Demons

Author's Note: I've decided that I will try to write some aspects of romance in the story. The plot will not revolve around it though, and I don't know when I will put those parts in. The MC likely won't reciprocate anything until the Shippuden timeskip occurs. Other characters may happen earlier, not sure.

I never thought, when I started this story, that I could pull off writing from multiple people's perspective and make it work. Hiruzen, Kakashi, and Inoichi's pov's have been surprisingly easy compared to some of the younger ones.

The idea for this story was one that could have fit for multiple people. The original twinfic idea I had for a NarutoInsert had the MC either be Itachi's twin or Hinata's. The Itachi one would have involved a lot of emotional turmoil from the very beginning, so I opted out of that since I was unsure I could pull it off. The Hinata having a twin brother one would have been the most likely second best one. I could have written how Hiashi saw parallels of he and his own brother and how the MC was an objectively better brother than he had been. (Hell, I humoured the idea of a NejiInsert at one point). I went with the Uzumaki twin route because it offered a route to writing Hiruzen, Jiraiya, and Kakashi into the story in the easiest way possible. It also helps that I wanted a BAMF protag.

This won't be the only Insert story I'll write, and it won't be the only Naruto one either. This one is more of a trial run to see if I could pull off halfway decent writing, and it seems to have worked, so I'll finish the entire thing. Nothing short of dismemberment or an unforseen death will stop me from finishing this story. I'm in for the long haul. I hate stories that are good and end up abandoned.

Anyway, I'll hop off my soapbox.

One other thing: My autocorrect has repeatedly tried to change "Kakashi", to "Jackass". 10/10 quality right there.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any songs, books, or films referenced. This is a work of fanfiction that I make no profit from.

Alright, here's another chapter.

//////////////////////////////

""Contain it," Kakashi instructed sharply, his eyes focused on the screeching chakra in my hand, "You almost have it."

I growled audibly as I imposed my will on the crackling lightning chakra that yearned to be free.

Finally succeeding, after so many years of training lightning release, and months of specific chakra control exercises in my hands, I managed to replicate one of the two most iconic Jutsu in existence.

The Chidori.

Rushing towards a large rock, I smashed my hand into it, drilling the jutsu through it with ease.

The lightning discharged and my fingers went numb, but I did it.

I ignored Kakashi, practically shaking in my shoes gleefully, as I inspected the damage.

It was a clean pierce, the rock having blown apart by the impact.

"Congrats," Kakashi clapped my shoulder, the visible portion of his face practically glowing in pride, "I'm proud of you, Naruto."

The progress I just accomplished made everything worth it. I was so freaking happy and the numb feeling in my fingers was already gone.

"I just need to contain it a bit better," I admitted, but I was still smiling happily, "Some of it numbed my fingers."

"Eh," Kakashi waved it off, "That's easy. The big issue is using it effectively. You don't have one of these." He gestured at his covered eye.

"Sensor." I shrugged, tapping at my head, "I won't tunnel vision when I can feel around me."

Kakashi relented, not knowing how good sensing was. Sure, a Sharingan would be preferable when using a Chidori, but sensory abilities meant I could use it without detriment.

"Now," I clapped my hands, looking up at my dad's student, "Rasengan. Now!"

Kakashi sighed like how an exasperated dad would on vacation.

"We can do it later. I have my own life, you know."

I gave a look of unimpressed bemusement. "You read porn, train, eat, and sleep. What life?"

"Mah, you really know how to cheer me up, Naruto." He opened up his Icha Icha, starting to read it as he ignored me.

'Really?' I thought amusedly, turning to look at the rock.

"You asked for it." I said simply, Henging as 'Naruko'.

I heard Kakashi inhale sharply, before going silent.

"How am I supposed to learn the Rasengan?" I asked myself, pressing my finger on my chin. "If only Kakashi-senpai would help poor little me."

"Stop it." Kakashi's voice broke through my act, sounding deeply uncomfortable. "Please drop the Henge."

"Do you not love me, senpai?" I asked, my lip quivering in mock anguish. "Why don't you love me?"

Kakashi charged lightning chakra into his index and jabbed my shoulder, dropping the Henge.

"You're the most annoying genin I've ever met," Kakashi stared at me, "And I've met quite a bit."

"And you're the most annoying Jonin," I countered happily, smiling at him, "We're the perfect pair of master and apprentice."

Kakashi didn't say anything, simply looking at me. I stared right back as we kept up the contest.

Eventually, Kakashi shook his head and sighed, walking towards the shattered rock.

"You should work on improving your lightning release for now," He said, gesturing at the rock, "I could have turned the center into powder instead of exploding it. I'm surprised you managed this before the Rasengan."

"I need someone to oversee me training these jutsu," I muttered, relenting towards what he was saying, "And you're better at guiding me on making a Chidori."

I wasn't going to risk shredding my arm trying to work them out unless I was around Kakashi or Rin. I told Rin the same thing, she was not to work on it without me or Kakashi present.

"Just," Kakashi paused, his gaze aimed at my hand, "Practice channeling lightning into the individual digits and pull back some. That's how you shape it to just outward some without destabilizing."

"Will do." I nodded, ready to start again.

"You got over the most dangerous part. You can do it alone."

With that, Kakashi disappeared in a swirl of leaves, leaving me alone.

I decided I was going to keep on going. Channeling lightning through my arm, I focused it in my hand, smiling as the chittering blue arcs stayed somewhat controlled.

"He's got the whole world in his hands." I started singing in English, forcing some more chakra into the jutsu.

The chirping sound grew louder and I did what Kakashi advised, forcing the lightning along the tenketsu connected to my fingers and pulled back right as it reached my finger tips.

The numbness that hit me before was reduced now, causing me to grin.

Come on, again!

I made a half seal with my left hand to Shunshin while holding the Chidori in my right, smashing it into a tree.

My target exploded under my hand, spraying wood everywhere.

I deactivated the jutsu and pulled my arm back, brushing off the debris.

"Okay," I muttered, hopping on the balls of my feet, "Let's keep doing this until I'm out of chakra."

/////////////////////

"You can't just rely on constantly hitting me with Genjutsu, Sakura," I gritted my teeth, flaring my chakra to shatter the illusion, "It's gonna take more."

I was sparring against Kurenai's team and I was taking them on with ease, my eyes flicking towards the three.

Last week was when I finally got the Chidori to work, and I was already working on the Rasengan, but it kept fighting me in working.

The fact that Rin was keeping pace with progress was just as much annoying as it was pleasing. It just seemed to click with her.

Sakura clenched her fists and looked at Kiba, the boy popping a pill in his mouth and Akamaru's, the dog hopping off his head and the two transformed into copies of one another.

Shino stalked around me, his insects buzzing audibly from my enhanced hearing.

With a blur of movement, Kiba and Akamaru shot forward, spinning like two drills at a decent speed.

I weaved my hands into the proper seals and gathered chakra in my stomach, building up the pressure.

Suiton: Suidan no jutsu.

The jet of water I sent at the two forced them to go in separate directions around the water, giving me an opening to run forward.

I dropped a couple explosive tags and Shunshined at Sakura, seeing her as the weakest link for taijutsu.

Right as I got to the pinkette, I pulsed chakra in my legs and flipped over her, flinging a kunai with a tag at her.

The girl dashed to the side right before I triggered it, avoiding the explosion.

My feet barely touched the ground and I was already rushing towards her again, the girl's eyes wide in worry.

I didn't give her the chance to use a Genjutsu and flung several shuriken from a storage seal etched in the metal of my bracer, letting me close the distance as she twisted to avoid them and swung her kunai to protect herself.

Shino was running towards the two of us and I threw a punch at Sakura, the girl barely avoiding it.

Shino's presence and Kiba's closed in and I slammed my hand into the ground, pulsing lightning chakra through it. The arcs of blue electricity sparked around me, forcing the two to stop closing the distance.

They jumped up and I made a cross seal, making multiple clones.

The clones immediately ran towards them and started pelting the two boys with water jutsu while I charged at Sakura once more, the girl casting a Genjutsu.

She was better at it than she was a couple weeks ago, but it still had a slight fuzziness to it in the images.

A simple half seal and my chakra shattered it, my other hand smashing into her forearms. Several punches and kicks struck out at her and she wasn't up to the task. A spinning kick was partially blocked by me as I diverted her body weight and lashed out with a punch from my other arm. My fist struck her face and she cried out, staggering forward.

I grabbed at her shoulder and pressed my chakra against hers, overwhelming it with a contemptuous ease and stuck my grip to her, yanking her towards me to be flush against my chest.

"Kiba! Shino!" I barked out, a kunai in my hand and aimed at Sakura's head, "Spar's over. I have a hostage."

The two boys were soaked and bruised, my clones doing their job before getting killed.

Sakura didn't give up and tried to knee me in the groin, but I shifted and drove my knee into her thigh, giving her a charlie horse.

Sakura gasped and fell, but I caught her.

"Good," I muttered in her ear, "Never give up and keep fighting. You'd have been free and won if I wasn't ready."

Shino conceded and I let Sakura go, holding her steady from her leg visibly shaking.

"Do you need help walking?" I asked kindly, keeping ahold of her arm.

"No," Sakura groaned, making a couple hand seals and making her hands glow, "I got it."

The girl pressed her hands against her leg and let out a sigh of relief, her leg straightening as she fixed the newly forming bruise with some Iryo-ninjutsu she'd been learning over the last several weeks.

I let go of her and Kurenai approached us with the other two.

"Well done to all of you." She smiled, tilting her head at me, "How is Sakura's Genjutsu?"

I was pretty much the test dummy for Sakura's Genjutsu because I needed to perfect my ability to break out of them because a jinchuriki sometimes struggled with it. That and I had the chakra to burn to break them constantly.

"Not bad," I shrugged, "Give her some more time and she'll be scary. She's much better than before." I turned the girl, her face flushed pink as her hair, "You're pretty good for a newbie. Genjutsu is hard."

The pinkette looked pleased with herself, walking towards her teammates.

"I think I'll grab some food right now," I told Kurenai, "It's my off day after all."

This was one of the days where it wasn't group training and Kurenai asked me to help her team run through a few drills, the last part being a free run spar.

"Thanks for the help, Naruto." Kurenai said gratefully, "Enjoy your food."

I smiled and made a hand seal, disappearing in a swirl of leaves.

