Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. It owns me. This much is clear due to the sheer amount of hours that have been put into these damned stories. What is wrong with me?
After a lot of time dealing with ninjas of all sorts of clans that see me in the same negative light for what I'm trying to accomplish you kind of get a feel for what makes them tick in a way. After doing this whole thing for a while, going around trying to get some kind of support for my dream, you begin to understand why it's just so difficult to get others on-board with the idea. It's a lack of understanding.
You don't need to accept everything about someone or believe what they believe to understand them, but it's hard for people to do that. The clans populating this world usually have deep integral differences in their cultures down to the root. People of other clans look at that and have trouble trying to relate that to themselves.
"Why do your people have clan markings in such odd places?" or "Your women do what with their leisure time?"
And those are just the things on the surface. Things get way more complex and stranger to many when they look past the surface and start paying attention to actual clan practices. They simply don't understand. They don't see a way to relate these things to themselves and their lives. What makes sense to them doesn't to other clans, and the same goes in reverse. Things that you can't explain or understand are scary, and it's human nature to take the things that you're afraid of and try to destroy them. That's why it's so easy to come to blows in our society.
The first thing that I wanted was just to understand. To find out the motivations of all of these different clans, why they did the things that they did, why they lived the way they did, used the kind of jutsu that they did, maybe learn a little of their clan history if they were willing to tell it. Just as a way to understand.
Could you tell me? Could you help me understand you better, help me put what you do and why you do it in a logical light so that I can put it up against my life and finally get it? If more people were willing to sit down and just hash things out on that level, to the extent where they could begin to say things like, "Oh, I understand why you do that now. Yeah, that actually makes sense."
You don't have to incorporate things from other cultures into your life. You don't even have to accept different things from other cultures. But everyone should strive to at least understand before demonizing them.
Between that and a quality spicy mayonnaise, we're not going to get rid of all of this racism and clan separation overnight… but we'll at least start putting some big dents in it.
-Namikaze Minato
Chapter 4: Casting Lots
Sunrise was usually the time that Kushina would wake up at. She'd always gotten up at that time when she was younger, because it had always been a good time to train, to get it all out of the way for the day so that she could have the rest of the daylight to do useful things or things that were more fun. After she had Naruto she didn't get much sleep through his early months to begin with, but after that she would sometimes wake earlier than him to just get a glimpse of him while he slept.
Such a litter terror… you would never know it from watching him sleep, but damn it you would when he was awake.
She'd get a few good minutes of that and then she'd kick his ass out of bed to wake him up and play Mama Kushina for the day.
It was a bit of a habit that she hadn't been able to break, until it was forced to be broken by her son's necessary exile. So that left her with the habit of waking up super-early in the morning without anything that she needed to tend to for the first time in her adult life. No missions, no son to feed or terrorize out of bed and into action. Nothing.
All she had to do was train. Nagato was restricting her to the mansion without saying so, but since it was a house arrest that was going unsaid there was also nothing that was restricting her from training. There was plenty of space for it outside, especially early in the morning.
She needed to work all of the energy she had off somehow. There wasn't any use to waste all of that energy that she still had, even if there wasn't anything really productive she could do.
"Well you're a diligent one."
Kushina paused in the practice of molding the chakra for the jutsu she'd been working on and paid attention to the arrival of the Senju Clan leader watching her training as she entered the area, "Tsunade-sama." She said quietly sparing her a blank smile, "Good morning. What are you doing up at this hour?"
"I could ask you the same thing." Tsunade said as she looked around and tried to figure out the nature of what Kushina's training had been since she hadn't caught her in the process of actually using a jutsu, "Everyone else is just starting to stir, and you look like you've been at this for at least a half-hour."
"Good guess."
"I'm going to have to ask you not to smile at me like that. It's so phony it might as well be Henged onto your face."
Good, because Kushina didn't like smiling like a Stepford when she really wanted to glower. She just didn't want to offend a clan head, "Well sorry, but there's not really much for me to be excited about, Senju visit or not."
Tsunade nodded and sat down on a bench off against a castle wall, beckoning Kushina to come and sit with her. The redhaired mother looked around, wondering why Tsunade was awake and her guards weren't, but she got up and walked over. Once again, she wasn't going to offend a clan head. Not while she was already on thin ice anyway.
A woman twenty years Kushina's senior, Tsunade was the person that every kunoichi in the world tried to measure themselves against. Kushina could include herself in that group, as even now she was instinctively sizing up just how well she'd do if forced to battle the legendary lady.
"So it's your son isn't it?" Tsunade asked, getting Kushina to stiffen, "I already know. Nagato-dono was very forthcoming with what we needed to begin putting word out to locate him. I've already sent a hawk back to the rest of my clan to have them on the lookout."
"Why would you want to come out here and talk to me about this?" The violet-eyed redhead glared at the leader of the world's most vaunted clan, "The last thing I want to talk about is how the two clans that are supposed to be my family and distant relatives want to hunt my kidnapped son down just to ritualistically sacrifice him. I don't want to be rude to someone that could probably have me killed, but unless you want to hear me try to pick which one's worse, I don't want to speak about it."
Tsunade just rolled her eyes. She couldn't have Kushina killed, even if seeing a mother that was apparently conflicted between clan and family ties act the way she expected upset her. If there was one thing she knew that would bring out the lion in Nagato it would be messing with that woman. She'd picked up on that much when the conversation on new jinchuuriki Naruto drifted in the direction of his origin.
Yes, she'd learned something about his origin that was of interest, and was also more than likely a good explanation of why things were the way that they were with her family.
"You've had a hard time of it since you married Namikaze Minato haven't you?" The busty blonde said, getting a scoff of sorts out of Kushina, "There's a reason your clan has the rules that it does. I don't agree with them, but they have a reason."
"Uh huh."
"Your clan has a lot of powerful fuuinjutsu. I know you're aware of the fact that you're not exactly a popular clan in the world." People were actually afraid of the Uzumaki Clan and what they could potentially be capable of.
Kushina already knew the reason why her marrying Minato was supposed to have been a bad thing, "Yeah, yeah. If one of us married the wrong person we could lose all sorts of clan secrets that could be stolen by other clans and used against us and blah, blah, blah. I know. I heard it every day from EVERYBODY when Minato was in Uzu no Kuni courting me."
And the thing was that they did actually have a point, because Kushina did actually wind up sharing some of her fuuinjutsu knowledge with him. But he shared something else with her in return. He taught her some special things, and he gave her a child before he was basically forced off of the island for his rather controversial views.
Tsunade gave her a wry smile, "The whole origin of the custom is originally meant to be that you can't marry outside of the clan with the exception of civilians. You want to know the original reason?" Kushina just shrugged her shoulders, "It was originally enacted to make sure there wouldn't be any Senju/Uchiha offspring."
