THE RED HISTORY OF KONOHA
It was a warm day in the capital of the Land of Fire. The Daymio's palace was bustling with the everyday sounds. In the conference room, we found the Daymio and Naruto having a meeting, 3 days after he arrived from the Hidemoto household. The leader of the Land of Fire congratulated him for his work and was informing the young samurai of his next assignment: ¨Young Naruto, you will be accompanying me to the next Chunin exams, that will be host at Konoha. We will be departing next week, and will stay for 3 days. You will be part of my escort with captain Umewara in charge. Now I promised you to get you up to date with the happenings at Konoha. It's a long tale, so i suggest you get confortable, there's a lot of interesting things you need to know or you will not understand the actual situation of the village. I guess the best way to start will be with the Sandaime's resign, that happened 2 weeks after your departure. With all the work that he did for the village, i considered that he deserved to go back to his retiretment, so the council and I, named Danzo Himura as Godaime Hokage. History tells that this was the shortest rule of a Hokage in Konoha. But why this happened?. Some say it was because of Danzo's hard policies, others that the civilians felt discarded after the disband of their half of the council and those reasons did weighed in the conflict, but the heart of it was the Uchiha clan...¨
Men of black hair and eyes, with a very distintic fan on their backs were reunited in a big room at their compound. The Uchiha clan leader, Fugaku, was adressing his family: ¨Brothers and sisters, our clan has supported Konoha since it's foundation, but no matter how much blood had we spilled for them, they have never trusted us, and the Kyubi incident 8 years ago only fomented their distrust. With Sarutobi stepping down, we were hoping that for once we will receive the acknowledgement we deserve. But it wasn't to be. I'm afraid that the time to talk is over, now we must take things in our hands and show them that we won't tolerate this anymore. We will take this village's leadership and bring it and our clan to their real place in the world¨. The speech finished and shouts and cheers erupted from the audience. With the meeting over, every family went back to their homes, at Fugaku's house, however, his wife was very conflicted, and a heated argument started: ¨Fugaku, did you really thought this through?, we are talking of war here, more blood and tears spilled, and all for a position that the only one that ended his rule alive untill now was Hiruzen?. We are respected as one of the strongest clan in the village, and you want to endanger that and your children safety for the title of Hokage?¨. ¨Mikoto, stop. This was already decided for the entire clan, there's no turning back. You will see that tomorrow things will be fine and we will take our deserved place in the village¨. ¨I see, well then, I will not let Sasuke die for your ambitions, nor I'll join you in battle, I'll take care of him while you play your power games. Itachi is legally an adult, so if he wants to join you is his choice, I'm leaving now and take Sasuke with me¨. ¨No!. You are my wife and should support me. I will not let you go, this is a clan matter, you are part of the clan and should lend us your power!. Shisui, please restraint her¨. A young man appeared in the room from the shadows, ready to subdue Mikoto, but a Kunai stopped him in his track. Another young man with long hair, made his presence know: ¨Stop right there, Shisui. You may be my best friend, but i will not hesitate to kill you if you attempt to hurt my mother. And you father, I don't know what to think about you right now. You must know that mother is strong enough to face Shisui, so you were obviously trying to distract her while you finish her. I'm with mother in this, you are deluded by your pride just as the rest of the clan. I'm leaving with her, if you want to start the bloodshed now, so be it, but that will alert the village and your surprise advantage will be lost¨. ¨Itachi!, so you are betraying me too!. Fine go away!, I'll deal with you when we get what we deserve!¨. At this moment, explosions and firelights appeared in the compound, announcing the start of the armed conflict. Fugaku and Shisui went outside to discover what was happening while Mikoto and Itachi went to get Sasuke and left in direction to the Inuzuka's.
