Shō and Kaiten, ensured that he would live a ripe old age in Kumo with plenty of wealth while passing on the Hyuga arts, as opposed to being killed and dissected once Kumo could break the Curse Seal (or worse, having his eyes taken out while still alive). In fact, the attempted kidnapping of Hyuga Hinata was deliberately botched. The only reason Kumo had even attempted the kidnapping was to throw away suspicion; after all, what better way for the Hyuga Clan to think Kumo didn't have the Byakugan than to try to kidnap the heiress?
He had once heard an interesting proverb, 'Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.' It was something that might apply to most people, but not to ninja; greatness generally meant one would gain a reputation (or notoriety in his case, something he had put upon him on the day of his birth), something no real shinobi desired, but with the scroll he had just grasped in his hand before sealing it away could help him achieve greatness of a different kind.
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It was a bit of an odd experience walking back – without Tazuna to slow them down to a civilian's pace, Team 7 could afford to go at a far quicker pace, though with Kakashi somewhat out of shape (and Sakura lacking overall stamina), it still took them three days.
When day began to break every day, the three genins and their jonin-sensei stopped and pitched their camp. On the first night, with a full moon casting luminous light over the clearing they had settled in, Kakashi had shown them the tree-climbing exercise.
Naruto could only make guesses as to why Kakashi had chosen now to do this. However, he had been well-educated on ninja intrigue and politics, and could make an educated guess; Kakashi probably thought he was going to be relieved from duty as a sensei after this. It would make sense, considering he no longer had the Sharingan eye that would enable him to help Sasuke. Sure, he still had the experience to go along with it (not to mention hundreds of jutsus) but it just wouldn't be the same. Not to mention he had lost against a (supposedly) lower A-Rank nukenin, had nearly been killed in the process, and would need months of intensive conditioning to get back into full form after recovering from a near-fatal toxin – which would consume time, time that he might not be able to spend teaching.
That said, Sasuke had already known how to walk up a tree, so Kakashi settled for giving him difficult deviants of the original exercise, such as hopping between multiple trees and latching onto them as soon as he landed on the next tree, as well as hanging upside down from a branch for as long as possible.
Sakura had gotten adapted to the exercise quickly, succeeding on her third try (Naruto suspected she might have done it on her first if not for her fatique). Kakashi ignored giving her the same thing he did with Sasuke, and instead took her aside and told her about water walking, and explained the differences, ending off with a 'practice tree walking for now to gain stamina' and to start on water walking once they got home.
Of course he already knew it himself (somebody who has versed himself in deception for nearly a decade does not allow a weakness, in his case chakra control, to go unfixed), but for appearance's sake, Naruto had to pretend to not know it already. Still, he didn't want to stay on the exercise for too long, so he gave off a calm demeanour when he began practicing running up a physical surface. Calm demeanours meant there was little fluctuation in a person's chakra, so (combined with his seemingly inexhaustible stamina) it wasn't very suspicious when he finally reached the peak of a fifty-foot tree midway through the second night.
Eventually, when they reached Konoha, Kakashi was given orders to report to the Hokage immediately. Their silver-haired sensei told them that they would receive instructions at a later time; that he did not give an exact date or time consolidated the theory in Naruto's head that Kakashi was to be replaced. While his father's student was to meet with the Hokage, however, he would have to catch up on the reports filed by various members of the brotherhood.
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The Gentōshin no Jutsu this time around was far easier to hold and maintain than usual, Naruto observed. There were several good reasons for that, of course; first of all, Mizuki was currently in the underground hideout in the flesh, and a small part of the chakra burden had been passed onto him. Secondly, several people were gone currently; Yamanaka Inori was off working overtime in Konoha's T&I department, two pairs of chunin gate guards were currently being put through the ringer on security for the upcoming chunin exams, and both a jonin-sensei and an ANBU member were off on long-term missions. It would be annoying helping them catch up with the debriefing later on, but it made for his chakra to not be taxed as hard. Thankfully, Kabuto was here – of all the undercover Akatsuki members, Naruto would easily say that Kabuto was the most important, even more than himself, a former jinchuuriki – being the trusted right hand man of the Snake Sannin would that for one's value.
Naruto refrained from a quick and blunt entrance, and instead greeted everyone in a cordial manner. "Good evening, everybody," he said with the hint of a smile on his face. "How are you all tonight?" Personal interaction was integral to the brotherhood; if they didn't interact enough, they could never trust each other, and trust was key here. Even with the use of fuinjutsu, Akatsuki could still implode from within. That was why Naruto usually tried to start off with a few minutes of chit-chat before going on to the debriefing itself.
This time around, one topic dominated the early pre-debriefing; members were giving their congratulations to Uchiha Raika, the man who had originally leaked the Uchiha's coup plans to Nagato, for his wife having a successful labor. When prodded for details, he willingly gave away his new son's name – Uchiha Hirameku. Naruto was proud of the man, and hoped the happiness between Raika and his wife managed to last for some times before the ugliness of clan politics reared its head. Under normal conditions, bloodline clans consented to having twenty percent of marriages be to outsiders; this number was large enough that the clan would not become too inbred, but small enough so that the bloodline itself stayed strong. However, with the Uchiha Massacre, what remaining bachelors and bachelorettes there were had been encouraged to all marry outsiders, and to reproduce as quickly as possible. Soon enough, Raika would be under pressure to have another child with his wife, and probably a third and fourth afterwards, to repopulate the Uchiha clan.