"Wow." Kushina said in return. She honestly didn't know about that. Yeah, and as Uzumaki they would be close enough to Senju where that would be a thing for them as well, "What, did that actually come close to happening?"
It had been a gambit from many years prior, an early attempt at peaceful relations between the two clans a few decades after the time of Hashirama and Madara. A proposed marriage to closely interweave the two bloodlines, Senju and Uchiha. A conflict then arose from what was supposed to be an attempt at brokering a truce, all over one reason in particular.
Which side would be the one to claim the result of such a union? In other words, who would the family live with, and who would be the recipients of the offspring?
That was a major deal. Any child born with both Uchiha and Senju blood would have a claim of the strongest possible lineage in all of existence. The fact that it had never even come close to happening before or since was a testament to just how bitter clan feuds, this one in particular, really were.
That fear sort of bled over into the thought of clanless ninjas managing to obtain bloodlines such a way and begin their own clans.
"Minato doesn't want to use clan ties for anything. What he wants doesn't have anything to do with making himself to be anyone's better." Kushina said, feeling like she was explaining the same thing that she'd done thousands of times since opinion on Minato soured over a decade back, "And that doesn't matter right now. This is about Naruto."
"I'll try to make sure he's caught alive so that there's at least a chance he'll survive." Tsunade said, but it did very little if anything at all to console Kushina, "The other option present is to outright kill him."
More or less that just meant that the two options were: kill him, or torture him for days trying to drain the biju from his body which would wind up killing him anyway.
She'd been studying her own seal that she'd put on Naruto since she actually had access to the person she'd placed it on for four days after she'd done it.
To make it as strong as it needed to be to help Naruto's body adjust and to prevent the biju within him from breaking free and definitely killing everything around it when it did, the seal bonded the two so closely that no matter how the extraction was done the shock of losing the biju within him would irreparably damage his chakra network and the organs close by to a fatal extent.
It wouldn't matter if she told anyone in the clan this information or not because they would still try to extract it from him. And if she did inform them of this point she would wind up getting executed or something along those lines, because by then it would be clear that she was the one to make the seal, if she knew something like that about it that no one else could figure.
No, she wasn't going to go out like that. She'd see Naruto again. She'd see Minato again. All she had to do was be patient and be prepared for whatever may come her way. Even if what Konan said was true about volunteering to go out and search for Naruto, if that bitch harmed a hair on her baby's head house arrest be damned she'd find her and make her pay herself.
"I'm going to begin heading back home today." Tsunade said, standing up to conclude the conversation, "There are probably a mountain of things that have piled up while I've been gone, so we can just add this to the very top. Good luck."
Kushina nodded and stood up to bow slightly to the Senju Clan's leader, "You as well Tsunade-sama." 'Me being lucky is the absolute last thing that anyone here wants. It'd mean that I'd have my son safe and sound, biju or not.'
XxX
(Hi no Kuni – Western Countryside)
Waking up in the early morning was something that Naruto was used to living back in his village. It was a bit harder nowadays since they were always on the move and because somehow Ayame always wound up somehow getting a hold of him or Tenten depending on her mood to cuddle with a kid, but anytime he felt like a lazy-bones and wanted to sleep in for long enough to allow Teuchi and Ayame to wake up the thought stuck out in his mind.
His mother. He was laying down in his sleeping roll trying to find an excuse to get a few hours more shuteye when his mother had put herself at risk just to cover his tracks and give him a chance to live.
No, not a chance. If he ever became that kind of despicable person he would rather turn himself in to his clansmen and let them take his life, because he didn't deserve Kushina's potential sacrifice. So no matter what, even if he had to find a way to worm himself out of Ayame's grasp he'd get up, go out, and train until he had to go.
'Got to get my mom back.' Naruto thought to himself, standing in a nice little clearing a few minutes away from where camp had been set up for the night. He'd get in a little training on his own before Tenten came and found him to work alongside him before they'd get back on the road that day, 'Got to get some good training in now while I can. It looks like we're not gonna be stopping much today.'
Upon waking up, Naruto had been greeted with cloudy skies. Ever since picking up Tenten they'd travelled for three days in a westerly direction based on what she had said to try and pick up a more recent trail on how to find Minato. They'd been training together under Kakashi's guidance whenever they'd gotten time to take travelling breaks for a few hours and they'd quickly learned where Tenten's specialties lay.
She was excellent with weapons. Better than Naruto. She threw projectiles better than him to the point where he was seriously jealous, and she could hit anything with anything, not just kunai and shuriken. Anything that could leave her hands with a decent trajectory would hit its mark.
Forty yards away, bullseye.
Moving target, didn't matter, bullseye.
Target behind an obstacle such as a tree, didn't matter, bullseye.
How she managed the last thing, Naruto was totally confused by even days after seeing it. She didn't even know she'd figured it out. Apparently the method she used to deflect her own throw and hit her mark just 'felt right' and he couldn't even dream of replicating the feat.
It wasn't just with throwing things either. Put a weapon in her hands and she at least knew how to utilize it in a respectable manner if not in an overwhelming way. She loved weapons, so much so that she oftentimes contemplated trying to swipe Kakashi's White Light Chakra Saber to try it out for herself. But it was apparently something passed down from Kakashi's deceased father, and she had respect for him so she never felt mischievous enough to do such a thing.
Working with someone his age that actually felt like being around him was really fun he had to admit. If only he'd been able to train with more kids back in the Uzumaki Clan village, those days could have been so much more enjoyable.
Speaking of training, it was time to work on some of the things that Kakashi was trying to beat into his head.
With Tenten it seemed like she had it easier. Kakashi would show her something that he thought she could pick up and let her have at it after a few explanations, showing her how it was meant to be done once or maybe twice. For Naruto it seemed like he had to repetitively hammer his lessons into his skull like a spike.
Kakashi seemed used to training done in the manner that he would comfortably show Tenten, but there was something about how Naruto needed to be taught that he wasn't accustomed to and seemed to have trouble with. He couldn't hold it against Kakashi that he seemed to be better at instructing Tenten than him. In actuality he spent far more time teaching him than her.
Either way, he was doing good in his own humble opinion. Aside from the neat shuriken jutsu that actually won him a battle (that Tenten had also learned shortly thereafter along with a few others, damn her for being good with weaponry), Kakashi had done some other things for his small set of techniques. Hell, Kakashi apparently had 1000 of them or more so there had to be something he could hand off.
'Okay, basic jutsu, one hand-seal.' Naruto thought to himself. The field was full of thirty Narutos standing in a triangle formation all facing each other. He needed to get the jutsu down before he started using it in spars and the like, and this was the best way he could think of.
