Chapter 39 has arrived, fresh off my computer desk and onto the intranet! :P
Gravenimage - Thanks for the review, and only time will tell if he will succeed, or die trying
Ribbongurl613 - ah, i see that you read the 4th chapter, yes indeed, i like my Uchiha story, to bad its not the real one :P but thanks for the review, and i hope your enjoying this story :D
Chi-Neko - Thanks for the review, and yes indeed, as much as i love the NaruxSaku couple "Its my fav, and the only rightful girl he should end up with :P" having Sakura old enough to be his mother (twice his age) well, i can't moraly put them together :P
Sintar07 - Naruto actually makes a suggestion like that in this chapter, read to find out what happens :P, thanks for the review and i hope you continue to enjoy the story :)
Bombat1994 - It all depends what they want to do, there goal is not to incapacitate him, so he won't be using the same technique as he did against Kakashi, or at least , that's my explanation for it :P, but thanks for the review and hope you enjoy the story
ManiMan - Although, yes they did decide everything without Naruto's opinion, but Naruto was just to conflicted with himself and lost in his own thoughts, that issue is looked at in this chapter :) thanks for the review, enjoy 39 :D
lilal6 - Yay, awesomeness :D Thanks for liking my story, and i hope you enjoy chapter 39!
naru-ca-titan - I know you didn't review this chapter yet, but i forgot to mention something when i responded to your last review, i already know about Naruto the abridge series, but i prefer Yu-Gi-Oh The abridge series, but i love them both :P I just find that littlecoribo series is funnier :P hope your still reading my story :D
Chapter 39, wow, one away from 40, this story has gotten pretty big and popular, i just hope that i can keep living up to the expectations you guys have of me, well then, without delay, chapter 39!
This chapter was revised on June 1st 2017. Most grammar errors should have been addressed (Hopefully :P) I did a few enhancements and changed a few things around but the story remained unchanged
Saving old bonds
Chapter 39 (Revised)
The next morning everyone was working hard, training, making weapons and generally getting ready to fight and capture the Kurokage
Naruto was walking along the lake, he was lost in his thoughts. Sasuke had spotted him and ran up to join him "This is where you are, what are you doing? We are starting to plan our course of action"
"Is it really the right thing to do?" Naruto said, still unsure of what they were doing. Sasuke's words were still Haunting him, all of this would cease to exist just so he could regain his life
"Are you having second thoughts?" Sasuke asked him
"I don't know, I guess I am just trying to figure out if its right"
Sasuke let out a small sigh "I guess I can understand. At first I was being a little bit selfish, I mean, we have worked very hard for everything we have now. I wanted to believe that we were happy. But last night I saw that almost everyone is tired of this way of life"
"What if we just killed the Kurokage, that way you could come out of hiding"
"We do not have the forces required to retake the country, someone else would just take his place and they would hunt us all down and finish us off. But why the sudden change in attitude? Just last night, you were all for this"
"It was before I really thought about what I was asking of you all. Basically, I am asking that you all put your future in my hands, am I worthy of such trust? What if I screw up even worst, and somehow make the future worst?"
"If you do, then it was meant to happen. I guess when Toshiro said that you didn't belong here it hit me that this isn't how it is suppose to be, your own place in history has been denied. And its time you reclaim it" Sasuke said with a smile as he put his hand on Naruto's shoulder
"Thanks Sasuke" Naruto said with a smile as he put his own hand on Sasuke's opposite shoulder "You really are the brother I never had"
"Whatever you say, little brother" Sasuke said teasingly as Naruto frowned pushing Sasuke "I always wanted to say that" he added with a grin
Some people had begun to gather at the entrance, catching Naruto's attention "What's going on?"
"Ah, our guest must have arrived. After the meeting last night I sent an emergency message to one of your old friends"
"One of my old friends?" Naruto asked confused, since most of his friends were here or dead, so who could this be?
