AN: Note – Alltariss –

VERY IMPORTANT!

This is a shout out to anyone who is available as a BetaReader. I would greatly appreciate it if anyone can help me out.

Chapter 16

First Blood

Naruto stood atop the dumpster a few feet away from the street. Blue eyes met grey as they signalled each other. His partner in crime nodded and began his part in the scheme. He put on his most pathetic look and tugged at the merchant's trousers. The man looked down at the child and his face suddenly morphed into pity.

No doubt telling him that he can't help him out. A complete lie of course. He could easily spare the coin, but would rather spend it on saké.

Barely visible, Naruto caught glimpses of Alto through the crowd of people walking by. He was placed on the other side of the stall, and was cautiously approaching the merchant. The small pouch attached to the seller's hip no doubt contained money within. Alto's hands hovered over the knot that fastened the moneybag before pulling it apart.

Alto dashed into the alley opposite to Naruto, intent on making a clean getaway. Naruto could hear the merchant shout for all to hear.

"Thief! Thief!" he cried. "I've been robbed!"

Alto weaved through the trash cans and dumpsters with ease. He had walked this route so many times before that he wagered he could close his 'eyes' and run through it. Upon reaching the next street, he turned and made his way through to the shelter.

The familiar scent of rotting wood and stale air welcomed him. He grasped the broken broom head near the entrance and quickly swept away the snow that accumulated at the doorstep. The weather had turned from barely tolerable, to a constant fight for warmth and survival. He sat down and shivered as his rear touched the floor. Without a moment's hesitation he opened the pouch to peruse the pilfered goods, only to be met with harsh disappointment.

"What we get?"

He turned towards the entrance and found Naruto and their friend watching with desperation and hope. He opened his mouth but words failed him. This was their final option, their last resort. Now, all they had was nothing.

Naruto saw the pained expression on his brother's face and rushed to look at what they had stolen. It looked to be thin threads of some kind and it was only upon pulling some out that he realised what it was.

"Hair," he whispered. "That's what he kept on him this whole time? Hair?"

Naruto sank to his knees in disbelief. They had risked so much and gotten nothing for it. He looked towards the final member of trio and he too was overcome with shock.

When they first found shelter in the dilapidated shack, they were found by Maru. A boy the same age as them who had run away from one of the other orphanages in the district. He had been surviving on his own for a week before their arrival. Their decision to come together as a group was a swift one. They would have better success at living if they worked together.

They were already weak and starved before they met. Living off rotten scraps had reduced them to little more than skeletal husks. Shopkeepers knew very well that the trash they threw out would be raided. Which is why they waited until the food was well beyond any form of consumption.

The only exception to that was when it rained. Most street kids never ventured then. To catch a cold was a death sentence. Which didn't bother Naruto or Alto. If there was one thing their experience with that woman had taught them, it was that they were immune to things that normal people suffered from. In their minds the logic was simple, if things like cuts and bruises healed so quickly then sickness would be no different.

Maru had thought them mad for even considering it, but could not dissuade them of the idea. And so he had resigned himself to waiting in the shack, and prayed to all the gods that they would return safe. So far they had rationed stale rice they had found, but such meagre scraps could only be stretched so far.

Alto watched as Naruto and Maru huddled in the corner of the shack. Their bodies close together to share what little warmth they had. Tonight was his turn to be on watch. Believing you were safe was the fastest way to get killed. The older street kids had no qualms stealing from the younger ones. They were bigger, faster, and stronger. Naruto recalled stumbling onto a group of corpses whilst exploring the local area. Maru had explained that they had starved to death because a group of older kids had stolen all their food.

Alto knew that if they were attacked they would never survive the aftermath. Right now, they were going to die from starvation, or frost. Something needed to be done, but his idea was full of flaws. An idea born of desperation. He would find a drunk and steal from them whilst they were 'occupied' with themselves.

He left the shack without a sound and was hit with a slurry of half-melted snow and rain. The night took a turn for the worst. The shack could handle snow, but rain would drip through the rotting wood eventually. It would only be a matter of time. Naruto and Maru would wake instantly the moment the ice-cold drops touched them. Alto could only imagine how scared they would be when they find him missing. They would assume the worst.

The building was tall enough to make the drop to the ground below a painful one. Yet, he figured that he could survive it. He had survived her, did he not? This would be no different. It was freezing atop the roof with the snow and slush reaching up to his shins, but his patience was rewarded. As Alto had predicted, a drunken man stumbled through the alley and was planning on relieving himself on the wall.

Alto had found a roof tile that was loose enough for him to pry off. From this height the throw would do a lot of damage. There was a good chance it could kill him. The thought echoed in his mind, but he found that he couldn't really bring himself to care. His life and the lives of both Naruto and Maru weighed far more than the man down below.

He could hear the man groan as he urinated and after a moment of hesitation he threw the tile as hard as he could. His aim was slightly off, but the damage was undeniable. The tile shattered upon impact and the man hit the ground. Alto watched and waited. Each moment felt forever as his heartbeat thundered in his ears.

