***
Chapter 14: :Ku areba raku ari
there are hardships and there are delights
***
Truth is not what you want it to be; it is what it is, and you must bend to its power or live a lie.
Miyamoto Musashi
***
A Few Hours Prior
: :Uchiha Compound: :
Iruka, Itachi, and Shisui are already bleeding out by the time Naruto and Sasuke reach the Uchiha Compound.
The village alarms are blaring. Civilians, the too young and the too old and the too wounded, are streaming towards the evacuation sites.
Shikamaru had already taken the rest of the Rookie 11 to join every other able-bodied shinobi at the wall, but the moment the first yokai had hit the wards, Sasuke had turned toward the Uchiha compound in some weird haze Naruto hadn't been able to break.
His Sharingan was spinning, chakra rolling off him in waves, but it hadn't been until they'd arrived in the compound and he'd stuck a kunai in his arm that Naruto realized what was happening.
He'd been too slow to stop Sasuke, but Kurama had surged to the surface as he held his teammate, howling in Naruto's mind- let me out, let me out, boy, if you want to save them.
Naruto had passed out when the seal had broken, so he didn't get to see Kurama pull himself into existence and launch into the fight.
Nor had he seen the medi-nin arriving at the compound, the shouts for blood pills and- stop the bleeding, for fuck's sake. We don't have time. Stop the bleeding!
By the time Naruto had woken up several hours later, the medics had managed to revive Sasuke and the others, for the most part, but the battle was still going. Kurama's chakra a bright blaze amid the cold, dark mass of yokai surrounding the village.
It will be, historically, the largest battle fought in the village proper.
***
It would be surpassed in another life in another time, but in this one, it is the largest, and it will remain so for a very, very long time.
***
With a line of defense spanning three-fourths of the village's total perimeter, stopped only at the two places where it met the Hokage's Mountain, it was ninety-seven kilometers in length. With the western half covering the outskirts of the village, homes, businesses, and guard towers that were quickly reduced to rubble, and the eastern half made up of dense forest sprung from the Shodaime's mokuton, it was a battlefield that managed to favor both sides.
And thus removed the advantage from either.
Konoha shinobi, numbering ten thousand and a handful, managed to hold the line against an indeterminate number (later estimated to be just over twenty-five thousand) yokai of various genus and species.
***
Later, much later, when they finally had time to count the bodies, they would put the number closer to thirty thousand.
***
By the time Naruto had recovered enough to join the fight alongside Sasuke, Iruka, Itachi, and Shisui, Konoha's numbers had been nearly halved, with a third of those walking wounded, and the line of defense had been pushed three streets deep into the village.
The introduction of the Three Clans, Uchiha, Inuzuka, and Aburame, each shinobi worth five in a fight against a yokai, the line was pushed forward to the old wall. But the introduction of the Uchiha's fire, while extremely effective against yokai, raised a new issue when several wildfires broke out in the forest, and the wooden debris of several buildings caught flame and had to be prioritized before they spread deeper into the village.
With Jiraiya commanding the right flank and Kakashi commanding the left, the Hokage herself took the center. In no small part due to her ego in response to the Inuzuka clan head.
But also, to her credit, a commander's desperate attempt to end a battle of attrition before the costs became insurmountable.
It was for that same reason that Kakashi sacrificed three of his strongest lieutenants, Asuma, Gai, and Kurenai, to take Itachi, Shisui, and three of Moro's pack to hunt down the summoner.
On paper, by math and logic, they shouldn't have won.
Shinmoro had a near-endless well of yokai to draw from, and they required little in exchange for the damage they did. They weren't slowed by pain or hunger or fear.
In contrast, Konoha's shinobi weren't even recovered from the last great war. Entering into battle with unhealed wounds, mental or physical exhaustion, or both in the worst cases.
They were, after all, only human.
But, as countless generals and statesmen have learned throughout history, in war, the human element supersedes all.
War is chaos, they all say. All those armchair generals and politicians who have never bothered to see the chaos in person.
All those old men that talk about the honor of the sacrifice and nothing about the evacuation that occurs first.
Piss, courage, and logic all gone in one gush, alongside planning and any attempt at higher reasoning.
Instinct rules all, and since all instinct is only every experience you've ever had in your life, even those you don't remember, and it is only tempered by the limited training and knowledge you can gather during a lifetime and that very small, very deep core of who a person is in trying times….
Well….
There are a great number of factors that affect the outcome of a battle: the ever-changing environment, the reliability of technology, the fickleness of chance, etc, etc….
In reality, there is one single factor that overrides them all, and it is one Naruto and his peers are only just beginning to learn: You can never truly predict what another human being will do.