At the center of the compound was a root agent dead, the explosion and fire caused by explosives notes around him, where two Uchihas were laying in a pool of their blood. Blinded by their rage, the clan armed themselves and started attacking the village without a care, but with the signal given, the rest of the ninja were alerted and the conflict escalated. Sadly most of the destruction was on civilian buildings, bringing panic and disorientation to them. Fortunaly, Danzo inmediatly ordered some of the ninja to guide the civilians to the Hokage monument, but it wasn't fast enough and about a quarter of them were lost. The Uchiha kept forcing their way to the Hokage tower, where they fought the ninja council that was expecting for them. Fugaku, with the council on sight, thought that the victory was theirs, but when they were about to attack, most of the ninja clans appeared to defend their leaders. And then the massacre started. The sharingan was a powerful tool and it showed it's great potencial, helping the Uchiha to fight the superior numbers of the rest of the clans. But as more time passed, physical and chakra exhaustation took hold of the proud clan. It was a bath of blood, rivers of the precious liquid ran unrestricted by the streets and bodies decorated the scene. Danzo, confident in his victory left his guard down. This was capitalized by Fugaku and Shisui, who took down Danzo and the elders, Homura Mitokado and Koharu Utatane. After that they were taken down by the rest of the council. With their leader dead, the Uchiha clan decide to fight till dead, so the about 20 men left, went all out and died killing a lot of the rest of the ninjas. A very sad day followed that bloody night, with the entire village mourning for lost family. Hiruzen Sarutobi lost one of his sons and his son's wife, leaving in his care his little 4 years old grandson Konohamaru. The village entered a state of alert and the council reunited as soon as possible. They decide to recall Jiraiya and Tsunade, the 2 sannin left that were affiliated to the village. It took 3 months to bring them back, and 2 months more to convince Tsunade to take the mantle of Hokage, with a promise to let her start a medic program to include one of those specialized ninja per team. Jiraiya went back to manage the spy network, declining his nomination for Hokage, but the council knew the main reason for this was his godson. Danzo's rule ended after just 6 months in charge, his root disbanded and treated to be reassigned to the regular ninja roster and his face never made it to the monument. Konoha lost a lot of power and prestige and went through 2 very hard years of reconstruction and economic issues. The village recovered his prestige as one of the five more powerful ninja villages thanks to the work of his jounins, specially a young Itachi who worked non stop to provide for what was left of his family and to bring back the trust of the village in the Uchiha name.
¨... and that, young Naruto, is the history of Konoha this past 4 years¨. ¨Daymio-sama, you wouldn't know about a civilian family that had a ramen stand...¨, ¨Ahh!, Teuchi and Ayame!. Yes, Hiruzen told me you will ask about them. Don't worry, young Naruto, they are fine and still have the stand, I'm sure they will be happy to see you when we stay in Konoha¨. With a sigh of relief, the young samurai nodded, clearly happy with the news. After that the meeting was over and Naruto went back to the barracks. He spent the week there, training and sparring with captain Umewara and the 4 men that were part of the Daymio's escort to Konoha.
The trip to Konoha was uneventful and longed 3 days, arriving at the village the day before the start of the chunin exams final stage. They made their way to the Hokage tower, where the Daymio met with Tsunade to exchange pleasentries: ¨Hello Tsunade, you look as radiant as ever, I hope everything is fine¨, ¨Daymio-sama, is always nice to meet you, everything is going smoothly, I'm sure you will enjoy tomorrow's show¨, ¨Good, good. Now i want to introduce you captain Umewara, leader of my guard¨, said the Daymio moving his right arm, ¨Nice to meet you, Umewara-san¨, said the Hokage with a nod of acknoledgement while the captain bowed. ¨And to my left, someone I think you should meet, after all, he is from Konoha. Naruto Uzumaki, trained samurai in the land of Iron¨. Tsunade look at the youngster and frowned, it was very hard to meet someone with his mask on after all: ¨Would you mind to take off your mask?¨. Bowing, the young samurai took his mask off after receiving a nod from the Daymio. And then, the Rokudaime Hokage, admired the youngster, who of course started to resemble his father, but surprisingly, he resembled more her lost little brother, and that made her pause. After recovering she said: ¨Welcome back to Konoha, Uzumaki-san¨, ¨Thank you, Hokage-sama¨, was Naruto's reply. After that the guard was dismissed, since both leaders will share lunch and will be guarded by the ANBU. The young samurai went to take a look around the village, noting the changes brought by the new buildings. In time he arrived at the comercial distrit and went directly to his beloved ramen stand. When he entered, the people got startled, after all it was not common to see a full armored samurai in Konoha. The young woman attending aproached him and say: ¨Welcome to Ichiraku ramen, what would you like to have?¨. Naruto mentally slapped himself and took off his mask. His face uncovered attracted some patrons attention and a gasp was the reaction he got from the young woman. ¨I think a miso ramen will be good to start, Ayame-chan¨, said the youngster with a big smile. ¨Dad, come here! You have to see who is here!, Ohh my god, Naruto is that really you?¨, forgetting any manners the young lady jumped over the counter and embraced the youngster after his nod. That was the scene that Teuchi encountered when he appeared from the back, where the kitchen was situated. The old man rounded the counter and waited to get his chance to hug the youngster. ¨Ho ho ho, I'm so glad to see you again, Naruto!, please take a seat, the first bowl is on the house, but you have to tell us everything about you these past four years young man!. And with that they started a conversation that lasted a couple of hours, with Naruto telling them about his training and his work for the Daymio, including of course, his work with the Hidemoto family. Ayame teased him about Himari and Hitomi, while a blushing Naruto was sputtering incoherencies. It was a happy reunion that ended with the young samurai promising to come back the next to day to keep getting reacquainted.