/////////////////////

After I finished eating, I walked towards where the Yamanaka made their little home amongst Konoha, the area relaxing and safe feeling.

I caught a flash of chakra that dampened and I could tell it was a signal that a visitor was arriving, because two people appeared at the front of the entrance.

"Uzumaki Naruto." The one young woman with brown hair said, looking to be about 5 or 6 years older than me. The other was in his twenties and had dark blond hair, fairly tall as well.

"Hello," I nodded to the two of them, "I'm wondering where Ino is. It's about us training."

"You are aware she is the clan heiress, right?" The younger one asked. "We will need a guarantee that you are in fact Uzumaki Naruto."

Without a single care in the world, I pulled off my jacket and popped the straps on my armour, letting it fall to the ground.

"What are you doing?" The older of the two asked with a bit of alarm, his chakra sharpening.

"Taking off my shirt so I can show you my seal." I said flatly, "Not a whole lot of redhead jinchuriki are there?" I pulled my red t-shirt off and I pulsed chakra towards my stomach, revealing the seal that held half of Kurama.

The two gave it a once over and shrugged, looking relaxed.

"I can let foxy-kun say hi if you need more proof." I offered, letting some static dance across my fingers as I caressed the seal.

The younger one freaked out and let out a really high pitched "No!" and reached for me, but the older one grabbed her hand.

"Very funny," He deadpanned, "Don't terrify the rookie. Inoichi-san mentioned your penchant for acting insane."

"No fun." I mock pouted, putting my shirt and chestplate back on, "And it's not like I can even break this thing if I wanted to. The Yondaime knew what he was doing."

The older guard nodded slightly, letting go of the teenage girl.

"Ino-sama," The man twitched at saying the name, "Is currently out and about. We can tell her you want to speak when she gets back."

I scowled lightly at her not being here, but I nodded and thanked the two, turning to leave.

Currently, I only needed to do one more thing. One was to give Kurenai a bit of help, which I finished. The second was to apologize to Ino and try to mend the bridge a bit since I'd tried to with Sakura. The last was to go to the clothes store to get some new clothes that fit me after I grew some more. My pants were riding up my ankles and I didn't like it.

I walked through the village, spotting Rin and Sasuke's signatures a distance away, the two feeling fatigued.

It rankled me that Kakashi had the two of them doing their own thing at times away from me. Call me a hovering brother, but I didn't like Sasuke being around my little sister for hours at a time for the last couple weeks. They clashed constantly and Kakashi's solution was to make them, on off days specifically, go through the motion of grocery shopping and doing mundane crap that roommates or couples did.

Rin thankfully hated every bit of it and she made sure I knew it when she was home. But Kakashi seemed to know what he was doing because their teamwork was much better and they wouldn't bite each others' heads off at the slightest provocation.

I opted out of intruding because of Kakashi telling me to butt out of his genin team and I walked the rest of the way to the clothes store.

///////////////////

Ino hummed to herself as she perused the racks of wonderful clothes, each one being complementary in their own way to different heights, hair colours, and posture.

The blonde was admittedly a little obsessed with fashion, but it was fascinating in the same way flowers were. Each one had a different meaning and would elicit a different responses from the mind based on colour and other things.

Take purple for example. She loved the colour and it went well with her hair and eyes, the colours different enough where people's eyes would be drawn to her own turquoise.

Purple was a difficult colour to make into fabric before artificial colouring and the most common occurrence of purple was in flowers, and a certain poisonous kind that she always liked.

It was a rare kind of flower that needed the soil to have a slightly larger saturation of chakra in it, and she thought the flower was pretty. The poisonous beauty of it always had her intrigued from the perspective of human personality.

Humans were hardwired to fear and avoid danger, but pursue beauty. But that doesn't seem to apply with such a pretty flower, being liked despite its poisonous nature.

The young girl kept humming and found an absolutely gorgeous little jacket that would go well with her shirt.

Her hopes died when she found the price tag.

"Why?" She whined to herself, sniffing slightly from the unfairness. Her dad had cut off her allowance until she reached a certain level of competence in her clan jutsu, but at least he was nice enough to tell her how close she was.

'But I don't think this will be here in a couple weeks.' She thought sadly, putting it up with a heavy heart.

Deciding to try a little more practice with her sensing, she sat down in one of the seats and closed her eyes, focusing on her chakra reaching out to feel her surroundings.

She didn't expect the brightness.

"Gak." She groaned, stifling a curse at the feeling of extreme irritation leaking through the insufferably bright signature that was Uzumaki Naruto.

'Of course he's here.' She thought to herself. He always seemed to be there when she didn't want him. She'd tried to talk with him and say something, to try and reach out to see whether he was as adjusted as she hoped, or as fragile as she feared. But she couldn't seem to during the training sessions they'd been doing for awhile. His chakra always blazed during any type of conflict and it scared her how sharp and on a knife's edge he felt sometimes.

Clenching her hand and setting her back straight, she stood up and walked towards where he was, hearing his voice.

"I have the Ryo, you biased shit," She heard him growl, "Just accept the money and let me buy some clothes." The anger in his voice was unsettling.

"I don't serve your kind," The older man that owned the store replied coldly, who'd always been so sweet to her when she'd go shopping with her mom, "Do you even need clothes?"

Ino watched behind a clothes rack in worry as Naruto leaned forward and grabbed at the man's shirt, jerking him forward and staring directly at him.

"I can't beat some sense in you because I'm a Shinobi right now and you're a civi," He spat the last word out, "So do me the favour of telling me exactly what you mean by my kind, so I can legally kill you like I did the teacher at the academy."

'That's what happened to Mizuki?' Ino thought fearfully, no one knowing what happened to him. It was said by Iruka that he was caught doing something illegal and was sent to prison, but not that Naruto killed him.

The man started shaking and his eyes flicked towards her as she was spotted, the man practically pleading that she save him with a look.

Naruto tracked his eyes and slowly turned around, his blue eyes seemed to flicker for a moment and he looked at her with shock.

She knew he was a sensor, but was he that angry that he overlooked her signature?

"Ino." He said her name quietly, letting go of the man. The redhead looked panicked at her seeing and hearing him and he promptly left, his stride quickening.

"Wait." Ino held up her hand, running towards him.

Naruto got out the door by the time she got to him and placed her hand on his shoulder to get his attention.

"Stop." Naruto's voice shook and he tried to get away from her, but Ino could tell he was distressed and she just wanted to help.

"It's okay, Naruto, I'm not going to bite."

The red haired boy started muttering under his breath in words she didn't understand and he stared at her with a gaze that made her feel vulnerable.

"How much did you hear?" He asked simply, not looking away from her.

"Um," She was uncomfortable with how much he was focusing on her, "Every thing?" She said uncertainly, fidgeting under his gaze.

He'd just admitted to killing someone and had wanted an excuse to kill another person because he was slighted.

'Did I do this?' A traitorous thought struck her again.

Naruto seemed to make a decision about something and sighed audibly.

"I can feel how scared you are. You wanna talk about it?" He asked, his expression back to an uncomfortable one.

And now he was back to being the intelligent boy, instead of the dangerous predator that would go for the throat.

"I," She started, closing her mouth for a moment, "Why did you threaten to kill him?"

"I wasn't actually going to," Naruto scowled, looking insulted, "He's about as dangerous to me as a one legged roach. I was pissed at him and I'm not in the mood for his 'bullshit'."

She didn't understand the last word, but it sounded harsh how he said it.

Naruto took a deep breath and reined in his irritation, breathing as steadily as he could.

"Let's talk somewhere a little less out here," He gestured around the street, "I don't like feeling exposed."

Ino had her sensing active and she hid the flinch from Naruto's emotions leaking into his chakra.

He was scared. His body language looked like a cornered animal and it was directed at her, specifically her.

"Ichiraku's alright?" Naruto asked, turning to face towards the east.

Ino considered for a moment, but didn't see a problem.

"That sounds fine." She replied, the older Uzumaki beginning to walk away.

Ino huffed and followed him, the boy seeming to intentionally keep his stride long enough to inconvenience her.

They got to Ichiraku's and Naruto plopped down at the booth, setting his elbows on the table.

Ino sat down next to him and spotted a petite girl a few years older than them walk towards them from the back, an apron on.

"Naruto-kun," She smiled at the red haired one of the two, "I didn't think you'd be back so soon. Forgot to get Rin something?"

"No, Ayame-chan," Naruto said tiredly, "She's probably eating something with Sasuke."

The now named Ayame rolled her eyes and looked towards her.

"Are you a friend of Naruto's?" She asked politely.

Ino grimaced, not knowing what to say.

"Yep," Naruto nodded, saving her from an embarrassing lie, "Ino-chan is a friend. I helped teach her some stuff about sensing chakra and she's nice."

Ayame hummed happily and pulled out a notepad for taking orders.

"What would you like? Friends of Naruto and Rin get a free bowl."

Ino was floored by the difference in treatment Naruto was getting here from a girl she'd never met, compared to the supposedly nice man at the clothes store.

"The miso ramen is pretty good." Naruto mused.

The blonde Yamanaka chose to heed Naruto's judgement and ordered a bowl of miso ramen, the brown haired waitress going back to the kitchen.

Now that is was just the two of them, Ino gave Naruto a speculative look.

"So, are we going to talk about the elephant in the room." Ino said casually, "I hope you weren't being serious about murdering our teacher in the Academy."

Naruto sighed and nodded.

"I'll be blunt as possible. Mizuki tried to trick me into stealing a scroll that was filled with Kinjutsu made by the Nidaime. I went to the Hokage about it and we set up a plan to trap Mizuki, with me pretending to believe him and give him a scroll after stealing it."

Ino's eyes widened in shock. Naruto was trusted with something as important as that?

"You remember that freakout in the village after we graduated?" He asked, "that's what it was about."

"And?" Ino was paying rapt attention, trying to gauge Naruto's thoughts about it.

"So I end up giving a decoy scroll and Mizuki attacked me." His demeanor darkened noticibly, "And I accidentally killed him."

That was when Ayame came with her bowl of ramen, which she thanked the waitress for and began eating some.

She tried to show some table manners and not wolf it down. Training constantly had increased her appetite and her mother had been secretly pleased that she was eating more. Ino could look back and see how silly it was to try a stupid diet when she was going to be a kunoichi.