Kakashi had tried to teach him a jutsu from a few different elemental types. Naruto had tons of chakra, so it wasn't prudent to baby him with low-level stuff. Kushina had already proven that much by throwing Kage Bunshin no Jutsu in his face before sending him off.
He needed to get them into good enough shape to take on people older than them and more used to ninja-based combat before that became a liability later. Both of them weren't afraid to fight, but both of them also weren't used to fighting ninja either. That was going to be a problem if he didn't put them through their paces good and well.
Tenten's levels of chakra weren't nearly as high as Naruto's so Kakashi had to be more selective in what he taught her, playing to her strengths of weaponry for the time being until she was great enough in that area to start shoring up her weaker ones.
In that same respect, you had to give Naruto a jutsu that did what was needed for him. The past week had been a series of trials and errors though, as fire, earth, and lightning-based techniques weren't really the youngster's forte. He knew something of water ninjutsu, but that was mostly because he lived by the sea for his entire life, so not knowing anything with that element would be silly.
The things Kakashi knew that had to do with water were a little bit out of his league though. Naruto could do some things that manipulated prior existing bodies of water, but creating water straight from his own chakra required nature manipulation experience and control that was a little bit over his head.
Kakashi tossed a wind jutsu Naruto's way to see if he could get something going with it. He wasn't going to make the same mistake he made in experimenting with teaching Naruto a fire ninjutsu.
That day really didn't work out well at all for anyone. Naruto used to think fire was kind of cool until the first time he tried spitting it from his mouth and almost burned down a portion of the forest and his lungs. Apparently that wasn't supposed to happen and he'd overloaded the jutsu past what he could control.
"Okay, let's do this. First one to feel it and blow the other two away first wins. Last me standing in each formation moves on to do it again after this round." Naruto said to his field full of clones, getting a stiff nod from the chakra-comprised copies as they pressed their hands together in front of their own bodies and started to get the feel for the right kind of chakra in their bodies.
They would know when they got it when they felt their chakra convert into a breeze, and then they would harness it, blow the other two away, and take the win. Those were the rules of the game, and it was more productive than making a row of Narutos and making them practice the jutsu like they were martial artists going over katas in formation. That method worked too slow to learn a basic jutsu.
Nope, put the pressure on Naruto and he'd learn it faster. That was how it worked. Hence the clearing-wide three-way game of chicken.
"Fuuton: Reppuushou (Wind Release: Gale Palm)!"
From the sound of the wind blowing and the dispelled clones that Naruto could feel, one of the division matches had been completed. Now two. Damn it he needed to find the feeling that he needed faster.
Wait, he felt a tickle of air. Was that from him or from his clones? No, it was him because it moved over the backs of his hands first! Alright, just a little bit more and he'd win! It would be humiliating for the original to be knocked out of his own tournament with his clones.
"Stop thinking about winning and just win already." Kurama said inside of Naruto's head, "If you can go for the kill you do it. You're lucky you're playing a game with yourself and not fighting a real battle. Shake that mindset sooner rather than later."
Demonic chiding aside, Naruto was going for the win until his other clones that remained in the field heard rustling in the foliage at the edge of the area. An unsaid agreement was made to drop the competition for now so that some of the clones could investigate.
Without saying a word, four of Naruto's remaining clones pulled out a weapon just in case and started carefully walking to the edge of the field. Their mission to investigate didn't last long however as they were peppered with shuriken and destroyed.
Naruto was left with flashes of red eyes in his mind and held his head upon hearing Kurama's angry growl at the memory from the clones, 'Kurama were those the same eyes that the guy who-?'
"Yes. Uchiha eyes. Remember what I just said about going for the kill?"
'Yeah?'
"Don't hesitate for a second."
What the hell made Kurama think that it was going to end in a fight? It was kind of difficult to think that it was when the first sight Naruto saw of the actual Uchiha's body was a boy his age walking out from the brush holding a kunai up defensively.
He had black hair that was spiky in the back, black eyes, and wore a blue t-shirt with a high collar, white shorts, white and blue arm warmers, and blue sandals. He seemed to be looking around at the scene of the fourteen remaining Naruto clones strangely before staring at one thing in particular about them.
"Yeah?" One of Naruto's clones asked in a bit of an uppity manner. He wanted to get back to training so that he could win the tournament of clones and prove he was the best Naruto, "What do you want? We're kind of busy."
The Uchiha boy just looked at all of them and narrowed his eyes on them, "Tch, it's not the leftovers from that Hyuuga escort party." He said to seemingly no one in particular, "…It's an Uzumaki though." A weird-looking Uzumaki, but still an Uzumaki nonetheless.
Naruto's clones all got defensive at the identification of his clan only for several to be taken out from elsewhere, "Scatter!" One of the surviving clones said before he too was exterminated.
All of Naruto's clones and the original himself took off to make a run for it into the forest, followed by three blurs that came from the surrounding area to chase after them. The Uchiha boy prepared to give chase as well when he felt a hand hold onto his shoulder to keep him from doing so.
Turning around he paled a bit at the sight of an older Uchiha looking down at him, "Itachi?"
Like the younger boy he had black eyes and black hair but longer and in a loose ponytail down his back. His face contained very specific tear trough lines and a stoic, stony expression on his face. His attire consisted of grey light armor covering his torso and black pants with guards covering his forearms. Clearly a man used to constant combat from the looks of him.
"Sasuke, why would you waste effort pursuing that boy?" Itachi asked of his younger brother who took a step away from him when he was able, "He isn't the target we're meant to capture."
"Everyone else is going after him." Sasuke said in argument before trying to run off again only to have Itachi stop him once more, "What are you doing? I haven't fought a single battle since we got sent out here. I found him, I should go after him. He's an Uzumaki."
The fact that he was spoiling for some action after finding out that he was actually going to be sent out with his big brother for once made him more eager to get into a fight than normal. For once he had a chance to be impressive in front of Itachi whose entire career was just one big chain of big moments.
And getting to take down a member of a clan that was a well-known ally to the Senju Clan would only prove to be a big moment for his career as well. His Sharingan turned on out of the sheer excitement he had at the thought. This campaign in the west was his first distance dispatch as a full-fledged member of the Uchiha Clan.
"Did you ever stop to consider why you would find one Uzumaki Clan child all the way out here? If you ever see any of them on the mainland it's never this far away?" Itachi asked Sasuke as a means of making him wait and think. They were way too far west to simply come across an Uzumaki, "The Hyuuga Clan isn't allied with the Senju Clan, which means that an Uzumaki wouldn't be here to help them fight against us."
