Naruto once again sat in his office, one leg crossed over the other, head resting on his fist as he listened to Jiraiya relate the events on the front line with only half of his mind on the subject.
"The northern defensive lines are holding firm while the offensive parties have encountered heavy resistance along sector's A and D, they did manage to make some headway in sectors E and B. Sector C has been forced to draw back to their second fall back position, nearby reserves from rice country are moving in to reinforce them. And to the South-"
"Enough."
Naruto's biting voice cut off Jiraiya's report with ease. The toad hermit, leaning on his cane let the hand holding the papers fall to his side eyebrow raised in slight bewilderment. Naruto had never interrupted his reports before. Though perhaps the unusually slow progress of this latest and hopefully last campaign may have been grating on his nerves. Perhaps that's what was bothering him.
"Look Naruto I know you're not used to this pace but you do need to hear these progress reports, otherwise you risk making a mista-"
"The progress reports do not matter." He interrupted again, turning his eyes to stare at the toad hermit. "Kumo will be destroyed very soon."
Jiraiya looked surprised before a small smirk tugged at his lips. "You have a plan?"
Naruto nodded slowly.
Jiraiya's smirk grew. "So what type is it? Infiltration? Assassination? Deception? Or just the classic out maneuvering of the enemy troops?"
His smirk quickly fell as Naruto's very own began visibly tugging on the corner of his lips.
Naruto never ever, ever smiled. Jiraiya was halfway ready to have a stroke by the time Suzume, Naruto's secretary walked in. Naruto quickly dropped the small upturn of his lips, however minute it was.
"Naruto-sama. Ginchiko-san has arrived." She stated peeking her head in from behind the parted door.
Naruto nodded. "Good, send her in." With a nod of her own she closed the door, and a few seconds later the wooden portal opened again, revealing the blue armored woman, Anbu helmet held loosely under her arm as she bowed. "Naruto-sama." She greeted.
"Your just in time Ginchiko" Naruto responded. "I was just about to explain to Jiraiya here the attack plans to invade Kumo. Plans that you will have a key role in."
Ginchiko's expression held a skeptical look to it. "But how? Hatake Kakashi or Jiraiya-sama himself are stronger than I. What skills do I have that could be so valuable to the attack?"
"Your experience in Naval warfare."
It took a moment for the two to catch up to what was being said, before both displayed equally disbelieving expressions.
"A naval battle?" Jiraiya stated first. "You want to lead...a naval battle? With ninja."
"Yes." Naruto stated simply standing up from his seat and beginning to make his way toward the map of the countries framed on his office wall.
"But...Ninja cant walk on the ocean. The tides shift too much in too many directions. It would take someone with extremely great chakra control or alot of chakra to do it successfully."
"And the few naval battles I've lead have been with the use of civilians, with only a few elite ninja on each ship to guard from enemy ninja that may be on the opposing ship."
"Exactly." The blond stated. Waving his arm over the map, creating a small Genjutsu which Jiraiya and Ginchiko allowed to trick their minds. Small figures, which upon closer inspection were individual symbols of each village were strewn about the map, displaying the troop positions of every known batallion, both enemy and ally.
"We have a distinct advantage over Kumo." At their expectant looks he clarified. "Money. We have more money in one of our emergency coffers than Kumo has in their entire village. Repairs to their village are siphoning off millions every month. So far I've only ordered you to harass and pirate their supply ships, Ginchiko. But now we're going to cut off those supplies entirely." With another wave of his hand ships began appearing on the ocean, a multitude gathering and advancing on Kumo's port city, creating a blockade. "We will use our money, and hire mercenaries, pirates any warrior that knows how to sail a ship. They will make up our main force."
"Non-ninja?" Jiraiya questioned. "You plan on taking on Kumo with a navy of non ninja."
"With their inability to walk on the oceans surface all these men will have to do is sink the ships before they get close. The Kumo ninja will either drown, or be shot with arrows as they try to surface."
"This plan isn't gonna work." Jiraiya stated.