"There's something else, Ino," Naruto muttered, shifting in his seat, "I wanted to say I'm sorry about some of the things I said before. I know it was rude of me."

Ino slurped up some of the noodles and glared at the boy.

"Why do it though?" She let her displeasure known in her voice, "Don't think a simple apology will make it alright."

"Was I wrong in what I said?" Naruto countered, his brow furrowing and his obscenely bright chakra shifted around in irritation, "I was truthful about you being a little fangirl that looked halfway anaemic and ugly because you didn't eat. Me being a jerk caused you to be a little more serious, didn't it?"

Ino flushed in anger at him describing her as ugly, but she couldn't refute it.

"You're a blonde kunoichi," Naruto clicked his tongue and grabbed one of the vegetables floating in her bowl, popping it in his mouth, "And that makes things problematic."

Ino felt a growl build in the back of her throat, but she exhaled through her nose and tried to see things objectively.

"How is my beautiful blonde hair," She flicked her head for emphasis to mock him, "A problem?"

Naruto scoffed at the display, but his blue eyes still maintained a hardness beneath the surface.

"Iwa has a pretty decent hatred for the Yondaime for obvious reasons," Naruto explained, his eyes going to her hair, "Have you ever read the public, or at least for Shinobi, records about Kakashi-sensei's missions?"

"No," Ino said flatly, "I don't need to."

"You should read it," Naruto nonchalantly stated, "It's pretty interesting that there's a significant difference in mission ratios relative to Suna and Iwa."

Ino didn't follow.

"Hatake Sakumo is one of the most legendary Shinobi Konoha had," Naruto let out a dark chuckle, "And Suna hates him because he killed many Suna nin. Kakashi-sensei looks alot like his father."

Ino remembered hearing about the White Fang, but she didn't realize Kakashi was his son.

"Since you know all the freaky mind stuff from being a Yamanaka," Naruto kept talking, "Have a guess how certain veteran Shinobi react when they see someone with silver hair and has a Konoha headband."

Ino knew what he was talking about. Certain features that resembled the catalyst of a traumatic event could cause flashbacks, violent ones at that.

"The same goes for Iwa and blonds after the Yondaime was killed," Naruto's teeth gritted and his chakra made her shiver involuntarily, "Ask your father about the mortality rates of blond Yamanaka genin five years after Namikaze Minato was killed when deployed on missions near the Land of Earth. Then you'll realize why I hated every moment you focused on Sasuke." Naruto got up from his seat and looked ready to leave.

"I'm sorry for being cruel. I just ask for understanding." The enigma that was Uzumaki Naruto walked away, jumping towards the rooftop of a building moments later.

Yamanaka Ino wouldn't think clearly that day, her thoughts on the boy she once thought cruel, but now started to appear to be fanatically scared of the outside world.

//////////////////////

Inoichi pov:

Today was the second meeting of the Village's clan heads concerning the group training of their children and their teammates. The first training session occurred months ago and they'd agreed to meet every two weeks to get updates from the Jonin instructors on their progress to keep ahead of the things their children were learning.

This was where Inoichi was at, situated around a table with Shikaku and Choza beside him, the other clan heads, aside from Hiashi, were already there.

Inoichi was pleased with his daughter's progress. Following the first training session, she had dedicated herself to learning the Yamanaka clan jutsus, something that surprised him in how adept she was when she put her mind to it.

Her sensing level was also being helped along by him helping her personally. He was a very accomplished sensor and he knew the risk to young Yamanaka sensors, enabling him to forewarn Ino about it.

Because of their abilities in projecting their consciousness, their could sometimes be a Yamanaka that wasn't simply a sensor, but an empathic one. Inoichi was capable of feeling people's emotional states to some degree, and he believed Ino was capable of it as well. Inoichi, and the older Yamanaka nin, were all taught how to insulate their minds from the feelings of elation or trauma, depending upon the memory of their target.

The Yamanaka had to keep separate the emotions of their targets and themselves. Inoichi had done field interrogations on enemy nin, and missing nin. Some of their memories were disgusting. Even with the insulation, he could still feel a shadow of what they felt when they did things. Shikaku and Choza didn't fault him when he'd personally execute missing nin with bounties on their heads. He felt it was Karmic justice that the creatures that took pleasure in human trafficking, child murder, and rape were sent to the Shinigami by the one that laid out their crimes bare for the world to see.

Inoichi had killed multiple missing Nin from Iwa that had murdered his own clansmen, mistaking them for a 'Fucking Namikaze demon' because of their blond hair. You could only see the faces of your kin in another's memories, their screams for mercy, begging to be spared. "I'm not a Namikaze, I'm not related to the Yellow Flash." for so long until it took its toll.

Iwa nin hated that name.

The malicious glee when they nailed the men and boys to trees, the pleasure they felt as the women and girls were brutalized and begged them to stop. The Yamanaka didn't look as similar to one another as the Hyuga did, but far too many of the young girls in the memories he tore through had blonde hair and turquoise eyes.

His eyes. His hair. His daughter's.

Just as Inoichi and Choza were there for Shikaku following his face being shredded in the war by an ambush, and when his guilt was consuming him from coming up with the plan that Uchiha Itachi turned against them to avoid Hyuga lookouts that could have intervened in the middle of the massacre, Inoichi had his wife. The night terrors he'd have of their little girl not coming back were vivid, the memories he viewed making their presence known. Those memories he pulled from the Iwa nin were the reason he was harsh to Ino when he discovered she had been 'dieting' to look pretty for "Sasuke-kun".

Up until recently, he was guarded about Uchiha Sasuke. Sasuke had shown a disturbing lack of empathy when he'd been attempting to counsel him after the massacre, but it could have just been the boy externalized his emotions.

That wasn't something that he wanted Ino to associate with. Period. He had seemed to improve and was thinking in a less cold and withdrawn form once Naruto started pranking and harassing him with his sister's help. He would have pressed further to check Sasuke's psychological state, but Kakashi had given a report to the Hokage, the contents shared with him due to him being the one most familiar with Sasuke's state of mind.

Evidently, Sasuke had a near panic attack when Naruto had beaten him severely, then compared him to Itachi. Hyperventilating, rocking back and forth, and repeatedly whispering "I'm not him. I'm not him." wasn't something a budding sociopath would do, nor was giving up both bells in Team 7's test, preventing him, in his own mind, from passing.

Inoichi was aware of why Naruto was doing what was considered particularly harsh on the other genin on occasion. He, more than any other clan head, understood Naruto's thinking. Naruto was concerned for his classmates. Things that veterans knew were things Naruto desired to learn. Kakashi and Hiruzen had asked if there should be any concern on Naruto wanting to read, not history books, with grand heroic accounts of how 'brave and powerful the Shodai and Nidaime were, but journals and manuals with accounts of what fighting in the "Trenches" was like.

Nothing was held sacred when the stakes included getting killed, tortured, or abducted and raped, both men and women, if they had a kekkai genkai, out in the field. Anything that would increase your chances of getting home was considered a preferred option in war. Even if it meant booby trapping corpses with explosives, mutilating bodies, Henging exploding clones to look like starving orphans, or scorching entire regions, leaving them bereft of all life.

The Yamanaka in the Warring states era were just like that, considered to be some of the most sadistic Shinobi known. Those who know how to fix a mind are also the ones that know how to break it. The boogymen that other Villages had seen them as, right when the Shinobi Village system came into existence, was something that even frightened him.

His grandfather had told him of the things their clan had done to protect themselves and their sworn comrades, the Akamichi and Nara during the "Dark times. Before the Village". It takes a truly diabolical mind, or a very pragmatic one, to think of capturing someone, put a trigger switch in their psyche, and release them back with a false memory of them escaping. A certain word or phrase would be said, and the freed prisoner would murder his own family. The Yamanaka had been contracted out to kill entire families of Daimyos and other Shinobi clans because of their ability in the mind arts.

Naruto, a recently turned thirteen year old, was able to understand there's no honour to be found in war. Honour meant nothing when honour got you or your friends killed. The Jonin manuals that Naruto was permitted to read were different than the Chunin ones that all genin clan children were allowed to read.

The Jonin ones had tactics in them. Tactics such as the power a kunoichi wields in being able to seduce male ninja in combat. Tactics on how to mentally manipulate opponents with triggers and reminders of past trauma. Much of the mental games were written by Yamanaka Shinobi.

Naruto used tactics like that on his daughter and the other girls. Insulting them. Belittling their image as girls by Henging as an impossibly beautiful girl to tease Sasuke, the object of their affections. He expected Naruto to likely switch targets and begin doing that with the boys in the training group to prepare them for kunoichi that would try seduction to throw them off and kill them.

'Maybe I'm overestimating him, but I feel that I'm not.'

Inoichi's head turned sharply towards the door when he felt the presence of the Jonin and Hiashi.

'Why is Hiashi late?'

Hiashi entered first, his steps very precise and slow, more so than usual. Inoichi noticed his eyes were bloodshot, looking more red than their usual lavender tinted colour.

"My apologies for being late." Hiashi said, slightly bowing his head, "an infection had spread among my clansmen and I received my final treatment today."

'Ah, yes.' Inoichi thought. The Hyuga, due to their eyes, had a susceptibility to a certain bacterial infection that infected the eyes. It was completely harmless to almost everyone in Konoha, but for the Hyuga, it irritated their eyes and made it difficult for them to see.

'No wonder he's squinting and his eyes are red.'

Sarutobi nodded and gestured for Hiashi to take a seat, which he did.

"Now that everyone is here," Sarutobi started, "We can begin."

The first 15 or 20 minutes was a general overview on what the Jonin had planned for over the next two weeks. Better chakra control, rudimentary Iryo-ninjutsu, tracking and hunting different genin teams in the forest, and how to fully break out of Genjutsu.

After the initial overview, they moved onto a recap on what happened the previous training sessions.

Kakashi evidently was the one the Jonin selected to speak as he stepped forward.

Sarutobi gestured for him to speak, which he did.

"We've been able to bring their physical fitness up to an acceptable level across the board." He started, "Taijutsu training has helped a great deal. So far, the best ones are Lee, Naruto, Rin, Sasuke, Hinata, and Neji." Kakashi then looked at Choza, "Choji has made great strides in the power in his strikes, but his speed still needs improvement."

