It would have been a lie to say it felt like any normal morning. For Naruto, he knew what would be coming. Sakura knew. Ino knew. All three of them weren't as proficient at hiding it as some would like them to be. But for something like this, hiding their true feelings would be a tall order. And as this day dawned, the day of the Chunin Exam finals, the apprehension the rest of the house had noticed had finally reached its zenith.
"Sweetie," Kushina said as they were alone in the master bedroom, laying a hand on his arm from behind. She wore a gentle smile, as if to reassure him. "You have nothing to worry about. I'm sure you'll do fine."
The blond tied his headband, staring at himself in the mirror. In a moment like this, seeing the symbol he wore, it was unpleasant. He had been given orders and he had followed them, no matter how much he hated them. But finally it was time for him to do what he wished he could do weeks ago. Ink and paper, he painted a seal that he had first designed weeks ago and activated it, chakra chaff bursting out and filling the room to baffle anyone trying to see inside.
"Naruto, you know I'm a sensor, right? That doesn't feel great–"
"Mom, there's something I need to tell you and I need you to listen carefully."
Minutes later, mother and son emerged from the room, agitation having spread from him to her. The red marks of shed tears at her eyes. "You three should get going," she said, dragging all three of them into a big hug. "You be safe out there," she whispered, "And you come home to me. And I'll make sure everyone is right here waiting for you." Breaking the hug, the youthful mother stepped back, hands clasped in front of her. "You don't have to–"
"Make you proud," Naruto continued for her, interrupting her. "So long as we come home."
The redhead smiled weakly. "That's my boy."
The three supposed Genin left, trepidation mounting with their every step, leaving the rest of the burgeoning Uzumaki Clan behind.
"Sucks we can't go watch," Tayuya commented.
No, it didn't, and now Kushina knew it. "Karin, Kin, Tayuya, come with me."
"Uhh... Okay?"
"Lady Kushina, what's going on?" Kin asked, awkwardly rising to her feet, holding her heavily pregnant belly.
"No questions, no arguments, just do it."
The matriarch of the clan led the three young women through the house, down a familiar hallway. A path she remembered walking so many years ago as the house burned around her. She stopped at what no longer looked anything like a door, yet she opened it anyway. "Inside."
"Oh." Karin, who was at least aware of what the room was, could guess why they were being led there.
"What?" Tayuya asked, Kin looking curiously at the younger redhead as well for realising she seemed to know what was happening.
But Karin just shook her head and entered the room first, leading the other two inside.
Kushina took a steadying breath once the three girls, the three expecting mothers of her Naruto's children, were inside. "I need you to listen very carefully. No matter what happens, do not open this door."
Kin's eyes widened, getting an idea of what this was. "Lady Kushina–!"
"No," she repeated firmly. "You stay in here where it's safe. There's food and water, enough to last you days if it has to. It's the most secure room in this house, so long as you don't break the seal by opening the door. Even I won't be able to open it."
"Then... How do we know it's safe to come out?" Karin asked.
"I... Or Naruto," Kushina amended with a heavy swallow, "One of us will come and tell you something only we will know."
"Aunt Kushina–!"
"What will you be doing?" Tayuya asked, unrepentant for interrupting despite the glare Karin shot her.
"Making sure no one tests how secure this room is, ya know?" She wore a reassuring smile as she said it. One that failed to reassure any of them. "You three... You're carrying the future of the clan. We might not have met under the best circumstances, but," she felt the tears leaking from her eyes again, "I'm so glad the three of you came into our lives."
"Aunt Kushina!" Karin darted out of the room again and wrapped her aunt in a hug. "Don't say that kind of crap!" she demanded, angry, her own eyes wet. "You...! I don't wanna lose any more family, ya hear?! What you said to Naruto, that goes for you too! I'll never forgive you if you die in some stupid blaze of glory when you could've come back!" The squeezing grew tighter, a sobbing hitch in her voice. "You come back, ya hear?!"