After all, who could have predicted that three of Konoha's best would one day stand shoulder to shoulder with the one they'd once been sent to hunt? That they would join forces with a martyred kage and the first matriarch of one of the Land of Fire's oldest clans to capture a man that wasn't even a shinobi but somehow managed to do more damage than a kage-level ninja.
Who could have predicted that a Byakugan and a Sharingan would stand back to back, even though Sasuke and Neji would never, not even decades later when they were kind of friends, acknowledge it had happened.
That a Hokage and a Clan Leader would keep kill counts to keep score.
And that the gory game would actually inspire those around them to ever greater heights.
Who could have thought that a son could utterly ignore a resurrected father, even after a lifetime of regret.
That a small-minded fool would let hate rule and cut down a newly returned teammate rather than focus on defending their village.
Who would have thought that after generations of development, the most effective shinobi arts would be those classified as simple brute force?
That all those years of organization and development and the best an army fresh out of a world war could do was hold a barely straight line.
Who could have ever guessed that a flame as black as pitch could surround the entire village, called by an exiled son with a gentle soul.
That the smoke and flames from the battle would rise so high into the sky that the surrounding lands would see them on the horizon and send their own forces to the battlements, prepared for an invasion that never came.
Naruto and Sasuke are late to the battle because Naruto still doesn't trust the village enough to leave Sasuke alone, so he waits until Sasuke is healed enough to fight before charging off to find Sakura on the line.
And it's something….
The first battle he's ever seen where medics are more useful as fighters than healers.
It doesn't feel right because it's not.
It must be a sign, he thinks, of a battle against something that's not human.
It's something else, too, to see clans fight as clans instead of shinobi as a unit. All those hallowed kekkei genkai take on a terrible new meaning when applied en masse as opposed to a single soldier.
The Inuzuka fight like a pack, ripping pieces out one by one in fast, rotating strikes until there's nothing left. The Aburame swarm until there's no light left. The Uchiha burn everything in their path, flames connecting across the battlefield in intricate patterns only possible by the constant sharing of the Sharingan.
The Hyūga move across the field like ghosts. The Sarutobi, with their natural fire release and what was left of the Shimura, with their chameleon-like abilities in camouflage, launched ambush after ambush. The Yamanaka, Akimichi, and Nara fighting together like always, a set of interlocking gears that could form a wall so tight not even a mouse could sneak through. The Fuma, distant cousins of the Uchiha, creating kill boxes by filling the air with their signature fuma shuriken. The Izuno, small in number and fame, using their catkin to bring targets to the similarly small Kurama clan, whose genjutsu was useless, and Onikuma, who couldn't use their summoning technique for fear they wouldn't be able to control them.
With the last Senju flatting everything in her path in the center and the, now second to last, Hatake calling lightning from a clear sky and the rest of her clans, Konoha's line is stronger than it has any true right to be.
It's stronger still when the last child of the long-missing Yuki clan of the Land of Water releases a dragon made of solid ice and the size of the Hokage's Tower.
It's Naruto and Sasuke who end it, though. As it should be.
Once Asuma, Kurenai, Gai, Itachi, Minato, and Kikyo managed to take hold of Shinmoro long enough to seal him away, the only thing that's left is to kill as many yokai as possible before they slip away into the shadows of a world that is drastically unprepared for them.
And if there's one thing that Naruto and Sasuke specialize in, it's complete and utter destruction.
Not even a war of attrition, the most difficult style of warfare to defeat, stands much of a chance.
They haven't worked out the kinks yet, but they both noticed during their final battle in the Valley of the End that Sasuke's Kirin and Naruto's Rasengan can work together when they're not fighting one another.
As it is, this time, their first actual attempt to combine them with no prior practice or discussion (something Iruka lectures on later at length and at volume) leaves a crater half the size of the village itself just outside where the wall used to stand and takes a significant chunk of the Hokage's mountain and the attacking yokai with it.
There are smaller moments that also help end it: Itachi's flames burning every yokai 50-kilometer radius but leaving everything else untouched, Tsunade's fists and Tsume's teeth, Fugaku using the Taten Botan, the Uchiha Holy Sword, to release the Zenbonsakura, 10,000 cherry blossoms so sharp and fast they were swords, and, of course, Kurama, Kuromaru, and Moro, two gods and a demon fighting on the side of humanity.
There are many songs and stories that will come from this battle, but at the moment, the soldiers that have actually fought it, couldn't care less.
***
It doesn't take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle.