Aside from that, the current conflict between the Uchiha and nearby Hyuuga Clan hadn't even been going on long enough for the latter to even begin trying to seek assistance from any other Hi no Kuni clans. And the boy had been alone… technically. That clone jutsu he'd been using didn't count.
"Whatever." Sasuke said, realizing that Itachi was never going to let him go chase after the blond kid he'd come across. There went his chance to show his talent to his powerful big brother, "As long as you don't leave me behind when it's time to actually do missions." He didn't just want to be some place-filler.
"We'll see." Itachi said before narrowing his eyes in the direction that Naruto had run off in to evade the Uchiha who had gone after him. There was something about that boy's appearance that lined up with a rumor making the rounds around the country, 'The Uzumaki Clan's jinchuuriki?'
Apparently the new jinchuuriki didn't look like any other Uzumaki, and he was just a child. Those marks on his cheeks did seem extremely out of place.
There was work to do, but Itachi had to say that he was intrigued. Later perhaps when things weren't so busy. Right now they needed to locate the person of interest that the Uchiha Clan had been pursuing when Sasuke had come across the other child.
XxX
(With Naruto)
Scatter wasn't supposed to mean that they were all supposed to take off in the same damn direction, and yet that was what Naruto's clones had done when the excrement hit the fan and he wound up being chased.
"I could have told you that was going to happen. What with him being an Uchiha and you being… a person that's not an Uchiha." Kurama said in hindsight.
'Not now! Later!'
Luckily, the original Naruto was able to bail out from the pack by creating one last clone to make a timely substitution with. The rest of the Uchiha Clan members went on ahead to chase his clones. How he could tell this was because he felt his copies systematically getting picked off. His clones were smart though, because they were using the chakra available from splitting off from him to create more of themselves at opportune moments to continue retreating.
Hopefully they'd get sick of the never-ending numbers and quit pursuing the poor replications.
'I think they're gone.' Naruto thought to himself, hiding underneath a large bunch of gnarled roots beneath a tree sitting by a ledge. It was starting to rain, so if he played his cards right that would cover his tracks better, 'Okay, gotta get back to the cart. Everything'll be fine as long as I don't lead 'em back to the cart.'
Once he got back to the cart it would be like home base in a game of hide-and-seek as far as he was concerned. He couldn't take too long though or Kakashi, Tenten, Teuchi, and Ayame could be in some trouble if this was bigger than just a few Uchiha forward scouts.
What the hell were they doing there anyway? From everything he'd ever been told the Uchiha and the Senju stuck to the east and the center of Hi no Kuni to fight with each other. Kakashi had been paying close attention to the rumor mill as they'd travelled and dealt with customers at the cart, and nothing about any mounting battles between the two clans had been spoken of lately.
It wasn't his problem though. What was his problem was getting back to his people before things got worse.
And then things got worse.
…Kind of.
Because Naruto's little temporary hiding place was infiltrated. Not by an Uchiha, at least he didn't think she was one. A girl his age with a short, level-style dark blue-colored haircut, fair skin, and white eyes who seemed totally scared to death of the sight of Naruto and the kunai in his hand. She wore a cream colored jacket with a hood and fur around the cuffs, dark blue pants, and blue sandals.
The two just stared at each other for the longest time until the girl's eyes drifted down to his kunai and stayed there. Naruto's eyes did the same before panning back up to her face, "Shhh." Hopefully she knew the score of what was going on right now. From how she'd been breathing somewhat heavily she'd been running.
The girl just nodded and her eyes flickered away before looking back at Naruto, "A-Ano… you're not an Uchiha."
"No, I'm not." Naruto said, moving past her to get closer to the roots they were taking cover beneath, "Wait… how well did you lose them before you hid here?"
The girl held a hand to her chest before closing her eyes, reopening them with veins bulging around her temple and the features of her eyes becoming more distinct. This only lasted for a second or so before she deactivated it and let out a tiny 'eep' sound, "Not very well I'm afraid."
Naruto actually turned his head back around to give her a distinct look of annoyance mixed with fear, "What the hell do you mean, not very well?" Once again the two stared at each other as Naruto could hear movement through the leaves coming closer. He had several seconds to contemplate whether he should just run and ditch this girl who led the enemy straight to him, or do the right thing.
Ugh, as if it was ever even in question what he was going to do.
"Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu (Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu)!"
Without the girl's consent or even informing her of what he was about to do, Naruto scooped her up and dove out from underneath the tree just before it burst into flames. Why? Why did he have to take her with him? Whatever issue the Uchiha Clan had with her it wasn't his problem!
"I hate Hi no Kuni!" Naruto shouted to himself as he could feel the three people in pursuit right behind them; two guys, one girl. These were different guys from the first squad that had gone off on a wild goose chase after his clones, "I hate it so much! Fuck this country!"
The poor girl that was being chased for whatever reason couldn't really do anything but hold on tight and curl up as best she could in the arms of the strange boy she'd come across while fleeing from her clan's newest enemies, "What are we going to do?"
"I don't know!" Naruto replied in an alarmed manner, "I didn't have a plan when I grabbed you! I didn't have a plan before I grabbed you! I'm making all of this up as I go along!"
"Ninja-san, drop!"
Naruto didn't know why he listened to the girl that shouldn't have been able to see a damn thing due to how her face was buried in his chest, but he did as he was told and by dropping down a branch managed to avoid several kunai from spiking his brain stem, letting them hit the trunk of one of the trees.
How'd she know that was about to happen?
It didn't matter, it was time to actually do something about this, because these guys were just as quick as the ones that had been after his clones and he was carrying a girl so he was slower now.
He couldn't stop and fight while holding onto this girl though, and even with the ability to litter the forest with clones, taking on the Uchiha Clan three-on-one wasn't his idea of a fun morning. But there was one thing he could do since it only took one hand-seal that he could do in his sleep, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)!"
Naruto created three clones that turned around to face off with the three adults pursuing him, but they didn't seem to be deterred by the numbers in the slightest, "They're all solid clones! Take them out!"
All three of the clones clashed in midair with the Uchiha adults… and were quickly defeated.
In theory they were defeated at least.
"Gah!" One of the Uchiha said as he struggled while holding his hands on his face after passing through the puffs of smoke from the destroyed clones, "I can't see! What did that brat do to me?" His two fellow clan members moved closer to him and set his hands aside to find an explosive tag stuck to his visage, burning down ominously.
Their faces morphed in horror and they tried to flee away from their doomed comrade after seeing what had attached itself and attached stubbornly to his face, but it was already too late for all three.
BOOM!