As Kushina petted her adopted niece's hair, she looked at the other two. Both of them looking away. They knew as well as she did. It was a promise she couldn't make but of course one loved ones always wanted made.
Once the girls were all safely stowed away, Kushina returned to her bedroom. Undressed. Her usual clothing wouldn't be fit for the day's events. Her comfortable dress was set aside. Her bra was removed. Replacing her dress with one that had an open back, one she used to wear in the later parts of her ninja career, before she and Minato had married. A short while before Naruto. It felt nostalgic, even if the dress wasn't quite as perfect a fit as it used to be. The increase in her curves from motherhood left a little more of her body on display than it did before.
But that didn't matter.
Moving under the bed, she pulled out a long, ornate box. Opening it, her attitude was a pleading sort of reverent. This blade, it had been her companion on so many missions. She had taken exacting care of it even during the time she put her skills away. She hoped, she prayed, it would return the favour by taking care of her in her moment of need. That it would help her protect the people she loved. Help her keep her unborn grandchildren safe.
She let the blade free of its sheath, leaving the lacquered wooden container behind as she returned with the naked blade into the living room. Picked up the low table that had been the site of so many family meals and set it on its side against the wall. There, she dropped to her knees where it had sat.
She lay her blade across her lap.
And there, she waited for the inevitable.
-(-)-
In the forests surrounding the Hidden Leaf, ninja were hard at work.
Even under normal circumstances, securing the village borders would be a priority during the Chunin exams. Many visiting dignitaries, important people, rich people. If the Leaf were to get attacked or any problem arise during such an occasion on their watch, well, they would look bad. And that would hurt business.
So on this occasion, it wasn't the slightest bit strange that even more work was going into the security measures. After all, all five major villages were attending as well as most of the minor ones. Luckily, the great, the Gallant Jiraiya had arrived in time for the exams and was more than willing to help.
"Bastard sons of bitches getting in the way of my work! I was supposed to be in the middle of a two week stay in Hot Water, but no! Everyone just has to pick the worst time to throw a shit-fit and start a war by attacking the next best thing to a peace summit. Again. And right when the Gallant Jiraiya was supposed to have his time off fondling the finest titties in the elemental nations! Oh no, no that's fine, his time is much better spent drawing seals in the damn forest!" His frustrated muttering ceased as he finished drawing, leaning back to rest on his knees with a sigh.
"Lord Jiraiya?" the Chunin accompanying him asked. "Are you finished?"
"Yeah, this one's done." He rose to his feet and turned around, still internally lamenting his bad luck. Then again, looking the Chunin up and down, she was pretty cute. Headband used to pull back her neck-length brown hair to reveal a cute, heart-shaped face and big blue eyes. The standard Chunin uniform wasn't flattering but a man as experienced as the great Jiraiya had long learned to see past that. "Hey," he said, throwing an arm around her as they moved toward the next location. "So how about when we're done with all this you and I get to know each other? The great Jiraiya has wisdom any young ninja can benefit from." Especially the cute ones.
-(-)-
The time had finally come. The conclusion to the Chunin Exams. The occasion upon which the various ninja villages across the elemental nations would have the chance to show what their ninja could do. To gauge which village produced the superior ninja, and show them off for potential clients. Or so it should have been.
Twenty-four Genin waited in the competitor's box. Many of them looking out at the audience surrounding the arena. Figures of every station from ordinary local civilians to visiting dignitaries and the Lord of Fire himself. And then at the far opposite side, the Kage box. Where five men with particularly fancy hats sat watching and waiting for the show to start.
"Kukukuku!" Orochimaru cackled to himself. "I wonder when the festivities shall begin! I believe we are entirely prepared?" he asked his assistant and bodyguard standing behind him.
"Very much so, Lord Hokage," Kabuto answered with his particular humourless smile. "All preparations have been made. Everything is in order."