Norman Schwarzkopf
***
Present Day
: :Defensive Line, Konohagakure Side: :
When it is finally over, it looks like this:
Jiraiya, holding the right flank closest to Tsunade's head on the Hokage Monument, finally stops to take a breath, more exhausted than he's ever been since he started training under Hiruzen-sensei. His forces are scattered, mostly clanless shinobi and a few of the resurrected Uchiha.
Including a dead one with a Konoha kunai in the back of his neck.
Jiraiya is still working to reconcile Hiruzen-sensei's words with what Tsunade has told him- Hiruzen-sensei is still father in his head and his heart, but there's right and there's wrong. He has no personal ties to the Uchiha, good or bad, and mostly, the drama of the clans and the old ways annoy him.
But what he finds annoys him more is that one of their own chose personal revenge over having another able-bodied shinobi to defend the village. That selfish bastard didn't think about the village at all.
When he glances around, the other Uchiha nearby are already gathered around the body, and their expressions promise retribution, which would be the easy way out, let them gut the fucker once the sun goes down and turn a blind eye.
The other shinobi who witnessed what happened can barely meet his eyes, which means there probably wasn't a justifiable reason for the murder. Shinobi will excuse a lot of horrible things if it has a good enough reason behind it.
And haven't they been taking the easy way out all this time?
It's not exactly working in their favor.
"Who was it?"
The Uchiha look surprised, which is insulting but probably not completely undeserved. The others just look stunned, which is just insulting.
Though there are a few faces that also look hopeful, soldiers smart enough to know that the health of their home depends on how this betrayal is acknowledged and handled.
Some things are bigger than the individuals involved in them, but that's hard to teach to people who don't see the world outside their home villages often.
After a moment's hesitation, a handful point to a young man with a scar on his neck and fury in his eyes, and he starts spitting out the word traitor and all manner of hateful things when Jiraiya grabs him by the scruff of the neck and starts hauling him across the battlefield to Tsunade.
He passes Naruto and Sasuke first, climbing out of their damn crater and looking adorably confused when they see him. Before either of them can speak, though, a female Uchiha suddenly grabs Sasuke, crying and kissing his face- my boy, my baby, my boy over and over and then she sees Naruto and she grabs him too- my boy, you look like your mother, my babies, and Jiraiya leaves them to it because that must be Sasuke's mother. Uchiha Mikoto. Kushina's best friend. He has a vague memory of seeing them together before he left.
They aren't needed for this anyway, so he leaves all three of them crying in one another's arms.
Maybe it'll do the rest of them some good to see it. The cost of a loss of faith just because of fear. It's not like there aren't already a thousand ways for a shinobi to die too young that they have no control over; they don't need to actively add more.
He spots the other Rookie 11 scattered around as he makes his way to Tsunade.
Was he ever young enough to have that kind of energy?
Sakura keeps a sharp eye on him as she helps direct the wounded, and that spider, Okuninushi, is on her shoulder, alternating between advice and orders.
The head of the Aburame must have heard what happened because he falls into step with Jiraiya, silent support at his shoulder, and there were a few Aburame that came out of those coffins, too, weren't there?
Orochi's favorite student is still killing the yokai, too slow to escape. Her blue snake summons Dango, busy eating every corpse he can find….which is disturbing on an impressive level. Manda had creeped Jiraiya out when he was young, and he's never quite shaken it.
There's a young boy, white-haired and blue-eyed and far, far too young to be on the battlefield, getting hurried away by two children who are only older by a few years. A pretty young girl guaranteed to be a knockout as an adult and a boy with sharp eyes that remind Jiraiya of Orochimaru. Both of them look like they could use a few extra meals and a bath.
That ice dragon was impressive, though.
Shizune and Tsunade's other two assistants, the idiot with the bandage over his nose and his keeper, are next. Shizune gets halfway through waving Jiraiya down before the other two suddenly sprint into the forest, and she gets distracted, chasing after them with an infuriated screech.
Jiraiya has no idea how those two made it to assisting the Hokage. Another set of holdovers from Hiruzen-sensei, probably.
But he's got bigger things to worry about, so he keeps walking, keeps a tight, bruising grip on this moron's neck, and finds Tsunade in the thick of things again, triaging wounded with the Inuzuka matriarch and newly returned Uchiha Clan head nearby.
….
And that's Sakumo, kami, where is Kakashi?
Looking exhausted off to the side, and even from a hundred feet away, Jiraiya can tell he's looking everywhere but at his father.
They wander over when he calls to Tsunade and Jiraiya is aware that everyone, everyone, is watching them.
"Jiji?"
"Lord Hokage," and she stiffens because Jiraiya is only ever respectful like that when it's something terrible, "This…man killed one of his comrades. Stabbed him in the back in the middle of the battle."
"Who?"
