Who ?

00H 00M 01S

It had been a week since life had returned to normal in Heiwa. A general council meeting was currently taking place.

All of a sudden, the furniture began to shake, the air seemed to vibrate to the point that some could see it moving around them, and the ground emanated a continuous tremor that lasted several seconds. At the first vibration, everyone in the city, without exception, stopped what they were doing. The sensation was strange, because it was unknown and above all it was frightening.

Was it an earthquake and everything was going to collapse ? Or were they under attack ? Civilians were not used to this and few of them had ever experienced this kind of sensation. As for the shinobi, they were more used to it, although the highest Ninjutsu techniques were quite rare.

But it didn't matter what the cause was, because everyone sighed with relief when the shaking stopped.

However, there was only one person in the whole town who was wide-eyed : Uchiha Madara. Like everyone else, as soon as the air and ground began to vibrate, he stopped talking and immediately looked out the window, his eyes glazed over. He knew at once that the phenomenon was not natural, it was not an earthquake, oh no, thanks to his uncommon sensory faculties, Madara understood that it could only be a Ninjutsu technique of S rank.

It hadn't happened in a long time, but his heart rate increased as did his breathing and he even automatically clenched his fists, ready to fight. Indeed, in the past he had faced ninjas who could use S-level techniques, but what made Madara's hair stand on end was the residue of chakra that was in the air. How could this be possible ? He found it inconceivable that it was even THIS chakra that could have been used.

— "Could it be possible that...," Madara whispered to himself deep in thought.

— "Madara ?" The patriarch of the Uzumaki clan asked worriedly.

Ashina was far from stupid, it was strange and out of the ordinary that the famous Uchiha Madara could have such a reaction to a tremor like that. For him to be speechless it had to be something important going on.

— "Go to full alert !" Madara said before standing up and heading out of the room with a hard look on his face, but he couldn't stop a smile from appearing on his lips.

— "Why ? What could possibly be causing such a high state of alert ?" Asked one of the council members. This had never happened before and it would paralyze the country for a while.

— "Heiwa is under attack !" Madara replied as he headed for the main door followed closely by Sakura who had automatically stood up as she saw her husband heading for the exit.

— "By whom ?! No one is capable of matching our strike force," Suzuki questioned as he watched the country become the most powerful nation in all the elemental lands over the years.

Madara said nothing as he walked through the door the guards had opened. The Uchiha couple disappeared, leaving the triumvirate and the sub-council completely confused by this simple announcement without any further explanation as to why.

— "Sound the level three alert !" Suzuki shouted to the guards before standing up himself. The man reacted this way because he had complete confidence in his Heikage. If the Heikage ordered such a decision, it was because he had to be prepared for any eventuality, even the most terrible.

The atmosphere in the room changed immediately, everyone understanding the gravity of such an order. One of the guards left his post and ran to one of the three ropes in the room to ring the appropriate bell so that the city could be warned.

The guard pulled on the rope... once... twice...

00H 01M 00S

CLANG

The sound echoed throughout the city.

Every living being in the city immediately stopped what they were doing to look up to the sky or look into the void. This bell sound was totally new, never heard before. It was louder, deeper and more deafening than those heard in the past. The inhabitants were not unaware of the existence of these bell sounds, which were sometimes followed by the sound of a horn. But each time, it was only to indicate to the population that an army movement was taking place in the valley and that there was no need to worry. But today the sound was completely new.

CLANG

When the second clang also sounded, everyone in the town had the same sensation, the same physiological expression in their bodies. They all felt that characteristic squeeze in their chests, a sign that their brains had already analysed the situation and were already releasing the adrenaline necessary for them all to flee from the danger they could not see.

Fear began to invade their hearts and minds : what was going on ?

Why had the atmosphere suddenly become so heavy after the ringing of the bells ?

On hearing the sound of the bell, the man in charge of the city's warning systems also understood the importance and, above all, the seriousness of their meaning. He immediately went to the dragon's head horn, which he never thought he would use in his entire life. But he had been trained for all situations and even if this one had never happened in a real situation, he knew that it was essential that he not panic. The safety of the population depended on what he did now. He then took a deep breath before bringing his lips to the object and exhaling all his breath.

The resulting sound was soft and long at first, but then became deeper and deeper, reverberating for about ten seconds throughout the valley. When the silence returned, no one dared to speak, and then all at once everything started to happen.

In different parts of the town and the valley, identical scenes were taking place.

— "Everybody go home !" Ordered an officer as many guards deployed in perfect order. "This is not a drill ! Everyone go home until further notice ! If you do not have a home, go to a designated security point !"