Farther away, Naruto flinched at the sound of his tag going off. He stuck a tag of his own to the back of one of his clones and activated it after creating it instead of having them use their own supply which would have vanished from existence the moment that they dispelled. The point of the trap was to make the enemy destroy the trapped clone so that the tag would be concealed in the smoke and would stick to them.
He was hoping that they'd underestimate the clones in the taijutsu department because he was a kid and wouldn't waste the projectiles on taking them out from afar, and he was right. Man, he wished someone from the village was around to see that.
Actually he didn't, because it was kind of raining hot body parts and blood spray. Not nice.
Landing on a branch far enough away that Naruto knew they weren't being pursued any longer, he set the girl back onto her feet and held onto her so that she wouldn't fall out of the tree as he admired his handiwork. That worked way too well, and he was really feeling himself at the moment, "That really blew 'em away didn't it?"
Yes. Heroic one-liner, check.
The girl couldn't really believe it either. A boy that looked to be almost exactly her age managed to overcome a team of Uchiha Clan shinobi that were at least several years his senior. Albeit it took a lot of running away, but if he had really been that overmatched his little trick would never have worked.
Averting his gaze over to the girl next to him he gave her a big grin to reassure her that things would be fine, "If anyone asks you and you tell this story to somebody later, it was eight guys instead of three and I carried you out of that tree after it caught on fire." Speaking of fire, he then realized just what big beacons the fire from the explosive tag and the burned tree were going to be. It was like trying to learn that fire jutsu from Kakashi all over again, "Uh… we should really get outta here. Like now."
He went to pick her up again but quickly found out that it was not necessary when the girl started jumping from branch to branch all on her own. She could do that the whole time? Why the hell didn't she tell him that from the start?
"Oi!" Naruto shouted, heading off after her, "Who are you?"
XxX
(Some Time Later – Ichiraku Ramen Cart)
"You killed eight enemy ninja with one move?" Kakashi asked incredulously, sitting inside of the cart as it travelled down the rainy road was the best way to make sure that Naruto and the girl he'd brought along with him could stay hidden in case any Uchiha came along to try and check things out, "And you were surrounded?"
"Yep." Naruto said, sitting down between Tenten and the girl with the strange, pretty eyes, "Ask her. She was there." Eight sounded much cooler than three, thus he was sticking with it.
The girl seemed to be uncomfortable with being put on the spot so brazenly and looked down to the floor while poking her fingers together, "Yes. There were Uchiha Clan ninjas chasing after the two of us."
"You fought Uchiha?" Tenten asked, wanting to yell at their misfortune of coming across that particular clan, "Wait, you got away from them in one piece?"
Hinata nodded with a small, timid smile, "Naruto-san was very brave."
'I so totally wasn't.' Naruto thought to himself, still grinning smugly Tenten's way. His bun-haired partner wasn't believing any of his crap either and it showed all over her face, 'I was thirty seconds away from freaking out.'
It was a head-scratcher for Kakashi to figure out how Naruto was making the number of clones that he'd apparently made. He knew for a fact that while Kushina had taught him Kage Bunshin, she hadn't taught him the ultra-forbidden idiot version that would kill anyone else without a shadow of a doubt.
So that meant that he was making around thirty with the regular method for training because he was stretching the limits of what Kage Bunshin no Jutsu could do before needing to upgrade to Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu. Good foresight Kushina. Or maybe she didn't have the time and privacy to teach him just what he needed to do to go farther than that?
Gurk… that thought was kind of scary, that Kushina would have been entirely willing to give Naruto a kinjutsu if she'd been granted the time and the seclusion needed to do so. Mama bear indeed.
"Hmm." Kakashi stroked his chin in thought before smiling over at Naruto, "Perhaps you're more capable of handling yourself than I thought. Alright, I'll begin training you more intensively now that I've been assured that you can take it."
Why did that fill Naruto with a deep sense of dread?
Ayame was almost beside herself. Not one, not two, but now THREE cute little kids currently populating her father's cart? What deity did she need to pray to out of thanks for this? Just like Naruto and Tenten, this little girl was absolutely adorable! And she was so shy and polite!
She had to be taken out front with her father driving the cart so that she'd stop doting on the three of them, but every so often she would look back in with a forlorn look on her face. It didn't occur to her that at least two of these kids were deadly, deadly assassins. They were kids, they were cute, and she wanted one to sit on her lap so she could baby the ninja children.
Still though, while Kakashi could definitely feel some modicum of pity for the white-eyed little girl that his blond charge had brought back to camp, he wouldn't be doing his job if he wasn't suspicious, "So mind telling me what a Hyuuga is doing all on her own being pursued by the Uchiha Clan? At last check they didn't venture this far west. What's your name?"
"Hinata." The Hyuuga girl said nervously. Now that they knew what clan she was in, what would they do to her? There was a chance that in an effort to escape being captured or killed by the Uchiha she might have positioned herself for something worse, "W-What are you going to do now?"
"Well that depends." Kakashi said, watching their current tagalong shrink into herself just from his one-eyed gaze. He wasn't even trying to be intimidating, "What happened to you? You were being chased already when you ran into Naruto correct?"
Apparently a new clan conflict in the area was breaking out between the Hyuuga Clan who were noted for operating in the western portion of the country and the Uchiha Clan who were beginning to step on their toes.
The Hyuuga Clan had a strong economy due to the amount of clan members routinely hired out for guard service of the nobles of the countryside. They were the best one could ask for when it came to sentry duty due to their respective clan trait that let them see everything they could possibly need to in order to effectively protect their targets.
The Uchiha Clan were trying to extend their reach into the region and were being hired to infiltrate certain places that just so happened to be under Hyuuga guard. Needless to say after this happened more than a few times over the course of a few months tensions rose for both. But the Hyuuga Clan didn't anticipate actions that could be taken as open war to be done.
Hinata had been on her way back from a particular guard assignment that she'd taken as a good omen that things were beginning to look up. Not a single thing had happened on her mission. Her team hadn't had to fight or deal with any trouble from enemies hired by rivals the way that their client had anticipated, but it turned out to be a trap.
Their client favored the Uchiha Clan, and only hired her clan over the last several months to help the Uchiha by getting them a better idea of Hyuuga manpower and what they were capable of. And when it was learned that she was… well, a rather important member of the clan, they were informed and the Uchiha Clan dispatched a numerically superior force to capture or kill her.
Her team didn't survive, but they weren't the targets. They were in the way and were killed in a short battle as Hinata fled with them. She was the last one standing of the team, the youngest, and the most important to protect for so many reasons.
By the end of her story that she'd had a bit of trouble talking about due to the fact that she'd had to watch so many of her own clansmen fall in order to keep her safe, Hinata was close to tears. Tenten just looked on and nodded sadly, understanding that this sort of thing happened all of the time.
