Okay, a few things. First, sorry for the delay. I know saying 'real life' really doesn't cut it, but it exists, and it is something all of us have to deal with. Sometimes, it just gets in the way of what we want to do. Second, I'm sure some people will be surprised by how I handle things in this chapter and the next. Let's just say that I have plans and leave it at that. Also, Naruto is not over-powered, believe me. He has skills and quite the repertoire of abilities, but he is currently only really at genin level, and nowhere near genin the likes of Lee or Neji, both of whom would wipe the floor with him. Third... I'm not really sure what to do with Kaguya. What do you guys think? Should I make her a human who gained power? Or should I follow Naruto lore and make her an actual alien with all that entails?
Beta'd by: The trolling SnarkLord
Chapter 22 - Massacre
"How does this keep happening?" Iruka grumbled, rubbing his face with one hand.
"It's the fox kid, Iruka, it has to be." Mizuki growled back from his hospital bed. "I mean, come on! Anyone who even looks twice at the brat ends up having an 'accident', that can't be a coincidence!"
"That's impossible, Mizuki." Iruka sighed. "Uzumaki was seen in the library when that sign fell on you, and he'd been nowhere near that part of Konoha all day."
Mizuki grumbled as he rubbed at his broken shoulder. Earlier that day, he'd been walking past one of the bars in the village, heading home from work, and the sign just so 'happened' to come loose while he was directly underneath it. He was damned lucky the thing hadn't cracked his skull open!
"Maybe he's got little demon minions or something doing all the work for him." Mizuki grumbled, glaring out of the window.
Iruka's eyes followed his, and he sighed upon seeing a butterfly on the window ledge outside the room. "Come on, Mizuki, even I could tell you that there's no way a demon would ever look like a butterfly." He shook his head. "If there was a horde of foxes attacking people left, right, and centre, then I might believe he's actually to blame for this stuff."
"You've gotta admit though, there's something really weird about that butterfly that sits on his hat all day." Mizuki retorted. "That's not normal for a butterfly, and it even manages to dodge the kunai and shuriken I throw at it for goodness sake!"
Iruka had to admit that Mizuki had a point. Beside the fact that anyone who spoke ill of the blonde child wound up hurt or sick, that butterfly truly was a weird one. Iruka had heard about nin-animals, things like dogs, cats, weasels, even rabbits and bees! A butterfly though… well, there wasn't anything particularly intimidating about butterflies, and they weren't exactly apex predators of the bug world either.
That didn't mean such a thing was impossible though, and given how little he knew about the Uzumaki, he wasn't discounting the thought out of hand.
"Well I do have my own theories about that butterfly." An old voice from the doorway spoke up, making the two chunin stand at attention as they recognised it immediately.
"Lord Hokage!" Iruka stood as straight as he could. "I didn't expect to see you here."
"Calm down, Iruka, no need to stand at attention." The Hokage calmed the scarred man. "Though why wouldn't I be here? In the past few months, a fair number of my villagers have ended up in this very hospital for a variety of reasons, though they all share a single common factor."
"Naruto Uzumaki." Iruka breathed. "Everyone who's been hurt has spoken… less than fondly about him." He said awkwardly.
"Very true." The Hokage agreed with a nod. "While I may think of Naruto as a precious child and the warden to that damnable fox, I am fully aware that not everyone shares my sentiments, and as I both can't and won't resort to mass mind control, I have to accept that. However, this is getting out of hand."
"Lord Hokage, Uzumaki has been part of the village for years now." Iruka stated. "Why is it only just recently that these… 'incidents' are occurring?"
"And what did you mean about 'theories'?" Mizuki added.
"Hmm, two very good questions there, and the only answers I can give are guesses." The Hokage admitted. "For Iruka's question, it is likely because Naruto is only now becoming part of the village. His home lies in the forests outside of Konoha, and the civilian school he attended was near the edge as well. When he wasn't at home or school, he was in the library. Now though, Naruto actually has to walk through most of the village to get to the academy, and as such is far more visible. Given that the 'accidents' seem targeted at those who dislike Naruto, it only makes sense that there'll be more targets if more people are reacting negatively towards him.