Naruto and Sasuke walked over. There was a small group of three Ninja's entering, Naruto had to look twice to make sure he wasn't mistaken. The lead man had fire red hair, light green eyes and he wore a white and blue robe with blue and white hat hanging on the back of his neck held by a string tied around his neck, but the most noticeable was his large brown gourd
"GAARA!" Naruto shouted happy to see his old friend and fellow Kage
"Naruto, it has been a long time my friend, you haven't changed. I guess the letter was true, you were really thrown into the future"
"Yeah…Some Hokage I turned out to be" Naruto said sadly
"It wasn't your fault, I only wished that we could have arrived fast enough to prevent it. But by the time we arrived your people had already begun abandoning the city, so we helped everyone we could"
"How is the war going?" Sasuke asked him
"We are at a standstill, we do not possess the forces required to push them completely out of our nation, but they lack the experience and men to keep pushing into the desert. They did try an attack on the village a few years ago, but our defenses were too fortified and the heat drained the fight out of them. They quickly retreated after losing half their forces while we took minimum casualties"
"That's good, at least your people are safe"
"I have already told you, your people are more than welcome to join us. We would even allow you to remain leaf shinobis" Gaara told him
"Well… If what we have planned fails, we might have to take you up on your offer" Sasuke told him
"Indeed, your letter said this was an urgent matter, so I came with my siblings as fast as we could"
"Yes, we are planning to fix the timeline by forcing the Kurokage to send Naruto to his rightful place in time"
"Are you serious?!" Kankuro asked
"How do you plan on making the Kurokage simply send him back?" Temari asked
"We just need to capture the Kurokage. Once he is in our hands, we will use our Mangekyo Sharingan to, shall we say, make him see things our way?" Sasuke said with a grin "Come, we are about to begin the planning, it would be an honor if you would attend the meeting Kazekage" he said in a respectful tone and a smile
Gaara nodded as the group began walking towards Sasuke's office
Inside the office were, Toshiro, Naruto, Shikamaru, Gaara, Konohamaru, Sakura, Itachi and of course Sasuke, they didn't have any room for anyone else "So we all know that the Kurokage resides in the occupied imperial capital city of fire. It is heavily fortified and any attack with anything less than an army of thousands would be useless" Sasuke said as they opened up a map of the region
"I agree, the defenses have been fortified against possible sand invasions since it was close to the borders. Also, there are three captains stationed there at all times as well as two thousand ninjas, not including the original city population that still resides there. There are weaknesses in the defenses but we do not have the manpower to exploit them" Toshiro explained
"There are two thousand night ninja's in that city alone? How many are there in the entire nation?" Naruto asked amazed
"Since we have invaded, we have kept on bringing in more people from our home land, our nation is one of the biggest on our continent. We have also been training new ninjas here, such as Naoto for example. But to answer your question, there are about eight thousand ninja's stationed around the occupied nations of fire, water, wave and a few other minor nations. A big chunk of them are in the capital city, another chunk are guarding the night wind borders and the rest are keeping order. A nation the size of the Fire Nation, and all of the surrounding nations we have invaded require a lot of men to keep in line"
"Alright, so an assault on the capital while its heavily defended is out of the questions, any ideas?"
"Yeah, I have one" Shikamaru said "But it will require some help from the wind, as well as yours Toshiro"
"You have my complete cooperation" Gaara told them
"What would you need me to do?" Toshiro asked, unsure about being at the meeting at all
"I will explain in a moment, let's begin with the first part of my plan. Kazekage, we would need for you to take as many of your men as you can and conduct the largest attack you can make on the border, you do not need to actually gain any ground, just make them think that it's a full out invasion"
"I think we can manage that" Gaara simply said
"Toshiro, am I right in assuming that the only place where they can get any re-enforcements are from the capital city?" Shikamaru asked
"That would be correct, that's the reason why there is such a high number of ninja's stationed there"
"So, if the sand ninjas were to make an attack that would make it look like they were going to invade, the Kurokage would be forced to send ninjas from the capital, right? And if the attack is large enough, he might send a very large portion correct?"
"That would be correct, make the attack large enough, and he may just send out three quarters of the forces station there"
"Why would he send such a large force?" Gaara asked
"Because, if he believed that you were attacking with most of your men, he would try to not only stop your advance, but once he would have taken your men out he would launch an immediate counter attack, hoping that your defenses would be weakened enough to invade Suna"
"I cannot allow that to happen" Gaara said
"Of course not" Shikamaru said with a grin "But remember, this is not an invasion, all your men are doing there is making it look like your invading, it takes about 2 hours for their re-enforcements to arrive, so after about one hour of keeping them busy, retreat back to Suna, they will believe that you were retreating because your men are weakened and they will launch their attack on a target they believed to be defenseless, but in reality, you will be fully prepared to take them on your home turf"
"That's brilliant Shikamaru" Sasuke said to his friend
"Now then, once they have left, we will launch our own attack against the capital, they will be overconfident with their large walls and defenses. They will believe that we are simply there for a raid and that we will be quickly dealt with. But we will have someone on the inside, ready to open the gates for us. Toshiro, this is where you come in, do you think you can do that?"