The people knew that when the army gave an order, they had no choice but to obey. Indeed, although Heiwa was a place of peace, it was above all a place of totalitarian rule. The rules were simple : the population had to obey if they did not want to be considered traitors to the nation.

No one dared to oppose the orders given throughout the city, and they began to carry out the orders imposed on them. In the past, they had had similar exercises to learn how to return home with discipline and without spillover, but they had always been exercises. They had never had the sense of anxiety that they had now. The shopkeepers left their stalls as they were, they did not fear any theft since this was not a practice in the city.

So it was a population that left the streets and the market place to head for their homes. However, despite the apparent discipline, you could see fear in the eyes of the people as well as in their gestures.

Meanwhile, people outside the city were running to the main gate.

— "What's going on, Mama ?" Asked a little girl before being lifted up by her father who was running towards the portcullis while holding his wife's hand.

They passed a regiment of horsemen who split up once they reached the crossroads. Their role was to pass on orders to a large part of the valley and to help as much as possible to establish discipline.

The small family had just passed through the portcullis with others following the directions of the soldiers posted at the entrance.

— "Go back to your homes ! If you don't have a home in the city, go to the places of safety !" Repeated the soldiers in the city.

— "Daddy !" The little girl began to cry in her father's arms. She was scared and did not understand what was happening. She had never seen her father so worried and neither had her mother. Some people were shouting, others were jostling each other and there was a certain tension in the air.

Not long after the horn had sounded in the city, another noise broke out and echoed around. The sound was both dull and loud : it was so deafening that it made all those who heard it plug their ears, some even had their ears bleed as their eardrums were unable to cope with the resulting vibration, others lost a few decibels. And you didn't need to be an expert to understand that this noise, given its power, could only be that of an explosion... a huge explosion.

As if the sound wasn't enough, when the inhabitants looked up at the sky through the surrounding buildings, they saw the sky change colour abruptly for a few seconds before turning blue again. Moreover, the tremors started again, more intense than the previous ones. One did not need to be a seasoned soldier or shinobi to understand that this was not an earthly phenomenon at all. It could only be an armed attack and that it had been closer than the first time the population had felt the tremors.

Inevitably, fear grew in the hearts of the people and panic overcame all the discipline they should have had : everyone began to scream and run in all directions, the survival instinct growing tenfold in everyone. They all wanted to escape the threat of this invisible, but terribly frightening attack just by the noise it generated.

— "STAY CALM !" Shouted the officers in the various corners of the city in an attempt to bring some semblance of calm to the streets. It was important not to panic or they would not be able to be effective in their goal of keeping the entire population safe.

00H 05M 00S

CLANG CLANG CLANG

A new bell rang within the city walls, but this time the inhabitants knew what it meant, but it did not reassure them. On the contrary, it indicated only one thing : the city gates were being closed to prevent any intrusion by outsiders if it was an armed attack.

The crowd of people still in the streets became more and more panicked. It had to be admitted that despite the regular exercises to prepare the population as well as possible, when it came to a real situation, the emotional factor completely changed the smooth running of operations. Therefore, in order to help the soldiers, Heiwa's shinobi troops also began to pour into the streets to quickly guide civilians to their homes or shelters.

For those who still had the wit to observe what was going on around them, they could also see many ninja troops moving at full speed on the roofs of buildings. They were all heading towards the huge wall to see what was happening on the other side. In addition to the ninjas, large contingents of soldiers in close ranks were moving along the walls, armed with bows and arrows. Even the trebuchets were being prepared for use in case of a possible enemy invasion.

The stone walls suddenly glowed with a multitude of Fûinjutsu seals placed by the Uzumaki clan since they had taken up residence in this town. The writings glowed a royal blue and one could feel the chakra in the air leaking out to solidify the structure.

— "What's going on ?" Asked an Uchiha to an Uzumaki who had his hands pressed against the stone of the high wall.

— "No idea, at the moment we don't know what the threat is, but the level three alert requires us to activate maximum defenses," the blood red haired shinobi explained as he looked ahead.

The Uchiha looked to the horizon, there were still many civilians running towards the main gate. It was locked, but there was still a small door for latecomers to enter. Of course if there was any threat this one would be locked as well, but for the moment it was currently being guarded by many ninja.

The Uchiha's gaze drifted to the mountains in the distance from which a huge amount of smoke was emanating. It seemed to him that a piece of the mountain had collapsed on itself. Activating his Sharingan he saw directly that it was Ninjutsu that had created this. The air in the distance was flooded with chakra and whatever was there at the time of the explosion must have been disintegrated.