"As for the butterfly… well, it's possible that Naruto somehow found out how to summon, and without a contract of his own, he ended up with the butterflies. While already existing and known contracts are rare, summoning is a rather well known art, and if one were to look hard enough, even a child should find out the hand seals necessary for summoning. Naruto could have found them on purpose, or he could have come across such information accidentally." Hiruzen shrugged, this theory being a bit weaker than the one regarding the incidents his villagers were suffering.
"Have you spoken to Uzumaki about any of this?" Iruka asked. "I had heard you were fond of him, Lord Hokage, but this cannot go on."
Hiruzen's eyes narrowed slightly at the scarred chunin. "I hope you're not implying that I would favour a single person so much as to ignore the injuries other villagers are suffering, chunin."
"N-not at all, lord Hokage!" Iruka gulped. "It's just… if you know what's going on, I don't see why you wouldn't have put a stop to it."
Hiruzen sighed. "I don't know what's going on." He grumbled. "I've tried having Anbu trail Naruto, and he's never there when these 'accidents' happen, nor does he show any signs of planning them out or even being aware of them until after they've happened."
"So it's someone who really likes the br- child for some reason." Mizuki grumbled, quickly switching around his choice of words. While 'brat' wasn't something truly offensive, he was supposed to be a teacher, and there were some standards that he was expected to meet.
Hiruzen shook his head. "Who could really have that amount of skill?" He asked. "It would take one of our village's elites to do this and get away without a single sign of them being there, and I've even gone over the likely suspects myself. It's not them."
The Hokage sighed, remembering how he'd kept tabs on some of those he'd deemed most likely to do this. Kakashi, because Naruto was his sensei's son. Anko, because he was an outcast like she was. Mikoto Uchiha, because she had once been a good friend of Kushina's. Genma, Raido, and Iwashi, due to the three of them being the former Hokage Guard for Minato. Not a single one of them, nor a number of others he'd kept a close eye on, had anything at all to do with the rash of problems he'd had to deal with over the last few months.
It had gotten to the point where he'd even kept an eye on that civilian teacher that Naruto was fond of , Akiko Sumeragi, and while she seemed a lot closer to the blonde boy than a teacher really should be, there was nothing else that he could really glean from watching her through his crystal ball.
Well, that wasn't actually true, there was one thing that he'd found out. Akiko could somehow find where Naruto's cabin was, despite whatever barrier technique was keeping him and everyone he sent that way from finding it. That, at least, showed that Naruto had one good friend, even if he'd prefer the blonde to choose friends of a more similar age to the boy himself, rather than someone who was almost old enough to be his mother.
Hiruzen hoped and prayed that the boy would get along with at least some of his classmates.
xxxxx
Later that evening, Benio was laid on the roof of Naruto's cabin. Beside here were several of the others, including Naruto himself and a good dozen or so inchlings. She was staring up at the moon in the sky, as was Naruto, and both of them were thinking about the same thing.
Kaguya Otsutsuki.
Kurama had come back today, bringing the bodies of a pair of C rank missing nin and a few D rank bandit bounties with him. He'd been absolutely covered in blood, but wore a broad grin on his face regardless. He hadn't been too pleased when Naruto told him to get clean though, the fox rather liked how horrifying the blood made him look, but Naruto made a threat that Kurama wasn't willing to take and washed himself up.
The threat? Naruto had said that if he didn't get clean, he'd tie pretty pink ribbons into his fur with two separate seals on them, one to stop them being removed and the other to self-repair any damage done to it. Knowing Naruto and his quickly growing skill with seals and talismans, it was a legitimate threat.
Still, that didn't manage to knock Kurama's mood down too much, and after the corpses had been stored away ready for them to be taken to the nearest bounty office when Naruto had some time to transform and flash over there, they'd settled down for a relaxing evening. Given the fox's good mood, it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that he was quite willing to indulge them in 'story time' when Naruto had asked him for a slice of history that the fox had experienced himself.
