Chapter 78 Darkest Night
The land of fire was famous for the woods; the thick forests covered most of the country and with most of the ninja force down in the south the village was man mostly by the very young and the very old. There was a handful of veteran ninjas in the village but most of them where either recovering from wounds or had been captured in the past. With his daughter in the south the leadership of the village fell to the head of the village council Haishi Hyuuga.
"We need to start doing more missions," pleaded another council member "Our gold suppy is getting dangerous low."
"How do you recommend that we do that?" inquired Haishi "Our best ninjas are required for the war effort and that leaves only those with limited skills for missions. Unless you think genin are capable of taking on a group of missing ninjas attacking caravans?"
"Maybe we can spare some of the ninjas from the war to do the missions?" inquired another Council member.
"Good luck trying to get the Daimyo to agree to let them go." stated another Council Member "They don't have to worry about where their money comes from, as long as farmers are in the field and the factories are still producing items he gets money. Same with the other daimyos but without money from missions then we have to take out loans to pay for our ninjas."
"How much do we need to take out for six more months?" inquired Haishi.
"Millions." answered another council member "I don't have a number."
"Well I need that number if I am going to go get the loans from the Sound Bank." Snapped Haishi as the other council members looked at the elder Hyuuga. He looked tired, as he should since this meeting was taking place after sunset and a full day of meetings. "Sorry, I shouldn't have snapped."
"It has been a long day Haishi, maybe we should take this up in the morning when we can give you a number." offered a council member as Haishi looked around the table, everyone was nodding their head.
"Very well, let's meet at 10 tomorrow morning." confirmed Haishi as he and the other council members stood up and left the chamber. Within half an hour the red Hokage building was all but empty, the only people in the building where either the cleaning staff or those standing post in the commination center.
The commination center was nothing more than a large room with multiple radios and phone lines.
"Still nothing from Nasub?" inquired the young Jonnin who was in charge of the night shift.
"None sir, but we have gotten some reports of wildfire in the area around the area." offered an even younger Chunnin "It could be that the telephone lines have been cut by the fire."
"That explained the telephones but what about the radios?" inquired the Jonnin
"Not sure but if something bad was going on wouldn't they have reported in?" countered the Chunnin "Besides our enemies are thousands of miles away from us, we have nothing to worry about."
At that moment, the Western most gate had just been closed for the night sealing the village off from the outside world. The village had four main gates, one in each of the primarily directions North, South, East and West. All those gates had the major roads leading out of them and they where sealed every night at 9:30 pm and opened again at 5:30 am. Only a jonin or higher rank could open the gate, with it sealed it was believed that no one could bust it down before the ninjas on the massive walls destroyed them.
"So another cool night." said a twelve year old genin as he stood on top of the massive wall beside an equally as young female genin. "Maybe we will have to get closer to stay warm."
"Not a chance." snapped the girl as they prepared to move off on patrol. They had their eyes out scanning the woods and none of them had their eyes on the back staircase, which lead up to the wall. Suddenly a figure stepped out in front of them.
"Who the hell is that?" inquired the twelve year old female genin as she looked at the tall figure dressed in black with a long jacket. His jacket was just as black as his hair but it was highlighted with red. Two swords hung from his hips and as he turned to look at the two genin they saw that he had a black jonin vest under his jacket.
"Buddy why are you here?" yelled the male genin as the man closed his eyes for a moment.
"I swear I think the younger generation is just stupid." stated the man as the girl grabbed the boys hand.
"Look at his armband," ordered the girl "He is from the Land of Granite."
"Finally." said the man "Now radio for backup already, I have a schedule to keep."
"Why we can take on one man," said the boy
"And we have reached a new level of stupidity, one I didn't even think was possible." said the man
"You where stupid for coming here alone." laughed the boy as he pulled his kunai, the man rolled his eyes as he pulled one of his long slightly curved swords.
"Believe me boy showing off to a girl isn't worth the price." Said the man as the young leaf ninja rushed forward with the kunai pointed straight out. With a strange and beautiful grace the man sidestepped the attack with ease before bring the sword blade down. The blade cut through skin and bone as the sword took off the entire right hand of the twelve-year-old boy from the wrist down. A blood curtly scream filled the air as the man raised his sword up and brought it down on the back of the boy's neck.