Choza nodded at that. The Akamichi aren't speed demons and they never will be. They weren't precise fighters like the Hyuga, they're juggernauts that smashed and crushed things in their path. They had the Yamanaka and Nara to support them from long range against speedsters.

"Of the girls, Hinata is the best at pure taijutsu." Kakashi continued.

'No surprise there.' Inoichi thought, glancing towards a smug looking Hiashi.

"Rin is the next best, followed by Tenten. Ino and Sakura have made excellent progress but are still trailing somewhat."

Inoichi nodded grimly at that, knowing that it will take time for her to catch up.

"What about the boys?" Shikaku asked.

Kakashi turned to look at Shikaku. "Your son is surprising. He is without a doubt the laziest kid I've trained but, he's motivated on being quick enough and strong enough to be able to be lazy any other time."

Shikaku nodded at that. Inoichi had talked with Shikaku and Choza about their children and how they would do together. Shikaku wanted Shikamaru to be more proactive than he had been starting out, but didn't want to be overbearing like Yoshino was capable of being. If Shikamaru could be motivated to push himself in training, even if that motivation was to be a layabout any other time, it boded well for him.

Kakashi continued on with the other boys. Sasuke was making marked improvement in his form and thinking a step or two further ahead than before, Kiba was learning to not look before he leaped when fighting against Naruto, Shino was improving enough where his weakness in taijutsu wouldn't be a crippling one in a fight. When Kakashi got to Neji, he paused.

"What about Neji?" Hiashi asked.

Kakashi glanced at Gai before answering.

"Your nephew still hates Naruto." he said simply.

Hiashi steepled his fingers and leaned his head forward.

"What did he do?" Hiashi asked politely, his eyes narrowed.

"He opened his mouth and spoke." Was Kakashi's answer.

The previous two meetings always ended with what seemed to be a dissertation on the things Naruto said to rile up and aggravate the genin. Again, likely as a way for them to shrug off insults, but it might've also been for another reason.

Food for thought.

"Care to clarify?" Hiashi asked.

Inoichi heard Gai mutter something about 'Unyouthful comments.' Kakashi looked amused under his mask, Kurenai huffed slightly, and Asuma's frame was shaking slightly, like he was trying to hold in a laugh.

"He asked if the Hyuga had a secret jutsu that they were willing to share." Kakashi started, trying to keep his voice steady.

'What?' Inoichi thought. Asking for 'secret' jutsu from a clan was bad. Very bad. Why would Naruto ask that?

'Wait. This is Naruto we're talking about. The punchline's coming up.'

"And?" Hiashi asked irritably, wanting Kakashi to give detail, "What jutsu did he ask for?"

Kakashi's visible eye was shining with mirth. "The kind that would, and I quote, 'Have any girl writhing under me with just a touch of my fingers'." Kakashi finished, snickering at the end.

Hiashi stiffened and glared at Kakashi and everyone who looked ready to laugh.

"He described the Juken," He said slowly, his tone cold, "the pride of my clan, the best taijutsu form in the Elemental Nations, in that manner? An innuendo?" he growled.

"Yeah," Asuma said, having the decency to not smile, "But it got worse."

'Oh Kami, this'll be good.'

Hiashi took a shuddering breath. "How can it possibly be worse?" He asked with a hint of exasperation.

Kakashi and Asuma remained quiet, glancing at Kurenai.

"What else?!" Hiashi demanded.

Kurenai muttered 'perverts' while glaring at Kakashi and Asuma, before she stepped forward.

"He asked how the Hyuga could possibly be so uptight if they could please their women like that." she started, shooting another glare at Kakashi and Asuma, who were trying to keep their amusement to a minimum, "He said, and I'm quoting him directly, 'pussy does wonders in working a stick out of your ass.' "

Inoichi couldn't keep it in and let out a snicker, Hiashi sending death glares to the entire room which were cracking up to varying degrees, with Shibi the only remaining quiet.

Hiashi just set his forehead on the table, growling under his breath.

He heard Gai grumble something again, obviously not liking his student being seen as a laughing stock.

The Hokage cleared his throat and any humour vanished to be replaced by their normal professionalism.

"This is not the time for juvenile humour," he said steadily, "Let's move on from that educational subject." The old man did let a slight smirk appear on his weathered face, "Let's move on to the training regimens for the next month."

After the statement, they began discussing it in detail.

After another half hour of ironing out the details, they were dismissed. Before he could leave, he heard his name called by Sarutobi.

"Inoichi," he called, "please stay here. You too, Kakashi. I wish to speak with you as well."

Inoichi stayed in the room and let the other clan heads clear out. After the room was clear, gye approached the Hokage.

"Yes, Hokage-sama?" he asked.

Hiruzen pulled his pipe out and after stuffing it with tobacco, he ignited it with some fire chakra from his index finger. Taking a deep breath, he exhaled it out.

"I need your help with a psychological profile on someone." He said simply.

Inoichi raised a brow.

"Who?" He asked.

Hiruzen frowned. "I don't know their name or identity," he started, "But I have put down certain details I've gathered."

Hiruzen pulled out a list in his own handwriting, the page full of little jots and comments.

"We've received beneficial intelligence from this individual," he said quietly, "I need to know if he could be a possible threat to the village."

"He?" Inoichi asked, wondering how the Hokage would know from just a letter.

Hiruzen just looked at him. "A previous situation ensured I know." he said simply.

Inoichi just nodded. "May I have a list to work with?" he asked.

Hiruzen handed him the notes. Taking the paper, he looked at what was written.

Has respect for Hatake Sakumo.

Extremely competent in Fuinjutsu.

Is a possible sensor.

Knows of both Jinchuriki.

Knows how Kakashi got his Sharingan.

Knows of clan secrets in Konoha.

Possibly invented an entire language.

The last part of the letter looked like it was word for word transcribed from memory by the Hokage. The words "Burn this letter, now. We're evidently being watched." Was on the note. He promptly burnt the letter with some chakra, crushing the ashes.

"Well?" Hiruzen asked, "Any idea at first glance?"

"He apologized to Hatake," He said, giving a glance towards a quiet Kakashi, "He respects your father, Kakashi, and he knows you well enough to determine that you are like him." Inoichi paused for a moment. "What did he need to apologise for?" he asked.

Kakashi stiffened. "He asked 'Uchiha Obito's left eye' what the fastest way to a girl's heart was." he whispered.

Inoichi was silent.

'Who the hell is this man?'

Kakashi had gotten a mandatory mind session following a friendly casualty back when Nohara Rin was killed. Inoichi saw how much it tore up Kakashi to remember it and for a mysterious man to know what to say and how to say it was unsettling.

Inoichi ran the words through his mind again.

"He's the one that informed you about Orochimaru." he realized, "The Tanuki, the serpent in the sand, red clouds." he muttered the last part.

"Yes." Hiruzen confirmed.

"You based our children's training on the word of an anonymous source?" he asked angrily, baffled by the seeming lack of caution on the Hokage's part, "How do you know this wasn't Orochimaru himself?" he continued, "Nothing here confirms that this isn't some grand lie cooked up by him to make us act in way that will help him."

"I received that letter in a manner that confirms that it isn't Orochimaru." Hiruzen replied, "There were things in the letter that I left out. Things that Orochimaru never knew. I can count on one hand how many alive knew some of the things he said."

Inoichi took a breath to calm himself, cursing himself for thinking hastily.

"My apologies, sir," he said, "I forgot myself."

Hiruzen just waved him off. "It's not important." he said simply, "What's important is that I need to know if you can determine anything of his background, whether he is out to help Konoha, or is using us to further his own goals."

Inoichi nodded. "Yes sir," He said, "I'll need time to run through what was written. I'll have a report by the end of the month."

"Thank you." the Hokage nodded, "you're dismissed. Head on home."

Inoichi turned to leave, giving Kakashi a nod before exiting the room, his thoughts swirling with concern.

//////////////////////

Hiruzen pov:

"What else is there, sir?" Kakashi asked, likely wondering why he was still in the room.

"I received another letter." Hiruzen said quietly, "And the contents frighten me more than the first."

Hiruzen didn't want to mention that his grandson had given him the letter, telling him that a kind old man gave it to him.

Kakashi's posture shifted to one of suprise, not expecting that.

"What was in it?" Kakashi asked.

Hiruzen pulled the letter out from a storage scroll, rereading it before he handed it to Kakashi.

Sarutobi and Hatake:

'The plan to train the genin at a faster rate is a sound one. Far greater trials and tribulations await Konoha after the serpent. The Red Cloud consists of some of the most dangerous Shinobi in the world. If you value the lives of your Shinobi, avoid the religious fanatic with a scythe. One scratch is all it takes to kill you. One drop of blood is all that is needed. He heals better than your two Uzumaki. Decapitation will not stop him. You will receive more information in future letters. It is too much of a risk to enclose everything at once.

Hatake, your eye stinks of pain and despair, far more than a three tomoed Sharingan ought to. Ask Sarutobi why that may be.

Tell Uzumaki that he is making good progress, but he must move faster. He can't afford to be weak when the time comes.

The little Uchiha is a target for the serpent. He couldn't pounce upon the elder, so he seeks to collect the younger.

Ask your spy master if he would do himself the favour of making sure his greatest ability didn't give him teeth from Kiri, a goatee more impressive than your's, and a schnoz surpassing the Tsuchikage's.

Also, his latest book was shit.

Enclosed in this envelope is another letter. You are to send it to Kumo in the most secure manner you have. If you don't have a secure enough means, destroy the letter. If I find out that you have opened it, you receive no more information. And it is not something you will like, for I know who killed your wife and I know the true heritage of Uzumaki and his sister.

P.S. The serpent plans to give you a gift. He seeks to reunite you with wood and water. The present will be enclosed in Jutsu number 3 on the left hand side, above what you gifted to a fatherless boy.'

Signed, Hurin.

Hiruzen handed Kakashi the letter, seeing the change in Kakashi's demeanor as he read the letter.

"He knows about us training them," he whispered to himself, "Not surprising."

Kakashi got quiet again, reading through more.

"What does he mean about my eye?" he asked.

Hiruzen shook his head. "We'll get to that at the end."

Kakashi frowned, but continued to read the letter.

"Orochimaru wants Sasuke." Kakashi said, his hands clenching slightly.

"I believe he may covet the Sharingan." Hiruzen said, "He always was intrigued by the Uchiha and Hyuga clan's dojutsu."