"Excellent! Then it is only a matter of time!"
"Dammit," the Raikage cursed, "Do you have to make everything you say sound creepy and sinister?!"
"It is what it is," the Mizukage, Yagura, gave his own indifferent comment. "I understand the second Mizukage was similar."
"Cheh, no kidding," the Tsuchikage Onoki groused. "All cheerful but sounding like he was ready to slit your throat at a moment's notice! He usually was, too."
"Come now, gentlemen!" Orochimaru pleaded, "We're all Kage here! Obviously we're all ready to murder one another at a moment's notice! It comes with the job!"
"It does," Rasa the Kazekage agreed, though while giving the snake sannin a sour look. "But it's undiplomatic to state such things out loud."
"What can I say? I'm an honest man at heart! Kukukuku!" Looking over his shoulder he made a shooing motion. "Well, since we're about to get underway, time for our hanger-ons to leave us be. We honourable Kage must deliberate the futures of these young ninja in peace, you know!"
"As you wish, Lord Hokage," Kabuto agreed immediately, glancing judgmentally at the foreign attendants.
"Hmph, he's right," Onoki agreed, looking at his grandchildren. "Go on, get outta here!"
"Whatever, you old fart," the female of the two groused, leaving the box first.
"What's wrong, Lord Raikage?" Orochimaru asked, seeing only one of the Cloud ninja attending their kage was leaving. "Afraid to be alone with your peers?"
"You're saying I should trust you? You?" the Raikage's attendant C asked with narrowed eyes.
"Kukuku! I'm saying it's adorable that you believe if one of us tried to kill him, that you would be able to do a single thing to stop it!"
"Bastard–!"
"C," A interrupted, holding up a hand before his ninja could do or say something stupid. "Get out of here."
Looking from the hand, to the sinister smile of the Hokage, C grit his teeth and bowed. "Yes, Lord Raikage."
"Ah, yes, much better," Orochimaru sighed, smiling as he leaned back in his chair. "How wonderful. Just we five greatest living ninja in the entire world enjoying a day's entertainment! Isn't life just wonderful?"
Onoki gave him a bemused look. "I've met plenty of Kage in my time. And you, Orochimaru, must take more pleasure in simply holding the position than any I've ever met."
"Why shouldn't I?" the snake sannin asked. "It's gratifying to have everyone know you're the best."
In the ring, the proctor Hayate Gekko announced the first match. Two names Naruto didn't care to recognise or remember. It was an unimportant detail, especially compared to what was going on in the competitors' box. He had been alternating between watching his self-proclaimed cousin and the redheaded boy from Sand. Each seemed the most dangerous among the remaining competitors. It didn't especially matter who would be fighting who for the exam. Both of those two would be significant factors in the moments to come.
A fairly lengthy but uninteresting battle ensued within the arena. But more interesting, as Naruto's eye flicked from Gaara to Sho, he spotted something. The Uzumaki offshoot had been leaning on the edge of the box, but when he took his hand away, a wet spot was left behind. Silently, he looked to Hinata who had covertly had her Byakugan active. She nodded slightly.
Sho wasn't in the box anymore. He had left a water clone in his place. That meant... As much as Naruto hated it, Sho was beyond being his problem. The arena had to be his focus for two beastly reasons. One already very close by. The other... He didn't know where the other was. He thought she would have been in the Kage box but no. Was she in the stands somewhere? Their intelligence advantage was dwindling. The Leaf had a better read on the situation than they had any right to, but now that the hour was upon them the picture was becoming blurrier. All they could do was rely on their strategic choices and patch the gaps with good tactics.
The first match ended.
Still nothing.
The second match was called. The dark-eyed redhead stepped out over the rail. For whatever reason, Gaara had been chosen as the next competitor. Facing off against Chojuro of Mist. Haku's teammate if Naruto remembered right. And judging by the brief words the two of them shared, he was. For such a nervous looking guy, that was sure a big weapon on his back.