But the Uchiha clan head is already looking off in the distance before Jiraiya can answer. "Toji."
One of the returned Inuzuka lets out a cry that makes Jiraiya's chest hurt and starts running back the way he came.
"That was her husband," the Inuzuka clan head offers. She sounds bored, and Jiraiya would almost be fooled if Tsunade hadn't told him all about the fight she'd picked in front of everyone.
Whatever she is, because he's certain now that she's not human, she's not a friend to Tsunade. He's going to figure that out, too, but it can wait until tomorrow.
He hasn't seen Tsunade look this tired or beaten down since the day all those years ago when they realized Hiruzen wasn't going to budge, and they'd left.
The fool in Jiraiya's grip sneers and tries to break free, not that he gets anywhere. "I killed a traitor. They're all traitors; that's why they were dead! They turned on us; they summoned the demon!"
The last Senju's voice is clear and firm when she says, "The Uchiha Clan had nothing to do with summoning the nine-tails."
Naruto, despite only being back for a short time, has already started an information campaign that rivals anything ever conducted during a war. Telling everyone who would listen, and a lot of people who didn't even ask, what really happened that night and what Itachi was really doing all those years. Sasuke's utter refusal to discuss any of it is, ironically enough, only adding credibility.
The fool in Jiraiya's grip is too far gone for a reason, though. He just snarls and spits at the woman who holds his life in her hands, "You're a fool. They're rotten. They need to be eradicated."
Jiraiya looks to Tsunade, flicks his eyes between the Inuzuka and Uchiha clan heads.
Who gets him? He's asking.
"Murdering a fellow shinobi is punishable by death," Minato's voice is almost like music, smooth and warm, carrying across the village as he walks out of the field of corpses at the side of a woman with spinning red eyes.
Jiraiya had felt his chakra appear during the battle, and it had taken everything he had not to leave his position and track it down.
Whispers start immediately. That used to happen before he died, too, but now the dead are walking in Konoha, cumulating in the return of her martyred Hokage.
Minato, for all that he didn't like being the center of attention, knew more than Jiraiya or Hiruzen ever did about manipulating his public persona. Jiraiya's still not sure where he learned it or if it's just another thing that came with his natural genius.
And now he strides back into existence like the god of justice covered in blood and gore to bring a verdict on the man in Jiraiya's grip.
Later, when they can all finally rest, Jiraiya will rejoice in his return, but for now, he focuses on Tsunade.
"Witnesses?" She asks.
"At least a dozen," he answers.
"Remorse?"
"Monsters deserve to be gutted in their beds," the man seethes, kicking at Jiraiya in a failed attempt to free himself.
Maybe he'll get off because he's too stupid to be held responsible, Jiraiya thinks. He's seen crazier things.
But no.
Tsunade's eyes narrow just the tiniest bit. The way they do when she's truly angry, and there's no going back. All the foolish things he's done, and she's never looked at Jiraiya like that.
Thank kami.
"Konohagakure," she says, voice steady, "Does not tolerate shinobi who murder their comrades."
For a second, she looks like she's going to say more, but what else is there to say?
When she reaches out and presses two fingers to the man's chest and sends a concentrated burst of chakra straight into his heart, Jiraiya lets him fall.
It's a less painful death than he deserves.
For a moment, there's nothing but stunned silence. It's been thirty years since Konohagakure's last public execution, but they're still common in the other lands.
The Inuzuka clan head looks surprised. The Uchiha calculating.
The mourning wails rise in the silence. The Inuzuka head makes to go, but her daughter stops her.
"I'll go, mother. You deal with this." And she sets off with the Uchiha with the bandages over his eyes. Shisui- strongest of his generation according to Minato's praise, hot on her heels.
Tsume turns her attention back to them, stalking forward to put her foot on the dead man's head and grinding it down until it's nothing but pulp.
Naturally, that's when the Council arrives.
"Desecrating your dead comrades, Lady Tsume?" Koharu lifts the helm of her dress delicately, like a fancy lady of the capitol, to avoid a pile of something.
"Desecrating a traitor," Tsume corrects with a bloody smile, "Executed by the Hokage herself."
To her credit, the only reaction is Koharu's gaze flickering briefly to Tsunade. She's always gathered herself quickly, a survivor in every sense of the word. "Still, such demonstrations are rather distasteful, are they not? Think of the example you set. Are we beasts?" And there's the tiniest smirk on her lips. "Or men?"
"Well, I suppose you're right," Tsume shrugs and then kicks the corpse across the ground, where it comes to rest at Koharu's feet, splattering her skirt with blood and brain matter.
There's definitely something personal to this hatred, Jiraiya thinks.