"NO!" yelled the girl until she noticed that the boy still had his head. He had hit the boy with the flat of his blade.
"Now call for backup or I will kill him. Tell them you spotted a spy trying to get in." ordered the man as the girl reached for her radio.
"Single Enemy contact, enemy on top of the western wall section H-9, need back up. Ninja down possible spy." said the girl shaking.
"Good girl." said the man "For that you can put a wrap on his arm."
The girl rushed forward undoing her ninja headband and wrapping it around her teammate's arm as she tried to stop the bleeding.
"If you know any fire justus I would use it on the stump, it will stop the bleeding," offered the man as he turned his gaze toward the inner part of the village. He could see ninjas rushing out of hidden positions and heading straight toward him.
"Who…who are you?" inquired the girl
"Sasuke Uchiha," answered the man as his eyes turned red with three red commas.
Thousands of miles away from the walls of the Leaf village in the middle of the camp which had become the home of a large force of knights and ninjas. Naruto sat by the flames watching the top of the fire dance as the light cast shadows along the walls of the nearby tent. He said nothing as he looked into those flames, for a moment, he thought he could see the leaf village in the flames.
"Naruto-kun?" inquired Sakura as Naruto looked up from the flames to see his teammate and his first wife standing across from him. Beside her was Hinata both of them looked at the man they loved who looked more depressed than any other time they had seen him.
"Tell me something, which is worse Sasuke or me?" inquired Naruto as both Namikaze women blinked at the question.
"How could you even ask that, Sasuke is a sociopath you are not." countered Sakura
"I know." confirmed Naruto "And I unleased him on undefended villages."
"Enemy villages and you did give him rules to follow." countered Hinata as Naruto laughed a bit which caused Hinata's eyes to narrow a little.
"Sorry Hinata-chan but this is Sasuke. I may have given him some rules but he will find ways around them," explained Naruto as he thought about it. "On some levels I believe I actually gave him loose orders so that he could do what I couldn't."
"Naruto-kun you shouldn't think that way." offered Hinata
"I know, but I already know how this war will end and I know what the history books will say about Sasuke and myself," explained Naruto as he tossed a log onto the fire. "Sasuke will go down as the a monster who unleashed horror upon the people of the Northern nation, however in truth I will kill more people but on the battlefield."
"Naruto-kun, you why don't we head to bed and maybe after a nights rest you will feel better about this," offered Sakura
"Sakura-chan, you and Hinata-chan don't seem to understand I am not depressed about what I have done but I am depressed because of the fact that I am not depressed about what I have done." explained Naruto "What does that mean when I don't care about the horrors I unleashed, that is it what is really concerning to me."
Back in the Leaf village, the word had gone out and the ninja core was rushing toward the wall. They expected a quick fight so they did not sound the alarm for the public. In fact if this was a spy they expected the man to be running. The front ranks stopped suddenly as they came into view of the wall. There standing on the top right above the door was a single figure.
"So he didn't run," laughed a jonin as red demon chakra began gathering around the man's hand. They all watched in amazement as that chakra turned into red lightening before shooting straight up into the sky.
"What did he do?" inquired another Jonnin, suddenly the sky was filled with lightening only instead of white, it was red. The lightening was followed up by a giant storm so strong that it sent some of the ninjas flying.
"Who the hell is that!" yelled an ANBU as another raised a pair of binoculars up to his mask. Below the mask his eyes widened as he looked into the sharingan eyes, that could only belong to one person.
"Sasuke Uchiha!" yelled the second ANBU
"WHAT!" yelled the first ANBU in fear as another ball of red chakra gathered around Sasuke's hand. There wasn't time to say another word as the second ball of red demon chakra shot up into the sky as the red lightening picked up in strength and intensity flooding the village with a red light. Then as suddenly as it had appeared, it stopped. For a moment there was nothing, not even a sound could be heard it was as if every living thing was holding its breath. They expected something to happen but instead of a justu coming down from the sky, Sasuke drew both of his swords.
"What is he doing?" inquired the second ANBU as two red lightening bolts hit the tips of the swords, instantly swords became covered with red lightening from tip to hilt. Sasuke jumped off the top of the wall landing on top of one of the taller buildings built next to the wall.
