Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, and make no profit writing this fiction.
Prologue
As he stood at the foot of the hospital bed, Hiruzen Sarutobi felt the weight of his advanced age hang heavier upon him than ever before. He'd seen many horrible, mind-numbing and downright awful things during his thirty-three years long reign as the Fire Shadow, yet none of them carried the same terrible implications as the scene of the man lying unconscious in front of him, neatly tucked in with the same pale white blanket that was used to normally cover corpses as they were brought to the morgue. The symbolism was striking, though the pale young man in front of him was yet to pass the final line between this world and the next he was still not expected to wake anytime soon, if ever, and that prospect frightened Hiruzen more than he cared to admit.
At first glance the man on the bed looked deceptively ordinary, almost plain if yet somewhat handsome, but his blonde hair and strong features were well-recognized throughout the village and the Elemental Nations alike. Staring down at the only known Seal Combat Specialist still in active service in any villager, the legendary Yellow Flash of the Leaf who's speed was said to be unbeatable, Hiruzen once again wondered where everything had gone so badly as to render the one ninja in his village who could bring enemies into a mindless rout merely by appearing on the field of battle into this state.
Minato Namikaze had been a quickly rising star of the Leaf's for almost five years now, and his reputation preceded him wherever he went. He was thought of as the ultimate equalizer, one of the reasons the Village Hidden in the Leaf had managed to continue their war effort with as much success as they'd been able to up to this point. Until recently, the Yellow Flash had never been bested in combat – be it against one man or a hundred. Until recently, he'd never even failed a mission.
However, that had been before the terrible incident known only as Mission 09003D18, or the "Disaster at Kannabi" as those high enough in the echelon to actually have clearance for the files called it.
Taking a deep breath, Hiruzen reached out his hand and placed it on the top of his student-by-proxy's forehead, feeling the unnatural coldness of a body nearly bereft of all its chakra underneath his palm. It was funny, really, how most ninja never contemplated that with each technique used, each unnatural feat of strength performed, they stole away a little bit of the very essence of their own life and molded it into a weapon. Minato was diagnosed with a severe cause of chakra depletion, combined with heavy strain on the tenketsu network and almost a hundred miniature fractures and cracks in his skeleton, a price paid for saving his subordinate and student. Eyewitnesses said that he had been glorious in his last battle, fighting not like a man, but like one of the gods themselves – as if Futsunushi had appeared in the impure world and taken control of his body. Still, for all his glorious strength, all his awe-inspiring power, one man had simply not proved enough. Minato Namikaze had paid the prize for his actions, and now Hiruzen was left with even less then what he'd had before that thrice-cursed mission.
"Such loss, young Minato, and for what?" Muttered the old man with a sad shake of his head, "In the end, the bridge still stands and the armies of the Land of Earth keep marching over our own soil – their bellies filled and their minds set only on the complete destruction of all that we hold dear."
The original battle plan had been a two-step maneuver meant to counter the ongoing invasion into the heart of the Land of Fire itself. The Fire Lord had authorized his Shadow to enact any countermeasures, no matter how desperate, and Hiruzen's general staff had soon come up with a simple, yet effective, method to halt the invasion enough for them to be able to fight back. The main problem that the ninja of the Leaf faced were that of being outnumbered; the armies of the Village Hidden in the Rock and the Land of Earth had ten men to every ninja the Village Hidden in the Leaf could send against them. This was only a boon, however, for as long as the supply train connecting the gigantic army with its homeland were kept intact, a fatal weakness which the High Commander of the Leaf, Shikaku Nara, proposed for the defenders to exploit.
Needless to say, the support for his suggestion was unanimous. An army marches on its stomach, and to cut of the supply for food would leave the bulk of the Rock forces stranded deep in enemy territory, forced to withdraw or starve to death.