He told them the tale of Kaguya Otsutsuki as he remembered it, though Isobu chimed in with several other versions of the story that he'd heard when he was young. Apparently people couldn't decide whether Kaguya was a princess, a noble girl, a foreigner from another land, or as one story had it 'from beyond the stars'.
What was known was that Kaguya had apparently never actually been killed. Instead, she had been sealed into the centre of the moon, and her chakra – becoming what was known as the Juubi – was torn apart to create the nine current biju.
"You know, the sage of six paths, Hagoromo Otsutsuki, once said that one day we would be a single being again, though not as we once were, and that we would be shown what true power was." Kurama, currently a bit larger than a horse said.
"Do you think he was talking about Naruto?" Isobu asked his 'brother'. "He's different from most others we've met."
"He's weird." Kurama snorted. "But… there might actually be something special about him. Only time will tell."
"If you were to be brought back together again, would you reform the Juubi?" Benio asked curiously. "I can only imagine how dangerous it would be now given just how much time you've had to grow and improve since you were initially created."
"Who knows?" Kurama shrugged. "I have no intention of giving up the life I have now for some ostensible possibility."
Naruto made a humming noise, drawing Benio's attention.
"The Juubi was split up to make the biju, but they've grown stronger since then… does that mean you could make the Juubi using a small portion of each biju's chakra?" He wondered aloud. "If so, and if Kaguya and the Juubi really are somehow intertwined with one another, could she be revived that way too?" He mused aloud.
Benio silently considered what Naruto had just said. Not for the actual content, but how she imagined his thought processes worked. Aside from the perpetual questions 'why?' and 'how?' which seemed to motivate Naruto to learn things, there was also his morals and attitudes towards different beings to consider.
She knew, and couldn't help but smirk at the fact, that Naruto favoured the biju over the shinobi who had trapped and sealed them, and that his opinion on that matter wouldn't go over well with any ninja or civilian. He did have a particular dislike for Hashirama Senju and Minato Namikaze, despite one being the founder of Konoha, and the other his own father.
She wondered which side of the divide Naruto would fall on between Kaguya and her two sons, Hagoromo and Hamura. Already, he thought of the sage of six paths as a naive but well intentioned fool. Anyone could tell you that giving humans power, especially when they haven't grown into it, is going to be a rather bad idea, even if the thought of achieving piece through understanding was a pretty neat idea.
She kind of wanted to see what answer he would give as well, though he'd only do that once he knew a bit more about why she did what she did. After all, the stories that Isobu and Kurama could remember simply said that she went 'mad', with some claiming it was the shinju drove her to insanity while others said she was always that way, and it was simply jealousy and anger at her sons being born with chakra that triggered her rage.
It was a little strange really, hearing the biju tell stories even they were too young to know about directly, mainly because stories were told about the biju themselves these days. Even youkai told stories about them, as while there were a fair number of youkai who were around during that era, there were many more who were mere centuries old.
Suddenly, Kurama stood up, drawing everyone's attention to him as he stared off in the direction of Konoha. He then turned to Tsuyukami and asked him if there had been any odd reports from the youkai in the village lately.
"A few things here and there." Tsuyukami replied. "The Uchiha clan has become rather reserved and withdrawn from the rest of the village, even more so than in recent years. There's something going on with the heiress of the Kurama clan. Those are the two main things I've heard about recently, aside from those 'ROOT' ninja. Is there a problem?"
"You know about my negative emotion sensing ability, right?" Everyone nodded at Kurama, having been told about this ability before. It was his favourite way of tracking down the missing ninja he hunted. "Well I just felt a rather massive flare of fear, anger, resentment, and hatred from that direction, and it's spreading fast."
"Really?" Naruto sat up. "Huh, I wonder what's going on over there."
"Wanna go see?" Kurama grinned at Naruto, his eyes gleaming as he imagined humans running about in terror like headless chickens. "I think it's coming from where those bastard red eyes live." His grin broadened as he imagined what was currently happening to the Uchiha.
Naruto considered it for a moment. "Are you sure that's a good idea?" He asked, frowning. "Something like that going on inside a ninja village is probably a sign of something dangerous occurring."