"It doesn't matter." Naruto clarified.
"Ok now I'm confused." Jiraiya groaned.
"With so little money, Zhuge Liang will have no choice other than to fill his Navy with ninja personnel. Thinning his lines. If we win we wipe out nearly half of his forces if we lose, the force on the mainland will be able to break through the enemy lines and will assault Kumo directly. Zhuge Liang's tactics hold no place on the sea which nullifies his greatest strength.
"So either way...we destroy Kumo." Ginchiko finished looking contemplative.
"And what if Liang doesn't respond?" Jiraiya questioned again.
"He will have to. Currently, by our estimations Kumo is receiving over seventy percent of its supplies, which include food, clothing and weapons through the sea. If he doesn't, then his village will rot away from the inside out." He paused, passing his arm over the Genjutsu once more, rearranging the ships and eliminating the Kumo units displayed on the map before moving some of the figures closer to the cloud village, surrounding it. "Either way, the outcome will be the same...Kumo will fall."
There was silence for several moments before Jiraiya released a sigh rubbing his head, allowing a mutter of "I'm getting far too old for this crap." to cross under his lips before raising his head. "Alright I'll start sending out messages."
"No need." Naruto said turning back around to face him. "It is already underway. You and Ginchiko will head to Wave country, one of our territories, and make certain that things run smoothly with the mercenaries that are already arriving according to some of the reports." Pausing he looked to Ginchiko. "I have already sent messages to Toushiro and Mika, they are second only to you in naval combat so they will be leading part of the force. Hatake Kakashi as well as some of our men in Iwa will link up with you as well."
Jiraiya and Ginchiko nodded. "You are both dismissed." The blood stated watching as his two subordinates bowed before walking out the door.
Naruto watched them leave before turning his eyes back to the map before dispelling the Genjutsu. "Very soon."
"You look tired. Another long work shift at the hospital?" Hana questioned her pink haired friend as the two made their way towards the oasis where she, Ino and herself usually trained honing their newly acquired skills.
"Yea, luckily we aren't getting as many fatal or really "in danger" ninja these days. Things seem to be looking up ever since that girl showed up with the refugees." Sakura said slowly cracking her neck with every step she took.
"You know if you're tired we can always just train tomorrow." Hana stated in a somewhat sympathetic tone, seeing the tension in her friends muscles and catching the minute wince as the bones in her neck popped.
"Nah." Sakura said cringing a bit. "I still need to burn off some energy. All day filing paperwork and walking around a hospital gets old real quick."
"Alright. But take it easy." Hana said with her typical older sister mentality when it came to some of the others.
"I'm the doctor, I'm the one who says that to the patients." Sakura said waving off her concern.
"Yea well take some of your own advice for once." Hana ground out as they trudged up a relatively small dune.
"Maybe later." The pinkette answered back.
Hana's ears seemed to twitch. "What's that."
Sakura stopped in place and began listening more carefully after channeling a little bit of chakra to her ears she could faintly make out a distinct, strange sound.
"I don't know." The medic nin answered, crouching slightly she continued making her way up the dune, much more silently than before, Hana following suit.
Marching over the crest of the dune Hana and Sakura peeked their head over it, finding the oasis that they always practiced in, still there and unchanged as usual but behind the stones, bushes and tree's both women could see a faint blue, flickering glow emanating from somewhere, the sound, something that sounded strangely like a mix of scraping sands and flowing water reached their ears much more clearly now before the glow and the sound died down.
"What is that?" Sakura questioned.
"What am I omnicient?" Hana shot back before huffing. "Lets check it out, you circle left I'll go right."
Sakura nodded before the two split up, slowly circling around the oasis to find the intruder.
When they did manage to sneak past the foliage they were greeted by the sight of a blond young woman sitting at the edge of a small stream, a bottle of water in her hand, her hair matted down to her forehead and the back of her neck with sweat, wearing a light sleeveless white shirt and gray short pants. She placed the cool bottle against her head as she sighed, leaning back against a tree. "Still not enough." They heard her mutter, recognizing her after a brief moment as the girl that had become known well throughout their village as "Suna's angel."