"Speaking of dishonorable," Tsume continues, "Since I know how much you hate when anyone thinks you'd ever be like that."
Sneers all around at that. Wherever this hatred comes from, it's epic, Jiraiya musses. To inspire a pissing match over a corpse and right in front of the Hokage.
"But you haven't rendered the appropriate honors to your betters. How disappointing. Aren't you always insisting that you set the standard of behavior and propriety among Konoha shinobi?"
"We do," Homura hisses, "Or should we follow the Inuzuka way and rut like animals?"
"Even animals show respect, old man." She gestures. At first, Jiraiya thinks it's to Minato, but he steps aside, and the Council goes pale. Tsume purrs, "Go on now. Pay your respects to the God Who Came Down From the Mountain. Indra's daughter. The First Uchiha."
And really, Jiraiya doesn't need this on top of everything else. Neither does Tsunade from the twitch she's developed in her eye. Kakashi just looks exhausted and a little bit haunted, and it makes Jiraiya wonder what the Sharingan is showing him now.
Maybe Kakashi was right, and they should have taken it out when they had the chance.
Koharu is the first to move, sharp as ever, and bows deeper than she ever has for Tsunade. "Lady Kikyo, welcome back."
Homura follows her example stiffly. "The village has been poorer for your absence."
Apparently, this Kikyo has dealt with the Council enough to know empty words when she hears them, and her smile is tinged with vicious amusement. "Koharu, Homura, you look exactly the same as the last time I saw you."
Ouch. Jiraiya's been around enough women to know better than to ever comment on their age, even if they're the enemy.
"Your absence was long this time, Lady Kikyo. We have striven to ensure that Konohagakure has not lost everything. It requires effort. Effort, when pursued with dedication and heart, has a cost. It ages one."
"Ah, I meant the kowtowing to the strongest person around, but I guess you do have more wrinkles than the last time I saw you."
She gives them a dismissive wave that raises even Jiraiya's eyebrows.
"Go on then. I'm done with you. I'll summon you if I want to see you again."
Well, there's two assassination attempts coming in the next week, Jiraiya thinks, resigned. The killing intent wafting off the Council is setting his hair on edge, but it just makes Tsume laugh.
It's Iruka's "For fucks sake" that breaks the silence after the Council leaves.
And then Minato, "I guess it's true when they say there's no such thing as a diplomatic Uchiha."
"Hey now," Kikyo sniffs, "I was polite."
"You were absolutely not," Minato returns flatly.
Asuma turns thoughtfully to Iruka, "I guess you really aren't the worst one out of your family after all."
And the young man turned red with a muttered, "I told you so."
Meanwhile, Kakashi looks like he'd rather be anywhere else, and the medic-nin look like they're about to revolt because they're all in the way of treating the wounded.
Itachi clears his throat, "Perhaps we should table this conversation. There are more pressing concerns at the moment." He smiles, soft and gentle, and it's almost hard to comprehend that he's from the same bloodline as Madara and Obito and even Iruka, who yells as fearlessly at Jiraiya as he does at Kakashi.
For Kami's sake, he doesn't even look like he broke a sweat during the battle.
***
The only thing that makes battle psychologically tolerable is the brotherhood among soldiers. You need each other to get by.
Sebastian Junger
***
Present Day
: :Forest of Death, Konohagakure: :
If Shizune has to wrangle those two morons one more time, she's just going to paralyze them and be done with it.
Hagane Kotetsu and Kamizuki Izumo are two of the biggest pains in the ass she has ever dealt with.
Honesty, it's mostly Kotetsu, but since Izumo doesn't stop him half as often as he should, he's in the same category.
Harring off into the woods right after an army of yokai attempt to destroy the village is up there with the stupidest things she's ever seen someone do, and if she didn't consider it her personal responsibility to manage them- to save Tsunade-sama from having to do it herself- she'd just leave them to be eaten.
But they're also friends of Iruka, close friends judging by how often she finds them with their heads ducked together whispering, and Tsunade's been a little weird about him lately.
He's been a little weird about her, too. Something happened that Tsunade hasn't told her yet, but the heavy drinking hasn't started back up, so Shizune is comfortable waiting for her Hokage to be ready.
Tsunade only ever gets like this when it's about her family, and the thought of how Iruka could be related to that ticking time bomb of an issue makes Shizune's guts twist painfully.
He's famous for being an orphan, but it turned out he had family all along.
Which would make Shizune wonder why the Third didn't just take him in, but it's not Shizune's decision to question.
Couldn't acknowledge his son in public.
She thinks a better man would have done it anyway.
But hey, apparently, he's back now, so they can ask Uchiha Fugaku directly.