He made his way down and crept up to the fallen figure. The tile had really bashed the back of his head. Kneeling down, Alto fingered the pouch and untied it from the belt. He could hear the jingle of coins as he lifted it to his chest. He thought to open and check to make certain it wasn't something else like last time, but the man moved.

Alto froze as the man he thought dead moaned in pain and made feeble attempts to get up. Before he realised what he was doing his hands dropped the money and grasped the largest piece of broken tile it could find. He jumped onto the man's back, arms raised with the sharp-pointed tile and without a moment wasted he bought it down, again, and again, and again. Alto repeated this until the drunk's skull had caved in and all that was left was red-pink pulp.

The young child took heaving breaths as the gravity of his actions started to sink in. So distracted by his own thoughts that the sound of footsteps didn't reach his ears. The first thing to enter his vision was black fur. The wolf dipped its head and started licking the blood that covered Alto's hands. He was still in a state of shock such that the wolf's unusual appearance didn't register.

It was as if something broke inside him, the stress of survival and the lengths needed to stay alive had finally exceeded his threshold. He wept with forced laughter, looking every bit mad. The wolf moved to nuzzle against the boy as if to comfort him. Alto wrapped his thin arms around the beast and continued to cry. The warmth from the wolf's fur was a welcome distraction from the murder he had committed. Unbeknownst, that he was being watched from afar.

Tsume was pissed. There wasn't any other way to interpret the constant growling. Rain was something that most of her kind hated with a vengeance. The Inuzuka clan were famed for their skills at tracking. Their sense of smell was an invaluable asset when hunting down targets, but rain washed the scents away.

Ishikawa stood alongside her and shared her sour mood. He enlisted her help in finding the missing Jinchūriki, but had little luck so far. Finding an orphan in the district was easy, finding the one you wanted was a much harder task. Even Katsumi and her people had yet to see, or hear of the boys.

"Peace Tsume," the gruff voice of her familiar called out.

"Easy for you to say," she retorted.

Ishikawa barely payed any attention to the conversation between them. He would admit that a talking wolf intrigued him as Kuromaru wasn't a summon, but he kept his mind on task. He had scanned the entire area and all he found was the usual people. There wasn't much hope for him to find them in the current state of things. The rain had only just stopped and he knew that none of the street kids would dare venture out in such weather. It was shaping up to be a failure he could not afford.

"We should move out-" he started before sensing something.

"Killing intent," Tsume confirmed. "Not unusual for this area."

"No," Kuromaru spoke. "This is different. It's raw, ill-concealed. A young cub's hunt."

Ishikawa focused and activated his master's gift, gaining a grand awareness of his surroundings. He sought out the notable Chakra-Signature that was the Kyūbi's, but it was nowhere to be found. Every signature was normal, not a single one was unusual. He was about to order a manual search until he caught sight of a blank body.

It was the type he had learned to attribute to corpses, except that this body was moving. It was a child and from what he could gleam from his sight, a boy. It was a very strange feeling for Ishikawa. To him it was watching a corpse move and behave as if it were alive again. It reminded him far too much of the Nidaime's resurrection technique.

"I've got movement," he said, before leaping to a better viewpoint. One where he didn't need to use his gift.

Tsume and her familiar followed without pause, but were confused as to what they were supposed to see. Until their eyes found what had caught their comrade's attention. She noticed instantly that the child was starved and freezing. She pitied the boy but such was the life of those in the Pleasure District. As she watched him she noticed the roof tile in his hands and followed the child's gaze to the drunk patron that was currently with his pants down urinating on the wall.

"Is he going to-" she started, before Ishikawa raised his hand for silence.

She watched as the boy's gaze was solely focused on the man below. Her familiar's words echoed in her ear. 'A young cub's hunt' he had said. An apt description for the events that folded out before her. She watched the slight hesitation he had mere moments before following through. The slight stutter in his movement. She knew that the district was rough and that murder wasn't anything new, but the fact that a child barely older than a toddler was capable of committing it? Now that was something.

When she finally came back to reality she saw that the boy had swiped the man's moneybag. Before she could question Ishikawa the man she thought dead moved. It was then when she realised just how lucky her childhood was. There was always that small voice in the back of her mind that wondered why most of the orphan recruits were so much better at violence than those from established families or clans. Now, she knew.

She killed because it was what she was trained to do. They killed because it meant living.

Tsume watched, as the child repeatedly bashed the man's skull in with a morbid curiosity. A whole new world of questions and theories swirled in her storm of thoughts. Iruka was an orphan but, she recalled that he was just as apprehensive when it came to violence as any other clan-raised recruit. Were 'Shinobi' born or made? The age old question of 'Nature' against 'Nurture'.

Most would say 'Nurture'. Believing that everyone was created as blank scrolls whose contents were based on what they were exposed to during their youth. But this boy, the same age as her son didn't hesitate at all when the option to use violence was available. Perhaps there are those simply born to be killers?

"I can't believe we just watched that child commit murder," she said in disbelief. "Why didn't we-"

Ishikawa's laughter broke her chain thoughts. It was a quiet chuckle, before it became loud enough to give away their position. She couldn't believe his behaviour! Laughing at the sight of cold-blooded murder?