"Get him!" yelled someone as the ninja force rushed forward. Sasuke grinned as he ran forward and he swung his sword in the air sending multiple red chodiri needles out. The needles flew out impacting multiple ninjas before exploding. For a second there was no red lightening on Sasuke's swords, however it was only a moment then a another lightning bolt hit the blades recovering them.
"What the?" inquired an Anbu as Sasuke cut into a jonnin, along with the traditional burn from lightening Justus the jonnin's vest caught on fire. This happened multiple times over as Sasuke worked his way through the ninja core of the Leaf village. It was not a fair fight, not even close in fact it was one sided as putting an unarmed gennin in a training field against a kage, maybe even more one sided since unlike a Kage Sasuke was showing no mercy.
Outside the village sitting in formation on the three other major roads where the three columns of knights and ninjas which had left marched North to the Leaf village undetected. They knew what the sign to attack would be and it was impossible to miss the red lightning storm in the sky.
"Attack!" yelled the knight who was in charge of each of the columns. With that, the three columns took off and headed straight toward their target gates at a full charge. As they charged small teams of ninjas which had snuck in earlier in the day rushed the few guards who had stayed at their posts when Sasuke appeared. The Granite forces quickly overpowered the guards and opened the gates for the charging knights.
With the gates, open the fully armored knights stormed through the gates with swords, axes, maces and most dangerously torches in hand. As they galloped through the village, they cut down anyone foolish enough to stand in the way of them. Behind the mounted knights came the ninjas and the men-at-arms from the land of animals. These chainmail clade men busted through doors with weapons raised and stormed into people's bedrooms.
Those villagers foolish enough to put up a struggle got put in their place which came mostly in the form of a metal fist to the face or striking the villagers with the flat of a blade. The warriors had been told only two rules had to be followed, they couldn't kill any civilians who stood up to them, hurting them was fine but killing. The last rule was there would be no rapes; this order had been driven home only the day before when they had hit a small farming town.
Flashback
"Come here!" yelled a drunk knight as he moved toward a scared to death young woman.
"Stay away!" yelled the woman as the knight moved forward undoing his belt as he moved.
"Our orders are to take whatever we want and I want what is between your legs!" laughed the knight as he grabbed the woman's arm. The next moment a sword came down on the knight's arm, the black Aldhard steel cut through the leather armor he was wearing like it was paper. The blood came pouring out of the knight's arm, he just had enough time to scream before the same sword came up and took his head from his shoulder.
The other knights who had been watching this whole scene jumped back as they saw Sasuke Uchiha appear out of nowhere.
"What was one of my two rules for this operation?" inquired Sasuke to the other knights.
"No…" started a knight before stopping.
"No what?" added Sasuke as he pulled out a cloth and whipped the blood off the sword.
"No, rapes." finished the knight
"Good, now pick up this scum and do with him as you will." finished Sasuke as he moved off.
End flashback
None of the force knew why Sasuke who could care less if they took everything that was not bolted to the ground was such a stickler on this one rule but none of them wanted to cross that line. So they followed their orders because they feared what would happen to the man who actually broke it. When they stormed into people's homes they took anything that they wanted, silver wear, jewelry and anything else was taken. Once they had taken what they wanted they torched the homes seconds after the owners had run out with only the cloths on their backs.
With their homes burning the villagers where in a panic as they rushed toward the center of the village, it was an open secret that under the Hokage monument were massive bunkers, which was capable of holding almost every single man and women in the village. Once each bunker was full the massive 18 inch thick steel doors where closed and sealed from the inside. That way there was no way to easily open the doors by force.
If the storm was not enough to wake her up the sound of battle and panicking civilians was enough to wake Kurenai. She quickly got dressed and strapped on her ninja gear before heading toward her daughter's room.
"Mom what is going on?" inquired Mirai as she got her own ninja tools ready.
"Don't know but you're heading to the bunkers," ordered her mother as the two of them headed downstairs only to stop at the front door at the sound of clinking glasses. They turned and there sitting in the darkness of their living room was a man dressed in a long jacket which went up to his nose. He was pouring himself a glass of water from a large pitcher, which had somehow appeared on the coffee table.
"Kurenai-sensie, it has been a while," said a voice Kurenai knew all too well.
"Shino?" inquired Kurenai as she looked at her former student.