Leaving the stand, the youngster redirected his steps to the next destination, the Sarutobi Household, there he was met at the door by an eight years old boy wearing an absurdly long scarf, before the kid could talk an old man appeared behind him, making Naruto smile with a ¨Jiji!¨, his mask and his helmet were on his hand in a blink of an eye. Hiruzen was gladly surprised to see the young Uzumaki after 4 years and hugged him with a big smile, leaving his puzzled grandson behind. ¨You have grown a lot, Naruto, please come in, I want to know how life has been with you these years, this is my grandson, Konohamaru. Konohamaru, this young man is Naruto Uzumaki¨. The 3 went inside and made small talk: ¨So you are from Konoha. Why are you a samurai?, ninjas are better!¨, said the boy, making Naruto snort. ¨Hey!, it's true, ninja have awesome jutsu!¨. Looking at the Sandaime, Naruto raised an eyebrow, a sign that Hiruzen understood and nodded, with the old man's permission, the young samurai said: ¨Yes Ninja have jutsu, but the samurai of the Land of Iron can manipulate chakra too, and we can do amazing things with it. You can ask your grandad here, he can tell you why the Land of Iron is so respected within the ninja villages¨. Then, Hiruzen teached his grandson about the Land of Iron, where Naruto helped talking about his training, leaving a very impressed Konohamaru. And so the young samurai spent some hours with the Sandaime and his grandson before he went back to his hotel room to sleep and get ready to guard the Daymio the next day.
The next morning, the village was alive with the sounds of the people chatting and commenting about the chunin exam. While the Daymio and his escort were traveling through the stadium, bets were beeing placed and many feudal lords were checking the program. Once the escort had arrrived to the Hokage balcony, the Daymio took a seat at Tsunade's right, with captain Umewara and Naruto standing behind, while the other 4 members of the escort were guarding the access to the balcony. To Tsunade's left was seated the Kazekage, leader of the Land of Wind ninja village Suna, wearing the ceremonial robes and a face mask that only showed his eyes. Those eye widened once they caught sight of the Fire Lord, he clearly wasn't expecting the Daymio to show up. With the figureheads situated at their respective places and after exchanging pleasentries, the Hokage stood up to adress the public present at the stadium: ¨Ladies and gentleman, welcome to Konoha to the final stage of this year chunin exams. 8 genins from diverse villages will be showing their skills to accomplish their goal of becoming a chunin. We will start with the program shortly, so I hope everybody enjoy the coming show¨. Cheers erupted from every corner of the stadium, while in the arena two boys were standing waiting for the signal to begin the combat. ¨Daymio-sama these 2 young genin are both from Konoha, to your right we have Neji Hyuga¨, said Tsunade pointing to a long haired boy, clad in white robes, his face impassive and his white pupilless eyes staring at his opponent, ¨and to your left, Shikamaru Nara¨, added Tsunade pointing a boy who's most distintive characterictics where his pineapple like hairstyle and his bored face. Before Tsunade could tell more about them, the Hyuga decided to adress his opponent: ¨Fate has decreed me as the winner of this match, i suggest you forfeit and be spared of the humilliation otherwise...¨, ¨Tch, save your speech for someone that is willing to hear it, I'm already bored as it is¨, interrupted the Nara, picking his ear with his index finger. While Tsunade was facepalming herself, the Daymio laughed and asked the young samurai: ¨So, young Naruto, what do you think of this match?¨, ¨The Hyuga must be one of the so called prodigies, judging by his speech, I would say that he never was defeated and cosidered himself better than the rest of the normal human beings, maybe he will win this match, but his arrogance will be his donwfall pretty soon. The nara looks bored, but his eyes shows a cunning and intellect always at work, I think this match will bring us a surprise¨, answered Naruto, receiving a nod from the Daymio and a clearly impressed look from Tsunade.
In the arena, the fight started with the Hyuga trying to catch the Nara who was running around trying to keep the ditance between them. Sometimes the Hyuga appeared to reach his opponent, but everytime he tryied to hit him, the Nara replaced himself with a log. And then, the bored boy stay put, leaving a chance for the hyuga to hit him, the white eyed boy wasted no time and launched his assault: ¨You are on my field of divination!¨, with fast movements the Hyuga approached, but just when he was about to attack he was stopped in his track, imitating the posture of his opponent. ¨Shadow imitation success!¨, said the Nara, who then walked backwards, guiding his opponent to a circle formed with the logs he used to escape before, logs that had an explosive note attached to them. ¨You know, this is where i suppose to give you the chance to forfeit and escape uninjured from this situation, but since you believe so much in fate, let's wait and see what fate has in mind for you, Kai!¨ A big explosion followed those words, engulfing the long haired boy. Seconds later we found the Hyuga lying on the floor with burns and cuts done by some debris. He was alive but unable to continue the fight. ¨Winner, Shikamaru Nara¨, declared the judge, while the cheers and applause started around the stadium. While the Hyuga was carried to the infirmary, the Nara walked back to where the other contestants were waiting with his hands in his pockets and looking at the clouds in the sky.
