Naruto: Repair

Naruto stood up and groaned, stretching as his back clicked and muscles protested after being locked in position for so long. Almost a third of the village's active shinobi forces had been killed or seriously injured in the invasion and a sizeable chunk of the village's infrastructure had been damaged beyond repair or outright destroyed. Many civilians had also died, but thanks to the up-to-date evacuation protocols those deaths were far fewer than they could have been; less civilians had died than ninja which, considering how outnumbered the ninja were, was fairly incredible.

Since the village could not afford to show weakness missions could not be turned down, so Konoha's surviving military forces had been placed on emergency footing by the Konoha Council: Genin teams were being sent on D-rank missions around the village without their jounin-sensei, who in turn were dispatched on higher ranking missions. Most of the Academy-s chunnin-sensei had also been temporarily reassigned to the active mission roster and had been replaced by injured or retired nin who were too badly off to return to more active duty.

Similarly, the D-ranks the genin were carrying out around the village were not the usual babysitting or gardening jobs that supposedly built teamwork; instead they were digging bodies out of the rubble, demolishing badly damaged buildings and clearing space so reconstruction could begin. At least, that was what most of the rookies were doing. Everyone with even a smattering of medical training had been pressed into service at the hospital to speed the recovery of the injured and the rookie kunoichi had been included in assisting their more capable peers and more experienced genin with certain specialisations were being pressed into service in all sorts of different areas.

Naruto himself had been cornered by Morino Ibiki and introduced to Konoha's Kekkai-han, who were in charge of maintaining the complex web of seals embedded in both the village's walls and its environs to detect and intercept intruders. Unfortunately for the village the seals hadn't been significantly altered since the time of the Shodaime, which was how Orochimaru and his forces had been able to bypass those systems that were actually active during the exams; Orochimaru had been highly placed in the village hierachy before going rogue. That a large proportion of the perimeter seals hadn't even been active was the reason why Orochimaru's summons had been able to break down the village wall in the first place; from what Naruto could see, if they had all been active the invasion would have failed before it even got started. To make it even more difficult for the village, the vast majority of the matrix was Uzumaki clan fuuinjutsu and therefore largely indecipherable to anyone who didn't have access to said clan's sealing manuals. Naruto had only just started the sixth book in the sixteen-volume series and was having enough difficulties as it was.

The Kekkai-han had allowed Naruto to access their archives and the blond had spent the past four days meticulously going over the overlapping and inter-connected matrices supposedly intrinsic to the village walls as thoroughly as he could, though in all honesty he could only identify about half of what he was seeing. Uzumaki Mito had most definitely been an inspired Fuuinjutsu master and Naruto was only just approaching journeyman level.

However Naruto did not need to understand the intricacies of the seals to reproduce them, which was all he was being asked to do. Rolling up his latest scroll of notes as well as his copy of the fragile archive original, the blond Uzumaki pocketed both alongside the rest of his gear and left the archive in search of Hyuuga Kou. Though not normally a member of the Kekkai-han, the spiky-haired clansman had been assigned to assist after the invasion and wound up supervising Naruto's movements outside the archive whenever the genin was transporting 'privileged documentation', which was most of the time considering what he was working on. Naruto got on fairly well with the shinobi who he remembered being Hinata's bodyguard while she attended the Academy; the branch house member had warmed up rather more to the jinchuuriki since he graduated. Which was likely due to the increased skill and professionalism Naruto had shown since getting his hitai-ite, but life was like that sometimes.

On being found and informed that Naruto was finally prepared enough to be able to carry out an examination of the seals on the damaged sections of wall the Hyuuga led the blond teen out of the building and towards the nearest breach in the village's physical defences. As they hurried over the rooftops –not as easy a matter as it had been even one week previously– Naruto reflected on all that had happened since the end of the invasion.

Baki, the kazekage's children's sensei, had been unsealed and permitted to return to Suna, albeit with a short document demanding total capitulation and an explanation for their treacherous behaviour. The jounin had also been informed that Orochimaru had been masquerading as the kazekage, which had rattled the suna-nin's composure and sped him on his way.

Temari, Kankurou and Gaara were currently living in apartments in Naruto's building at the expense of the village. This was a compromise, as it would have been undiplomatic for them to be detained in any of Konoha's cell blocks –which were rather full at the moment anyway– and in the current climate none of the clans were prepared to host them. Other than Ame-kaa-san, but it had been decided the Hatake estate was 'insufficiently secure', which was ridiculous and clearly a political decision as it was highly secure. Possibly the problem was that it was too secure. However as Naruto was the only person in the village other than Ame-kaa-san Gaara actually respected and the blond jinchuuriki's apartment building was now inhabited entirely by ninja of varying ranks and backgrounds whose homes had been flattened during the invasion, the three foreign genin had been placed there. This ensured the trio had discreet supervision at all times and were being permitted to assist in clearing rubble and rebuilding in the civilian sections of the village. Kankurou's puppetry skills made him very popular, as did Gaara's ability to lift heavy objects with his sand. The redhead was gradually blossoming under the friendly attention of those specially selected to supervise him around the village and starting to show more of his human side.