— "What could have caused this !?" Exclaimed the dark-haired man, who couldn't believe it.

To him, only three people in Heiwa or the rest of the world were capable of such devastating techniques : Ashina Uzumaki, Uchiha Madara and Uchiha Sakura.

— "I don't know," replied a soldier near him.

Then suddenly, several miles from the capital, a forest began to take damage. Several trees flew in all directions, completely uprooted or crushed into a thousand pieces. The person or creature moving through the vegetation didn't care whether it was discreet or not until it stopped in the middle of the forest. It didn't take a sensory ninja to recognize and feel a condensation of chakra.

The Uchiha shuddered and many people in the city felt very bad when they felt this chakra emanation. Many people from Konoha were stunned when they recognized the feeling they had experienced in the past : that mixture of hatred, distress and pressure in the air. All that chakra being released into the atmosphere from this area of the forest was unhealthy and vile because it could only belong to one equally evil creature : the notorious Kyûbi No Yoko, the Nine-Tailed Fox Demon.

After about ten seconds, the concentration of chakra materialized into a purplish-orange ball that grew to a size visible to all from the wall. All those on the wall were completely stunned by what was happening in the distance. Everyone knew the Bijû from having encountered the ones that Sakura and Madara, their revered lords, had led further north, but no one had ever seen a Bijûdama in action.

But as the chakra sphere grew even larger, it was suddenly propelled towards a town in the valley. All the trees were swept away by the blast of the attack, creating a path for the mass of chakra to hit the town in the centre.

Everyone held their breath as they watched helplessly.

— "Oh my god," whispered one of the soldiers as the orb disappeared for a moment before a dazzling flash of light began to illuminate the sky in different colours. All could see a white, red, orange, and then blue glow before the chakra ball imploded and increased in size tenfold before creating a huge, devastating explosion. The town of three hundred inhabitants was reduced to dust by the single blast of the Bijûdama. All life in the vicinity perished instantly : whether from the blast, the explosion, or the invasion of demonic chakra into their bodies.

No sooner had their eyes regained their stability than the blast reached them. All of the ninjas held their positions, but anyone who had no knowledge of chakra found themselves propelled by the force. Some of the men and women in armor were thrown down the wall and landed on the roofs of the buildings.

Unfortunately, the fall was so great that many people died or were seriously injured.

Although the warning orders had been scrupulously put in place, all those who had returned to their posts felt completely powerless compared to what they had just witnessed : the power of a Bijû. And even if almost all the army had never faced a tailed demon, the destructive force that resulted was enough to make them understand that they had no chance.

— "Something is wrong," the Uchiha remarked as he saw the city completely razed to the ground.

Indeed, in place of the city was now a huge smoking crater from which a few flashes of chakra were emanating.

— "What is it Uchiha-san ? The Uzumaki asked, equally shocked by the result of the attack.

— "I'd know that chakra anywhere, it's the Kyûbi," said the shinobi without taking his eyes off the horizon, Sharingan still activated. "Except that the nine-tailed fox demon should be visible from here, but we can't see it. What does that mean ?"

The Uchiha's remark was legitimate, for during Madara's attack on Konoha, the beast had been visible from a great distance. This one was five times taller than the tallest tree in Hi No Kuni, so why wasn't this one visible ?

— "I hope the force will be sufficient," the blood-red haired man hoped.

Once the explosion had passed, the survivors who were still in the valley got up as quickly as possible and started running towards the capital. Many soldiers had left their weapons on the ground to carry a child or help civilians move faster. The riders tried their best to calm their horses, but it was a futile attempt as the horses fled in terror of the demonic chakra.

While some people were heading towards the city, others had taken the opposite path.

Only those trained in the shinobi arts could see them : a group of ten people were moving at high speed towards the forest where the attack had come from. This force was made up of the nation's best shinobi and their orders were to analyze and if possible eliminate any threat. This squad was composed mostly of Uchiha and Uzumaki.

— "Formation 5," the squad leader ordered as they entered the forest where the threat potentially lay.

They had covered the distance as quickly as possible, trying to hide their chakra as best they could so as not to alert the enemy. The ten ninjas deployed to avoid a potential area attack. It would have been strategically unfortunate to suffer a technique of the same caliber when they were all in the same place.

They jumped from tree to tree at breakneck speed and one of them saw the projectile heading straight for him too late. A huge tree covered in orange chakra had been thrown in the direction of an Uzumaki who immediately perished as the projectile razed everything in its path at the same time.