Akina allowed her eyes to stare blankly into the sky for several moments before she sighed again. She and Daisuke had filtered their way through Suna's Jutsu archives trying to find something they could use about a week ago when they had returned from another patrol mission out in the desert. And though they hadn't found any "Techniques" per-se they had found something that, with enough training and practice she could probably use.
Apparently techniques like the Rasengan, or the Raikiri, close range hand based thrusting techniques were not very popular, though powerful and practically guaranteeing the death of an enemy if they achieved contact, the fact that they consumed so much chakra, were close range techniques that left the wielder open in a miss, made them rather dangerous and impractical for ninja that did not have a significant skill set and chakra levels to back it up.
So there was no "quick fix" for her to learn. She had to come up with something on her own. So they had started doing just that. But progress was slow...very very slow. Though she could try to recreate the techniques she'd seen, those imitations, most likely would end up being alot weaker than their originals and both Naruto, Jiraiya and Kakashi would definitely know the weaknesses to their own techniques.
So both had decided to forgo imitations of the Rasengan or the Raikiri in hopes of coming up with something original. But Daisuke wasn't around today, needing to give in his monthly report on team status to the Kazekage. So for today she was on her own. Which sucked incredibly. Daisuke, besides the Kazekage, was really the only one that did not consider her a "Celebrity" or even, in some very extreme cases of those who saw the Kage of Konoha as a demon incarnate, she was even so far as something "Divine" or"Holy"
It was flattering at first but now it was just strange, annoying and not a little creepy. She just wanted to be able to walk around the village without needing to see the looks of awe and shock upon the faces of the civilians and younger chuunin. The only place she could get something even remotely compared to normalcy was in the Anbu and Jounin hangouts, and even then a few would still treat her as something special.
Her ears twitched for a moment when she heard the snapping of a small twig to her left. Eyes flickering over she scanned over the canopy. "Come on out, I know you're there." She said, hoping that it was just another Suna ninja that had wandered into the area.
There was silence in the oasis for a brief moment before a brown haired woman, older than her, walked out of her hiding place, hands stuffed in her pockets. Expression flat except for the minute quirk of her eyebrow.
Akina's attention was next brought to her right as she heard someone else, finding a pink haired woman, this one around her age walking out of the trees. She noticed the Suna headband wrapped around her arm allowing her to relieve some of the tension she felt at the sight of the two.
"Didn't think anyone would find our private training ground." Hana said as she stopped roughly ten or so feet away from the blond who was now getting to her feet.
"This was yours?" Akina questioned before shaking her head, kneeling down to begin gathering her things. "Sorry, I'll go somewhere else then."
"Never said you had to." Hana shrugged. "Just surprised us is all." Stepping forward the older Inuzuka extended her hand smirking a bit. "Inuzuka Hana."
Placing her things back on the floor Akina stood up accepting the hand in greeting with a small smile of her own. "Rozetsu Akina." Turning to face the pink haired woman she shook her hand as well as she introduced herself. "Haruno Sakura."
There was a somewhat awkward silence between the three before Sakura decided to break it. "So what was that you were working on, it sounded weird. Was it some kind of lightning technique" She ventured, hoping to further break the ice.
Akina scratched the back of her head, offering a somewhat nervous smile. "Well sort of. I'm working on a close range technique. Not even really sure if its a wide range destructive Jutsu or an assassination class technique yet.
"Well that's no good." Hana began scratching her cheek. "Can't have a technique if you don't even know what you want."
"You've made original techniques before?" Akina questioned, genuinely curious.
"Yea..." Hana said trailing off a bit. "We sort of...had to."
"Had to?" Akina questioned before the woman's name finally caught up to her. "Inuzuka? You're from Konoha."
"We were from Konoha." Sakura corrected quickly, almost harshly before realizing that the young blond hadn't meant anything by it. "Our families came to Suna nine years ago. Escaping form the Hyuuga Massacre. We've become citizens of Suna ever since."