"Yes, it is good to see you and Mirai it has been a while since the bridge how are you doing?" inquired Shino as he placed the now full glass down without taking a drink. It was becoming clear that he only poured himself a drink to get their attention.
"You're attacking our village and we will defend her," snapped Mirai as Shino tilted his head a bit and placed his hands on his lap.
"Well I should hope you change your mind, it would be a pity for you to die in a hopeless cause." explained Shino "Also I wouldn't be the only to explain to Kiba or Hinata that you died, not sure who would be worse to deal with…maybe Hinata because I would then have to deal with Naruto. Oh, never mind that does not matter. What matters is that the Leaf has fallen."
"The will of fire will never go out," snapped Mirai
"You are Lee's student for sure, where is Lee by the way I was trying to find Lee, Guy and Captain Yamato but I couldn't find them in the village?" inquired Shino
"Lee is in the south, Captain Yamato was assigned to the daimyo guard detail at his village and Guy resigned from the ninja core and left the village," explained Kurenai as Shino nodded his head.
"Very well all for the best, now shall we have a drink or do you want to go out there to die?" offered Shino "Because there is no way your small force could deal with Sasuke yet alone three columns of mounted knights, foot soldiers and ninjas."
"So you want us to stay here and die!" yelled Mirai as she and her mother moved into the living room.
"No, I want you to stay here and live," answered Shino as the front door flew open and a man dressed head to toe in armor walked in. He had a full helmet which covered his face and in one hand he held a blood covered ax and in the other a shield with a hawk on it.
"Stay where you are!" yelled the knight as he pointed his ax at the three of them.
"Stand down." ordered Shino as the knight turned his attention to the sitting man. Instantly the knight stepped back as Shino stood up. "From your reaction I assume you know who I am."
"Yes, sir." confirmed the knight.
"Good, now this is what you're going to do. You're going to leave this home and these people alone." Ordered Shino
"Sir, Sasuke's orders are too…" started the knight
"Do you know who that young woman in that photo is?" inquired Shino as he pointed to a photo on the wall. The knight turned to see a photo of Kurenai and Hinata before the ending of last war. "That is Hinata Namikaze the wife of Naruto Namikaze the Onikage and sister wife to Ino Namikaze the Daimyo of the land of Granite. Do you really want to deal with what they would do to you if you hurt them?"
The knight lowered his head and moved out of the house.
"Now shall we sit down or do you want to go out and die? inquired Shino
Sasuke was actually getting kind of board as he slaughtered the ninja core of the Leaf village, since so many of the skilled ninjas where in the south he was fighting the bottom ring of the ninja core. He cut down the last ninja who had stayed to fight him, with that done he looked around at the dead and badly wounded ninjas. With that done, he moved to the next phase of the downfall of the Leaf village and some of the work that needed to be done was personal in nature.
Haishi Hyuuga had gotten dressed in his old ninja gear, he had even taken the time make sure his old ninja headband was placed just right on his arm. Finally when he was ready he moved out into the inner garden only to see three knights tearing apart the inner upper clan house. A feeling of rage built up inside the old ninja at the sight of these lower class warriors inside his home. The three knights noticed the old ninja in the garden, instantly they pulled their weapons and moved into the garden.
"This isn't your place," snapped Haishi coldly.
"Old man if you have any brains between that long girly hair of yours you will run off," stated one of the knights as he pointed his mace toward Haishi.
"You heard me, this is not your place." stated Haishi as he moved forward to attack the knight. The knight was covered in Aldhard armor which blocked Haishi's blows.
It was not that Haishi was slower than the knight, in fact he was faster than the knight. The main issue that the gentle fist style that was the backbone of the Hyuga clan fighting style which was capable of shutting down chakra networks with a single touch was totally blocked by the armor the knight had on. Since the Knight was totally covered there was no opening for him to use, he was about to switch tactics when the knight swung the bulky mace hitting the older Hyuga in the wrist. He felt his bones snapping from the blow, next thing he knew he had an elbow in the gut. He tried to stumble backwards but the knight had trapped his arm with his own hand. Haishi's eyes widened as the knight brought his solid oaken with metal rimmed shield up and smashed his face. Even this did not send the old ninja down as he went flying backwards but remained on his feet.