"Naruto, think about it this way; Something big is going down right now, and if you ever want to leave this damnable village for good, you'll want every bit of leverage you can get over them. A bit of blackmail on the Uchiha clan, one of the two largest clans of the village, will surely go a long way to helping you out, no?" Kurama tried to convince him.
The blonde frowned. "Kurama, the Uchiha clan alone is larger than a number of smaller ninja villages are. If something is going on there that they can't handle… it's going to be big, and probably something way beyond me."
"All the more reason to go then!" Kurama exclaimed. "You don't want to remain ignorant of something powerful, do you? Something that might end up being used against you?"
"What do you guys think?" Naruto asked the rest of the youkai present.
Tsuyukami was the first to answer.
"It's a risk." He said. "Like all things in life, and so you should try and balance the scales out. How confident are you that you can remain unnoticed by the humans? What might you gain by doing this? What might you lose?"
"That was completely unhelpful." Benio commented dryly, before giving her own opinion. "I say go for it. As long as you're careful and have us with you, the risk is, if not eliminated, at least minimised. If you do come across something dangerous, just drop several stacks of shikigami and flash out of there with hirenkyaku while your shiki delay them. Not the neatest or most elegant solution, but it's better than nothing."
"We'll follow Lord Naruto wherever he goes!" One of the inchlings squeaked, flourishing a sword that was about six inches long, which was actually bigger than the youkai himself was.
Naruto sighed. "Fine, I'll go. Give me a moment to pack a few things, just in case." The blonde than went indoors and grabbed a few things that he might need, but hoped he wouldn't. He strapped a pair of samurai-esque bracers to his arms and a pair of greaves were strapped to his legs.
The armour and his clothes had all been enhanced by his burgeoning skills in fuinjutsu, making them a bit tougher than normal, though by no means indestructible. The tougher he tried to make something, the more difficult the talisman became and the more power it required. He was working on what he called 'reactive armour' that would only activate when hit, but he was nowhere near skilled enough to do something like that, not yet at least.
After checking that he had his bow shiki strapped to his left wrist, Naruto then knelt outside on the bare earth and pulled. The earth came with his hand, shifting itself into the form he wanted it to be, compressing itself and making it denser and tougher than simple earth. He did this a second time, and once he declared himself ready, it could be seen that he'd moulded the earth into the forms of a tower shield and yari spear.
"You look like you're ready for war." Kurama commented upon seeing Naruto's attire. "I don't think I've seen a shinobi wear so much armour since the warring clans era."
"You mean back when samurai were more widespread than they are now?" Naruto asked as Kurama lowered himself a little so that the blonde could climb onto his back more easily. "It's strange how in less than a century hidden villages have now become the 'standard' and samurai rarely leave Iron Country."
Kurama didn't offer a reply to his vessel, instead choosing to run through the forest towards where the negative emotions were still coming from. He didn't worry about Naruto falling off his back, as aside from sticking himself there with a variant of the tree walking exercise, this wasn't the first time Naruto had rode Kurama like a steed, even if it was only done rarely.
It was actually an effective tactic they'd used against a particularly large bandit camp. Kurama charging directly into the group before bathing them with his fire breath, which was only enhanced when Naruto added some wind to it. Kurama then tore the bandits apart with his jaws and claws, with Naruto impaling the bandits on lightning arrows rained down on them from his position on the fox's back.
Kurama was actually contemplating trying to either copy or emulate one of the ninja clone techniques he'd seen in the past. With how he was chakra, he could likely create tens of thousands, possibly even millions, of clones without unduly draining himself, and the amount of damage that many copies of Kurama could do… well, let's just say that if any ninjas found out about it, they would probably suffer a heart attack in fear.
Madara pulled up alongside Kurama, easily keeping pace with the biju. On Madara's back were several of the youkai that Naruto had befriended over the years, and a swarm of inchlings hung in the air around them as well. Naruto couldn't help but laugh a little, wondering just how ridiculous he must look right then to anyone with the sight.
An armed and armoured child sat astride a large, multi-tailed orange fox, with another canine, this one white, running by its side with several relatively human looking beings on its back. This was not even counting the dozens upon dozens of tiny people flitting about above and around them.