The second match was between Shino Aburame from Konoha and Kankuro from Suna. It was a long match, where the bug user won using one of his female bugs to detect the real position of the puppeteer, and litterally swarm him with his bugs to drain Kankuro of his chakra.
The next match had Temari from Suna against Toshio from Taki. The wind misstress had a hard time dealing with the genjutsu specialist, she was constantly disoriented by his opponent genjutsu and ended up wasting a lot of chakra to deal with the ilussions. Finally Toshio made a mistake, he didn't masked his presence while trying to get behind her back and it cost him, because Temari was pretending to be under a genjutsu and when his opponent aproached her, she used her fan to hit him in the stomach and then opened it to sent him flying to the stadium wall.
The last match of the first round was between Sasuke Uchiha from Konoha and Gaara from Suna. The sand wielding ninja made tendrils to try to catch his opponent, but the Uchiha used his speed to evade every try. Sand shuriken started to fly trying to cut the black haired boy, but again he evaded and keep moving. Finally, Sasuke decide to go on the offensive, but everytime he was going to hit his opponent, the red haired boy used a sand wall to stop the attacks. The match continued at the same pace, until Sasuke decide to use a genjutsu to distract his opponent to get a chance to hit him. Activating his Sharingan he made visual contact with his opponent's eyes and used a hell viewing genjutsu, that he learned from his brother. The move worked, but the result was unexpected and the disturbed teal eyed boy from Suna started to emit a very potent and malevolent chakra. This put on alert his teammates, who happened to be his brother and sister, Kankuro and Temari, and his sensei, Baki, who went inmediatly to the judge to explain that the boy was losing his control over his bijü and it was neccesary to stop the match and bring Gaara out the stadium to try to calm him. He was about to go to the Kazekage to ask him to stop Gaara when suddenly the stadium went silent. Looking around he saw the public sleeping, under the effect of a genjutsu. Turning around he ordered his pupils to take Gaara out of the village and then went to try to find the Kazekage, when several ninjas with a musical note on their headbands started to appear around the stadium.
Meanwhile, at the Hokage balcony, Naruto detected a fluctuation in chakra, a clear sign of a genjutsu, he disrupted his chakra flow momentarily and assessed the situation. The Daymio and the rest of the guard were sleeping while the Kazekage took Tsunade as hostage and jumped to the room of a nearby building, a chakra barrier appearing after the kages reached their destination, isolating them. The young samurai acted fast and using his chakra woke up the sleeping people at the balcony. With the Daymio awake and aware of the situation after an explanation from Naruto, his guard started to take him to safety, but the Fire Lord stopped them and asked Naruto: ¨Young Naruto, is there a way to disrupt that barrier?¨, the young samurai looked at the situation and discovered four people positioned at every corner of the barrier. He thought that distracting one of them, the barrier will collapse and said: ¨I got and idea, I'll try it but you need to get to safety Daymio-sama¨, ¨Ok, young Naruto, I'm counting on you¨. With that the rest of the guard moved the Daymio to safety, leaving the youngster behind
A loud sound from a horn signaled the state of emergency around the village, with the genins ordered to guide the civilian population to the safe place at the Hokage mountain, while the chunnins and jounins started to fight their sound counterparts. Sasuke ignored his orders and went after the Suna team, this made his sensei Kakashi, to order the Uchiha's teammates to follow him. Sakura Haruno a pink haired girl infatuated with the Uchiha, and Sai a palid boy that likes to draw and use his artistic talent as a tool to fight, nodded and went after Sasuke.
And thus, the invasion of Konoha started, bringing another red mark to the ninja village. Giants serpents appeared around the wall of the village trying to bring them down, supported by large platoons of sound ninja. Some platoons of Suna ninja were visible clearly helping the sound ninja, this made Baki raise both his eyebros in surprise. Taking a look at where the kage where facing each other, he didn't find the Kazekage, but a man with long hair and yellow snake like eyes. Understanding the situation he went to the nearest Suna platoon and explained his deduction: ¨The Kazekage is beeing impersonated by Orochimaru, we need to confirm our leader situation, stop fighting and start searching¨. With that 2 platoons went back to search in the road between Suna and Konoha, while the rest searched for their leader around Konoha, leaving the fight.
Back with the young samurai, we find him positioning himself behind one of the ninjas sustaining the barrier, a fat man with orange hair. He stood on the roof looking around to detect any attack that could reach him, seeing none, he prepared himself, his right foot in front, his hand reaching his scabbard ready to make a quick draw. Breathing deeply and concentrating, he made his move.
AN: Second chapter done. Next time in Samurai over Ninja, we get the invasion conclusion.