Asahi quietly watched his students practice in the training field. It was early morning and the weather was cloudy and cold, and the sun's rays were very light. The training field was on the outskirts and had very uneven and forested terrain. Asahi's three students were sparring with all they've got, as they had been told by Asahi, who watched them from a distance; sitting on a rock and a notebook in his hands. The sparring rules for today were simple, all three of them had been given scrolls, and they must snatch the other's scroll while protecting theirs. Asahi was making notes in his notebook, which he used to keep track of his team's missions, progress, and skills. This system was not necessary, only optional. But something like this helped when registering for the Chunin exams.
Asahi scribbled on his notebook with every action he observed. Out of the three, Maximus and Hayato were having an open fight, trying to get each other's scrolls but with enough caution to protect theirs, and their duel seemed to be a stalemate. Naruko was hiding somewhere in the woods, completely forgotten by the other two. Maximus leaped into the air, throwing several kunai at Hayato, the latter dodged them and made his counter-attack by rushing toward his foe with a kunai in hand. The two again engaged in a fistfight, but no clear victor. Both boys punched each other with all their might, getting bruised and battered but not seeming to care. By now they had completely forgotten the original goal of the sparring session, the scrolls, and were adamant about defeating each other.
But as the two boys were at each other's throats, Maximus on top of Hayato now; Naruko suddenly came out in a flash and snatched the scrolls of the two, which hung by their waists. Maximus and Hayato soon realized what had happened, and in one moment were de-facto allied, to get their scrolls back, and prepared for a deadly attack. But the two were stopped, as in an instant Asahi was between the two and Naruko, calling for a halt.
"Stop, you two. You've already failed with your objectives." Hayato and Maximus paused and stood back to listen to their Jonin captain, Asahi continued,
"You two were so busy fighting amongst yourselves, that you even forgot about the scrolls. Naruko is the least powerful in this team as compared to you two, yet she managed to win, why? Think about it yourselves."
Maximus and Hayato looked at each other, while Naruko triumphantly waved the scrolls. The team now settled down on a fallen tree trunk and Asahi began to explain,
"You see, strategy is equally important in warfare as is brute force. For example, you might've heard how the fourth Hokage managed to annihilate a force of 1000 enemy shinobi alone?" The students nodded, they knew about it. It was a legendary event that was spoken of with pride in Konoha and scorn in Iwagakure. Asahi continued,
"The Iwa shinobi were overconfident with their numbers, and Minato Namikaze too couldn't have defeated them, but he used his brain. In the same way, you should first think about how you can defeat your foe before entering a battle. Moreover, a cool head is also necessary while fighting. As in your case, you two boys were so engaged in trying to defeat each other that you forgot about your main objective, you won't survive a year in your shinobi career if you engage in unnecessary battles like this."
As Asahi was thus speaking to the two boys, Naruko suddenly pointed out,
"Look there, the civilians are running towards the inner village."
Hearing this, Asahi looked back, and his face suddenly turned dead serious. He got up and blankly looked at the people going by for a moment, there was a long column of civilians hurriedly walking towards the inner village, with Konoha shinobi at the rear and front. Asahi commanded his students,
"This is an emergency evacuation, an attack has taken place. I must go and help, you three go back to your homes."
"But-" Naruko was interrupted by Asahi, who now spoke sternly,
"You will go, it's an order from your captain." Saying this, Asahi suddenly vanished, and his figure could be seen running towards the village.
It took the three students some time to comprehend the information, but they soon realized what was going on after a loud explosion was heard in the distance,
"There's, an attack?" Hayato murmured, and he started to slightly panic, Naruko spoke,
"We should go and help with the attack, we can't sit idly by," Hayato spoke again, in a low voice,
"But, Asahi-sensei told us to go away."
"What will that do? We should rather help defend our village." Hearing this, Maximus finally spoke in a strong voice,
"Our sensei has been a Jonin for four years, and a shinobi for more than a decade, and he has much more experience and knowledge than us. If he is telling us not to, it must mean something."
Saying this, Maximus started running towards the main village, followed by Hayato. Naruko too decided to go after a moment. The three genins ran fast through the streets of Konoha, which were now bustling with people also looking for shelter, but the situation was controlled. This attack had been anticipated, and all necessary defenses and preparations that could be made in a few days had been done, and shinobi were escorting the civilians to bunkers and emergency shelters.
Maximus, Hayato, and Naruko pushed and squeezed their way through the crowd, trying to make their way to a bunker. Naruko parted from her teammates to fetch her younger brother, while Maximus and Hayato proceeded on their way.
The other side of Konoha
There was fierce combat outside the walls of Konoha, as Kumo shinobi fought their Leaf counterparts. There were loud explosions and the clanging sounds of blades meeting each other. Kunai and Shuriken were flying around, while a seemingly endless stream of Konoha and Kumo ninjas poured into the battlefield with the single intent of killing each other, and even in these fifteen minutes there were quite some corpses lying around. The Roman cohort, combined with Marcus' guard, was holding out its own on the front. Over the last few days, they had successfully constructed several "mini-forts" and fortifications in a perimeter around Konoha, and this was what helped them the most. The Romans maintained a defensive stance, and as the first wave of enemy shinobi was that of the weakest, they easily repelled it while relentlessly defending these tight fortifications.