"So…" Ayame said, sitting off and listening raptly from the front of the cart where she could hear everything inside, "They started a war with your clan just to get your mercenary business?" That was her understanding at least, "How cutthroat."
She wasn't a ninja, so she didn't understand their motivations to do what they did. It was just difficult to come to grips with why a little girl like Hinata, who didn't seem like she could harm a fly, would be put in the kind of situation that would force her to watch people kill others while trying to murder her.
"I heard some stuff from the adults on Uzu no Kuni." Naruto said, getting attention put on him where he was sitting between the young kunoichi pair, "About the Uchiha Clan. They say things like they're stretching themselves thin with how long the war with the Senju Clan's been going."
"Yeah?" Tenten said, brown eyes looking at him curiously as to what his point was. She didn't know much about the ninja rumor mill since she was totally clanless and the only news she heard were some of the things that she'd been able to glean from travelers passing by her village, "It's been going on for so long nobody can remember a time when it wasn't."
That was exactly the thing though, as Naruto was getting to, "Yeah, and both of them are running out of money to fight with." He said, much to his partner's surprise.
You couldn't keep up a war for longer than a century for free. For the longest time they'd been the go-to clans for any kind of necessary mission services in Hi no Kuni because they'd been the strongest. They still were. So both clans were in a process of expansion to try and keep the flow of money coming into their coffers, and that required more than their traditional clientele. They needed to expand outward.
The Senju Clan allegedly started stretching its attempts for business north past the border in that direction while the Uchiha Clan did the same to the west. They kept fighting over business between each other in the east around the coast where business was most bountiful and the center of Hi no Kuni where both clans were situated.
Kakashi rubbed Naruto on top of his spiky head for knowing that much about such a sensitive subject. But his clan was close enough to one of the main players involved that adult conversation would trickle down to him if he listened hard enough, "When it comes to fighting regional wars, the Uchiha and Senju would much rather fight clans like the Hyuuga than fight each other. It doesn't cost nearly as much and usually winning one puts them in a better position to continue waging war with the other."
Most of the time, the clans that they pitted themselves again would back off rather than fight one or the other, but if things turned violent on a wider scale neither had any problem with battling them with the same intensity that the Senju Clan and Uchiha Clan would use against each other.
Internally Kakashi was kicking himself at not being able to read the current climate of the region better. If he knew things were getting tense in that way, he would have taken them out of the way instead of continuing on straight through. It was too late now though. They just had to keep moving and get themselves out of the hotspot as soon as possible.
Still though, "I need to go back home." Hinata told them, standing up from her seat to bow and ask their permission, "I know I've been enough of a burden already with needing to be protected by Naruto-san, b-but right now I don't think I would make it back on my own."
"I see." Kakashi said deciding that it was a better option than just walking west and hoping that they didn't run into any more unwelcome surprises. Hopefully Naruto had filled their quota for the day this morning, "…Your home wouldn't happen to be west would it? We were kind of going that way when Naruto brought you here and it would be really helpful if-."
"Kakashi!"
"I'm just saying."
XxX
(Uchiha Clan Fortress)
"They lost both of them?" Walking through the halls of a well outfitted, bustling hilltop hideout with his older brother Itachi, Sasuke was definitely now kicking himself for being held back from continuing by Itachi, "How'd that kid kill three of us? They were older than him!"
"Older doesn't mean better." Itachi said, chiding Sasuke for that kind of mindset, "You should know that by now. In theory they were stronger than him, but that lends itself to its own list of things they could have fallen prey to."
Itachi saying something like stronger not necessarily meaning better was sort of lost on Sasuke, as Itachi was really the last person he really found that appropriate to hear such a thing from. Itachi was stronger and better than anyone else really. Rumor had it that he possessed the Mangekyou Sharingan, but he didn't show it to others with the exception of their father due to him leading the clan.
Neither spoke about it. Itachi wasn't comfortable when it came to using or referring to it.
Sasuke figured that he might as well have stayed at home and kept taking missions there. His first time facing some real danger on the battlefield in a distance campaign, and he only got to fight a few Hyuuga Clan members more concerned with keeping their heiress safe than trying to win.
At least they were taking steps to begin actively engaging the Hyuuga Clan now. An ambush like before wasn't going to help him prove anything to himself or to his family, "So what's the strategy?" Sasuke asked.
The two of them walked outside of the fortress past some of the guards to overlook the lush valley that they'd put their fortress at the center of, atop an incredible multi-tiered hill that allowed them to oversee almost everything.
There was nothing around for miles, making their stronghold a proper hideout, but it wouldn't hide their place from the Hyuuga Clan if they could get a general read on their location. That was why this campaign needed to move quickly.
They'd already positioned strike forces just outside of three villages under the protection of the Hyuuga Clan, ready to make a move at Itachi's discretion as he was the head of this whole operation.
Most of the clan members seemed excited about the fact that they could possibly eliminate a rival in short order since many of them in the current generation were so used to fighting against an enemy in the Senju that they couldn't ever seem to wear down enough to break. Itachi however, didn't seem to share the same sentiment as many of them.
They couldn't tell if this was a 'business as usual' kind of thing for the battle-hardened Uchiha powerhouse, or if he was feeling disenfranchised for some reason or another. Actually, most of them couldn't see any difference in Itachi at all other than those close to him like Sasuke. But for those that could he definitely seemed off about something.
"We have a flanking formation on the Hyuuga Clan grounds." Itachi said, kneeling down to draw a diagram of what he was explaining in the dirt for Sasuke's benefit, "Do you see?" He said, pointing to three settlements around one large one.
"They're in a semi-circle around the Hyuuga grounds right?"
"Yes." Itachi said, "The plan is to cause a diversion in one, and attack from the angles provided by the other. Right now it doesn't matter which. If we use the middle one we can attack from the two exterior angles, but if we draw attention to one of the exterior villages we can use the other two to fold over and smash them from one side. Standard procedure in our clan's method of approach on a stronghold."
Itachi was so cool. The way he talked about taking the fight right to an enemy's fortified position as if they'd already won. Man, Sasuke wanted to be just like his older brother. No, he wanted to be stronger than his older brother.
He'd show his father that he could be just as good as Itachi was. And this was just the beginning.
XxX
(One Day Later – With the Ichiraku Ramen Cart – Hyuuga Clan Grounds)
"You all live there!?" Naruto asked loudly as they stood at the foot of a grand hill with a huge castle at the top of it. By huge it was seven stories off of the ground… starting at the top of the hill, and the sheer amount of ground it covered around and across seemed like the size of a small village, "Like… nobody lives in a house surrounding it or anything? Everybody gets to live in the castle? That's nuts!"