In order to prevent the enemy from resupplying from the countryside Shikaku proposed that several squads of ANBU Black Ops special operatives should be sent out, equipped with large-capacity sealing containers as well as a healthy amount of fire and water technique specialists, their mission being to salvage as much of the livestock and crops in the fiefs sitting either directly in the path of the invasion force, or along the borders of said fiefs. This decision caused quite a stir at the Fire Lord's court, though the supreme ruler of the nation was quick to silence any and all protestors with a harsh reminder of what would happen if the nation did not make smaller sacrifices to ensure their continued survival, followed by a few rather gruesome public executions of those who'd been most vocal about their dissatisfaction.
Meanwhile, Hiruzen's own heart went out to the farmers and craftsmen living in the areas plagued by war. Their lot was not an easy one to start with, living right in the middle of a conflict which like hadn't been seen in the nation since the days before the Hidden Villages, and now they were robbed of their final security, their last bargaining chip, all for the good of the nation. Still, if the many should prosper then it would have to be on behalf of the few, or so the Fire Shadow reasoned as he signed the order which gave his troops authority to prey upon the livelihood of the citizens they were sworn to protect.
His ANBU did not disappoint and soon the entire northernmost half of the Land of Fire was barren, devoid of every form of food and supply that could be found. There was no crop field left unburnt, no rice patty that hadn't been flooded, no cattle spared from the butcher's knife. They brought a massive haul back to the village, but most of the supplies were either left to rot alongside the road and in the rivers and streams crisscrossing the huge Senju Forest, or burnt right where it was reaped. With the first part of the operation complete the generals put in motion the second, most crucial part of it all.
The severing of the Rock Village's supply train.
The carts carrying rations and munitions from the Land of Earth to the front in Fire ran down a number of smaller paths from the foothills preceding the Wall of the World, the mountain-chain separating the Land of Earth and the Land of Grass, through the Land of Grass until they converged upon a single focal point – the crossing over Green Snake River.
Kannabi Bridge.
This was where the blow was to be struck, not because it would be unexpected but because it was the only option that had even the slightest chance of succeeding. The plan was once again elegant in its simplicity: a larger force would engage the platoon fortified on and around the bridge, providing cover for a smaller strike team of saboteurs to move in and secure explosive seals on the bridge, destroying it. The task of actually moving that deeply behind enemy lines with so small a force, without any hope of assistance from reinforcement, made it hard for the general staff to pick any suitable candidates.
That was, until Minato Namikaze volunteered his team for the mission, an offer which was accepted both due to the urgency of the operation to get underway as well as Minato's own reputation and the morale-boosting effect it would have on the force providing cover for the strike team. Intel reports suggested that enemy reinforcements would be deployed at the site approximately five days from when Minato volunteered his team, which made time for planning for more than one kind of a scenario a luxury that simply could not be afforded.
That was the first mistake made during the operation.
Rushing towards Kannabi Bridge, the assault squad deployed at roughly ten hours prior to the deployment of Team Namikaze, immediately encountering much heavier resistance than their Intel had suggested would be present. Alarmed, they sent a distress message to the Fire Shadow, one which would unfortunately only reach him by the time that the squad was almost entirely exterminated. Acting on what little information he had, Hiruzen sent another message to Minato's team and ordered a re-prioritization of objectives; Minato was now to head for the assault squad and back them up, a move which would surely instill fear in the heart of the enemy and force them to send everything they had against that single spot in order to prevent it from being overrun.
By assuming this, Hiruzen gravely underestimated both the nature of the resistance encountered and the general discipline of the Rock ninjas, which was the second mistake during the operation.