"The stench of human blood is getting stronger." Madara commented, causing Naruto to sniff at the air as well. While he didn't have the same level as smell as Madara or similar beast type youkai, or even the nose of an Inuzuka, his sense of smell was still sharp, and after a moment he began to pick up on the coppery tang of relatively fresh blood as well.
"This… isn't good." Naruto murmured. "It's too quiet for this to be anything other than assassination, and one done by a professional at that." He frowned. "Not to mention just how big the Uchiha clan is, someone must be able to sense this."
Naruto dismounted from Kurama and let his spear and shield crumble away. Reaching into an inside pocket on his coat, he pulled out a number of falcon shiki before tossing them into the air and activating them. With a shriek, the pure black birds flew straight up into air and began to spread out towards the Uchiha district.
The youkai were silent while Naruto knelt down and closed his eyes, synchronising with one of the birds and looking through its 'eyes'. His short stint of scouting didn't last long, as he soon jerked slightly and took several deep breaths, getting used to his own body once again.
One of the falcon shiki flew down to the group and landed on Naruto's shoulder. The blonde boy reached for another pocket and pulled out a pencil and a notepad, promptly ripping a piece of it out and giving it to the falcon, which bit down on it with its beak before flying off.
"Not everyone's dead." Naruto said. "Let's move, see if we can keep everyone from dying."
Madara and Kurama shared a look at the tone of voice that Naruto used. He sounded incredibly serious, and more than a little disturbed as well. Of course, though neither of the two would admit it out loud, both felt some degree of fondness and loyalty to Naruto, and so that's why neither of them thought twice before following the blonde into the Uchiha district.
xxxxx
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!" Hiruzen roared, his grandfatherly demeanour completely torn away by his fury.
"What was necessary, Hiruzen." Danzo replied evenly. "Your attempts at peacefully coming to a solution have failed, and I did what you couldn't bring yourself to do. The Uchiha will soon be dead, if they aren't already, and a threat to this village will have been eliminated."
"Genocide is your solution?" Hiruzen yelled in disbelief. "The Uchiha clan makes up a sizeable percentage of this village's population, and all of its police force. We cannot simply write off that many lives, that alone will cripple Konoha."
"And their coup won't do even more damage?" Danzo retorted. "That clan is nothing but greedy, over-ambitious fools. Their attempts at taking over would never have worked, and in the process they would have destroyed Konoha. Losing a clan that large is hard, but we would have lost even more if they had gone through with their plan. Like a cancer, they needed to be removed before they engulfed the entire village in their scheming."
"Hiruzen! Danzo!" Koharu snapped at the two of them. "What's done is done. Now, rather than squabbling over the past, maybe we should start thinking about building for the future. If we are going to recover from the loss of the Uchiha clan, then we are going to need a new police system. Perhaps the Anbu could handle that, goodness knows there are enough of them, and not all of them are up to the task of higher ranked mission."
Hiruzen was about to let loose a scathing retort, but stopped as a purely black bird flew into the room. He could immediately tell that this was no natural bird and the result of a technique of some sort, the fact it looked like an oily mass rather than a true bird only made that more apparent.
He saw it had something clamped in its beak, which it dropped towards them. Hiruzen snatched it out of the air with several chakra strings and opened it a distance away, just in case this was another assassination attempt on his life. It wasn't the first time he'd almost been killed, though he had managed to make a joke out of it when someone had managed to slip a large stack of explosive tags into his paperwork one time.
When nothing happened immediately, Hiruzen brought the paper closer, seeing as it had something written on it. It took him only a moment to read the thing, and when he did, his face took on the colour of old porridge and his hand shook slightly.
"Naruto." He murmured.
"Naruto!" He yelled, louder this time, before sprinting out of the room, only staying long enough to yell at Homura, Koharu, and Danzo. "He's at the Uchiha district! If he dies tonight because of you, I'll execute the lot of you myself!"
Danzo frowned as Hiruzen disappeared and considered sending several root ninja to protect the Jinchuuriki, before he dismissed the thought.