He was so jealous. He'd never even seen the inside of the Uzumaki Clan mansion before and Hinata lived inside that big, huge castle.
"Don't be so loud Naruto." Kakashi said, "We're not exactly friends of these people-." Before he could even finish his sentence, they were surrounded by ten other obviously Hyuuga Clan members with their strange doujutsu active, glaring suspiciously at them, "-Yet. Hello there." The white-haired adult said as Naruto and Tenten huddled around him in a makeshift manji formation.
"Where are the rest?" One of the Hyuuga Clan members said, coldly staring down the new arrivals with their nigh featureless eyes, "Hinata-sama left four days ago for her mission with six other members of our clan. So where are they?"
"…We don't know?" Naruto said, finding that to be the wrong answer when he felt himself layered in the pressure of their collective killing intent, "Seriously! We don't know! I found her running away from some Uchiha guys in the forest!"
"Not helping, not helping, not helping." Tenten chanted under her breath before she saw that all of these Hyuugas had some strange green mark on their foreheads; two canes on opposite sides of a manji-looking design. What the hell was that?
Hinata moved from behind them to try and talk down her clansmen from trying to find a reason to kill the group that involved her technical savior. Upon seeing her endeavor to defend them her presence starting disarming things before she'd even spoken.
"The team I left with was a-attacked by the Uchiha Clan on the way home." Hinata said sadly, taking a moment to let it sink in as to why she was the only one who had made it back, "These people went out of their way to escort me home. They're… f-friends."
The eyes of the Hyuuga Clan snapped back onto the ninja trio, "Yes! Friends! Totally friends!" Naruto said a bit louder than necessary, netting him a pinch on the arm from Tenten. Hey, this was the first time he'd been surrounded like this. Being all cool like Kakashi wasn't really his forte when he wasn't sure he was a few seconds away from a hopeless fight, let alone when he was actually facing one down.
Sparing the small boy one glance with their strange doujutsu kekkei genkai, they all dropped their jaws at the sheer amount of chakra they could see coursing through his body. And then they looked up at Kakashi and noted the very particular trait he was hiding behind the sloped left side of his headband over his eye.
Copy Ninja Kakashi, and some Uzumaki kid with way too much chakra and a seal on his belly holding back even more that they couldn't really sense.
"Hatake-san." One of the Hyuugas said with a half-bent bow, "Thank you for returning Hinata-sama and braving the Uchiha Clan to do so. We're all aware of your reputation with them."
"Uh, it was nothing?" Kakashi said, a bit confused at the sudden change in attitude, but not really hating the shift whatsoever, "All in a day's work I guess." Sometimes he forgot that he was supposed to be famous. Lately it was kind of hard to remember when he was basically babysitting a pair of preteen killers, one of whom was glaring at him for stealing his hero thunder.
"Our clan patriarch would love to speak with you. Please, your children and the merchant folk with you will be allowed onto the premises as guests until you depart. It's not safe in this area."
Yeah. They already knew that.
XxX
(Outskirts of Nearby Village)
The contingent of Uchiha Clan ninja stood over two hundred strong, prepared to head forth and take on the stronghold of the Hyuuga Clan. As it now stood they were out of range of being seen by the damn Byakugan that every single one of them possessed, but once they began their approach they would never get close enough to even begin launching distance attacks unless Itachi's stratagem worked.
The Hyuuga Clan castle grounds sat at the edge of a cliff overlooking a main lowland road beneath that they could easily monitor, but a short ways away in that direction there was a ridge that could actually overlook the castle.
Once they made a ruckus in one of the towns to attract the attention of the Hyuuga Clan the ranged artillery would move forward up onto the ridge and begin bombarding them from afar. This clan was notable for being poor in regards to distance fighting, both in the ninja arts and in overall warfare. It was just that their Byakugan usually made up for that discrepancy.
This rain would wind up playing into their hands as well. It wouldn't hamper their fire techniques one bit.
Sasuke was antsy as he waited with many of his clansmen for things to start. They were all advancing as close as they could to the castle before the first bit of action began, which would attract attention to one of the other villages and begin pulling the Hyuuga Clan in that direction before they got themselves flanked.
The castle itself would be wide open as well, not that they would be able to really defend from the Uchiha distance attack.
"Sasuke." The young Uchiha found his attention garnered by his brother's call, "I have a mission for you." He did? Yes, finally, "Rumor has it that a small path leads to a bridge away from the castle meant as a way out in case the grounds are ever overrun. I want you to investigate and see if this is true."
Oh. Some mission. This was just a way to keep him out of the real battle. Damn it, why did things always have to be this way?
It wasn't Sasuke's ideal position to be in whatsoever, "Itachi, why do you always try to do this? Why can't I fight on the front lines like everyone else?" He said, his onyx eyes shifting to the red of his kekkei genkai, revealing two tomoe surrounding the pupil in each orb, "I can do it."
"I know." Itachi said, "Which is why I'm telling you to do what I say. We can't spare a party to head around the back end lest they be seen. If this rumor of an escape route is true, we have you to set a trap and cut off their escape. They'll have no way out."
And the Hyuuga Clan would have to surrender or be destroyed.
Sasuke was listening raptly now as Itachi set his hands on his shoulders to make him listen, "Once you find this place set your traps and send a signal. Depending on the tide of the battle at the time I'll either meet you there myself or a squad of twelve will." A job like this was actually dangerous. He would be moving ahead of the others, "Scouts are usually the ones that find themselves in the worst peril during combat."
Yes. Give him that. He was perfectly fine with that. This was what he'd been waiting for.
Sasuke just smirked and nodded his understanding to his role before Itachi gave him a push to send him off, which he did without hesitating.
Maybe in another time it would have been considered insanity to send a ten-year old off to do such a thing. All Itachi could really feel was sorrow at the fact that a ninja that hadn't even reached his teen years yet could be completely accepted going off to do something like this.
Sasuke might have been older than Itachi was when he'd first been sent out to do this sort of thing, but there was still a hope in his older brother's mind that Sasuke wouldn't turn out to be anything like him no matter how much Sasuke wanted to be.
XxX
(Hyuuga Clan Castle – Clan Head's Office)
Kakashi personally despised sitting in seiza. He was a hard-working ninja that was currently burning the candle at both ends, training a pair of kids and protecting a roving ramen cart. When he chose to relax, he would rather not do so by sitting on his goddamn heels behind him in a straight-backed position!
But he was the guest here. And he needed some information on this part of the country that civilians apparently didn't have if he didn't know that the Uchiha Clan were out there.
