Chapter 7

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. I do not derive profit only joy from this work of fan fiction.

The first thing Naruto's senses recognized was how quiet it was. He could hear loud noises in the distance but he couldn't remember why. His entire body felt like it was ready to fall apart, had he been crushed in a trash compactor at some point? Slowly his short term memory engaged. He was fighting in the tournament, then met his godfather, and then…

Naruto's body moved on its own, pain rushing through him as he moved to a sitting position on some kind of cot as one word went through his mind.

INVASION!

He looked around, his vision clearing with a few blinks, and took stock of his surroundings. He was in some kind of command building, there were ANBU jumping in and out, the age Hokage was to the side but he did not see Jiraiya-kun which raised alarms in Naruto's head.

Moving despite the protests of his body Naruto forced himself off the cot and made his way into the room where the Hokage was discussing the counter-attack with his ANBU commander.

"We've secured the East and South sections and Jiraiya-kun has moved to the North to deal with those snakes so I want to focus our forces on retaking the Western gate quickly before they have a chance to reinforce it," Hiruzen told the ANBU before him.

Seeing the old man was safe and apparently unharmed and hearing his newly found godfather was safe quieted enough of Naruto's initial panic to let him look around. He was in some kind of above ground bunker. The walls were a dark grey, solid stone with what looked like reinforced iron running throughout them and seals etched in every few feet. The tables and chairs were also made of a dark metal that cast no light. And the light of the room came from several dozen phosphorescent lamps lining the walls and ceiling. Shinobi of every rank moved quickly and with purpose inside the room on their tasks.

The Hokage, in his black battle armor, was standing over a large stone table that held a model of the entire village in it with small models depicting various shinobi units and their locations. Naruto watched in wonder as he analyzed and made slight changes to control the tempo of the battle. Next to the Hokage stood an ANBU wearing a fox mask denoting him the ANBU commander.

While the village might fear and hate the Kyubi no Yoko, they had to admit it was the most powerful creature anyone had ever encountered and because of that it had become tradition among the ANBU that their commander always wore the visage of a fox with nine red marks on the edges of the white mask.

"Hai, Hokage-sama, I also recommend we bring in ANBU units 4, 8, and 14 from the Eastern section and move them to the section border here, here, and here," he said with a motion over a map of the village.

Hiruzen nodded and his trusted ANBU moved to carry out the order.

"I see you're awake much sooner than we anticipated, how are you feeling Naruto-kun?" the aged Kage asked.

"Uh, I'm ok. Where's Jiraiya and what can I do?" Naruto asked.

Hiruzen smiled grimly as his eyes never left the map of the village before him. He could feel the child's low chakra reserves and knew his body had been stressed beyond its ability. Yet a fierce pride came through the old man as his surrogate grandson, even running on fumes, wanted to help.

Like many bloodlines the body had to be honed to utilize it properly. It never worked that simply activating a bloodline would come without some cost. Even the Sharingan of the Uchiha was worthless when first activated. The Uchiha needed time to adapt to the changes and be capable of processing the information coming from their awakened eyes. That was why the interceptor fist style was so important to them. It allowed newly awakened Sharingans to function without the downside of having the retrain their bodies.

Hiruzen had a med-nin go over Naruto's body when they made to the forward command center. What she found was very interesting. The movement through whatever teleportation that Naruto used caused his body to undergo intense pressure. With time and training it was likely that the side-affect would deteriorate until it vanished completely but on his young and unprepared body it had caused extreme exhaustion and wear similar to the opening of the first three of the eight inner gates.

It also made one other thing clear, his sensei had not been seeing to Naruto's training very well. His body was malnourished and had a distinct lack of muscular development for a shinobi his age. This was a conversation Hiruzen would be having with Kakashi very soon.

Hiruzen pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind as he refocused on the map before him.

Orochimaru

The sound four had never heard their leader curse so much or so violently. They had finally shaken off the last of the ANBU but not without a cost. Tayuya was captured, and Jirobo and Kidomaru were dead. All that remained were an injured Sakon and Ukon. Even Orochimaru had not escaped unscathed, as the numerous cuts, bruises, and various minor injuries paid mute testimony too.

The three were standing outside the village walls watching the on-going battle turned route. It was obvious that Konoha was repulsing the attack and, if their escape was anything to go by, doing so with far less casualties than expected. Apparently the loss of the one tail coupled with the survival and quick retrieval of the Hokage had solidified Konoha's command structure and added confidence to their ranks.

"Should we give the signal to withdraw Orochimaru-sama?" Sakon asked quietly.