Naruto let the banter go on for a bit before intervening. "Let us move onto the meeting now, shall we?" The present members all stopped their chattering, and turned towards Naruto. "Kabuto, can you please present the Akatsuki with the new details you have uncovered about the invasion?"
The silver-haired medic pushed his glasses up onto his nose, a persistent habit he had been unable to squash. "Gladly." Clearing his throat for a long speech, he began to talk, "As you all know, Iwa is in on the plan for invasion," Here he received several nods. "Several Iwa shinobi will infiltrate the Chunin Exam finals and strike at Konoha from within. Sometimes during the finals, several Oto shinobi of high chakra control , including myself, will link together to use the Nehan Shōja no Jutsu to put to sleep as many shinobi as we can, as well as all the civilians." That was important. While it was accepted that civilians sometimes simply were a part of collateral damage in a battle, daimyos and lords and other wealthy clients did not often hire villages that deliberately killed civilians from another hidden village. Henceforth, by putting the civilians to sleep, they could minimize casualties by avoiding a panic caused by the regular villagers.
"Most of the Iwa-nin will be on the outside, however, laying siege to Konoha's walls once the invasion starts. Normally, because Konoha is protected by Mokuton-created seal-reinforced wood, trying to forcibly break into Konoha would be a disaster in the making. However," and here Kabuto looked truly nervous, "Orochimaru has designed several large-scale seals. Once imprinted onto the ground, several Oto shinobi working in conjunction can summon some of the larger snakes to attack Konoha. But that is not all: Ganseki will also be there."
Whatever jovial mood that there had been in the room evaporated instantly at the mention of the latter name. Ganseki of Iwa did not have a very intimidating kill count of his own; however, he was the only known ninja to have ever been able to summon golems, beings created from animated rock. They were almost impossible to destroy, and have massive amounts of physical strength. It was Ganseki's summons who had initially allowed Iwa to storm into Grass Country in the Third Great Shinobi War and make the march towards Konoha, but even his golems were no match for Namikaze Minato. While the Yellow Flash wasn't physically as powerful as a golem, usage of the Hiraishin and Rasengan, the latter which could pierce even the tough rock skin of a golem, managed to dispel Ganseki's summons prematurely.
Even still, Ganseki and his golems' reputation remained strong. Even one golem attacking Konoha could cause a lot of trouble, but if he managed to summon multiple golems, while Konoha was also being attacked by several snakes, along with thousands of shinobi, while their leader was being waylaid by the Snake Sannin, it was easy to see how Konoha might struggle to win.
"Great Kami," was all that Hyuga Chokkan managed to say. He took a deep breath, and then asked, "Do we have the logistics for disrupting their plan yet?"
One of the members, an ANBU who was currently wearing his mask, Kawauso, shook his head, "Unfortunately, no. Planning is in the process between those of us who have access to the village's defense plans. While we can easily disrupt the snake summoning rituals by messing up their summoning circles, Ganseki is a different thing altogether. He will be summoning his golems personally, and it will look all too suspicious if somebody takes him out before he gets a chance to do anything. We still have five months, however, to work out what will be done."
"Moving on," Kabuto butt in, "Is the next part of the plan. Orochimaru's Edo Tensei."
The Edo Tensei technique was something that they needed to stop from being utilized at all costs; not because those they resurrected might be able to overtake the Sandaime in battle and kill him (though that was currently undesirable), but because it revived the dead. Who knew what the dead could do when they were dead? On one hand, perhaps they had no after-life awareness when the Shinigami came to retrieve them, and the revived forms of the Shodai, Nidaime and Yondaime Hokage would only remember their own life. However, nobody knew what the dead could do, so if any of the three had been watching Konoha after their own lives were long over, and knew of Akatsuki and their plans, who knew what they might blab once they had been reanimated on the corporeal plane? None of the Akatsuki were willing to take that risk.
Kabuto continued on once the shift in subjects had settled into everyone's minds. "As we all already know, Edo Tensei is able to revive the dead. However, I have come up with a couple of new details; first of all, to initiate the summoning of the dead, Orochimaru must sacrifice a large amount of chakra, meaning he will be exhausted after he uses the technique. Doubtlessly he expects the three revived Hokage's to hold off the Sandaime long enough for him to regain his breath." Here, Kabuto had his index finger raised, then raised his middle finger to indicate a second detail. "Secondly, for each body that Orochimaru revives, he must offer a living body in return to the Death God. The living sacrifice must also be put in a ritual sealing circle. Clearly as you can see, if you remove the sacrifices, Orochimaru will try to summon the three Kages, fail, and lose lots of chakra in the process."