The task force then realized that they were discovered before they even reached the target, which was in the centre of an unnatural clearing. The clearing had been created from scratch, the ground was completely devastated by the residue of demonic chakra and trees were strewn here and there. And in its centre stood a single person.

This person was wearing armor from the early Sengoku era and had blood-red hair which meant ninety percent of him was affiliated with the Uzumaki clan.

Yet, as the squad members watched the individual in the centre of the false clearing, one of them was attacked without the others noticing. A being half-emerged from a tree to grab the Uchiha's head, who died instantly with a broken neck before the being disappeared as if it had never been there.

— "The target is alone," the squad leader said in sign language.

If this target was alone, the squadron was ordered to neutralize the threat. So they charged from all directions towards the person responsible for all the chaos. However, as they approached, almost half of the shinobi slowed their movement before coming to a complete stop when they saw who was in front of them. They had recognized the person they knew well and thought was gone.

— "Princess...," one of the Uzumaki whispered as he saw the look in the woman's eyes before him. Her gaze was icy, murderous, and she took advantage of the confusion to launch a salvo of orange chakra laden kunai. These forcefully launched projectiles easily killed three other shinobi who did not react in time because of the surprise of seeing this woman in front of them.

00H 10M 00S

In the distance on the wall, various Ninjutsu techniques could be seen by everyone before finally stopping. Had the intervention squadron succeeded in its mission ? Had the threat been neutralized ? So many questions that were quickly answered when one of the shinobi pointed in a direction:

— "Over there !"

In the middle of the road, a ball of chakra similar to the previous one was appearing. It was, at first, small before growing larger and larger with each passing second.

The sphere became even bigger than the previous one before finally being launched. The unthinkable was happening: the ball of chakra had been sent towards Heiwa himself.

— "My god !"

— "This is the end..."

— "We're all going to die !"

Realizing this inevitable reality, many shouts rose up among the crowd piled up on the wall. Some of them were completely stunned by the doom that was about to befall them. In any case, how could they avoid such a destructive attack ? One only had to look at the groove several metres deep that the sphere created behind it to imagine what it would do when it hit the city wall.

In all the chaos, as the orb approached, Akihiko gently grabbed Yui's hand and looked at her. For him, there was no doubt that the end was near, so he looked at the woman he loved, he wanted to soak up her delicate face before he died. He was glad that he could at least experience that feeling and he owed it to the second chance Sakura had given him by saving him and taking him to Heiwa.

However, just before the mass of chakra hit the stone, it stopped dead in its tracks, or rather slowed down so abruptly that it seemed to come to a halt. A multitude of Fûinjutsu seals had appeared around the Bijûdama which created a tremendous blast by the contact of the two techniques.

Who could have achieved such a feat ? Regaining their senses and a semblance of hope of being saved, they all looked around for the person responsible and all could see Ashina Uzumaki with his arm out in front of this mass of chakra. He was thinking about what to do. Should he send this technique back to its creator ? No, that would cause more victims in the nearby towns and villages.

Letting it hit Heiwa was out of the question, so he did the only alternative he had left. He raised his second arm in the air and high in the sky appeared a multitude of Fûinjutsu seals and everyone could see the ball of chakra appear in the sky before it began to move towards the atmosphere.

Everyone watched almost religiously as the mass was sent up into the sky, praying that it would not fall back towards them. It was useless to be a great scientist to understand that if such a thing happened, nobody would come out of the impact alive. But it seemed that Ashina Uzumaki's technique was paying off as the sphere continued to move away until it suddenly imploded in the sky. This was due to the difference in temperature and the few impurities in the air that destabilized this huge mass of chakra.

As the Bijûdama exploded in the atmosphere, everyone was dazzled by the blinding light produced by the phenomenon. At first there was a radiation of such a bright white colour that everyone's eyes hurt, whether they were closed or not. But this very uncomfortable visual sensation lasted only a fraction of a second before it was followed by the power of the blast caused by the implosion of the sphere.

The air began to vibrate with such power before it came down just as violently as the light towards the ground. The force was so great that everyone was crushed by the pressure of the blast on the earth : it was impossible to resist and everyone was knocked to the ground. The power was so great that it also caused damage to the houses. Some cracks appeared on the walls, other much more basic constructions were completely destroyed by this invisible impact.

Finally, when all were not only blinded and oppressed by this mass of air, the sound finally reached their ears.

The sound was so muffled and the volume so high that everyone's eardrums were extremely sore as they endured the sound of the blast. They felt as if the noise was not coming from outside but from inside their own bodies, as if they themselves were imploding.