There's a twisted part of her that wants to be there, just for the drama, but the common sense part of her plans to be far, far away from what will no doubt be a noteworthy explosion given what she's seen Iruka is capable of.
She finally pinpoints Kotetsu and Izumo ahead in the dense foliage that fills the heart of the Forrest of Death.
Heads bent together, bodies so close they may as well be one. Shizune doesn't know who they think they're fooling when they both insist they're single.
They aren't pleased to see her either when she steps into view, but before any of them can speak, there's a rustle amidst the foliage that makes all three of them go for whatever weapons they have left.
But it's not a yokai that makes its way out of the leaves.
It's a stag. Large, stocky, and white as the snows that cover the mountains in the lands far to the north.
She's never seen a white so pure and unblemished.
The only parts of him that aren't white are the red markings under his eyes and the tips of his ears. His antlers have seven branches on each side, at least four feet in height, and covered in velvet as white as he is.
He's huge. Shizune's head barely makes it to his shoulder.
Shizune hadn't realized the deer in this forest got that big, so he must be old.
Most of the Old Religions, gone along with the Old Ways, worshipped a white stag as the King of the Forest. The spirit of life and death and the world that all creatures, great and small, lived in.
He's also injured. A deep gash on his hindquarters that Shizune gets a better look at when he walks forward and rests his head against Kotetsu's chest.
The part of her that wants to snap at the shinobi for letting a wild animal so close is quickly forced to the background by the medic.
The wound is infected. The blood dripping out rotten, and his coat has several bare patches where the hair has fallen out as a result.
Kotetsu is murmuring to the stag, voice low and lyrical, as Izumo makes an inexperienced attempt to heal that would.
And that Shizune really cannot stand.
He has no idea what he's doing. It's so clumsy it makes her snap at him to move.
"Didn't you attend the basic medical refresher at the hospital? Watch. You have to focus the chakra in your fingertips for a wound like this."
"Ah, right, sorry." Izumo looks sheepish, but he pays attention as she works while Kotetsu keeps the stag calm.
It doesn't take long to close the wound itself, but it takes more than she was expecting to root out the infection that has spread much deeper than it first looked. She gets so focused that she doesn't realize she's sweating and nearing exhaustion until Izumo places a gentle hand on her back to keep her from swaying.
"Are you alright, Shizune?"
"I'm fine," she snaps because she's still annoyed, but she doesn't shake his hand off. She's come this far, so she's not going to stop until the poor animal is fully healed.
It's likely from one of the yokai that escaped the battle, and it's not the poor beast's fault. He shouldn't have to suffer.
She has to sit down when she's finished. Izumo carefully helps her to a nearby root and pulls a canteen from his vest. She chugs the whole thing since they're so close to the village and watches the stag playfully headbutt Kotetsu.
A stray thought comes to her mind once the fog of healing has cleared a bit.
Hadn't one of the Hanta masks been a deer?
Tsunade had put Shizune in charge of sorting through everything in the Hokage's private filing cabinet. Aside from more notes from MB and SS and coded files that she hasn't translated yet, she'd found twelve silk bags with the Hanta symbol stitched on the outside. All the masks inside were broken except one.
Tatsu had gleamed in her hands, black with white dragon's eyes and horns.
The others she'd had to piece back together, and it had taken hours, but one of them had been a stag with similar markings under its eyes.
She'd actually made a note to research which kind of deer had those markings.
Now, watching Kotetsu scratch this giant white stag behind the ears, she thinks about that mask.
She hadn't thought Hagane was that level of shinobi. He was a solid chunin, capable and resourceful, but a desk worker with no outward ambition.
And there was Kamizuki. If Hagane was Hanta, then it was pretty much guaranteed that Kamizuki was, too.
The Hanta were supposed to protect the shinobi of the village. How did two desk workers fit into that?
Why keep a bunch of broken masks?
Why no record of who'd worn them?
Why they'd disappeared?
Why the Council wanted them gone?
And why now?
There is something they are missing, Shizune and Jiraiya, because they are the only two in the village absolutely loyal to Tsunade, and Tsunade is too busy to think about this herself. And everything Tsunade has sacrificed for will be undone if the Council manages to supersede her authority in this.
Shizune will die before she lets that happen. Despite Tsunade's initial unwillingness to take the position, it is now her greatest achievement and her biggest point of personal pride. Despite being the Shodaime's granddaughter, there were many against her, and laws had to be rewritten simply due to the changing times.
The original language hadn't allowed a female Hokage, according to the Council and their supporters.
Still one of the stupidest arguments Shizune had ever witnessed.
And it's just barely stupider that this situation is the way she figures out the first of the Hanta identities.