"Schnoz surpassing the Tsuchikage's?" Kakashi snorted. "And has Jiraiya-sama been informed of the situation in-depth?'

"He likely has met Onoki before," Hiruzen replied, " Or doesn't like him much. What's concerning is that he described how Jiraiya looks when he is using Senjutsu. And yes, I've had Jiraiya investigate who this may be. Nothing as of yet."

Kakashi raised a brow at that, surprised that the letter would have that much detail.

"He doesn't like this year's Icha Icha." Kakashi added.

Hiruzen just chuckled slightly at the reminder of that.

"What about the letter to Kumo?" Kakashi asked.

"It is addressed to two names I don't recognize. It will be sent with the invitation for Kumo to be part of the Chunin exams."

Kakashi looked again at the letter, looking like he was at the end part. "What does he mean by the P.S.?"

Hiruzen stiffened. Out of all the things in there, that part frightened him the most.

"The jutsu he speaks of is the Edo Tensei," he started, his voice weak, "I think Orochimaru plans to bring back my predecessors to kill me."

Kakashi froze at what Hiruzen had told him. "How could he have possibly known-"

"At one point, he saw the scroll," Hiruzen interrupted, " I don't know when, but he also knows about Naruto and Rin's father and what jutsu Naruto picked to learn."

"Out of curiosity, which one was it?" Kakashi asked.

"The Hiraishin." Hiruzen whispered.

Kakashi was silent, not knowing what to say.

"Why did he choose that?" Kakashi asked, not making eye contact.

"He said he wanted to honour my Sensei and the man who saved him and Rin."

Kakashi was completely still for a minute, before his head sharply jerked back to the letter, reading it like a man possessed.

"What is it?" Hiruzen asked.

Kakashi's eye was wide, a look of realization on his face.

"How would Naruto react if he found out about Minato?"

Hiruzen didn't hesitate to answer. "He'd be irritated that he wasn't told, but he probably wouldn't be angry with Minato himself for sealing the Kyuubi into them."

Kakashi nodded, like he expected that for an answer. "How would he react about his and Rin's relationship to Jiraiya?"

Hiruzen grimaced. Naruto still had anger control problems about memories of the orphanage. He never walked a route pass the orphanage to avoid seeing it. If he found out he had a godfather, he wouldn't react well at first. Even with an explanation, he'd still be angry.

"Not as well as he'd take the news of his father." Hiruzen replied sadly.

Kakashi nodded again, knowing the likely manner in which Naruto would react.

"How would he feel about Iwa?"

Hiruzen stiffened at that, grimacing at the memory of Naruto's version of venting when he learned a few things about the outside world.

Naruto ended up making close to one hundred clones and was firing water jutsu and lightning at them to vent following one of the Chunin manuals he read. The manual advised blond haired Shinobi to disguise their hair when they were near Tsuchi no Kuni. The manual stressed the importance of girls dyeing their hair, as a Henge could be disrupted, but didn't specify why.

Naruto had obviously understood what was left unsaid. Nothing drove him into a frenzy better than something concerning Rin. Rin is the thing that Iwa nin would love more than anything. Naruto would simply be torn apart and killed for being his son. But Rin had blonde hair. She was an accomplished Funijutsu user, even at just thirteen years old. Killing the man you hate's son is one thing, but it didn't matter that Naruto had his father's face and eyes. It was the hair that was remembered the most.

Rin wouldn't be shown mercy if she were captured. They'd break her in the most inhumane fashion. 'The Namikaze demon's little girl' would die, but not before her captors would have their fun in getting revenge for what they saw as a crime and travesty against their nation.

She'd die like her mother would have; they'd rip the Kyuubi out of her and try to put it in someone else.

Hiruzen forced his mind away from the morbid thoughts that sprung up from his fears, looking back at Kakashi.

"He'd hate them as much as Hiashi hates Kumo. You know how he acts when Rin is threatened."

"The way this letter and the other is written makes it almost sound like Naruto wrote this," Kakashi said, "He knows that Naruto is a skilled sensor, understands seals, hated the idea of siblings fighting, threatened to destroy a clan and sell a child to make a point." Kakashi paused to take a breath, "he respects my father, dislikes Jiraiya and knows that jabbing at his writing would aggravate him."

Hiruzen knew without a doubt a good way to have Jiraiya dislike you was to question his writing skills. Hiruzen had shared stories of what his students were like when they were younger to Naruto, stories that weren't in the history books.

"He has little respect for the Tsuchikage," Kakashi continued, "A Kage generally has a responsibility to rein in their more vicious Shinobi. But how would he know where the Edo Tensei was? Why is he referring to Naruto and not Rin? He always adds on Rin like an afterthought."

The two remained silent for several minutes, trying to think of anything else.

The top of the Scroll of Seals has remained unchanged for decades. The Edo Tensei's description has been there since the scroll was first made. This wasn't necessarily recent knowledge the man acquired. And what about his supposed 'favoritism' of Naruto that Kakashi mentioned? Why would that be?

Hiruzen continued to think, utilizing all the intellect he had in his possession.

The man looked to be trying to disguise his handwriting, but one thing still stood out. He stresses certain symbols in the same way Mito, Tobirama-sensei, Jiraiya, Kushina, and Minato did. He knows seals very well.

Fuinjutsu required a deft touch. Some seals required more force to be placed on the brush to get a proper effect, while others needed a featherlight touch. Make enough seals, and you'll find your handwriting to be influenced by how you write a seal.

'He doesn't seem to hate Konoha. He wants Naruto and Rin to be strong, as well as the clan children. He is extremely familiar with how to get a reaction from Kakashi when asked the security question in the previous letter. It's possible he knew Sakumo before his failed mission. He also has in-depth knowledge on how the Edo Tensei works and what Orochimaru and the Akatsuki are doing.'

Hiruzen ran through the letter again in his mind, finding another detail.

'He mentioned the 'religious fanatic' first. He didn't mention whether the fanatic was the leader or not. If he isn't the leader, why mention the fanatic?... the blood ability. I don't know of any kekkai genkai, in nearly 60 years that I've been a Shinobi, that could kill someone with just having some blood... or give them the ability to survive being beheaded.'

Hiruzen shivered at the thought. The only person he knew that might possibly survive getting their head cut off was Naruto. He still remained conscious even after being struck in the head, causing a concussion. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch that he could survive long enough for a quick application of Iryo-ninjutsu to stitch his head back on.

'I'm never bringing this up, ever. He'd be too damn curious and would try something outlandishly stupid to see if it would work. Too many things to stress over already. I don't need him to try out something more stupid than forcing lightning chakra into his brain with the grace of a toddler trying to paint simply because he's bored.'

Hiruzen still couldn't understand what the hell Naruto had been thinking when he pushed lightning chakra into his brain to speed up his thoughts. Naruto had been extremely cautious about learning Fuinjutsu, but all the safety concerns he adhered to when working on his calligraphy was absent when he tried to emulate the ability that made the Raikages of Kumo some of the most dangerous Shinobi to engage in taijutsu.

Even Orochimaru was more careful about physical enhancements.

'Don't get distracted.' He thought, going back to the mysterious man.

'He 'favours' Naruto. It wouldn't be something as shallow as gender. It probably isn't strength either. Rin is extremely capable in her own right, even if she's not as skilled as Naruto in most fields, save for Fuinjutsu where she is better.'

Hiruzen desperately tried to think of why Naruto would be mentioned repeatedly.

'What are the differences between Naruto and Rin? Both are actual Uzumaki. Both are Jinchuriki. Both are skilled in Fuinjutsu. Both are very protective of one another. Differences: Affinities. Naruto has water and lightning, while Rin has wind. Rin has blonde hair and... Naruto... has red... Could it be-'

Hiruzen gasped at what he just stumbled across. Kakashi was pulled out of his own thinking at Hiruzen's reaction.

"Sir?" he asked.

"I think I've thought of something." Hiruzen whispered.

Kakashi leaned forward slightly, wanting to know what thought had shocked the Hokage.

"What are the chances that a seal master survived the Fall of Uzu?" Hiruzen asked rhetorically.

Kakashi's eye widened comically, his breath hitching.

"H-how?" He gasped.

To the best of Konoha's knowledge, nearly every high level seal master in the Uzumaki clan stayed behind to fight off the coalition that sought to wipe them out. Most of the survivors of the attack were civilians, with only a few Shinobi sprinkled in as escorts. Kushina, as a young girl, was almost catatonic when she received word that her entire village and family had been destroyed.

Konoha was in a terrible position in the Second Shinobi War. The Sannin and Hatake Sakumo were the heroes of that conflict, but the war would have been lost if Uzu hadn't held like it had. Nearly 2/3s of the coalition force was wiped out in the course of a week of fighting. Two Jinchuriki and the Nidaime Raikage were slain in the battle personally by the Shodai Uzukage.

Uzumaki Ashina was without a doubt, the greatest seal master the Uzumaki clan ever produced. Mito was his eldest daughter, and his first grandchild was the mother of Kushina. He was in his sixties when Konoha was first founded, yet he was probably in better physical shape than what most Shinobi half his age were. Even when he was in his nineties, the last time Hiruzen saw him, just weeks before the outbreak of the war, he still looked and acted younger than what Hiruzen felt currently. And he wasn't even 70 yet.

It had taken years to piece together what happened after the destruction of Uzu. Most of the surviving forces were tight-lipped about what happened, many of them were killed in the war when Konoha reinforcements ambushed them when they withdrew back to their own villages.

Less than one hundred Kiri nin returned home. Iwa wasn't much better off, with only half their forces making it back home after the battle and ambushes that followed their withdrawal. Kumo was the one that maintained most if its forces. The Raikage had managed to shield his forces from Ashina's fury and freed them up to combat the lesser seal masters.

It wasn't until the closing stages of the Third Shinobi War, when a captured Kumo nin had been interrogated by a Yamanaka where it was discovered what Ashina did in his final hours of life.

A handful of captured Iwa nin and Kumo nin over the years had painted a picture of red haired stamina monsters wading ankle deep through blood, tearing apart droves of Shinobi without mercy, every block turned into a killzone, every inch of ground and debris laced with explosives, chakra draining seals sapping them of strength, gravity seals turning comrades into red paste. But the only thing they knew about the Uzukage was that an ungodly level of Killing Intent and chakra could be felt on the other side of the village where the civilians were being evacuated from.