Orochimaru leveled a glare at him, "No, these pawns were worthless anyway, let them fight to the death and do as much damage to Konoha as possible. We can always find more pawns and missing-nin."

Sakon and Ukon nodded quickly in agreement before Ukon merged back with his brother.

"Come, we're done here. Konoha may survive but Sasuke-kun will still be mine," Orochimaru stated as he began leaping from tree to tree in the direction of the land of rice.

Naruto

Hiruzen had ordered Naruto to remain near him for the duration of the invasion and counter-attack. Naruto wasn't thrilled about sitting out the invasion but his body reminded him at every turn just why he was sitting out. Hiruzen had informed the blonde of both his bodies condition and that his bloodline made him a high priority target for capture. He instead instructed the blonde to watch how a battle was organized and led as a real life learning experience. Thus, Naruto was currently observing the Hokage in a command combat situation for the first time.

Naruto had to admit he was impressed, very impressed. He had not realized how much work it took and the little details the Hokage needed to pay attention to when commanding a battle. He put an emphasis not only on winning the battle but doing it with few casualties and protecting vital assets to allow Konoha to recover quickly. He played the ebb and flow, the tempo of the battle itself, like a musician.

It was obvious to the blonde why the enemy had attempted to take out the Hokage so quickly, without him there would be no head to command Konoha's forces. And with nearly 50 years of battle experience, including 2 Shinobi World Wars, the Hokage of Konoha was one of the most experienced battlefield commanders alive.

Naruto watched as the aged kage took complete control of the situation directing both regular shinobi forces and ANBU to critical areas such as the hospital, water treatment facility, and Hokage tower while watching and controlling the ebb and flow of the battle. Many times Naruto couldn't understand the reasoning when orders were first issued but it all came together in one massive orchestrated plan. More than anything Naruto saw how important the Hokage was to the village.

ANBU, Jonin, Chunin, and Genin gained new resolve when they heard their Hokage issue orders; as if his mere presence put them at ease and gave them strength and confidence. The Hokage was the village's spirit and inspiration, he was their living symbol of "The Will of Fire". And Naruto, who had been told these things all his life, came to truly understand them in that moment.

After several hours of watching the Hokage Naruto was surprised to see the old man gesture for him to come to the table.

"Naruto-kun, I think you've watched enough from over there. The battle is nearing its completion, only a few pockets of resistance remain and the rest has already fled or surrendered. I want you to see something very important about being a Hokage," the old man told him. His voice was quiet and as Naruto walked over he couldn't help but notice how tired the old man looked.

He pointed to several sections on the map and began explaining, "These red flags indicate enemy shinobi inside the village. The larger the flag the more shinobi starting from squads of 4 moving up to battalions of 1,500, each flag denotes positions indicated by security seals throughout the village and reports coming in from friendly forces. As you can see, green flags are friendly units, grey are captured, and black are dead."

Naruto saw mostly green and grey with small occasional flags of red surrounded by green but also many black flags of various sizes. He had no idea how many there were or what their numbers might be but there were a lot of black flags.

"We lost nearly 1,500 shinobi today Naruto-kun," Hiruzen told him quietly, "it could have been much worse if Orochimaru had succeeded and killed me. While we have fail-safes in place should the Hokage die, with this kind of well-planned assault, the damage done before they kicked in would have been probably triple what we received. Nearly 7,000 enemy shinobi are dead, another 4,000 captured."

Naruto's eyes widened at the huge discrepancy, "But Jiji, how is possible we took so fewer casualties? I mean, I'm glad but shouldn't we have been hit harder?"

"Normally, yes, but two things helped us. One was that Orochimaru didn't actually train his troops. They were mostly missing-nins, the majority of whom were not even above genin or Chunin, and had no field command experience. They just attacked and went off on their own. Once we organized we simply lured most of them to traps around to village and picked them off," he informed his surrogate grandson.

Naruto nodded as he looked over the map, "And Suna was obviously was counting on their hidden weapon. Suna only sent around 4,000 shinobi, about a third of their total force, to attack us while Orochimaru's people made up the rest. We were lucky, when Garaa didn't appear Suna stalled and waited, their hesitation gave us the time to organize and counter. If they had acted sooner that alone would have doubled our losses."

Naruto took several breaths as he tried to assimilate this knowledge while the old Kage continued, "You'll have to perform this job someday too if you want to be Hokage Naruto-kun. Remember that you can't save everyone and most of the time the Hokage needs to remain outside the battle to command. It's a hard lesson to learn my boy."

Hiruzen placed his hand on the young Uzumaki's shoulder and gave it a light squeeze of comfort. Naruto nodded quietly as he began to accept that his naivety about battle came crashing down around him.