Chapter One: A Golden Morning
Naruto sighed tiredly. It had only been 2 years since the defeat of the Ten-Tails and already tensions were growing between the villages yet again. Sitting on the Hokage's desk in front of him was an angry letter from the Mizukage inquiring about a series of disappearances along the border between the lands of Water and Fire. He didn't even know how to answer; how was he supposed to know why these things were happening? He sighed again. He had to do something about this, before things got out of hand.
"Sasuke, what teams are available currently?" he asked his best friend and second-in-command.
"Um, currently? Team Eight, and several of the newer teams."
"We need a more experienced team; this is an S-ranked mission. We can't afford to send anyone less experienced for this one."
"Team Eight it is then. I'll send for them."
Naruto nodded his approval, and began writing a response back to the Mizukage. Halfway through, Team Eight walked in.
"You sent for us Naruto?" Hinata asked him.
Naruto looked up at his fiancée and her team members.
"Yes I did," he said, "I have a mission for you: S-rank."
"What are the details?" Kiba asked.
"Recently a village in the Land of Water near our border went dark; there's been no contact at all for the last 2 weeks. The Mizukage sent out 4 different teams to investigate what has happened, but since then none of them have been heard from. The only thing they ever got back was a heavily bloodstained note that was almost totally incomprehensible. The Mizukage is suspicious that Konoha is behind these occurrences."
"So now you're sending us to investigate?"
"Yes. You are to go to the village and find out what happened. However, this appears to be more dangerous than most missions, so you are to utilize extreme caution. Take absolutely no risks unless necessary. My preference would be that once within range, Hinata just use your Byakugan to scout the area without putting yourself in harm's way."
"Don't worry Naruto. You can count on us," Kiba assured him.
Naruto nodded at his friends.
"Good luck. Return the minute you discover what happened," he told them.
The members of Team Eight nodded, and took their leave. As they left the Hokage's office they began to discuss the details of their mission.
"I wonder what's causing these 'disappearances'," Kiba said.
"I don't know," Shino said, "but whatever it is, or whoever, they must be pretty powerful to take out 4 of the Hidden Mist's elite shinobi teams."
"Yeah, no kidding," Kiba nodded, "We'd better be real careful, cause I'd rather not tangle with whatever can do that. Luckily we can just have Akamaru sniff out any trouble before we run into it."
Hinata opened her mouth to assure her friend that they would be able to handle anything that they ran into, when a crash similar to that of a thunderstorm resounded overhead. Everybody in the entire city looked up at the cloudless sky; only it wasn't cloudless as it had been a minute ago. Hovering above Konoha was an ominously swirling, dark thundercloud; simply a big ball of cloud in the cloudless summer sky. It was a weird looking cloud at that too: a rotating flat disk of cloud that had thunder and lightning emanating from its unworldly, and impossible, depths.
"What is that?" Kiba wondered, a little unnerved.
Hinata immediately tried to use her Byakugan, but she couldn't see anything.
"I have no idea," she said, "whatever it is, my Byakugan isn't working on it. I can't even see it."
Back inside the Hokage's office, Naruto just finished up the letter to the Mizukage. He hoped Mei would believe that Konoha had nothing to do with these occurrences; after all, Konoha didn't exactly have the friendliest history with Kirigakure. And besides, it had only been 2 years since the last Shinobi World War; wasn't everybody tired of fighting? He was quickly shaken from his reverie when Shikamaru burst into the room.
"Naruto! You need to come outside right away!" his chief strategist told him urgently.
"What is it?" Naruto got up and followed Shikamaru out of the room.
"No idea," he replied, "This cloud thing appeared out of nowhere above the village. You need to see this for yourself."
Naruto and Shikamaru quickly made it to the Hokage Building rooftop, and looked at the swirling disk of cloud. Naruto gazed up at the phenomenon, watching the flashes of lighting from within its impossible depths.
'How could there be lightning in there?' Naruto wondered silently, 'It's just a vertical, circular disk of cloud; there's nowhere for the lightning to be.'
"What is that thing?" he asked out loud.
"No idea," a voice said behind him.
Naruto's sensei, Kakashi, had silently joined them on the rooftop.
"No visual jutsu can see into it, and there's nothing to explain its occurrence," he continued, "It just appeared randomly, and neither the Hyuuga's Byakugan or my Sharingan can see it at all."
Naruto was just about to ask another question when an even louder thunderclap followed a particularly bright flash of lightning. Naruto looked up at the disk again, just in time.
A great golden ….. thing, was suddenly appearing out of the disk's side. This was impossible though, considering the disk wasn't even a meter thick. As he watched, the golden object continued to emerge from the cloud, revealing it to be made of metal. Curved, with lots of lights all around it; it was the most outlandish thing Naruto had ever seen. As it went overhead, he noticed uniform rectangular holes in the object's side, though what they were for he hadn't the faintest idea. There were also other holes too, but these were definitely not the same; these were massive tears in the object's metal skin. Whatever the thing was, it was clearly damaged. The great metal thing flew overhead, casting Konoha in its immense shadow. Finally, the thing flew completely over, and Naruto noticed blue flames coming out of several large openings in the object's back.
The object soared over Konoha, right over the Hokage monument, and out of sight. But they all heard (and felt) the resounding crash that occurred soon afterwards. Every shinobi in the village stared in open-mouthed shock. As one, everybody started heading towards the Hokage Monument to see what the heck just happened. At the top, they all stared at what used to be a nice perfectly green forest. Now, there was a massive mile-long crater dragging across the ground away from the village. Whatever the thing was, it was colossal; big enough to make a trench at least 90 ft deep and a couple hundred feet wide.
Cautiously, everybody followed the large trench, Naruto in front. Through the trees they saw the great hulking metal thing settling in the large crater it created on impact. Smoke trickled out of many of the massive tears in the object.
"Get everyone back to the village as quickly as you can," Naruto ordered Sasuke and Shikamaru, "And recall Team Eight; they now have a new mission."