Asahi jumped from one building to another, sweating pouring from his body, as he made his way to the battlefield. Many other Jonins were also similarly arriving from all across the village to assist in the defense. Upon reaching the section of the walls under assault, Asahi immediately formed several dozen clones, and they charged into the fray with swords in their hands. Asahi was renowned as a skilled swordsman, and his skills were proven unmatched as he cut through the Kumo ninja with ease.
The shinobi were commanded to stay back and fight defensively around the village, and Asahi followed the order. By now, there were over a hundred Jonin gathered, on the walls or the field below, and many other Anbu. Shikaku Nara also arrived at the scene, with the heads of the Akimichi and Yamanaka clans as well, as the head of the Anbu. Shikaku ran his eyes around the area, his tactical mind trying to come up with a strategy for this situation. The Kumo shinobi had also stopped, and prepared for one grand charge and break through the defenses. Shikaku suddenly started giving orders to the Anbu head,
"The Jonin shall stay here and defend the walls, earth-style users at the front, fire and wind-style users behind, and any other chakra users at the wings..F Tell the Anbu to try and flank the enemy, and spread out their formation. Tell the Roman soldiers to brace themselves and defend their positions, they must attack from behind once we've pinned down the enemy in one place." The Anbu captain nodded and went around the front line issuing the orders, tasking different squads to go around the enemy and try to flank them.
Suddenly, the Kumo shinobi charged forward again, this time in larger numbers. As the ninja got close, a destructive volley of ranged jutsu came from both sides. The Kumo shinobi sent lightning chakra at the Konoha shinobi, it was so strong it could go right through several layers of walls. The Konoha shinobi were able to counter this, as the earth-style users Shikaku had placed at the front formed a thick wall of earth chakra in front of them, to block the enemy attack. After exchanging projectiles and ranged jutsus for a while, the Kumo shinobi resumed their charge.
The enemy ninjas were very skilled and used lightning chakra to speed up themselves, and in no more than a few moments were on top of the walls formed by the Konoha ninja. Their sheer speed surprised the leaf ninjas, and they jumped down on the latter with swords in hand. The Kumo ninja were using the lightning chakra to increase their speed substantially and thus had an advantage over the Konoha shinobi. The attack had been sudden, and the forces of Konoha, which were spread out around the village's borders, were taking time to mobilize and assemble to defend this one place. If the Kumo shinobi successfully broke into the village, they would have a significant advantage as the Konoha shinobi might hesitate to use very destructive jutsu and would have no sort of defenses.
Wave after wave of Kumo shinobi seemed to come crashing down on the Konoha ninja, the latter's defenses crumbling. But as more and more shinobi started arriving, Konoha started regaining ground. The different clans were fighting separately in one column, the Sarutobi behind Asuma, and the Hyuga under Hiashi, used their fire-style ninjutsu and gentle fist technique and were the foremost on the battlefield. The Yamanaka, Nara, and Akimichi were on the flanks, supporting the main force, and as such. This was one big advantage Konoha had over Kumo, and possibly the other villages, it was that they possessed the most clans and kekkei genkais.
The fighting raged on, and the corpses were piling up. It was a bloody business, as literal streams of lightning and fire ran through the battlefield. While many shinobi were bending the Earth itself, the explosions were almost deafening. Shikaku, who was at the back of the line, smiled to himself. The battle was fierce, but Konoha was winning, they just needed to grind through the enemy waves a bit longer until it broke and they retreat.
Suddenly, a thousand blades came flying from the sky at almost lightning speed and took out more than twenty of both Konoha and Kumo shinobi. Then more than a hundred wooden and metal puppets entered the battlefield, cutting through anything they saw, while others shot poison darts with deadly accuracy. Shikaku Nara immediately recognized who it was, the infamous rogue puppet master of Suna, Sasori. But as Shikaku wondered how to deal with this new menace, a giant blue skeleton appeared behind him. The Nara clan head looked back, to see Fugaku Uchiha, coated by his Susanoo, and a vast number of skilled Uchiha behind him.
They were comparatively small in numbers, as a year ago the traitor Itachi had unsuccessfully tried to massacre his entire clan to 'test his strength', but was stopped and forced to flee by Fugaku and several other highly-skilled Uchiha. But still, Shikaku could see three incomplete susanoo behind him.
"It seems you need help, Lord Nara." Saying this, the Uchiha charged into the battle with their Sharingan, Shikaku gave a familiar grin to Fugaku, and the latter also went into battle with his Susanoo.
Author's notes
How did you like the chapter? I am not very good at narrating fight scenes, so sorry if it is not good. And yeah, I decided to let the Uchiha live. Why? I just felt like it, but it may prove good later on in the story.
Do leave a review of the chapter, constructive criticism is appreciated.