Their brains were unable to distinguish at that moment between the equally extreme sensations that each of them could feel during the different stages of the explosion. Some of them thought that they had escaped something even more terrible, for if the effects of the explosion in the air were already so violent, what would it have been like if the sphere had finally crashed into them ? Once that was over, they all watched in awe as the sky turned a blazing red from the incandescence of the chakra in the atmosphere. The vision before them was close to what some would call : Apocalypse.

Away from the wall, two people dressed in their battle gear had been watching every event. They could not let this attack continue and had to deal with this terrible threat to the peace they had built. And as they were about to head towards the place where the chakra source was emanating from, Madara suddenly turned to his wife.

— "Sakura..."

— "Yes Madara ?" Sakura asked as she had never seen her husband with that kind of look on his face.

The man stared at his wife with such intensity and depth that it caused the young woman to become very emotional. The Uchiha wanted to convey all the love he had for her. Indeed, since Madara had recognized the Kyûbi's chakra, he had no worries about his ability to handle him as this was a fight like any other but the Uchiha had this thought that crossed his mind : what if ?

The man wasn't the type to have remorse, let alone regret, yet he decided to say that sentence to his wife anyway. He was not a romantic and even less a sentimentalist. He knew that this would be the very first time he would say it to her in words. But he felt it was the right time to do it today.

— "I love you."

Sakura felt her heart leap with joy at the words. He had married her, made her a child, spoiled her, protected her, loved her, she had never doubted it... but he had never said it in words.

— "I love you too," Sakura replied with tears in her eyes before feeling her husband's warm hand squeeze hers for a brief moment.

The reality of the moment took over and they jumped into the air and landed several dozen feet away from the wall.

They ran at full speed towards the enemy. It was not long before they reached the place where their enemy was standing. They stopped a few meters away when they saw her and especially when they recognized her.

Sakura stood by her husband's side, ready to fight at the slightest sign of attack from this person she never thought she would ever meet, let alone under such circumstances. But still, the cherry blossom was not impressed by her.

— "Ohayô Mito," Madara said as he saw the heiress of the Uzumaki clan before them.

— "You !" Ashina's daughter replied with undisguised disdain. Her gaze was closed and showed no trace of friendliness.

On the contrary, finding out that Madara Uchiha was in front of her only increased her hatred for him. So he hadn't died in his fight with her husband ! By what stroke of fate had he escaped ! But then everything was explained, everything !

— "It was you, wasn't it ? You who caused the loss of all those innocent people ? It can only be you who eradicated my people as well as Konoha," she said with anger and rage.

— "Your people ? On the contrary, I saved your people, they are here in Heiwa... including your father," the Uchiha said calmly.

Mito frowned at this sentence, she didn't know if he was telling the truth. But she was suspicious, after all Madara Uchiha was known to be a very great manipulator. She couldn't trust the word of this being who had no qualms about breaking the peace treaty he had signed when Konoha was created. Even if she had just unapologetically killed her own family members, there was no evidence that the entire clan would have chosen to join this traitor. Her father would never have allowed it even if they had survived the destruction of their village.

— "Father would rather have died on the battlefield than join a man like you," Mito retorted, thinking back to her father who hated Madara in the past.

— "And who do you think would have been able to counter your previous attack ? No one in the living world is as skilled as he is in terms of Fûinjutsu," the dark-haired man added.

Mito had a slight hesitation at this argument, but she refused to listen to this individual any longer. In any case, her side had been chosen long ago.

— "It doesn't change anything..."

— "You know that fighting is not necessary," Madara tried anyway.

— "Unfortunately it is !" She asserted vigorously, wanting to end this dialogue.

— "Being a Jinchûriki will not allow you to win against me, I remind you that I controlled the Kyûbi during my fight against your late husband," Madara explained to the woman in front of him.

— "Still so pretentious I see," she hissed through her teeth.

— "Maybe, but you're alone Mito," Madara reminded her that she had little chance against him knowing that Sakura was by her side as well.

— "She's not alone," a new voice rose behind the Uzumaki clan heiress.

As this sentence finished being spoken, a form appeared behind the red haired woman before moving to her side. Sakura gasped slightly and widened her eyes at the sight of the person who had just appeared. She would never have imagined that this man was there in the flesh.

As for Madara, he couldn't help but smile when he recognized the voice that had just appeared, a smile that he kept when the individual positioned himself next to the Jinchûriki of the Kyûbi.

The Uchiha found that all this was now taking a very interesting turn.

— "Hashirama..."