While the boy was a useful resource with immense potential, both due to what he contained and his heritage, he was also beyond Danzo's grasp. Besides, by the time he managed to send some of his own personal ninja to the Uchiha district, it would all be over, and the boy would either be alive or dead.
xxxxx
The Hokage running full pelt through the village late in the evening was bound to garner attention, and it most definitely did. Ninja who were roof hopping to get about the place saw this, and correctly believing that something big was happening, followed after their leader.
As the Uchiha clan lived quite far away from the Hokage tower, where Hiruzen had met with his advisors, he ended up with quite the following by the time he got to his destination. Dozens of Anbu, jonin, and chunin had followed their kage to the Uchiha district, and every single one of them were brought up short by the strong scent of blood that the wind carried their way.
A quick poke around at the entrance had the corpses of two guards being pulled out into the open, causing murmurings to rise from the ninja present.
"Split up into teams and search for survivors." Hiruzen barked. "Keep an eye out for Naruto Uzumaki as well, it is only because of his message I found out about this. He is not to be harmed, or so help me I'll skin the flesh from your bones and seal you in a barrel of salt, kept alive until I feel merciful enough to roast what's left."
The ninja immediately did as they were told. This was not the kind, old man many of them, especially the younger amongst them, knew of. No, this was the man who had lived through three shinobi wars and survived all of them. This was a man who was so skilled that he had learned more techniques than several dozen other ninjas combined. This was the man who had fought and bled until he had become the ruler of this village, and had lived long enough to retire from that prestigious position.
Without waiting to hear an answer from his soldiers, Hiruzen hurried off into the nightmarish place filled with Uchiha corpses. He did see, in the air above the district, what appeared to be birds, falcons, and he thought that at least some of them might be the same as the one that had delivered that message to him.
"Be safe, Naruto." He muttered to himself.
xxxxx
"Dammit, we've lost this one as well." Hinoe growled, getting to her feet and ignoring her blood-stained hands.
"There's more here that might survive." Naruto patted her shoulder. "And at least we've managed to stabilise a few of them so far."
What the blonde said was the truth. While the inchlings had spread out throughout the Uchiha district, Hinoe and the few other youkai who had even a basic grasp of first aid, even if that was simply bandaging wounds, had set to work stabilising as many of the downed Uchiha as they could.
Unfortunately, that wasn't many. Whoever had done this was skilled, very skilled. However, there were simply so many Uchiha that there were a handful who were lucky enough not to take an instant death blow, and with immediate medical attention, a small fraction of that small percentage now had a chance at surviving this ordeal.
"Nobu!" Naruto called out to one of the inchlings. "Any sign of who did all this?"
"Not yet, Lord Naruto!" The diminutive being replied. "We believe they're indoors though, and we have a likely location as for where that is." He pointed deeper into the Uchiha district. "The largest house has yet to be searched, and all of this death and destruction seems to be leading that way."
"Madara, Kurama, let's go!" Naruto called out. Isobu, who had shed his talisman body, fed the blonde some of his chakra from within the seal, making him faster, stronger, and tougher. If he came across whoever had done all of this, he would need every edge he could get his hands on, and Isobu was willing to be a chakra battery if it kept Naruto alive and in one piece.
Several flashes of blue light, caused by his hirenkyaku, later had Naruto stood before the clan head's home. He was just about to enter the building, before a slight flare of smoke caught his attention, making Naruto ready his bow and put an arrow of lightning to the string.
"Naruto!" Hiruzen called out, before freezing in place.
Standing in front of the Hokage was a young blonde boy decked out in pieces of armour with a black bow in his hand – which looked to be made of the same material as the birds he'd seen – that had an arrow of condensed lightning on it, ready to be released.
Beside the blonde stood a large, orange fox, bigger than a horse, that had several tails waving behind it. The fox… was partially crouched and ready to pounce, but not at Naruto. No, it looked like it was… defending him?
A scream from within the house drew their attention, and both rushed inside.
This could not be ignored though, oh no.
Once this was over, Hiruzen had a number of questions ready for Naruto, and he wanted answers.