Toshiro looked at Shikamaru as his face began to turn pale, he had just asked him to betray his country. Going against orders to save Naoto was one thing, but now he was being asked to willingly and knowingly betray his country to help the resistance attack his own leader
"Toshiro, this plan relies on your cooperation, without you, we might be able to somehow get into the city by scaling the walls, but not before we would have taken large losses leaving us with little to take out the defenders, and even less to deal with the captains and Kurokage himself"
Toshiro looked at Sakura "Toshiro, you don't need to do it if you don't want to"
"What are you saying Sakura!" Sasuke asked her
"Sasuke! Think about what you're asking him! It must already be hard enough for him to be here, let alone being asked to turn his back and betray his country"
"I…" Toshiro said stuttering
"It's alright Toshiro, I guess I should have thought about your own personal feelings regarding this plan, alright, we will have to think of another way of getting inside and opening the doors for our forces to…" but Shikamaru was cut off
"I will do it…" Toshiro finally said surprising everyone, especially Sakura
"What? Are you sure Toshiro? Don't feel like you have to do it" Sakura told him
"No, it's alright, I love my country, but I do not agree with the way Kurokage Sama has done things, we never should have invaded. I will do as you ask" He said looking at Shikamaru
"Are you sure about this?" Naruto asked him
"Positive" Toshiro said without hesitating
"Alright then, I guess the plan is back on" Shikamaru said with a smile, mostly because he was happy he didn't have to think of a new plan. It's not like he couldn't, but he was lazy and liked his first plan "Now then, once the gates are open we quickly storm inside taking out as many of their defenders as we can while they are still in a state of confusion. There are three captains that we will have to deal with, Toshiro, do you happen to know which ones will be there?"
"Urahara Kisuke the twelve division captain, Kuchiki Byakuya, the sixth division captain will be there as fighters, and Unohana Retsu, the fourth division captain, she is a medical ninja, the best in the night country"
"Leave me Kisuke" Sasuke said "I have some unfinished business with him, he is the one who killed Yamato a few years ago when we attacked a night supply convoy that we thought was lightly guarded" Sasuke said coldly, feeling responsible for his death
"Leave me the Medical Ninja" Sakura simply said "I want to show her what a leaf medical ninja can do and I have a lot of repressed anger to let out" she added
"I can take on Byakuya, he is very strong, perhaps the strongest next to me in the captains" Toshiro said
"Are you sure that you can turn your blade on your own people?" Itachi asked him
"I have already disobeyed orders, I am about to commit treason, there is no turning back from that. Plus, if we succeed it won't really matter" Toshiro simply said
"So that leaves me the Kurokage" Naruto said
"I will be with you as well Hokage Sama" Itachi said "If I can lock him into my Sharingan quickly enough, we might be able to send you back with few injuries"
"That's not how it works…" Toshiro suddenly said
"What?" Shikamaru asked
"Once Naruto is sent back, he will end up in the same condition he left that time period, he will find himself with the same injuries he had. Also, he won't remember anything that's happened here. After all, none of this will have ever happened in the first place, and if he does remember anything it will feel like a vague dream"
"In other words, he is going to leave exactly where he left off?" Sasuke asked
"Correct, so are you sure you want to go through with this?" Toshiro asked him
"Yes" Naruto said confident that he can defeat the Kurokage
"After all, the Kurokage himself will be weak, it was his last trump card, a final ditch attempt at winning against Naruto. Even with his injuries the Kurokage wouldn't even have the chakra he needed to stop Naruto" Itachi said, remembering how tired and weak the Kurokage was after his attack on Naruto
"Well then, it is agreed?" Shikamaru asked as everyone nodded
"I will return to Suna right away, it will take me most of the day to return. I should be ready to commence the attack at dawn tomorrow, is that acceptable?" he asked
"Yes, we will be ready on our end" Sasuke told him
"Gaara, be careful alright? Don't get yourself killed, I would hate for Suna to suffer if we were to fail…" Naruto said seriously to his friend
"I have no doubt that you will prevail Naruto, you are the Hokage of the leaf. And your fire glows brightly, no one can put it out. After all darkness is afraid of light" he said with a rare smile "Good Luck Naruto" he said as he got up and left, everyone else began to leave the room. But Sakura stayed behind with Naruto
"Naruto…" She said nervous about being alone with him after what she had done the day before "I want to say that I am sorry about the things I said yesterday. I mean I had twenty years to think about all of this, you had barely any time"
"It's alright Sakura Chan, I know that what you said makes sense, I still love you, but we are worlds apart now" he said sadly "That's why I must go back and reclaim my life and make things right. I want to see my own daughter as she is born into this world, I want to be able to hold her and teach her everything I know. I want to be able to be there for her, I want to pick her up when she falls down, I want to be the one who chasses off any of the male population that dares sets eyes on her…I want to be a real father Sakura Chan, and I want you back too…"
"I know Naruto… I also know that you will make a great father, I just hope that we don't lose you a second time" she said, not wanting to think about what would happen if Naruto were to be killed in this attack "Naruto, Naoto would like to talk to you, she wants to get to know her father. I know that it's pointless since once you return into the past none of this will have happened, but…"
"It's not pointless, at least not to me" he said with a smile "Let's go see her together" he said as Sakura nodded, holding back a tear of happiness as the two of them left the office to see their daughter together
End Chapter 39
So the plan is set, tomorrow at dawn, it begins