Until the Kumo nin was interrogated.

The Kumo Shinobi was one of the only ones to survive even witnessing what unfolded. She only survived because she hid under a pile of corpses. Hiruzen was shown the memory, and it was the single bloodiest one he'd seen in his entire life.

Ashina was drenched in the blood of the hundreds he had personally slain, wearing a mask that practically demanded terror. His hair that was once white in old age, was an even greater shade of red than what it had been decades prior, before the fire and energy of his youthfulness faded.

The armour he had worn was similar to Tobirama-sensei's, but was red instead of blue. He also was wearing his white kage robes that were similar to the ones warn by Hokages.

They were stained completely crimson.

The two Jinchuriki that were fighting him had attempted to use the chakra of their tenants to overwhelm him and to reach the boats that the civilians were fleeing in. Ashina had been absorbing lightning Jutsus from the Raikage with seals for hours, flinging them back at the forces surrounding him.

The Jinchuriki had their seals destabilized when Ashina charged straight at them and pressed his hands on them, causing two explosions of Bijuu chakra that incinerated the two Jinchuriki seconds later.

The Raikage let the Kiri and Iwa nin present fight Ashina and the few other Uzumaki Shinobi that were still alive to protect the evacuating civilians.

Hundreds more fell, and Ashina was overwhelmed, trying to wade chest deep through corpses slowed him down, his age and the days of non-stop fighting taking its toll on him.

The evacuating civilians of Uzu saw their 'Papa Ashi', the one who founded their village, the wise and kind patriarch of their clan and village, be buried under the pile of enemies that sought to exterminate them.

Only then did the Raikage charge in to finish the job personally. Killing Uzumaki Ashina, a man who even Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara would have been hesitant to fight in the environment he was most familiar in, his own Village, would bring much renown and glory to Kumo.

Hiruzen had seen through the Kumo nin's perspective, he'd felt part of her emotions carry over from the Yamanaka showing him the memory. It was joy, grim satisfaction, and above all else, relief that the demon had been brought down and was going to be slain by her Kage.

That relief turned to horror when the Raikage dragged the old man out from the pile of dismembered corpses, tearing the man's sword from out of his grip and his tattered robes falling off his battered body. The elderly man had spat in the Raikage's face and shouted four words that would be burned in the Kumo nin's mind, and would still be there a decade later when she was captured. Words that rang out over the cacophony of steel clashing and the screams of the dying across the village.

"Day shall come again!"

She had thought the sun had rose in that moment, a halo surrounding the two men.

But it wasn't the sun.

Seals had appeared, glowing fiercely around the elder Uzumaki's body, and then a blast of purple chakra exploded from him. There was nothing left of the two men and the corpses surrounding them, only a 50 yard crater where there was nothing but blackened ash.

Within seconds of her vision coming back, the Kumo nin looked at the boats they had been trying to destroy, the ships that were out of reach now. On the horizon, she saw a red sunrise.

One of the crimson haired demons they came to kill stood at the front of one of the ships, sword drawn and shouting at the top of his voice. Other voices followed and turned into a chorus of defiance and fury.

It wasn't until over a hundred voices rang out that she understood what was being proclaimed to the heavens.

"Day has come! Day has come! Day has come!"

An old man held the line. An old man killed two Jinchuriki. An old man killed a Kage. An old man died for his village. An old man died protecting the children of Uzu.

Ashina personally tutored the best students in his clan. He even tutored Tobirama-sensei for a few years when he was a teenager. Could one of his students have survived?

Hiruzen's near flashback came to an end as he focused on Kakashi, the younger man deeply unsettled.

"I thought they were all killed." Kakashi managed to force out, his voice shaking slightly.

Hiruzen looked straight at Kakashi. "The crystal ball," he opened up a drawer and pulled it out, "That grants me the ability to see anything in the village was a wedding gift from Uzumaki Ashina to the Shodai. He said it was 'A gift worthy of a Kage, the father of a village. And a good father watches out for his children'. He designed it and he had several students, including the Nidaime."

Kakashi stayed quiet, wanting to hear more about Uzu's founder.

"How much did Kushina tell you about her family?" Hiruzen asked.

"I know Uzumaki Mito was her great aunt," Kakashi replied quietly, "And that her great grandfather was the leader of the Uzumaki clan when it was destroyed. Not much else though." He finished.

"Her great grandfather," Hiruzen started, "Was the single greatest seal master I've ever known. The Nidaime considered him the greatest of all time."

Kakashi just stared at him in suprise, not realizing how great Ashina was seen as.

"A Yamanaka interrogated a Kumo veteran that witnessed what happened at Uzu. Ashina killed one of Kumo's Jinchuriki, one of Iwa's, and the Raikage himself, along with hundreds of Shinobi."

Kakashi paled at the thought of how dangerous of a Shinobi could manage that.

"How old was he?" Kakashi choked out.

"He was old enough to be my grandfather." Hiruzen replied simply, "But that is not what I wish to discuss right now. I wish to discuss who I think this mysterious man may be."

Kakashi nodded an affirmative, waiting for Hiruzen to continue.

"The Uzumaki are known for having water affinities as often as the Uchiha have fire, as well as red hair. Sound familiar?"

Kakashi nodded, muttering "Naruto" under his breath.

"Their are only three of Ashina's descendants still alive. Tsunade, Rin, and Naruto. Only Naruto has both a water affinity and red in his hair. Ashina trained many Uzumaki Fuinjutsu prodigies, including the Nidaime because of kinship with the Senju. I wouldn't put it past a survivor to figure out Naruto and Rin's mother was the beloved great granddaughter of their Sensei."

Kakashi continued to stay silent.

"This man could be a survivor, perhaps even a close relative of Naruto's, and he sees Naruto as more of an Uzumaki than Rin. The knowledge he has could be from another form of tracking that the Uzumaki had. I wouldn't put it past Ashina to have a crystal ball of his own, or even something better that a student or relative had access to.

"This is a massive if though." Kakashi interjected, "An Uzumaki, and one who has been around for decades could fit the mold, but we can't be certain and shouldn't operate under that assumption. This seems far-fetched."

"That is why I asked Inoichi to make a profile on him," Hiruzen replied, "He will be shown this one," he gestured to the latest letter, "Soon."

Kakashi looked at the letter, then back to Hiruzen. "Is that all?"

Hiruzen nodded, unable to think of anything else. "That is all." he said.

"One final thing," Kakashi said, "He said something about my eye, and how it 'stinks', what did he mean by that?"

Hiruzen sighed, rubbing his temples. He knew this would be a long conversation.

"What do you know of the Mangekyo Sharingan?"

////////////////////////

"I am not eating curry, Sasuke!" Rin shouted, stomping around his house.

Sasuke hated the day Hatake Kakashi was made his Jonin Sensei. If not for the silver haired jonin that read porn in public, he would never of had to deal with his fortress of solitude, his home, getting terrorized by the blonde nightmare that was Uzumaki Rin.

Their arguments and the hit to team cohesion forced them to shop together for elderly people and to eat supper together, coupled with talking about different things to make them interact on a friendly basis.

Say what one may about Hatake Kakashi, but he seemed to know what he was doing to encourage cooperation through coercion.

"I eat curry," Sasuke grunted, having already taken out the proper ingredients and began preparing it, "And I'm not going out for takeout. Today is Thursday and that's when I fix curry for supper."

"I don't like curry," Rin whined, her hair swishing back and forth as she tried to wear a hole in his floor, "And your schedule sucks."

Sasuke fought the urge to start tearing his hair out in frustration. There was no way she was this irritating for real. She had to be doing this to get him to throw in the towel and order takeout. The blonde wasn't even remotely this bad the previous days, so he refused to give in.

"My house. My rules," Sasuke said with finality, channelling his mother's tone of voice when he'd complain about the food she'd fix, "You can be the one to tell Kakashi-sensei that you couldn't handle a little bellyache." He mimicked the way Naruto cooed sometimes to annoy him.

Rin's face shot to his and her pacing stopped, her violet eyes practically glowing in righteous fury.

"Uke." She grumbled, plopping onto his couch petulantly.

Sasuke ignored the comment, turning on his stove.

"There's a reason Uchiha like curry," Sasuke lied through his teeth to get the overgrown toddler to cooperate, "It helps us to get in tune with our Kaiton jutsu. It sometimes helps like how drinking more water helps Suiton users." He completely made up the last part.

Rin, the adorable and trusting little blonde she was, perked up and her eyes were impossibly large, looking like shining amethysts.

"Really?" She asked excitedly, the prospect of speeding up her progress on Fire release without lighting herself on fire seemed enticing to her.

Sasuke almost felt bad for lying so she'd eat the food without complaining.

"Yes," Sasuke nodded, continuing to prepare it, "But I'll just fix myself some. You don't like curry, remember?"

Rin frowned and growled low under her breath.

"Fix me the damn curry, Sasuke. I'm gonna be better than you at fire. So hit me with your best shot!" She challenged with her usual ferociousness.

Sasuke grinned as he ducked down to grab another accessory to prepare for the extra amount of curry he was going to fix.

I'll make you eat those words, Rin.

A fiery hour later...

Rin was whimpering as she chugged another cup of milk, gasping as she finished it.

The girl was sweating heavily and she'd taken her long sleeve shirt off, wearing her orange t-shirt currently.

"How," She sucked in air audibly as she tried to cool her mouth, "Can you eat this?"

Sasuke had been heading to his bathroom periodically over the course of the ordeal, stifling his laughter at the definition of a wild child becoming a mess as she tried to eat mild curry, not even the real kind that he liked.

Sure, he lost almost an entire gallon of milk and a box of crackers to the desperate blonde, but the feeling of triumph he felt was worth the expense of buying new groceries.

"Practice." Sasuke shrugged, secretly wishing he had his Sharingan to burn the last hour into his mind. Rin being at his mercy for once was amazing and he wanted to remember it.

Rin groaned and panted, abandoning decorum and drinking from the milk carton, her face flushed from the spices.

Rin set it down and wiped some milk off her face, pushing the bowl in front of her.

"I can't," She moaned, threading her fingers through her hair as she set her forehead down on the table, "You Uchiha are crazy for liking this."

Sasuke shrugged again, still smiling internally at finding her weakness...Spice.

'The spice must flow.' He hadn't had this much fun in a long time. Rin was such a nice teammate for suffering for his sake.