Still, the remaining strike team should have been enough to clear out the bridge even if they were under heavy pressure. The team was now headed by recently promoted jonin Kakashi Hatake, who had been hailed as a genius ever since he graduated the Academy at age six, after barely one year of tuition, and proceeded to rise through the ranks at rapid speed. An expert with close-to-mid range ninja techniques, Hatake served as both the strategist and vanguard of the team. Backing him up was chunin Obito Uchiha, who had a very wide knowledge of both weaponry, traps and the use of seals – knowledge acquired in order to make up for his underwhelming performance in hand-to-hand combat and fire techniques, both of which were traditionally seen as the Uchiha clan's fortes, as well as the fact that he'd yet to develop even a sign of his birth-right, the famed bloodline limit of the Uchiha: the Copy Wheel Eye, Sharingan. Despite being seen as a somewhat weak representative for his clan, the mission was right up Obito's sleeve – get in, blow something up with an excess amount of explosive seals, get out.
The final member of the team was an orphan by war, Rin, filled the role of support as a medical ninja. Though she was clanless and had only managed to rank into the middle of her Academy graduation class, Rin had shown an early aptitude for medical techniques which only grew more and more pronounced as she received further tutoring in the art. She was there to make sure the team actually got out of the area alive, as well as providing minor cover with a few illusion techniques that required higher-than-average chakra control.
In retrospect, Hiruzen knew that he should not have entrusted such a vital task to a team with so little actual experience, yet at the time it had seemed to be the only option available to him. All of his ANBU were either deployed on the front lines or out harassing the enemy commanders, a few of them even attempting to assassinate high-profile enemies such as Roshi of the Lava Release and Han, the "Steam Monster". He had been pressed from all sides to provide a quick and efficient solution to a seemingly insurmountable problem, and he had done as best he could given the circumstances. At least, that was what he told himself now in the aftermath, in order to be able to cope with the tragedy that had befell his village, as well as the nation they served.
Things had begun going to hell at a rapid pace as soon as Minato arrived at the major scene of combat. Out of the original fifty-man strong assault squad, only five jonin remained. They had been prepared to face of against a rear guard of ninja unskilled enough to be moved from the main front, or perhaps a squad of jonin like themselves.
They had not, on the other hand, expected to come up against a fully staffed division of the Faceless, much less one backed by almost two hundred chunin and jonin level ninja.
The original intel report stated that the enemy force numbered somewhere around sixty sub-par ninja, maybe even less, and that at least half of them had been assigned due to receiving some form of disabling injury which prevented actual combat service. As the squad had quickly discovered, however, the enemy numbered almost four times as many as the original report suggested, and the Faceless division alone made them even more difficult to even stall long enough for the actual mission to succeed.
The Faceless were a group of ninja trained similarly to the ANBU Black Ops of the Leaf, yet instead of emphasizing creativity and the ability to act on their own the Faceless were discipline made flesh. They stood as one, fought as one and never backed down, no matter the odds. There was no thing as surrender to them, so in order to actually defeat them an adversary would have to kill every last member of their squad. The name 'Faceless' came from the fact that they carried porcelain masks similar to other elite regiments around the Elemental Nations which prevented their identity from being discovered, only theirs were not painted at all save for a single number in the middle of the forehead of the mask, unlike the Village of the Mist's Hunter Ninja Squads who painted their masks in crimson to represent the blood of the missing ninjas they'd slain, or the ANBU who carried the faces of animals showing both their rank, division and specialization to those who knew how to read the signs. The Faceless had no rank, they needed no rank, for they were merely the will of the Rock. And, as Minato would be unfortunate enough to discover, not even the Yellow Flash of the Leaf could break that will.
From there on, things went from bad to worse.
As the remainders of Team Namikaze closed in on the bridge's foundation, they were set upon by a perimeter patrol that just happened to find them due to dumb luck. Though Kakashi managed to subdue one of the attackers, the other two made of with Rin as a hostage. Kakashi ordered Obito to continue on, knowing that the bridge had to be destroyed no matter what, but Obito refused and stated that their teammate's life was worth more than any objective at the moment, and that he intended to rescue her even if he had to do so himself. He then handed Kakashi his sealing equipment and set of in pursuit of the enemy patrol, leaving Kakashi alone to try and reach the bridge.
