Chapter 53 Building a Future Part 1
"You jumped out of a WINDOW!" yelled Karin at the top of her lungs as a shirtless Sasuke sat in the ballroom of a hotel which had been acquired as a makeshift field hospital. Sasuke tried not to roll his eyes as Karin went on about what big of a risk it was.
"I only broke my arm." rebutted Sasuke as Sakura worked on healing the broken arm "I have had worst."
"On top of that you have dozens of smaller cuts and the Aldhard cloak was ripped to pieces, if it wasn't for that you would be dead." Countered Karin as she looked at the Aldhard cloak which looked as if tigers had gone at it.
"I am sorry that the cloths are destroyed, I know you spent a lot on them but…" started Sasuke in a caring voice which was uncharacteristic for him.
"I don't care about the damn cloths…if you would have died then you would have left the three of us alone." stated Karin as Sasuke, Sakura and the others who were gathered around blinked at Karin's statement.
"What? Three?" asked Sasuke confused as Karin cursed.
"Before we left Tamaki told me she is pregnant, damn it she wanted to tell you herself once we got home." Explained Karin as Sasuke simply blinked as if he could not process the information. He had trained under some of the most deadly ninjas ever to walk the earth but this simple news caused his mind to go blank.
"Pregnant?" asked Sasuke
"Yes." confirmed Karin as Sasuke's brain finally started to come to grips with the information "You're going to be a father."
"Sasuke a father what a scary though." laughed Naruto as he stood back with Hinata waiting for Sakura to finish healing him. Naruto had gotten a few cuts himself and a bruised rib which was nothing he wasn't used to.
"Don't worry your time will come soon enough." said Hinata as Naruto blinked at her statement.
"Think about it this way Naruto-kun, Sasuke is going to be a father and he has two women and you have three women all of whom are using ferity Justus." added Sakura knowing in the hospital that keeping some of the medical ferity herbs stock was hard. "Also people have to plan when they want kids, we have a war likely in a couple of years and pregnancy in war is not the best idea."
The first rays of sunlight was rising over the Land of Animals capital as almost 20,000 men lined up in formation, all of them where dressed for battle with companies of swordsmen, spearmen and archers all lined up. Multiple banners all flapped in the wind, these banners would have been used to inform the officers where each unit was on the battlefield but they had a different propose. The banners where all different colors most of them where former knight houses which had bowed to the samurai control. There was even samurai clans who were not as ready to die for honor in a suicide attack as some of the other samurai clans.
Up on the walls thousands of archers stood waiting with arrows waiting to fly at the first sign of trouble, lined up below the wall in their best armor shinned to mirror finishes where the knights of the Golden Phoenixes, Black Ravens and the White Ravens. The only figure not dressed in heavy armor was Naruto and that was because the bruised rib he got from the night before would make breathing in armor hard.
"It's time." said Naruto as he held his side as the two knightly leader dressed in their finniest armor and the Lady commander moved forward.
"You men are all traitors and if you will be punished." yelled the older commander of the Black Raven's Lord Carac as he marched his black stallion back and forth in front of the lead ranks with a sword out and his black armor shinning in the sun. "However you will keep your lives."
Behind the old warrior, the two younger leaders rolled their eyes at the way Lord Carac was talking to the surrendering army.
"You will be given a chance to rebuild your honor by servings the new government whoever is ruling that." explained Lord Carac before turning toward Lady Azo of the White Ravens who was dressed in light blue on a white horse and Sir Drake Eastman of the Golden Phoenix in his Golden armor on a red stallion. "We have decided that a duel of champions between the three rulers will decide who God has decided to rule over the Land of Animals."
"So Lord Carac have you decided a Champion?" inquired Lady Azo
"I will trust no man other then myself win me the right to rule." stated Lord Carac "Where is your champion Lady Azo."
"Right beside me." said Lady Azo as she gestured toward Sir Drake Eastman. Lord Carac eyes widened as Sir Drake Eastman grinned.
"That is right old man, Lady Azo and I have come to an arrangement when I beat you. I will serve as her right hand and husband however any children we have will have her family name." explained Drake "Seems to be a fair arrangement, my younger brothers will carry our family name instead of myself."