"Damn, can't you bring down an old man?" offered one of the other knights who had stood back and watched the fight.
"I will never…" started Haishi only to get a mace to the side of the face, this brought him down in a massive pool of his own blood.
"There he is down." Said the knight he was fighting as they moved off to keep up their looting of the home. Down on the ground Haishi opened his eyes which was amazing in itself considering half of his head was gone. He looked up to see a woman, for a moment he thought it was his dead wife but the red hair told him it was not here.
"Well your alive, good maybe this will make your death even more painful." said the red haired women as she pulled out a kunai. "See, I have just come from your clan records and guess what I took them all."
Haishi's eyes widened as he tried to speak but found he could not.
"Yes, I took the records of your entire clan dating back for the countless generations is all sealed up and gone." Explained the woman as Haishi noticed the Uchiha clan seal on the woman's arm. "Now I am going to take the records of your clan and every other clan with us when we leave, all your secrets and all your history now belong to the clan members you kicked out of your clan."
Haishi tried to speak to curse at the woman taking the items of the clan but once again he couldn't speak or even move.
"Now enjoy where ever to end up," said the woman as she began to move off before stopping. "No…I can't do this."
With one quick move, she pulled a small a needle throwing it straight into the elder Hyuuga's head ending his life.
The villagers had all but disappeared into the massive bunkers under the Hokage mountain and that was all for the best in the eyes of Sasuke Uchiha as he arrived at the red Hokage building. He moved through the building but instead of going up toward the Hokage's office, he moved down into the bottom floors. When he reached the lowest level, he found a large metal door not so different then a bank vaults door beside it was a key pad. Standing on either side of the door where a couple of knights, the blood of dead bodies of the guards stained the ground.
"Now let's see if your information was correct, Shino." said Sasuke to himself as he pressed in the nine-digit code. He was rewarded by the sound of the door unlocking. They swung the door open and moved into a massive hallway full of matching doors with keypads. Sasuke walked passed them all before reaching the one at the far end of the hall. This one was thicker with two pads on either side of the door.
"On my orders type this code into that pad," ordered Sasuke to one of the knights as he handed over a piece of paper. The knight did was he was told and within moments the door was unlocked and Sasuke pulled it back to show to the knight the room within. It was a rather large room but it was stacked high with gold and other valuables like silver and jewels.
"Damn who knew that the Leaf had all this?" inquired one of the knights.
"Oh that doesn't belong to the Leaf their treasury is down there, this is the Fire Daimyo's emergency stash." explained Sasuke before looking at the knight. "I think it would be better use in the hands of people who would actually use it. Don't you think?"
"Yes, sir." confirmed the knight
"Now get a couple of your man and prepare to hand it out to the men, everyone gets an equal share." Ordered Sasuke "That is two gold bars each if Shino's information is to be believed."
"I like this mission already." laughed a knight as Sasuke moved to the vault beside the main one and typed in his own key.
"Also I will need a few men to help me seal up everything down here." ordered Sasuke as he typed in the code.
"What is down here sir?" inquired a knight as Sasuke opened the door to show a room full of strolls.
"A lot, this one holds the entire sealed records of the 4th Hokage." explained Sasuke, luckily the forth placed a blood seal on them so only his clan could open them "Dead last may want his clans secrets, the others hold ownership records, more gold, silver and the like. We are going to take it all."
"Yes, sir." confirmed the knight
"Good, get to work we leave tomorrow." ordered Sasuke as he moved toward the Hokage's office there he would find a phone and make the call to Naruto.
The knocking against the wooden tent poll was an unwelcomed sound as Naruto opened his eyes. He sat up from the large cot, which was currently being used by Sakura, Hinata and himself as they slept in the field.
"Enter." Ordered Naruto as an aid walked in with a message in hand. Sakura had sat up and Hinata had rolled over, she was awake but did not want to open her eyes.
"Sir, message from Commander Uchiha." started the aid. "The message reads, the Leaf is ours, we have taken all our main objectives and are in the process of getting the secondary objectives, will send full report before we move on to next phase."
"I see." said Naruto as he felt strange calm, the Leaf had fallen and that was good. The next step was going to be even worse then what he had just allowed to happen but it could not be help. "Send a message back, tell him good job and to carry out the plan as he sees fit."
