Naruto took a deep breath of air as his ship finally docked in the Capital of the Fire Nation. He signed and turned to look at his men unloading the ship and made his way towards them. "Does anyone need any help?" He asked as his warriors carried heavy crates and equipment. He got a resounding no from everyone he asked before he was reminded that he needed to meet with the Fire Lord to tell him how his mission went.
As he walked through the city people waved and gave him gifts for his deeds and help. He tried to refuse most of them, but the people were persistent so he ended up taking most of them with him. Once he got into the castle he made his way to his room and passed through one of the gardens that had many memories tied to them. Zuko, Mei, Ty Lee, and him used to mess around and even play in the gardens while Azula sulked in a doorway or from a window. No matter how much he tried to get her to play with them or talk to him she would glare and turn away from him. Every time he reached out she would get further away and fall deeper into the darkness. He knew he should give up; he knew that she wouldn't take his hand, but every time he thought about stopping he thought about Sasuke. He could have helped Sasuke, helped him sooner; if he had just reached out. He was lost so deep in thought he didn't even sense the person in front of him.
"So the great hero of the Fire Nation returns." She spoke sarcastically, "I'm so happy I could cry."
"Nice to see you too, Azula." Naruto returned with sincerity in his voice.
"Whatever, dad wants to see you and get a report about your last couple of missions." She told him before walking away down the hall.
"It's better than nothing," Naruto thought to himself as he followed after setting the gifts in his room.
"We need to focus more energy on finding whoever is leaking our plans to the Earth Kingdom!" was the yell Naruto heard as he approached the door that led to the meeting room. The same one that Zuko had gotten kicked out of all those years ago. He knocked and heard an "Enter" before he opened the door and bowed to the Fire Lord.
"You requested to see me, Sire?" Naruto asked as he stayed in his low bow.
"Ahh, Naruto, report." Ozai spoke as he paused the other generals' ranting and arguing. They all gave him a glare that he easily ignored.
"The mission was a success and an outpost has been made on the northern shore of the Earth Kingdom and my men are training the new recruits as we speak. Kyoshi Islands were also taken and no lives were lost in the segue." Naruto decided to leave seeing the young boy and Zuko out of his report, "That is all Sire."
"Very good. I have another mission for you." Naruto winched; of course he would have another mission so soon. He was the Fire Nations Hero after all.
"Of course my Lord, what do you require?" Naruto spoke as he kept the fury out of his voice.
"There have been some earth-bender revolts happening in a small village on the edge of the ocean. I would like you to put them down permanently." Naruto was able to read between the lines and see that he wanted them dead. Looks like Fox and him would finally have their big confrontation. "Also the Avatar has been seen around the Earth Kingdom heading to the North Pole, I want you to go there and destroy that civilization and retrieve the Avatar." Ozai spoke.
"My Lord, that is Prince Zuko's job." Naruto argued as he kept his head down so they couldn't see his shocked face.
"I don't want my failure of a son to ever return, so you shall go get the avatar while Admiral Zhao lays siege to the North Pole. Understood?" Ozai demanded.
"Understood my Lord." Naruto responded.
With a heavy heart Naruto helped his men load his ship up to get ready to sail. He didn't want to leave again so soon, it was unfair to his men who had families. They deserved to live happily and see their family more than once every year.
"I want to apologize for dragging you away from your families once more, but the Fire Lord's demandes are law." Naruto spoke to his men as they all sat down to eat once the ship had left port and was sailing to their next destination. "We are to go and put a stop to earth revolts, but I want you all to remember that going home is more important than one small revolt."
Understanding eyes and thankful smiles met his eyes as he looked around the room at his men and women as they ate their food. His job was to keep them alive. It wasn't their fault they were raised to believe that the civilization they lived in was right. That this war was some kind of holy war for the rights of the people and the fate of the world.
He returned to his room early that night and hung his head as he thought about his second mission on this voyage. "Capture the Avatar." He spoke softly to himself as he thought about his plan. THe Fox could show up once again, but that would be suspicious. The Fox was only human after all and they would have just battled it out. He could pretend he went after the Avatar, but if anyone ever found out that he pretended to do his job it could ruin the trust he had built up for years. What was he going to do? How was he going to get out of this situation? Naruto sighed as he got ready for bed. He would figure it out in the morning, for now he had to focus on giving people a show.
The trip to the earth village was too short for Naruto's liking. He could see the dock and the small sad village that awaited them. As he stepped ashore Naruto could see many people looking at him with fear and taking a few steps back as they hid children and pulled friends away.
"General Naruto, to what do we owe this pleasure." A stout older man asked as he approached. The man reminded him of Gato. He barely kept a grimace off his face as the man shook his hand and he responded with a blank face and nodded as the man spoke.
"I'm here because the Fire Lord sent me to deal with some rebels." He finally interrupted the man's useless rambling.
"A little late I'm afraid, all of the rebels have been put down and the other benders have been imprisoned." The man boasted as the people glared at him.
"I have to check so I can report to the Fire Lord." Naruto shot down his enthusiastic boasting as he began to walk in the direction that he saw the prison built. The man ran after him and continued to talk as they made their trip. Naruto decided halfway there that the man was worse than Gato and would die when the fox arrived. Finally they got to the prison and the place just looked depressing. All of the men there had gotten the fight beat out of them and their families torn apart.
A bang and some yelling alerted him to a far door that was opening as a young girl was dragged out and into what was supposed to be a metal courtyard. She had long black hair and it was done up in a water tribe style hair do. She was fighting against the guards and screaming at them to let her go.