Sho's clone hadn't moved.
And then none of that mattered. Even down within the arena they could feel the sudden change on the wind. And the smoke rising from every direction.
-(-)-
"What you know and what your enemy knows," Jiraiya muttered under his breath as he waited a mile behind the border. "All it takes is knowing as much about your enemy's plans as they do, and they knowing less about yours. That's all it can take to change the outcome of a battle."
"Lord Jiraiya?" the cute little Chunin asked.
"Sorry sweetheart, just talking to myself," he laughed. "Get as much wisdom and experience as me and you'll be just as eager to share it."
"Old people talk a lot," the girl answered, giving him a sage nod of understanding.
"Geh! Not..." he grimaced, "Not what I was going for." He looked out into the distance again. "Point is. We knew their play from the start. And because of that..."
Suddenly, the forest visibly burst into flames even from their distance. The Chunin girl gasped as she watched fires erupt in a ring around the border of the Hidden Leaf territory.
"And because of that, they can't win."
"It's horrible," the Chunin breathed.
"It's contained," the toad sage countered. "A wall of fire they'll have to bypass before they can even approach the village, secured by the fire-sealing method to prevent it from spreading in either direction. With any luck, the scout teams will have done their jobs and let the enemy walk right into the trap before springing it. Half their forces cut off inside, some caught by it, the other half stuck doing what they have to to push through." And that wasn't the first or last of the traps they would be dealing with.
"Lord Jiraiya! The flames are coming this way!" the Chunin pointed out in alarm. "I thought you said–!"
"That's not the fire," he answered before she could finish. "Get back to your squad, little Chunin. I'll come find you after I deal with this."
"Lord Jiraiya..." her expression conveyed her resolve. "Yes sir!" And in a swirl of leaves, she was gone.
Jiraiya let out a sigh, releasing his Transformation technique.
"That was rude, youngin!" the toad on his left shoulder chided him.
"Forcin' us to be all quiet so you can impress the girl!" the other continued in disapproval. "Why don't you settle down with a nice girl like little Minato did! Skirt-chasing your whole life, it's shameful!"
"Skirt-chasing or not, I can't have people seeing me like this!" the now much more warty Jiraiya complained. "The Gallant Jiraiya has a reputation as a handsome man about town!" His self-aggrandisement met by a cane to the back of the head. "Ow."
"So we're doing this, hm?" the toad on the left, asked. "Jinchuriki, huh. This won't be fun."
"Just another Tale of the Gallant Jiraiya."
The toad sage leapt down from his tree where he had been spending hours gathering and cultivating nature chakra. All in preparation for this moment.
He watched the figure, hazy and glowing from the heat given off, slowly approach. At least by ninja expectations of speed. "That one was always more about power than speed." Well. They were all about power on some level. But this one more than most. Shadow clones formed and split off to prepare the battlefield in the few seconds they would have.
"Come on, Roshi. Let's have a heart to heart, you and I."
The jinchuriki of the Four Tails didn't even slow down as he approached one of the leaf's famed Sannin.
The enemy couldn't win. But it was still a question how much they could make the Leaf lose.
-(-)-
"Kukukukuku!" the snake sannin laughed as he stood in the kage box, looking out over the edge of the arena to see the great plumes of smoke. "It seems someone has elected to interfere in these exams? How audacious they must be to attack now! Not to worry, my friends! I'm sure my forces can quell these invaders before they even get–"
The Hokage's words were silenced. Or perhaps he continued talking, who could say. But either way, his words were no longer in a position to be heard as Orochimaru's head was punched clean off his shoulders by the lightning infused fist of the Raikage, sent to sail off into the distance over and outside the arena.
Neither Onoki nor Rasa seemed perturbed or even surprised by the turn of events. Leaving Yagura to carefully re-evaluate his own position. "A war, is it?"