Normally, Hiruzen would have applauded this kind of loyalty towards one's teammates, especially since his entire life had been dedicated to rooting the belief of the 'Will of Fire' which his teachers before him, the First and Second Fire Shadows Hashirama and Tobirama Senju had been fierce agitators for – a belief which went hand-in-hand with the ideals of young Obito. Yet, as previously stated, sometimes the needs of the many had to take precedence to the needs of the few – Obito should have considered what was on stake and how much he risked by going after Rin. Instead, the young Uchiha managed to sneak up on the enemy patrol, only to discover that they'd already killed the young medic out of frustration when she refused to reveal the real reason as to why the strike team was there, citing that they were "only scouting the perimeter for the larger assault force". Enraged by this, Obito charged in head on, forgetting everything he'd ever been taught about attacking from the shadows and the advantages the element of surprise carried. Just as he was about to be cut down, Kakashi intervened and shielded him from the blow, though the cut from the enemy's knife ended up taking out the young jonin's left eye.
Kakashi had then told Obito that he was needed elsewhere and thrown the sealing equipment into the chunin's arms, prompting him to startle and leave for the bridge. One of the Rock ninja took of in pursuit, but Kakashi managed to catch him in his thigh with several throwing stars, slowing him down; an impressive feat for someone who'd just lost half of their visual capacity along with their depth perception. The young jonin then proceeded to hold of the remaining enemy, using his family's most prized weapon, the short blade which had earned his father the moniker of the "White Fang". The White Light Chakra Sabre evened out the odds a bit, but it had still been clear from the start of the fight that the exhausted Hatake would sooner or later fall before the enemy could be defeated.
There had been some fighting, and a lot of bleeding on Kakashi's part, before a loud explosion was heard from the direction of the bridge. Thinking that their mission was finally complete, Kakashi turned around only to see that the passageway was still standing as strong as ever. In their haste to ensure that they did not lose their perceived advantage, High Command had not taken into account the possibility that the bridge might have been reinforced in order to withstand a direct bombardment, and thus they'd simply not given Team Namikaze enough explosives to actually take down the bridge.
The only reason as to why even two of the Leaf ninja returned from the, bluntly speaking, royal cluster-fuck of an operation was because one of them happened to be the most skilled seal master ever produced outside of the now-extinct Land of Whirlpools, and the other had been said man's apprentice for long enough to have more than a few tracking seals placed on his person. NaMinato Namikaze had managed to track down Kakashi, despite being exhausted and severely wounded from the prolonged use of his signature technique, the Flying Thunder God. He'd then managed to use the technique one last time, this time dragging Kakashi along with him, sending them both a staggering sixteen kilometers to the south before he simply collapsed due to chakra depletion. Kakashi had been spotted the next day dragging his unconscious captain and teacher towards the gates of the Hidden Village.
Sadly enough, the Uchiha had forbidden Minato to do the same to Obito, stating that it would be a "violation of clan rights" which could possibly be used to try and glean secrets of their bloodline techniques. Why that would even be a problem remained a mystery to both Minato and Hiruzen, but the fact remained that the two remaining members of Team Namikaze could have been three had the seals been allowed to be placed upon Obito's body. As it was, his corpse was never found and the one solace that could be taken from that was that he had never gained his sharingan and therefore his death would at least not compromise village secrets.
It was still a damn tragedy though, Hiruzen thought to himself.
As he turned towards the door to leave he looked over at the face of the man hailed as the strongest in the Leaf, barring himself, and sighed sadly yet again. He could not afford to dwell here, lost in 'what-ifs' and 'maybes', not for as long as there remained a single Rock-aligned soldier or ninja in the nation he was sworn to protect, threatening the citizens he was supposed to guard.
"Don't sleep for too long, Minato," he said quietly to the unconscious man, "or else there might be nothing left for you to wake up to."