"Not when I beat you, first to be thrown from the saddle loses." grumbled Lord Carac as he raised his hand up and pulled down his visor over his helmet before calling for a lance.
"You old war dog." said Drake as he lowered his own visor before grabbing a long lance from a squire who had rushed forward to offer his lord the weapon.
"Well this should be interesting." explained the Kyuubi
The two knights moved off from each other before charging toward each other in a mad gallop, the two knights each hit each other shields with devastating blows, Naruto actually flinched a bit from the surprising strong blow which sent shards of wood flying as the two Knights struggled to remaining in the saddle. The two knights remained seated but left broken lances on the ground
"Interesting, they put their whole body and all that armor behind their strikes. I wonder what would happen if they hit a formation of ninjas." noted Naruto "Problem is that ninjas will be able to use trees and any other cover to get out of the way."
"So they need open ground to be used correctly, luckily the land of Savannah is nothing but open grasslands." added Kyuubi as the Knights got new lances and charged again this time Lord Carac's blow missed Drake's shield. He fell from the saddle and landed flat on his back while Drake spun his horse around, lifting the lance up in the air in victory.
"That was kind of anti-climactic." complained a nearby Knight as Lady Azo moved forward on her own horse.
"Damn it." cursed Lord Carac as he got up and turned toward the man who had beaten him before going down on one knee. "The day is yours. Fate has choice you two to rule, may you rule with justice and wisdom."
At the same time the surrendering army of samurai and the commanded army of the Golden Phoenixes, Black and White Raven all dipped the banners a sign of submission to their new ruler.
A few hundred yards away Shino stood watching the whole thing with a slight smile hidden under his high jacket collar.
"Those fools actually think that fate had a role." noted the spymaster Shino as adjusted his sunglasses.
"And our foolish leaders wanted to actually have a fair fight." grumbled the old demon spymaster Hoshea.
"Naruto is a realist but he would have wanted it to be fair and the ruler of the nation directly next door was something that couldn't be risked." explained Shino "Naruto has an over inflated sense of honor in that way but not many would have agreed with what we did."
"Which is why it is up to us to do the actions behind the scene to do the things that need to be done." reinforced Hoshea. "It was all too easy, a small amount of a sleep depriving agent delivered by bug bite to deprive Lord Carac of sleep and some reaction slowing agents for the horse for good measure."
"Well now we can turn all our attention to the real task of preparing for the true war." stated Shino as he conversed with Hoshea as if the two of them where discussing things around a conference table. "We should pick Sasuke's mind for information, he may have links to some of the missing ninjas which could be useful."
"Agreed we may also need to look into setting up networks in key cities for when war breaks out to carry out operation." added Hoshea "We need to make a list, the Shadow Swords may be key in helping us there."
"Agree." stated Shino as he turned to see Hinata walking toward him.
"Shino you hungry?" inquired his old teammate
"I could eat." confirmed Shino all the while keeping his true thoughts a mask.
While her older sister was heading toward a meal with an old friend, Hanabi Hyuga the Hokage of the Village hidden in the Leaf stepped over broken glass and dried blood. She had spent hours heading toward the private mountain top ski resort, which was the winter playground of the Daimyo of the land of fire. Lying in the living room on top of the black bear pelt where seven black body bags.
"Lady Hokage." said a Daimyo guard as he walked up to the young Hokage.
"What happened?" ordered Hanabi
"The Fire Daimyo was hosting the Lightening Daimyo for a weeklong conference." explained the guard as Hanabi eyes narrowed at the man "Ok, it was more of a party then a conference."
"Let me guest it was one of those parties?" asked Hanabi as she looked toward one of the bodies bags seeing a woman about her age dressed in a perverted version of a ninja outfit with a jonnin vest barely able to fit over her breasts. Her entire body was peppered with shrapnel. "A Stripper?"
"Yes, there were some…entertainment." Explained the guard "I was out back at the time but two strippers where guided through the main checkpoint and lead toward the back room where the two Daimyo where waiting."
"And one wasn't a stripper?" inquired Hanabi as she looked down the hallway, the hallway was covered with black marks a clear sign of a blast.