"A slaughter," A corrected. "We've been put down, left to take the Leaf's scraps for too long." Fighting had already begun in the stands, in the arena, Leaf ninja fighting off suddenly hostile foreign ninja while protecting civilians. "Today, the Hidden Leaf get knocked off their pedestal."
Rasa's head turned to regard the lone Kage not officially aligned with their intent. "While we have no ill intent toward the Hidden Mist, in this instance you are either with us or against us. We can all profit from the removal of the Leaf."
"Kukukukuku!" The sinister laughter seemed to echo around the room. Even as the Hokage's corpse continued to bleed on the floor, another him seemed to melt out of the wall. "Is that so? I see! You seem quite sure of that! But I'm sorry to say, you three may have miscalculated!"
A grit his teeth, rearing his fist back, his body exploding with electricity that blasted the roof off of the box.
And the Hokage casually slid out of the way of the attack. "What a temper you have, Lord Raikage!" he chided with a gleeful, shining grin. Laughter dancing in his slitted eyes. "How dangerous! Are you alright, Lord Mizukage?"
"How did you know?" Rasa demanded.
"Oh please," the Snake Sannin scoffed. "Fast as he may be, the Lord Raikage is as subtle as a brick. Even ignoring that, do you really think I would allow myself to sit in the same room as four of the most dangerous men alive without a contingency? And that's before knowing all about the little celebration you had planned!"
"You knew we were planning this," Onoki realised with a scowl.
"Ah, you see, this is why I worry so much about getting old. Mind starts to slow down, gets harder to pick up on the obvious. It would be a terrible thing to let time rob the world of my genius." He offered Onoki a condescending look. "Yes, Fence Sitter, I wager I knew before you did!" Distracted by a golden glow, he glanced down at the arena floor, dodging with uncanny movements the trails of gold dust that would have shredded his body if he let them. "Ah, and it looks like my countermeasures are already bearing fruit!"
The enemy Kage and Yagura glanced down with him, seeing what he meant. The One Tails jinchuriki, turned into a giant beast made out of sand. A blond ninja dancing around him using golden chains to manoeuvre and restrict the beast's movements. All while the Seven Tails jinchuriki lent her support as best she could. It was only the most eye-catching battle. Many more were taking place throughout the arena.
"Waterfall may not be the most powerful village but they have always been steadfast allies. Kukuku! Looks like the young Uzumaki will have your son shackled ahead of schedule, Lord Kazekage!"
"Huh!" the Raikage barked. "Well, guess we'd better wrap things up here so we can make the best of a bad situation!" Lightning crackled across his frame. "Yagura. It's three against one already. The Hokage is gonna be a pair of snakeskin boots in about five minutes. Your choice if you wanna risk your own ass for him."
Once again, Yagura was being forced to rapidly re-assess. The strategic battle was in the Leaf's favour so far. Among the Kage Orochimaru was at a disadvantage... But he also had to know that. And yet here he was. If he was as prepared as he seemed...
No. The Raikage had been too honest. They had been banking on a surprise assault and it had failed. Besides, the Raikage was a prick anyway. "You will have the aid of the Hidden Mist, Orochimaru," he spoke, his form dissipating into water as it was struck by another lightning punch. The real Yagura a hundred feet away informing Mei Terumi of the new situation, and relaying her orders. To aid the Hidden Leaf.
"Oh and your situation turns from bad to worse! Kukuku! How distressing! So much for four on one! But..." the snake sannin paused for effect, only to be forced to evade the famed Dust Release technique of the Tsuchikage that demolished what was left of the room, forcing the Hokage to retreat to the forest beyond.
Not that he hadn't been planning to do that regardless.
"I was just thinking!" he shouted up at the three Kage who wanted nothing more than to see him dead. "Three on two doesn't really satisfy me either! So how about we properly even the odds!" With a quick earth jutsu, a coffin was launched from underground.
A coffin marked with the number 4.