That incited a lot of buzz between the present members. The head branch of Akatsuki loathed Orochimaru, who had once tried to join Kakuzu's group, having been fooled by the criminal organization moniker, before being rebutted. While Orochimaru had yet to interfere in their plans, Yahiko-sama had no doubt that given the chance, the Snake Sannin would destroy all their careful planning.
Another member fielded a question, this time Seto Kaiju, a member of a minor Konoha clan that was known for taking care of all the bodies of water around Konoha and the marine life. "Since Konoha knows about the invasion already, have they asked for help from Suna yet?"
Naruto was able to answer that question easily; it was, after all, the report he had paid the most attention to last night. "That they have. However, they have not asked for any significant number of reinforcements." He shook his head. "No, instead the Sandaime asked that the Yondaime bring in as many of his high-level ninja as he can as 'bodyguards' and escorts, as each of them could potentially take out a hundred fodder ninja (it was funny how quickly jargon such as a fodder-nin had become prevalent in the brotherhood) or take out several average jonin-level ninjas, or else tie up any of Iwa's elite members. That includes Kuroisuna no Akira, also known as Sabaku no Akira, Baki no Yaiba, and Kiiroisuna no Saboten."
After that, some more questions were asked on smaller details and answered by others, the discussion going into the morning hours, with a few people dropping out of the Gentōshin no Jutsu for missions in the morning.
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You know, something I have been annoyed with while reading some Naruto fanfics recently is Naruto's power level. Let me put it this way: in canon, at the age of 12, Naruto graduates as the dead-last of his class. Approximately four years later, he beats the public leader of Akatsuki singlehandedly. In the few months after the Rescue Gaara arc, in which he needs help to disable a vanilla Itachi genjutsu, he manages to develop a jutsu that manages to OHKO Kakuzu, a guy who has iron skin and over seventy years of battle experience.
My point? I find it frustrating how many people have plots where he's trained since birth or since age 5 by the likes of Kakashi or Jiraiya or Zabuza and yet he's only high Chunin at best by the time the canon genin graduation starts. Itachi managed to take out his entire clan when he was only thirteen, Deidara was in the Akatsuki by the time he was 16, Sasori killed the Sandaime Kazekage when he was fifteen, Kakashi was a jonin by 13 and presumably didn't have that much guidance after Sakumo suicide until he got the Yondaime as a sensei, so don't be afraid to actually give Naruto some power. Just because he is of a jonin level doesn't mean he'll automatically be on Kakashi's level, but he should still be able to beat a relatively new jonin like Kurenai and put up a fight against, say, Asuma or Genma. For those who still decide to nerf him, you should at least try to give some reasoning for this; say, something like that Naruto hasn't 'connected' well enough with people, so he doesn't have strong enough of bonds to be motivated to train, or that his body isn't physically strong enough or that Jiraiya is clowning around in his training or whatever. Of course, don't go and like super-power him beyond crazy (see william5505's 'The Second Born' for reference where Naruto and Sasuke become godlike with overpowered bloodlines).
That said, I realize I haven't yet given a good indicator of Naruto's power. That's deliberate; he won't really be showing any of his skills until the end of Part I of the story (out of two parts), though he'll be fighting before that of course. However he's definitely stronger than Kurenai is, trust me on that.
Also, "For Want of a Nail" in this chapter again. In other words, the Uchiha clan survives, so Sasuke HAS to be more advanced at this point in the timeline than he is in canon, so of course he knows how to do tree-climbing. I see way too many fanfics that have Kushina or Minato (or both) alive and actually acting as Naruto's parents (as opposed to trying to kill him, or abandoning him, etc.) and Naruto's still as ignorant as a brick. Not to bash an awesome story in "Seal Shatter" or "Fire Shadow's Son", but Quill of Molliemon has a bit of a problem with this. The latter is somewhat more acceptable, but Kushina is a retired kunoichi in the former who is openly known to be Naruto's mother. He shouldn't still be a dumbass (or at least, not as bad of one).
With that rant over, I've been doing a bit of foreshadowing over something. It's a bit minor foreshadowing, but observant readers might have picked up on a recurring theme – specifically, said foreshadowing will have a bit in Chapters One, Seven, Eight, and this chapter.
I haven't come up with any good ideas yet for Iwa's version of the elites yet. The Six Sands of Suna is something I mentioned in the AN in Chapter 6, and of course Kiri has the Seven Swordsmen. I'll probably make it up as I go along though.
Also, quite a few members of Konoha's Akatsuki branch have been unveiled! Of course I'm not going to have any guesswork going on (particularly since I still have to make up mini-bios and names for some of the characters, with three not having any description yet), but here are the known names and descriptions of the eighteen: Naruto, Kabuto, Izumo and Kotetsu, a second pair of chunin gate guards, Mizuki, Uchiha Raika, Hyuga Chokkan, Yamanaka Inori, a jonin-sensei, two ANBU members, one labelled as Kawauso, a council member, and Seto Kaiju (because Konoha only has seven clans of which five have confirmed clan heirs, one a possible clan heir and one the younger brother to a clan heir, coincidentally all in the SAME CLASS /sarcasm) .
Next chapter: A couple of scenes that would've been in this chapter but I wanted to get this one out quickly, which will overlay into the Chunin Exam arc.