"I will." reported the aid as she ran off. Naruto lied back down and was instantly rewarded by Sakura and Hinata wrapping their arms around him and pressing their bodies against his. The only one missing was Ino but she was back home with the kids.
"Your letting Sasuke do as he likes, you know that is an open invitation for trouble," stated the still half-asleep Sakura.
"It will end the war and in the end that matters most." countered Hinata "Hopefully we can all go home soon."
Strangely it was the Allied Shinobi force which was the last to know. Masked ANBU from the five great ninja nations lined the walls of the former hotel turned the command center for the allied Shinobi force while it stayed in Celin
"I am telling you that we have the best shot of winning if we attack the southern road and take the coastal route." explained the Sunagakure General as they had another late night meeting talking over the same issues again and again.
"And I am telling you it would be suicide to attack that way, they have the mountains to the North to attack down from." explained an aid "Personally we already tried the direct approached maybe we should talk peace."
"Peace with demons?" asked Sunagakure General "It was that belief that the Kazekage holds luckily the Daimyo overrides his position. They all need to die as painfully as possible."
"We may not have too, this is a war to force them to fall into line not extermination." said the Hokage Hanabi. "Shikamaru knew what he was doing when he built the defenses but if we just remove their defenses here and here. We would gain a small hole just wide enough to send a division or two behind the enemy lines, the issue is how do we do that?"
"Also do we have the forces to do anything much." countered Onoki as he lowered his head. "We have lost so much, with the failed attack on the land of Granite and their counterattack on the land of water we have lost 4 divisions, that is around 400,000 ninjas. Now unlike the last war we have the smaller nations with us, but that maybe gives us an extra two divisions to our strength."
"We still outnumber our enemy." countered Mifune
"True, but I remember a saying one man on a wall is worth three men on the ground and simply put we do not have the numbers anymore to take their defenses by force." explained Onoki "I fear we must consider the horrible truth that we have lost this war for good and all."
"Foolish old man, we are the great ninja nations we can't be beaten by some upstart nations in the south." snapped the Raikage
"I remind you that until recently there was another nation at this table, the village hidden in the mist and our enemies took them out of play with only two attacks." counted Onoki as suddenly an aid rushed into the room causing everyone to look at her.
"Ma'ma message from Command." explained the aid before she took a deep breath "Lady Hokage its code red."
"Code red? Something must have happened," said the Hokage knowing that code red messages where used only when a major event happened, the last code red happened when they discovered the hiding spot of the demons.
"What is it?" asked Mifune as the aid looked down at the paper before starting to read, her hand trembling with each passing line.
"Lost contact with Konohagakure Military Command and Control Center almost three hours ago, smoke seen rising from area of the village." read the aid as everyone eyes widened at the news "We sent a dozen scouts to find out the situation, only radio message back it is as follows. "Konohagakure is burning.""
"How could Konohagakure be burning?" inquired Mifune as the Hokage sat wide-eyed at the reports.
"No idea, could the demons have sent a small force in and done some damage?" inquired Raikage "Maybe they took down communications."
"Most likely, there is no way they could have gotten a force large enough to be a threat." Stated Mifune
"Let us hope so because if they have moved an army that far North, I ask you all what force do we have that could possibly stop them?" inquired Onoki as the entire room went silent.
It was a rather strange night as the army slept in the remains of the Leaf village, most of the villagers had made it to the bunkers and as far as Sasuke and the army could care, they could remain there. They knew that there was video cameras outside the bunkers watching the knights who were standing guard. All the bunkers had food stores to last at least five days and they were not going to stay for that long. The villagers would likely wait for a bit before coming out which was fine by the forces of from the Land of Animals and Land of Granite.
"Time to move out," ordered Sasuke as he looked around at the new single massive column of knights, which was formed up behind him. Once they cleared the village wall they would split up into three columns and head west. The rear guard of the army set up off the firebombs, which had been preset. By the time the army was a mile outside of the leaf village almost a quarter of the village was burning and wouldn't go out any time soon. This time there would be no hiding they would burn a scar across the countryside that no one would ever forget.
Well I hope you like this chapter and the downfall of the Leaf, for those who know their history I have modeled what Sasuke after an Union General from the United States Civil War. Now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.