"You'll get there," Sasuke assured her, patting her hand gently, "Eventually. This takes time to adapt to."

He'd catch a rash of fury from Rin if she found out he was lying, but it was funny after she broke his nose multiple times. Payback at its finest.

Rin grabbed the last few crackers left and wolfed them down, moaning slightly as she leaned back in the chair.

"Thanks," She mumbled, "Even if my tongue feels like I licked the sun."

Rin got quiet after that, slowly looking around at his home and silently taking it all in.

'What is she thinking?'

"It feels kind of empty," She muttered, "Too quiet. I couldn't stand living alone with Naruto living somewhere else."

Sasuke hid his reaction to that. He never thought he could live alone and without him as a part of his life.

But things change.

"How did you learn to fix curry?" Rin asked, eying the half empty bowl distastefully.

"I learned it on my own." Sasuke replied, debating on sharing a little more.

'We're supposed to learn to cooperate, so yes.'

"It's my mother's recipe though." Sasuke whispered quietly, noticing Rin focus on him.

"I wish I had that," Rin eventually said, "I have some of my mom's Fuinjutsu notes, but I never met her and I didn't know her name for years."

Sasuke's eyes darted towards Rin's and he saw how dim she seemed to look.

"You didn't know her name?" He asked incredulously, his previous attempt at stoicism abandoned for the unnerving detail.

He couldn't imagine not knowing his mother or father. At least he had something of them to hold onto that wasn't purely material.

"Yeah," Rin nodded sadly, "And Kushina is such a beautiful name."

Sasuke got a sense of Deja Vu and he blinked, trying to think of where he heard that name.

"Rin," He asked her hesitantly, "Do you know what she looked like?"

The blonde nodded and pointed at her face.

"I look like her," She slowly touched her forehead, then her cheeks, "She didn't have these marks like Naruto and me, but my eyes are just like hers." The violet orbs seemed to shine a bit, then her fingers started to go through her golden locks. "I don't have her hair colour though. Naruto has that."

Sasuke visualized Rin with red hair and no whisker marks, trying to think of how she'd look when older.

"I'll be back "Sasuke said abruptly, standing up and walking to his room.

He opened the door and went to his closet, searching for a box. The youngest living Uchiha found it and noticed the collection of dust on it. He fought the emotions welling up at the reason for it, the contents being rather painful for him to peruse alone.

Sasuke carried the box into the living room and set it next to the couch, gesturing for Rin to come over.

His teammate went to him and sat beside him while he opened the box and rummaged through it, grabbing a photo album.

Sasuke bit down slightly as the flowery scent of his mother's perfume still clung to her personal photo collection and he was reminded of how she'd sit next to him and point out the different people and friends of hers in the pictures.

Sasuke swallowed as he cracked it open, searching for where he thought he'd recognized the name Kushina.

After an extremely difficult time of him searching through the photos, he spotted a picture with a girl a little older than Rin that looked like her with straight red hair that went down to her waist.

"I think this is your mom," Sasuke said, gingerly removing the photo and flipping it around to look at the back, revealing his mother's precise handwriting.

Me and my best friend, Uzumaki Kushina.

Uchiha Mikoto.

"They were friends?" Rin's voice cracked, her hand shakily taking the photo and holding it as gently as Sasuke had. "I didn't know."

"Neither did I." Sasuke replied, pleasantly surprised that their parents knew each other and were friends.

"Do," Rin sniffed and looked at him with her eyes shining with emotion, "Do you have anymore photos?"

Sasuke nodded and took the one from Rin, putting it back up. He then systematically went through the album and looked for any sign of red hair to find Uzumaki Kushina.

He found one from when they were about 16 or 17 and he was struck by how pretty Kushina looked, her smile almost identical to Rin's as she held up her hand with a peace sign, a bowl of ramen in front of her.

"I guess it's hereditary." Sasuke murmured, hearing a scoff from Rin.

"Probably." He could hear the smile in her voice.

They got to the very end of the album, the last few pages a mix of different ones that he was not going to look at.

They had Itachi in them.

"There's nothing on the others." Sasuke's voice was colder than he meant to, but it wasn't something he wanted to talk about.

With Rin right beside him, it almost felt like he was back in his old home, his kaasan sitting him on her lap as she told him stories about the great warriors of the Uchiha clan and the friends she'd made as a young girl.

Rin glanced at one of the windows and he heard her curse under her breath.

"Naruto will be having a fit soon if I'm not back. I promised to be back before dark."

Sasuke nodded his understanding and went to close the album, packing it up.

Sasuke went to tell Rin to have a safe walk back as he went to his bedroom, but his blonde teammate surprised him.

She hugged him.

"Thank you for showing me the pictures, Sasuke." She then turned and ran towards the door, waving and smiling a genuine smile as she opened it and left.

Sasuke froze completely, barely being able to breath. He wasn't standing there with a box of pictures and the girl he constantly argued with having hugged him in thanks. He was home, not the house he resided in, but the home he'd shared with his parents and their firstborn.

"Your father talks about you when he's home, Sasuke. He's so proud of you." His mother's beautiful voice was ringing in his ears as he stood rooted to the spot.

Sasuke forced himself to breathe and to calm his racing heart, slowly turning to put up the pictures.

The day turned out to not be totally awful. He'd gotten one over on Rin, getting a good laugh, but he'd also been able to find a common ground with her.

Their mothers were friends.

Would Naruto have been my best friend if their mother lived? Sasuke thought to himself as he laid in bed a couple hours later. Why didn't kaasan take them in when Kushina died?

He'll figure it out eventually. But for right now, he drifted off to sleep, thinking of two young girls without a care in the world except for their friendship.

He had no nightmares that night.

//////////////////////////

The Raikage had sent for her and B to meet him immediately, concerning a letter he had received that had been tacked onto an invitation from Konoha to partake in the Chunin exams that would be hosted in Konoha several months from now. Yugito, Jinchuriki of the Nibi, but was known to her as Matatabi, entered her superior's office, B already being there.

B looked very quiet, his posture was more subdued than she'd ever seen him. But worse still, his chakra was twitching, almost out of its own volition. That, above all else, frightened her.

'What could have possibly happened that has the two of them this quiet?'

"Best to get on with it." Matatabi assured her.

The first few years of her being a Jinchuriki were rough. The village initially despised her, and she hated them in return. But through a combination of the Raikage's public support of her, and how well liked B was helped with Kumo's bias towards their second Jinchuriki.

Matatabi had been moody and rude at first. Yugito wasn't her first container, and a previous one had been very close to her.

"What is it you want, Raikage-sama?" She asked, her tone a respectful one.

Ay, the Yondaime Raikage, rose to his very impressive height, a note in his hand.

"I received a letter from Konoha," He started, his tone neutral, "Nothing that I was surprised by. A standard invitation to their Chunin exams that I did plan on flat out rejecting...until I read this." He held up the letter.

Yugito looked closer at it, not being able to see what it said.

"This was addressed to me," Ay said, "And two others. Gyuki and Matatabi."

"What?!"

Yugito flinched at the shout in her head, her chakra itching from the involuntary rush of bijuu chakra into her system.

Ay obviously noticed her change in demeanor. "B reacted the same way." he said simply.

"Who knows our names? Few people even think to ask whether we do have names."

"I don't know. I need to read it for myself."

"May I see the letter?" She asked.

Ay nodded and handed her the letter.

At the top of the letter, there was a question.

To Ay and B: What was the hair colour of the man who tagged Gyuki's tentacle?

Yugito saw the word 'Blond' in the Raikage's handwriting, written down in a specific section of the letter that had extremely fine kanji in a small matrix.

But there was a second question, addressed to her.

What is Matatabi's eye colour?

"I have two. Does this person not know that? Or is it a trick question?"

"What are your eye colours again?"

"Yellow and green."

"I need to write it down." Yugito said to the Raikage.

The Raikage nodded and handed her something to write with off of his desk, which had several cracks in the wood.

Yugito wrote the words 'yellow' and 'green' on the page. After a moment, there was a slight flash, and then words appeared. Yugito promptly handed the letter back to the Raikage, wanting him to read it first.

He took the letter, sat back down, and began reading it. His face was twitching repeatedly and she could feel the hair on her neck stand on end from static in the air.

"What could be in the letter that has him like this?"

The Raikage may be impulsive and quick to action, smashing desks and crushing things, but that was normal when something angered him. She had no idea what his current reaction could possibly mean.

Ay took a deep breath and handed the letter to B, who took it and started reading. B's chakra was shaking noticably after his eyes roamed the letter, the Hachibi's chakra becoming detectable.

B looked straight at her, his look saying everything.

'This is bad.'

B handed her the letter, which she began to read.

To the Yondaime Raikage.

I mean you and your village no harm. I am not associated with Konoha. This simply happened to be a convenient way to send a message to you. There is a group that is targeting those like your brother. I am uncertain whether Son Goku has already been taken or not. You will find an ally in Konoha. They value brotherhood just as much as you.

I pray that you are like your father. He understood the responsibilities of a Kage. He risked himself against a Bijuu just as Namikaze did.

To Gyuki and Matatabi: Death is preferable to what the Red Clouds have in store for you and your siblings. If you must, kill yourselves.

Matatabi: The Red Clouds hunt in twos. Be careful of the thread beast and his partner, the religious fanatic. One drop of blood will guarantee your capture.

Killer B: Don't let anyone tell you to give up your dream, even when you feel as if you're being pulled at the seams. They don't understand the art that is rap, for they are full of crap. Best of luck, my strapping young buck.

P.S.: Don't try to find me. Even the eyes your village covets won't be able to find me.

Signed, Hurin.

Yugito was silent, not knowing to say.

"Matatabi?"

"This person knows things that no other should. They know three of our names." she said quietly.

Yugito looked at Ay, not knowing what to say.

"Don't say anything to anyone," he ordered, "This stays between us three."

That was when Yugito realized none of the Raikage's guards were present. To think that C and Darui weren't brought into the fold about this pointed at how rattled Ay was.

She nodded an affirmative.

"Leave," he instructed, "I need time to think. That's also to you too, B."

" 'Kay bro." B said with a neutral tone, "I'll go."

Yugito turned to leave, B right behind her. As she left the room, she kept thinking of what this meant.

A group was out to capture her, and by the sound of what was being said, they planned to kill her and take Matatabi.