Akina hesitated for a moment before nodding slowly. "I understand." She contemplated for a moment telling them that she too had been in Konoha at the time, but that instead of heading south west she headed north east. To Kumo. But in the end, decided some things were best left unsaid, she didn't want to make them feel as if she was patronizing them.
Another brief moment of silence before Hana decided to break it. "So any idea on what you want?"
Akina nodded. "Well more or less. All I really know is that I need something I can use as a defense to other techniques like Hatake Kakashi's Raikiri, or...The Rasengan."
Hana whistled. "Setting your sights high huh. Well come on lets see what you got."
"Huh?" Akina blinked stupidly. "What do you mean?"
Hana sat down. "I helped reinvent practically the entire Inuzuka Jutsu arsenal with my brother and Sakura is the best medic we have and arguably the best chakra control expert this side of the continent. We don't really have anything better to do for the next hour so lets see how we can help you make this technique."
Akina blinked before slowly looking to Sakura who just shrugged before sitting down next to her friend ready to observe this strange girls new technique and see if they could help her. "Ummm...alright." She said before bringing her hands together in a simple seal.
Temari sat in the gardens eyes lazily watching the clouds pass overhead. It had been a week or so since her little encounter with her warden and since then she'd been looking over her shoulder quite a bit, worried that she may have pissed him off a little too much.
Hinata was once again at her side, the silent watchman, or watch woman in this case, over her shoulder. Though Temari did not want to broach upon the subject in fear that Hinata may report back to Naruto, or worse yet that the blond would overhear her talking about it, her curiosity had been gnawing at her all week and it was insatiable.
'Curiosity killed the cat.' She would repeat in her mind only for the other, brasher, possibly stupider side to counter. 'Satisfaction brought him back'
Finally fed up with her own inner debate she sat up and turned to Hinata. "Hey princess."
"Hmm?" Hinata questioned, white eyes staring dully towards the Suna kunoichi who addressed her.
"What do you know about that battle between you guys, and the coalition of Ame, Taki and Kusa?"
That perked Hinata's interest, visibly straightening a bit more. "Why?"
"Just answer the question." Temari shot back.
Hinata's eyes narrowed but decided there wasn't any harm in telling her what little she actually did know. So she shrugged. "I never participated in that battle so I don't know much."
"You must have heard something on the grapevine." Temari practically hissed. "Some wayward rumor that reached your ears."
"Why are you so interested?" Hinata questioned with a slight narrowing of her eyes at the girls insistent prodding.
Temari seemed to glance around, the gardens a new nervousness etching itself onto her features as she searched the shadows of the trees for any would be tresspasser. "Well you remember about a week ago when you had to go back to your clan estate to handle some business and left me here all alone."
"Yes." Hinata answered. "What of it?"
"Well..." Temari began somewhat awkwardly. "Later on that night I kind of pissed off Uzumaki."
"You 'pissed off' Naruto." Hinata echoed with a dose of disbelief in her voice. "And you still have the use of your legs. I find this hard to believe."
"Look the point is that I said god knows what to him and nothing, not even a twitch. I mentioned that coalition and he gets all kinds of pissed at me." She scooted closer, silver eyes glaring at the Hyuuga's pale ones. "You must have heard something. Something must have happened out there that would get that battle to get to him so much more than any other ones."
"Lots of people remember one battle more than any other." Hinata countered.
"And there's always a reason for it, their friend died, they ate a baby, strangled their teammate, something. Why, why is that one so much more important to him?"
"Why shouldn't it be?" Hinata questioned a hint of anger entering her tone as she scoffed. "You people are all the same. Judging him like a monster and scrutinizing any hint of humanity he may display till that too vanishes forever."
"Me? What about you? You accept weak justifications for actions that simply have no justification good enough for them." Temari shot back standing up from her seat glaring down at the Hyuuga.