"Yes, one was a ninja and it was only with some luck that the Lightening Daimyo wasn't killed." reported the guard "He picked the other stripper and from what gathered she cut the fire Daimyo's throat and tried to get to the Lightening Daimyo. His guards got him out of the room and seeing that she couldn't get to him with a blade she blew herself up with explosive tags."
"So the simple fact that two old man couldn't keep it in their pants we have seven people died?" snapped Hanabi
"Eight, we haven't found the remains of the suicide bomber." explained the guard
"So it may not have even had been a suicide, a shadow clone could easily blow themselves up." stated Hanabi
"Didn't you check them for weapons?" inquired a leaf ninja ANBU who had traveled with the Hokage.
"They were late and the Daimyo's didn't want to wait." defended the Guard "Besides they were only strippers."
"And one stripper killed the most powerful man in the world and almost killed another." cursed Hanabi "You are all fucking idiots."
"We did our job." defended the guard
"And now because you did your job it has scared all the Daimyo's shitless." cursed Hanabi remembering the late night phone calls which had come to her from all the major Daimyos. The unnatural death of one of their own and the narrow escape on a second meant they could not ignore the civil war in lightening country anymore. It did not matter to them if thousands of regular people died what mattered was that one of their own died. Which meant it had to come to an end and since the Land of Fire was nearest to the land of Lightening and the fact that their Daimyo was killed meant most of the duty fell on the Leaf village and maybe the Mist since they were the nearest to lightening country.
While Hanabi was seeing it first hand down in the Land of Granite, Ino was on a conference call with the other middle to lower level Daimyos. All in all that meant that there was fifteen of them sharing the line most of them came from medium sized nations which either had a small ninja village or none at all. There had not been time to arrange the normal video conference, which Ino was happy for that since that meant she did not have to deal with hiding her face.
"So they were having some strippers over for fun and one was a suicide bomber?" inquired the Daimyo of the Land of Forests.
"So we have been told," confirmed another older male voice which Ino recognized as belonging to the elderly Daimyo of the Land of Stone. She was the only woman on the line and aside from Priestess ruler of the Land of Demons she was only other female who ran a whole nation.
"Should we increase our own security?" inquired Ino knowing that there was no need for her to do it but asked anyhow.
"I plan to hire a few of those missing ninjas which roam the country side since the end of the last war." stated the Daimyo of the Land of Ice who was aside from Ino the youngest Daimyo at 43.
"Same here, I heard of a group of them operating as bandits on the boarder of River and Swamp country." Said another Daimyo, Ino didn't recognize who.
"That is correct." Confirmed the Swamp Daimyo "We keep trying to find the head bandit he wields a huge sword which should make him stand out but he has an ability to turn into water which makes it very difficult."
"Turn into water?" thought Ino as she tried to think of a person who could turn into water and had a huge sword "That can't be he was killed."
"Maybe inquire a ninja nation to assist you?" offered up another Daimyo
"The group have only attacked a handful of cargo ships and while a bother isn't worth the cost of ninjas to go after them. They are more trouble for the local villagers then me." confirmed the Swamp Daimyo "Maybe later if they cause some more harm I will consider it."
"Either way we need to discuss how we are going to defend ourselves from any attacks on ourselves," stated another Daimyo as they went on to discuss how they would protect themselves from the same fate of the fire daimyo. Ino was not playing much attention to it since the security was the man and women of her ninja core and home defense force.
Miles away over the towering black mountains but before crossing the straights Tenten stood in her office overlooking the factory floor. From her point of view she could see the giant blast furnace siting over the black fires which was the key to their ability to produce Aldhard so fast and cheaply. Just over a year ago, she was looking forward to taking an active role in her parent's weapons shop and planning her wedding day to Neji, then how she would help him guide the Hyuuga clan. Now she was in charge of three factories turning out Aldhard products as well as help Neji start a new Hyuuga clan in the lands of Granite.
The second Aldhard factory was located by the harbor and was primary focused on building the city walls of Nedeji and the defenses around Black Spear Point. The third and newest factory was going to be used solely to make the defensive wall at Black Snake pass. That only left the main factory located across the straights on the island. The original plan for this factory was to make the walls for Shimagakure and building the bridge. However now the walls where almost done and they had made enough Aldhard steel beams for the bridge. Now it was time for the this factory to turn to another goal, making weapons on an industrial scale.