"He's perfect!" he cried. "Absolutely perfect!"

Though his face was hidden behind his mask Tsume could clearly envision the smile he had and the mad look in his one visible eye only made it worse.

"How can you laugh at this!?" Tsume demanded, restraining herself from shouting.

"Don't you see?" he replied. "That boy is one of the Jinchūriki, specifically the one who houses only the consciousness of the Kyūbi."

Tsume immediately turned her gaze back to the child. She felt ashamed when the two demon containers were first revealed, if only because the thought of killing them had entered her mind for a moment. Yet, she had quickly quelled that train of thought believing the children to be innocent of any crime. They simply had the misfortune of being the containers, they had no choice.

She saw that Kuromaru had already approached the child. And before she could call out to her companion, she heard it. The broken wail and wounded cries that shook her to the core. And once again, she felt ashamed. She had thought that perhaps the demon had influenced the child and drove it to such murderous intent, but that was so very far from the truth.

"These streets, this district is nothing like where we live," Ishikawa whispered. It was as if he had heard her thoughts.

"When raised in a place where kindness and compassion is frowned upon. Where such feelings invite only pain and suffering. Can we really fault the child for thinking that the darker path is the right choice?"

She had no answer. Indeed she wondered if an answer to such a question existed.

Takamura stood at the balcony watching the sun set over the horizon. The imperial palace was close enough that he could just barely make out the coast. Being the emperor was a tiring job. In his youth he had thought it to be an easy task. The nation was unified, which would leave him with only administrative tasks and simple diplomatic issues. He was wrong, so very wrong.

As he got older he became aware of the wars and conflicts that constantly seemed to break out all over. While these conflicts were only between ninja, it still required careful attention. The last thing he wanted was for the nation to return to those darker days. The Sengoku Jidai (Warring States Period).

He chuckled as he recalled how naïve he was back then. Ninja conflicts were the least of his worries. The bigger issues were the diplomatic relations between Nihon and all the other foreign nations. They couldn't afford to look weak, especially after the Western Rebel Invasion. Now that had been a very dangerous situation. If Nihon hadn't discovered Chakra as early as it did, then the entire nation would have been under Western control. It was that incident that caused the Segregation.

"Ten'nō*."

Takamura turned around.

"Oda-sama has arrived," the servant informed on his knees, head bowed.

Without a word the emperor strode past him eager to speak with his military commander.

Oda Nobumasa, the Shogun, was a man born in the wrong era. His friends often joked that he was born from the womb with a spear in hand. His skill in combat and military pursuits was known all throughout the nation. A pity that he was born in an era of peace. He was awakened from his thoughts by the arrival of the emperor.

"Ten'nō," he greeted, bowing deeply at the waist. "We have much to discuss it seems."

"Indeed," Takamura replied. "It's time we started showing our strength to these Gaijin."

Nobumasa smiled. This was the opportunity he had been waiting for!

"The Western Kingdoms are so far ahead of us that it's embarrassing," the emperor continued. "Forget that they have magic. They had electricity, battleships, and so much more that wasn't based purely on magic. We must have seemed like savages to them!"

"While it is true that we lacked the same level of technology as they did. We were far from savages," Nobumasa said, trying to placate him. After all, savages did not know the value of honour.

"True," Takamura agreed. "But did they know that? Matthew Perry was above all else a man with great honour. And one to whom the entirety of our nation owes a great debt to."

Nobumasa bowed his head unable to answer, feeling quite uneasy.

"He could have conquered us, a whole nation, with only four ships and five hundred men."

Takamura's words cut deep into his pride. He had always believed that Nihon was strong, no matter what anyone else said. He didn't want to believe that the country he loved was so fragile against all these foreigners.

"But now, we have electricity and battleships of our own. More importantly, we have Chakra, a magic that rivals the Western Magics."

Standing straight, the Shogun finally spoke.

"Ten'nō, while we do have electricity, it is still under the control of the Westerners. Our battleships are not as useful as we think since they require foreign materials, and Chakra is a magic that is monopolised by the Shinobi. Our regular forces don't utilise it as well as they do."

Takamura's face was one of anger buried beneath stoicism. He knew the truth, every ugly bit of it. But he could not afford to show weakness towards the other nations. The Grand Alliance was only a trade agreement, not a military pact.

"I don't plan on having the event anytime soon. This will take years to plan, and even then we still need to be prepared to accommodate for unknowns."

Nobumasa nodded in agreement. "When shall we begin, Ten'nō?"

Takamura turned to see the last part of the sun vanish beneath the horizon, signalling nightfall.

"Begin at once," he commanded. "First, call their confidantes to visit. Convincing them that we are capable of holding the meeting is main priority for now. If we can't gain their approval then we'll fail before we can truly begin."

AN: Note – Alltariss – Just a small chapter this time as lately I barely have any time to sit and write anymore.

Ten'nō - In Japanese, the Emperor is called Tennō (天皇), which means "heavenly sovereign". Although now it isn't used at all, rather he is referred to as an 'Emperor'.