Though Temari was much more expressive in her anger Hinata's chilling stare could not be underestimated in its intensity and the biting cold seemed to sink into the marrow of her bones with every word that passed Temari's lips. "You have no idea what was done to him. What those monsters, the real monsters, that used to lead this village did to him."
Temari released a frustrated huff. "Whatever you say, whatever was done whatever defense you offer even if somehow it does "Justify" him in your mind or out of it, does not absolve him!" She exclaimed every word growing louder and louder until she was nearly screaming at the end of her sentence.
"They took everything from him." Hinata said standing from her own sitting position to meet Temari's gaze head on.
"Right, so lets just ignore the blood of hundreds of thousands of ninja, civilians, men, women, children all murdered in cold blood that's on his hands because somebody gave him a bad hand when he was a little brat, how could I consider him responsible for such a minor thing." The Suna princess hissed, sarcasm dripping off every single word that spilled from her lips.
"What was done to him was monstrous."
"And they created a monster." Temari finished.
There was silence between the two women before both sensed someone standing in the gardens with them, turning around to face the intruder fully they found none other than the object of their conversation standing there. Temari and Hinata both stiffened afraid that they'd been caught talking about him behind his back.
Naruto said nothing however, eyes scanning over the two women for what seemed to them like an eternity before he spoke. "Pack your things. Both of you. We'll be heading to wave in one week." He stated before he turned and left, leaving both women with simmering animosity boiling between the two.
Zhuge Liang shook his head from his place on the tower balcony, the shifting of his jaw giving away his current unease to those who knew him well. "This isn't right."
"What isn't right?" Tsunade questioned from her place looking over some of the hospital reports, Yue Ying sat on the other chair, overlooking the front line progress reports instead. They did this almost every week or so now, in which Liang would take into consideration his losses to his gains and thus be able to adjust his strategy accordingly.
"Naruto." Liang answered. "His strategy...it isn't right."
"What do you mean?" Ying questioned.
"We're at a stalemate." He answered simply.
"Sooooooooo." Tsunade prodded
"Naruto is not accustomed to stalemates. Every campaign he has led so far has encountered swift, decisive victories. Taking cities in months or even days rather than years. But none of his front-line men, from either fronts have moved from their respective barricades, mere skirmish scout groups along the borderlines at most. Why is he acting so calm? I expected him to have at least attempted a small scale attack by now on either Suna or us."
"Not even you can predict everyone husband." Ying answered calmly as she leaned back in her chair. "Uzumaki Naruto is one of a kind. You cant predict him like you'd predict any opponent. The fact is that we never have, nor will we ever again face someone like him. He's unique.
Zhuge looked at her over his shoulder before turning his sights back to the village eyes shifting and narrowing in contemplation. "You're right...he is unique...and a unique individual...will come up with a unique plan." He said turning around to walk over to the map strewn about his desk muttering more to himself than the other two women. "If he wont try to attack...would he try defense? To outlast us with his superior resources? No...no he wont, its not his style...So that just leaves attack...but where...where will he attack from."
The two kunoichi observed the raven haired strategist as he leaned heavily over his desk eyes scanning over the map repeatedly, as if the thin piece of parchment could give him all the answers in the world.
Finally Liang looked up, obsidian eyes narrowed towards the two. "The sea..."
"The sea?" "You cant be serious." Ying and Tsunade stated respectively.
Liang nodded. "I am serious. He will attack from the sea."
"Its ludicrous!" Tsunade exclaimed.
"It's what he will do." Liang said with conviction as he straightened. There was silence in the room. "A clever move...one...that we will have no choice but to play right into."
Tsunade was about to say something else when the door of the office opened wide, and another voice came through. "Just because we need to play his game doesn't mean we'll need to play by his rules."
The three adults turned their eyes to face the newcomer, with the slug princes's expression becoming the most visibly startled. "Ka-kankuro san?"
The Suna puppeteer stood at the doorway, face-paint firmly in place as he smirked, watching the reactions of the three as they eye his...altered appearance. Stepping into the room the puppeteer cracked his knuckles. "So whats the plan?"