"Who is she?" Naruto asked the Gato man as he stopped talking and looked over to where the girl was.
"She must be a new one. If you want I could have her dragged back in for you to have some fun. It's the easiest way to break them." He spoke. His voice even the entire time, like he hadn't just recommended the worst torture for a young girl to go through. Everyone in the yard froze, including the girl and Naruto was moving before he had time to stop himself.
His fist slammed into the side of the monster's face and sent him flying. He tumbled and came to a stop at the edge of the prison's side. The man didn't even have time to try and get up before Narutop was on him once more. He grabbed the man's collar in his hands and pulled him so he was face to face with Naruto as he spoke.
"You little creep. You're lucky that I could be in trouble if I killed you, or else you would be dead right now. We may be at war, we may be against these people in ideas, but they are still human. They deserve to be treated like they are human. You on the other hand are nothing but a hungry dog." Naruto spoke with fire in his eyes and venom in his voice. He was furious and it showed as the monster's collar started to smoke as his body temperature alone started to set it ablaze. Noticing this Naruto took a deep breath and stepped back. "Death is too good for a thing like you, anyway."
He walked away and turned to the prisoners that had seen the entire thing. Some of the fear had been replaced with respect or shock and the young lady in question gave him a look of gratitude. Just then the ground started to shake as coal came flying out of one of the vents and landed in front of all of the prisoners. The young woman's eyes then changed from thankful and afraid to angry and confident. "The time to fight back is now! I can tell you the Avatar has returned! So remember your courage, earthbenders, let us fight for our freedom!" She yelled as the young man Naruto saw on the Sky Bison popped out of the hole the coal came through. Once looking at his air bender tattoos let Naruto know that this was the Avatar.
Looking around the earth benders he saw that none of them had moved a muscle to help the girl and some fire benders were lighting their fists in preparation for a fight. The girl looked around for support from any of the earth benders and saw that none of them were willing to put themselves in danger. Just as she started to lose hope in the benders fighting back against their oppressors the ground began to shake and Naruto couldn't stop the smirk from appearing on his face.
Tree branches sprang up from all directions and the fire benders who were ready to attack were sent flying off the platform with some powerful swings of the branches. Playing his part Naruto counted his fists in white fire and burnt the trees down as they came before looking up to see a man in a fox mask staring down at the battle field from where he stood on a branch.
"So we finally meet Fox." Naruto spoke as he charged at his counterpart. The smirk never left his face as they traded enough blows to make the battle look believable. A tower of white fire there. A wall of roots here. The land was being ripped apart by the forces that were battling it out. Naruto would glance down at the people below them and he saw the earthbenders go on the attack once they felt they could win. His men were being pelted with pieces of coal and flung around with air as the battle raged on.
The tipping point came when one of his men was stabbed with a sharp root that had broken off in his battle. He looked down just in time to see the red liquid start to flow and for one of his men to fall. He screamed and charged down to the battlefield to grab his soldier.
He pressed his hand to the wound and shouted back at his other men."We are done here. This village isn't worth your lives; retreat to the boat." As he stood with the man in a bride's carry. His men nodded and retreated out the doors and he took one more look at the rebels before following after. They made a mad dash through the village and back to their ship and Naruto sprinted straight to the med bay. He gently laid the man down onto one of the medical beds before carefully extracting the branch from his chest. As he pulled he felt the ship leave the port and return to the sea. The branch slipped out with a splash of red and Naruto doubled the pressure on the wound. The medic on board finally arrived and told him to keep pressure on the wound as he bandaged and stitched the man up after removing all of the wood from the wound.
Three grewling hours later Naruto was told to remove his hands and he flopped back with exhaustion. He leaned against the wall from where he was sitting on the ground as he took deep breaths. "General Naruto, you should get washed up." Came the medics voice as he returned to watch over the patient. Naruto didn't respond as his eyes started to slide closed. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt this kind of bone dead exhaustion. Then he knew no more of the real world.
Flashes of the war returned once again to his mind as he saw himself trying to stop the bleeding from Shikamaru's chest that had been ripped open by one of the white clones. He screamed for a medic, but they had all been killed in the battle and he had to watch as the blood from his friend's wound stopped the same time his breathing did. He heard himself scream, but it sounded so far away. His hands were red and it wasn't coming off. He could have saved him if he knew how, he could have stopped all of this. If, if, if, if, if only he.
Naruto awoke from his memories as the sun began to rise. He frantically looked around in confusion until he remembered where he was and what had happened. He sprang up to the man's bed to check on him. He was breathing normally and the bleeding seemed to have stopped. Naruto let out a sigh and relaxed as he watched the man's breathing. He was so focused on the fact he was alive and stuck in his memories that he didn't notice the medic return.
"You really should go take a shower, General." The man spoke as he checked on his patient once again. "He will be fine. He should be awake in a few days and be on his feet in a week."
Naruto crumbled to the ground with relief after hearing the news and let out a long sigh as he shook himself to get out of his old world. "Thank you. I will go shower now." Naruto stood and made his way to the showers as people started to leave their rooms. Many staired and pointed while they whispered, but Naruto was too relieved to care.
Naruto exited the showers cleaned of any blood and more awake than he had been in a couple days. He leisurely made his way to the dinning hall where the last of his men were eating their breakfast and preparing for the day. As he walked in all eyes went to him and he stared back before speaking, "Adi will be fine and make a full recovery in a week's time." The room erupted in cheers and tears as people celebrated the victory. Now the only thing Naruto had to worry about was how to capture the Avatar without capturing the Avatar. Simple, right?