Hagane is Sutaggo. The Guardian.
She can't guess what Kamizuki is, but he's one of the other eleven.
Ookami, the Vicious. Fukurou, the Wise. Hebi, the Sly. Tatsu, the Great. Maelstrom, the Terrible. Tora, the Brutal. Washi, the Honorable. Wasupu, the Biting. Taka, the Watchful. Kiba, the Unyielding. Kurayami, the Endless.
She's going to find them, and she's going to drag them in front of Tsunade to explain themselves.
Starting with the one standing right in front of her, but before she can do so, the stag plods over to her, and Shizune freezes.
Kotetsu and Izumo are watching, but neither of them moves as the stag ducks its great head and presses its wet, cold nose to her cheek.
Shizune's not a huge animal person; she never had any as a kid, and once she'd found medicine and Tsunade, there'd never been room for anything else.
She can't manage a relationship, let alone the time to take care of another living thing.
On top of Tsunade-sama that is.
An odd sense of peace washes over her at the stag's touch. A feeling of calm and rest that she hasn't felt before. Everything from the past few months lifts from her body, her muscles uncramp, her bones settle, and the migraine that took up residence behind her eyes fades away.
The stag nuzzles her cheek for a moment before outright nudging her until she nearly tips over.
Kotetsu snickers, "He wants you to scratch his ears."
She hesitates, but all the giant stag does is nudge her again gently and tilt his head down to bring his ears closer.
She digs her fingers into the soft spot behind each ear until the stag shivers.
He licks her cheek before pulling away and tosses his head as he prances away. He pauses to let them admire him, strikes an actual pose in a convenient shaft of light breaking through the trees, and it looks to Shizune's eyes like he's glimmering.
One last stomp, and he vanishes off into the foliage.
The feeling of peace doesn't leave, though. It doesn't even leave when they make it back to the battle line, and when Shizune casts one last glance at the forest, she catches a flash of white in the trees.
In the Old Religions, the King of the Forest had been the guardian of peace.
***
Some victories are merely defeat wearing the wrong clothing.
Kiersten White
***
Present Day
: :Defensive Line, Konohagakure Side: :
Kakashi manages to make himself useful for a few more hours. Helps count and dispose of the bodies of the yokai and separate the bodies of the fallen shinobi for sealing and burial. He sends a few who are still on their feet trying to help home and a few to the hospital when he doesn't catch them in time.
He stays far away from where his father is helping alongside Uchiha Fugaku and Inuzuka Tsume, though he spares a moment to let Minato-sensei clap him on the shoulder and promise a conversation later.
He watches Iruka out of the corner of his eye and nearly has to step in when Anko somehow gets into a fight with the house-sized Kyubbi. Everyone leaves them alone until they nearly take down one of the few remaining houses next to the remains of the wall.
Kakashi's about to gather the strength he has left and get involved, although how he's going to stop either of those psychopaths he has no idea, but Iruka gets there before anyone else can, catches them each by an ear and proves he can, in fact, out yell a demon and a crazy jounin.
Even Naruto ends up watching in awe as Anko and the Kyubbi cower.
"Iruka." Fugaku's voice is sharp, and it makes Iruka stiffen and glance over his shoulder at the man Kakashi now knows is his father.
Iruka doesn't look any happier than he is when Kakashi offers an opinion Iruka doesn't like, and before Kakashi can find out if Iruka will yell at his father the way he yells at Kakashi, with those narrowed eyes and the pulsing veins and the heat (okay, maybe not with that), Itachi appears between them.
Itachi is the peacekeeper, Kakashi realizes. Because Obito, after handing off a wounded shinobi to a medic, just looks between Iruka and Fugaku with a gleeful expression of menace.
Next to Naruto, Sasuke looks lost and angry about it, and that inspires another feeling Kakashi isn't ready to deal with, so he turns away, confident the situation is handled.
The gasps stop him before he can walk away, though, and he shares a pained look with Genma before they both turn around to see what's happened now.
To be honest, Kakashi is actually starting to wish he hadn't made it through the battle because in Iruka's hands in the Kyubbi. The size of a house cat and squirming madly in an attempt to free himself.
And cursing Iruka out with an impressive vocabulary.
"Let me go, you fucking eye-freak! I'll melt your flesh from your bones, you overgrown plankton! How dare you-"
Iruka's hand clamps his mouth shut, and Kurama's black eyes practically bulge in fury.
"Do you want to go back inside?"
The Kyubbi stills. His nine tales quiver.
Anko snickers and then ducks behind Ibiki when Iruka glances at her.
Kurama shakes his head as best he can with Iruka's hand around his snout.