Sitting in front of him, seemingly far more used to the uncomfortable position, was the host of the day; Hyuuga Hiashi. A stern-looking man, at least a decade older than Kakashi with a high forehead, long black hair, white-colored eyes, and loose-fitting white robes with a brown haori over them.
The clan of noble shinobi, and when taking note of this man and many of the others he'd seen since arriving there they really looked the part.
"What brings the infamous Hatake Kakashi to this part of Hi no Kuni?" Hiashi asked, watching Kakashi closely as he stared right at the masked man who was holding a small cup of tea, "Rumors say that the normal areas where you've been spotted for the past twelve years have been around the east coast."
Kakashi knew he was to be expected to drink, but he'd be damned if he took his mask off for any reason whatsoever. He didn't take his mask off to sleep, when he was half-dead in a hospital, or to get laid, so he definitely wasn't going to do it today, "Well would you believe me if I said I just felt like a change of scenery?"
"Not in the slightest."
"I didn't think so."
"And the children with you." Hiashi continued, calmly sipping at his tea, "A clan-less little girl and an Uzumaki with monstrous chakra, even by their standards." Oh, Kakashi didn't like the way that this seemed like it was about to go, "Which one Hatake-san?"
Kakashi just stared at him before sighing, "Byakugan?"
"Byakugan." Hiashi confirmed, allowing the veins around his temple to bulge at the sides of his eyes to turn on his kekkei genkai, "We can see almost anything. It's just that not too many of us know exactly what we're looking at when we see inside the child. Jinchuuriki are a mysterious sort, and fuuinjutsu isn't exactly our strong point."
'Hence the cursed seals on the heads of your Branch Family that effectively set up a caste.' Kakashi thought to himself, wisely choosing not to say this aloud, '…If I gave Naruto three years to study what it's supposed to be for, in his downtime he could probably come up with something better than that.'
Naruto might have been a chibi-Uzumaki, but he was still an Uzumaki. It was like those people could read the language of the seals and it looked like Naruto wasn't that different if a little less learned due to his age.
The stoic Hyuuga leader remained with his impassive stare on Kakashi, "The jinchuuriki rumor is true after all. An unconventional-looking Uzumaki boy, and I can see the seal on his stomach constantly trying to mix chakra with his own." He saw Kakashi stiffen and held up a hand to assuage his fear, "No, I can see clearly that the seal is more than stable. His chakra flow is steady and safe. Were he unstable his chakra would fluctuate wildly."
"But still, that rumor has made it this far already?" Kakashi asked in a bit of wonder. He'd only gotten Naruto two weeks ago. It reached the other side of Hi no Kuni faster than they had, enough to get to people that had absolutely nothing to do with it, "Do you know who could have started it?"
Hiashi shook his head in the negative, "It's just something that has spread. We were told by the client of the last few missions we've taken." A man that he'd be having a word with for his treachery. And by 'a word' he meant 'a palm to the chest' for certain, "There are more important things to be concerned with. Such as the pending threat of war with the Uchiha Clan."
About that… "Is there any way we can get out of here before that actually starts?" Kakashi wondered with an amicable eye-smile, "The Uchiha Clan aren't exactly the biggest fans of mine as you could probably imagine." For emphasis he tapped his covered left eye, "And I have civilians with me."
"Actually, I would like to, for lack of a better term, pick your brain for possible ways to fight against them." Hiashi requested with a bit of a bow Kakashi's way, putting the man on the spot, "The fact that we both possess doujutsu is something that has inherently set us against one another, but our respective areas in the country kept us from ever engaging in any real conflict. Their current economy is putting a squeeze on them."
Trying to find different avenues to profit elsewhere was the key to their continued survival and ability to thrive at the top of the food chain. And it just so happened that their next avenue happened to be right through the Hyuuga Clan.
XxX
(Meanwhile – Bluff Overlooking the Castle)
Itachi slogged up the rest of the hill through the rain past a sparse number of Uchiha Clan members all manning one massive piece of weaponry that they were rolling into a good place to take aim, covered by enough foliage that they would only move it from behind when it came time to fire.
"Things are almost ready Itachi." One of the clansmen leading artillery portion of the attack force said, "Just give us the signal when you want us to fire and we'll be ready. It'll be a hell of a shot to make, but I think we can pull it."
"We have no choice." Itachi replied as he tried to observe the Hyuuga Clan castle through their cover, "The only way we keep the element of surprise is at a distance. A vast distance. Without the advantage of a surprise attack we would be facing perhaps the best defensive clan in Hi no Kuni."
The point was understood, if not necessarily liked. The Uchiha Clan liked to believe that they could defeat any opponent, but Itachi was the pragmatist of the clan. He was the one that no matter what was always realistically able to gauge their chances in combat with any enemy and was able to logically ascertain a method for them to take. More often than not it usually resulted in victory.
In the last major battle against the Senju Clan four years ago, Itachi made his name in this manner at the age of thirteen, actually turning the tide of the battle in the middle of a massive Senju rout and managing to bring it to a stalemate.
So he had their trust as a more than capable shinobi and leader.
His eyes bore witness to the clan members loading up a giant bolt in a massive crossbow that was to be their distance weapon with which to terrorize the hallowed grounds of the region's most powerful clan.
"Prepare to set fire to the arrow at a moment's notice to shoot."
It was almost time for the battle to begin.
Major Clan Information
Hyuuga Clan
Leader: Hyuuga Hiashi
Population: 3.5/5
Military Strength: 2.5/5
Economy: 5/5
Notable Traits: Dark hair. White eyes. Aristocratic in mannerisms, appearance, and behavior. Devastating close-range fighting ability. Separated into two separate classes of member based on lineage. Dojutsu kekkei genkai 'Byakugan', allowing them near 360 degrees of vision, the ability to see through solid objects, telescopic sight, and the ability to see with great details the many facets of chakra.
Area of Operation: Western Hi no Kuni.
Uchiha Clan
Leader: Uchiha Fugaku
Population: 4.5/5
Military Strength: 5/5
Economy: 3/5
Notable Traits: Dark hair. Dark eyes. Exceptionally skilled in all methods of combat and warfare. Extremely susceptible to their emotions. Powerful chakra. Natural aptitude for fire-based ninjutsu. Highly aggressive combatants. Direct descent from the Rikudou Sennin. Doujutsu kekkei genkai 'Sharingan', allowing them incredible clarity of perception, the ability to analyze and copy skills, and the ability to cast a hypnotic genjutsu on targets.
Area of Operation: All of Hi no Kuni, extending influence into outer lying areas and other countries.
Alright, so this was originally supposed to be one chapter, but it was way too big so I had to break it into two. Double post hoooooooo!
Yeah, that's enough of that. Keep going if you'd like. Later.
Kenchi out.