"Are you sure this will work?" inquired Tenten to the demon cheetah who was now a part of her, the former head of the mineralogy survey in the demon nation, Dee.
"Should Aldhard works on the same principle as steel so pouring it into molds should be fine." explained Dee as the sound of grinding gears caused both of them to stop talking, before them a giant pot of boiling Aldhard was being lowered toward a large slab of metal. The metal slab was about twenty-five feet long but only five feet wide and eighteen inches deep. Running down the length of the slab where fifty holes for a total of a hundred. Each of those holes led to a perfectly formed mold of a kunai, she knew from the test samples that 48 out of 50 kunai would come out perfectly formed and ready for combat.
Others have tried making kunai and other weapons using molds but what came out was not worth the metal that it was made out of. With Aldhard weapons the equal of almost anything that came out of here family weapon shop in the Leaf was possible on a scale never thought possible.
"How many kunai can we get out in a day?" inquired an aid as Tenten turned her head to look at the young woman who worked directly under her.
"The molds have to harden over the course of about a day but we can pour a whole mold in about fifteen minutes," stated Tenten to the aid as she ran though the numbers in her head. "Best case we can pour 400 kunai in an hour."
"And the other things?" inquired an aid
"The larger the item the more space they take up in the mold, so a mold about this size only has forty katanas but if the weapon is smaller like needles we can fit almost two hundred, four hundred if we are making arrow heads." Explained Tenten as she tried to wrap her mind around how much weapons they could pump out in the three years between today and the meeting of the Daimyos. That meeting was when they would likely be discovered and when the five great ninja nations plus the samurai launches a war against them.
It was getting late as Naruto stepped onto the last ship leaving the capital of the Land of Animals, all throughout the day the same assault ships which had dropped off them where taking them back out to sea. Once at sea, his ninjas would re-embark on the same ocean going ships which would take them back to their home in the Land of Granite. Naruto had insisted on being the last person to leave the beach he had stayed just long enough to witness the crowning of their new Queen and her consort/King as the joint rulers of the now reunited land of Animals.
They had offered a bed in the castle but he was so tired that he could have slept standing up and would rather be on his way back home.
"Welcome back onboard sir." greeted a Sea Dragon deck crew member.
"Thanks for the lift." Thanked Naruto as he walked up toward his cabin. He knew the way and quickly entered his small cabin, it wasn't much just a large bed with a sitting table and it's own bathroom. Naruto did not even take off his shoes or any of his cloths, he just flopped face down onto the bed and was fast asleep before he even hit the pillow. Minutes later the door opened as Sakura and Hinata walked in carrying a plat covered with fruit.
"Naruto-kun." Said Hinata playfully as she walked into the room only to see Naruto passed out slightly snoring into his pillow. Instantly a look of disappointment swept across Hinata's face as Sakura placed the bottle of wine down on the table.
"I should have guessed he would be asleep," explained Sakura as she poured two glasses of wine leaving one empty. "Still might as well enjoy a drink or two."
Hinata shock her head as she sat down and picked up her drink.
"I feel your pain as well." confirmed Sakura as she picked up a piece of fruit and took a bite of the orange while Hinata took a grape.
"Not as much, you had him all to yourself on the way here," stated Hinata as Sakura rolled her eyes a bit. "Don't roll your eyes at me."
"Sorry…I didn't mean to." apologized Sakura "It is just neither one of us really had much time on the way here. Burden of command and all."
"I shouldn't have snapped at you." confirmed Hinata as the two of them kept talking and drinking, soon the bottle was almost gone.
"You know I saw that horse you had loaded, beautiful animal," said Sakura
"I always loved to ride but after my mother died I never really had a chance." explained Hinata "I want to teach any children Naruto-kun has with any of us how to ride."
"You have no complaints here," laughed Sakura "However Naruto-kun isn't a big fan of riding."
"And who said he is going to have a choice." stated Hinata with a rare grin as both of them broke out laughing even as the ship headed ever closer to home.
Well I hope you liked this chapter, the next chapter should come out a lot sooner. A have a time skip with flashback planned in the next two or three chapters. Now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.