On arriving at the breach in the village wall that the snake summons had made Naruto took a few seconds to gawk at the destruction before hopping down to ground level to talk to the guards.

"Big hole, huh," said Namiashi Raidou from over to the blond genin's right. The special jounin had been badly injured during the invasion and was restricted to light duty for another two weeks, which in this case included supervising the village's youngest fuuinjutsu specialist to ensure the short blond didn't do anything stupid.

"Really, really big hole," Naruto agreed, scratching the back of his neck with one hand. "Where do I need to go again?"

The tokubetsu jounin's lips twitched ever so slightly as he turned and walked stiffly towards the left-hand side of the breach. "This way, Uzumaki-kun."

Naruto followed behind, one eye on the rubble and splintered beams that marked where the summons had rampaged. Kuchiyose battle techniques were definitely not suited to usage in enclosed areas.

"Here," Raidou said, stopping underneath a small porch cut into the side of a guard tower. "It's your show from here, Uzumaki-kun. Try not to do anything rash."

"Call me Naruto, Raidou-san," the blond said cheerfully as he moved closer to the seal etched into the back wall of the little alcove. "I'm not so old and boring as to insist on all that formal shtick." He did not pay much attention to the tokubetsu jounin's reply, being more interested in what was in front of him. Cutting a finger on one of his kunai, Naruto smeared his blood over the design on the wall, placed his palms in the designated spaced and channelled chakra.

Then the world lit up.

Oooh, shiny. A viewing seal: I never would have guessed that so much of Konoha was built of fuuinjutsu. A shame nobody else seemed to know either, or more of it would be active; there're all sorts of useful bits and bobs here. Fixing the wall won't be too difficult, if rather tedious and energy-consuming: the replication seals twined around the reinforcement and absorption matrices in rigid sequences throughout the wall will ensure everything is properly replaced just as before once there's an actual surface for the seals to be written on.

"Naruto!"

The blond resurfaced, blinking as the real world slid back into focus around him. "Wha?"

Raido's lips twitched again, the scar across his left check shifting slightly. "You've been staring into space for a quarter of an hour, Naruto-san."

"Really?" He hadn't thought it had been that long. Never mind; if the work teams replace the logs at the wall's core I can propagate the seals onto them from both sides, though I'll be useless for a day afterwards. The blond said as much as he backed out of the alcove to take another look at the gaping hole in the village's defences. "Luckily the seals were designed with repair in mind or I'd have to redraw this entire section of the array, which would take me weeks rather than just days." Naruto paused. "Raido-san? D'you know if they just want me to fix what's broken or activate some of the dormant arrays as well? If half of what's written in here had been up and running than Konoha wouldn't have taken half as much damage; there's actually a specific set of matrices to guard against summons, which would have been pretty handy last week!"

"What sort of arrays are there other than the anti-summon one?" the tokubetsu jounin asked.

"All sorts," Naruto said promptly, waving his brush enthusiastically in between jotting down notes. "Reinforcement arrays, additional barrier matrices, even this nifty set of keying seals that lock onto Konoha-made hitai-ite so only enemy ninja get caught in the trap arrays. I'd been wondering what the passive matrix etched on the back of everyone's hitai-ite was for." He paused thoughtfully, nibbling the end of his brush. "Then again, since it's all Uzumaki fuuinjutsu I'm not surprised it's all dormant: there's been nobody capable of maintaining it living in the village for over a decade so it's all shut itself down."

"Uzumaki fuuinjutsu?" Raidou repeated musingly.

"Uh-huh!" Naruto nodded fiercely. "Mito-dono's work, I'd bet you anything; the Shodaime's wife, y'know? She was absolutely awesome. Had all these neat ideas about living seals, which I guess is what most of these are. Totally cool, by the way. I'm gonna have to work harder on my reading if I ever want to achieve anything on this level myself."

"I'll take your word for it, Naruto-kun," the tokubetsu jounin said equitably. "I will see to it you are sent for once the wall has been replaced, by which point the Council should have decided which arrays they want you to activate. You'll likely be summoned to explain the matter to them in person before then, so be prepared for that," he added, "but in the meantime I suggest you head back to the missions office to see which of the construction crews could use your assistance."

"Hai, hai," Naruto agreed, handing over his sealed notes to his Hyuuga shadow before bounding off towards the hokage's tower. "Good luck with the old geezers!"

Notes

Kekkai-han = barrier team; translates literally as 'restricted access/force field/barrier squad'.

A/N: Naruto's skills get him dragged into a more specialised part of the post-invasion workforce and he gets a glimpse of what makes fuuinjutsu so amazing. The 'new hokage' arc will be highly AU considering Itachi has defected and back to Konoha and Naruto hasn't signed the Toad contract, meaning he is not actually Jiraya's apprentice at all yet. Namiashi Raidou was the hokage's bodyguard during the third exam and was last seen slumped in front of an artistic blood spatter as Orochimaru removed the Sandaime from the kage's box, hence his injuries. He also knows exactly who Naruto is and who his parents were, hence his rather laid-back attitude and largely unquestioning acceptance of the blond's competence.