Ay was in deep thought as he sat at his desk, his thoughts focused on multiple things.

'If this letter is to be trusted, there is a group of fuckers who plan to kill my brother.'

Ay had been even more protective of B since the death of his father. He'd wage war by himself on anyone who tried to take B if he had to.

'Whoever this is knows about the first fight I had with Namikaze.'

There were multiple Shinobi there, both Konoha and Kumo ones. It wouldn't be a surprise if word leaked out on what occurred.

But the letter compared Namikaze to his father. He knew what his father was like. The anonymous sender 'prayed' he was like him.

Ay didn't know if a Bijuu could be killed. But if it could be, Namikaze would be the one son of a bitch on Earth that could pull it off.

He still remembered what Namikaze said the last time they met. How the next time they'd meet, they'd meet as Kages.

But that never happened.

'An ally in Konoha, hmnn... don't know about that.'

Konoha and Kumo were still on shitty terms, no point in mincing words. The attempted abduction of the Hyuga heiress set relations back by years. The corpse they sent being stuffed with explosives didn't help things, nor did the slew of 'coincidental' deaths of multiple Kumo Jonin in the following year.

Would it even be possible to 'ally' with Konoha after everything?

Ay doubted it, but if the sender of this letter was stating it was possible, and had access to knowledge that others shouldn't have, what was the harm in trying?

'Whoever sent this knows the names of the Bijuu.'

B had started freaking out when he saw the letter had been addressed to 'Gyuki' and 'Matatabi'. They were the names of the Hachibi and Nibi.

'This warning is either a trap, or a genuine offer of help. Which one?'

Either this was a trap designed to open up a vulnerability in Kumo's security on Konoha's part, or there genuinely was a clear threat to his village and his brother by choice.

'I chose to be his brother. We have no blood shared, but he is my brother just as father was my father.'

B had been chosen to be his partner by his father. He didn't have a brother and no one was strong enough to partner up with him. But B was the answer. He could have simply kept it as a relationship as friends, him being the elder of the two. But B became more than that. B was his best friend and a fuel that drove him to be faster and stronger to protect him.

B helped him to be a man his father could be proud to call son.

His father was the man that defied an army of ten thousand so his subordinates could get away. He died after fighting for 3 days. Ay could die with no regrets if he were half the man his father was.

Scrutinizing the letter further, his eyes narrowed at the seals on the letter that he could vaguely identify as containing fire and lightning. Undoubtedly a security measure to destroy the letter in the event that the other seals in the "Answer section" didn't match with what was conditioned.

It wasn't lost on him that Uzumaki were the most adept at that kind of Fuinjutsu. And that brought his thoughts to specific thing.

After becoming Raikage, Ay was given access to certain records that only the Raikages had direct access to. What he'd found was something that changed his perspective on a certain clan that was a potential threat to Kumo in his childhood.

The destruction of Uzushiogakure was a tale steeped in legend in Kumo, Iwa, and Kiri. Many a veteran would be found frequenting bars in the years following the battle, speaking of the 'crimson demons'. Ay's father had trained under the Nidaime Raikage, being the man's greatest student. He remembered how badly his father reacted when he found out that he'd been thrust into the role of Kage of a village whose previous Kage and a Jinchuriki had been slain by a 90 year old man dragging his way through stacks of corpses.

Only one veteran in Kumo still lived that witnessed what happened to the Raikage. She'd been promptly ransomed out when they found out she'd been captured by Konoha Shinobi. They didn't need the shitshow that would happen when Konoha held the edge in the war following Namikaze's decimation of Iwa's armies.

Their worse fears had been realized when gaps were noticed in her memory following her capture and return to Kumo's custody. Multiple doses of Genjutsu 'treatment' broke through the false memories implanted by a Yamanaka and laid bare the bloody painting that the cursed clan carved into the woman's head.

The Yamanaka clan was one that the land of lightning was well acquainted with even back during the Warring States era. More than one Lightning Daimyo had been killed by a lover or their heir, said loved one pleading innocence. Torture had revealed that someone had twisted their minds to respond to certain words or phrases, the triggers would cause a violent attack followed by amnesia.

The only treatment that Kumo had found to combat unwitting sleeper agents was mentally torturing them with Genjutsu showing their worst memories back to them to break any hidden conditioning.

The barbaric treatment was the reason POWs taken by Konoha had the highest suicide rate due to the paranoia Kumo's military, and the Lightning Daimyos, had whenever someone returned from the forces of a village that housed a clan capable of turning against you the one who you'd burn the world for, the one who you'd stay behind with and die alongside, just so they wouldn't spend their last moments alone.

It was far better to die with your brother by your side than to live on without him.

'Losing B would be worse than losing a limb. I have 3 others to spare, but I'll never have another brother.'

Shaking his head, he moved his thoughts back to the Yamanaka.

They used Genjutsu on their comrade, a fellow Kumo Shinobi, to find out what the Yamanaka got from her. Konoha got hours of her memories from a decade prior thanks to one word. One word that triggered long repressed memories.

Sunrise.

Ay didn't know what to think when he read the report she had left about what happened in Uzu. A man who would have been long dead if he wasn't an Uzumaki had not only fought, but killed two Jinchuriki and a Kage so the civilians of his village could escape.

He'd hated the Uzumaki clan as a teenager and even as an adult because of the aftermath he saw. He saw veterans at bars, men and women he looked up to as a boy, their eyes empty when they spoke of trauma they experienced fighting in the streets of Uzu. The friends whose remains couldn't even be identified as human after the seals the Uzumaki had used. How they seemed to shrug off fatal strikes to deliver a fatal one of their own. The air filled with the stench of blood and shit, the sounds of steel and screaming men and women being a fitting chorus of the damned.

He saw how a man who was his neighbor, and a kind man at that, had to be sedated after he was screaming about demons when his newborn daughter was born with red hair. Hair that was the same colour that she shared with her maternal grandmother.

That was the day his idealistic perception of war died and was replaced with a cold fury at the pain and scars left on his people.

He never thought of the Uzumaki as human. He saw them as threats to everything and everyone that mattered to him. They were the long lived monsters that even after they were violently cast down into the pit, they still found a way to haunt and torture the heroes who slew them.

That was a hatred he carried until his father's death, and his own appointment as Raikage.

When he read the report of what Uzumaki Ashina had done, he couldn't help but see his own father, a single man facing certain death for those he swore to protect. The Uzukage should have been relaxing in retirement, a son or prized student taking up his burden, leaving him to spoil his grandchildren. He shouldn't have been facing off against Jinchuriki and enemy Kage. War was a young man's game. Children and elders shouldn't be burdened with it.

'But he chose to do it, as my father did.'

Ay's father personally wrestled the Hachibi into submission on his own, he also personally hunted down the Nibi after its Jinchuriki had been vaporized by Ashina at Uzu's dock.

The Uzumaki were just like him. If Kumo was beset on all sides by her enemies, he'd also fight to the death for his village. He'd die as his father and Uzumaki Ashina did.

All chakra spent and his enemies crushed around him.

The returning veterans at least had family, friends, and a village to come back to. The survivors of Uzu had nothing. But they still were as defiant and unconquered as their leader. Ay had personally spoken with the sole remaining Kumo survivor on what happened after he became Raikage. She was a shriveled waif of a person, empty of all life and motivation to continue on. She spoke of how the demons robbed her of her fire, their roars of defiance when their Kage died like the screams of bloodthirsty devilspawn.

Ay still remembered those words. Words that would have been a sight to behold if he'd been there personally to hear them.

An old man buried under the bodies of the ones who would end his clan. The same old man that had killed two Jinchuriki with just his hands. An old man, his energy exhausted, pulled from under the pile of bodies to have his last moments brought to an end. But with him being the last living Uzumaki that hadn't been evacuated, other Kumo nin had reported that the last holdouts had been killed nearly an hour before, he spat in the face of his would be killer and proclaimed words that should have been out of place coming from an elder who outlived his entire family save for a daughter and her two surviving grandchildren at the time.

"Day shall come again." Ay whispered to himself.

Such hope Ashina had to have possessed to have that as the last thing he'd say before blowing himself up, taking the Raikage with him.

And his surviving clansmen proved themselves his kin when they shouted out to the surviving forces that destroyed their home and their clan, a swift sunrise coming from the East, bathing them in a fierce light.

Day has come.

Ay would think about accepting Konoha's invitation. Any ally that could help Kumo would be accepted. He owed it to his village to swallow his pride if he must, no matter how painful it was if it prevented his Village's destruction.

/////////////////////////

End Chapter: For any of you who know where I got the idea with Ashina's last stand from, without looking up "Day shall come again", congrats, you're as much of a nerd as I am. I've found several fics that decide to have a telling of the destruction of Uzushiogakure in it, but only a few are okay. Too many make every Uzumaki look like a peerless badass in their own right, and no depth is given.

Last stands may sound heroic, but only to the friends and allies of the ones wiped out. Thermopylae is seen as heroic, but I doubt the mothers of the Persian soldiers killed would agree. For every hero, there is a tragedy. And people have, out of a need to mentally survive, tried to dehumanize the ones who hurt them. It's awful to think that a normal person, like us, could hurt his fellow man. So we see them as monsters to survive. Seeing only the worst in people always leads to damnation and ruin. Pein's philosophy and his 'Cycle of Hatred' is disturbingly accurate of the real world. The horrors of both World Wars, and the weapons we have at our disposal, means that we will destroy ourselves if too many people drop the ball and say 'fuck it'.

Moving to a slightly less heavy topic...The Yamanaka. Mind fuckery scares the shit out of me. In a world governed by who can kill better, mind fucking people would be an excellent assassination method. I wanted to expand on a certain way how other Villages view Konoha's clans. We all know about the funny shit you can do with mind switching people, it's shown to be more light-hearted fun. Think of the Defense Against the Dark Arts scene in Goblet of Fire, full domination of another person. The Yamanaka would be seen as some of the scariest people from an outsiders perspective.

Anko was right when she imagined prodigies and geniuses working themselves up into thinking or doing dumb shit by overthinking things. When you've got Kakashi and Hiruzen, you'll probably end up off the mark more than you could imagine simply by overthinking something.

Anyway, here's a psychologically stimulating chapter that took a great deal of time for me to write. Reviews are welcome, and I wish you fantastic day.

Raging.