Iruka beckons Naruto, and the boy practically floats over, eyes wide as saucers and glittering with happiness.
"You always said you wanted a puppy."
"Puppy!" Naruto shrieks in glee as he takes Kurama, sounding as young as he is.
"Puppy?" Kurama shrieks in outrage as he braces his legs to try and keep Naruto from cuddling him to his chest.
The fox is no match for the excited teenager, though, and ends up forcibly tucked under Naruto's chin as the boy nuzzles him.
He isn't pleased, glaring at Iruka through narrowed eyes. "I'm going to eat you in your sleep, Uchiha."
And how interesting that Kurama is the first to call Iruka by his blood.
And how did he know?
Questions for another day as the exhaustion makes itself known again, and Kakashi gets lightheaded for a moment.
Crisis averted, Iruka heads straight for Kakashi, but Obito beats him to it, ducking behind Kakashi and swinging him around to use as a human shield.
"What the hell, Obito?"
"You're my teammate. Defend me!"
Kakashi's about demand from what, but Iruka yanks him to the side before he can and glares at Obito.
"Defend yourself, you useless prick." Iruka growls.
"Oi, is that any way to speak to your older brother?!" Obito screeches and grabs Kakashi back, and the brothers yank him back and forth between them for a moment.
If Kakashi had a fraction more chakra left, he'd Chidori them both and be done with it.
Interestingly enough, it's Tsume and a woman Kakashi recognizes from a single meeting years before the massacre as Uchiha Mikoto that save him.
They come baring down on the three of them like wrathful gods, and if Kakashi had the energy or any more shits to give, he'd be mildly concerned.
Obito shrieks in terror and takes off running. Iruka cackles madly and clutches Kakashi to his chest while Obito runs for his life from Mikoto and Tsume as they yell about responsibility- what were you thinking? Get back here, young man! How could you do that to your younger brothers? Don't you know they look up to you?
Something tells Kakashi that Iruka, Itachi, and Sasuke have all not been looking up to Obito, but whatever.
Family dynamics are not Kakashi's specialty.
Kakashi pulls away from Iruka, ignores the look that gets him and is about to turn his attention to the next section of the line that needs to be cleared when Tsunade catches him and sends him home.
He catches a glimpse of his father over her shoulder, watching them with something like concern.
And for the first time in his life, he doesn't have the strength left to argue.
He turns and leaves before Sakumo can make his way over.
There's a fine line between giving everything you've got and becoming a burden, and Kakashi knows he has maybe an hour left before someone's going to have to carry him to the hospital.
His Sharingan is weirdly quiet. It was alive during the battle, and for the first time, it felt more like an ally than an enemy. The hiate Itachi had given him in the hospital is still working, and the Sharingan isn't drawing on his chakra outside of the battlefield anymore.
Before this mess kicked off, Kakashi had started to recover reserves he hadn't even realized were gone.
He's reached the last block destroyed in the battle when the flash of red catches his eye. It's dismissed amid his exhaustion and the pain and the relief that Tsunade's not making him go to the hospital.
He makes it another block before it stops him.
It hadn't been red.
It was something stained red.
He turns back, but it takes him a few minutes to find it again amid the rubble of the demolished houses.
When he's finally close enough to touch, he realizes it's hair, and judging from the portion of skull he can see, which isn't that much, it's a child.
A child buried in the rubble.
Most likely dead because how could a child survive a house collapsing on him?
Why was he even there?
Still, there's a chance, and if there's one thing Kakashi's learned after all these years watching Naruto defy the odds, it's that sometimes the barest hint of hope carries the day.
When he goes to move the slab of concrete, he realizes the depth of his exhaustion. His muscles won't, can't, cooperate, and he has no chakra left to make up the difference.
He tries again, and the frustration climbs, leaving him dangerously close to crying when Iruka suddenly appears at his side.
"Kakashi, what are you-, let me help."
But Iruka's not in any better shape. Kakashi caught the blood stains on the cuffs of his shirt and on Itachi and Sasuke's, too- so that's how the shield managed to last as long as it did.
They only manage to get the slab up a couple of inches together, but it's not enough to pull the boy out. Iruka starts shouting for a medic, and then there's a warm presence at Kakashi's back, and Sakumo's chakra engulfs him the way he remembers when he was small, and his father would carry him to bed when he fell asleep in the training room.
Sakumo has the strength left to lift with Iruka, so Kakashi, more gently than he ever has been before, pulls the childfree.
He can't be more than five.
Sakura is there then, immediately fussing, and the child only spends a few seconds in Kakashi's arms before he disappears into a crowd of rushing medics.
Sakumo's hand lands on Kakashi's shoulder, squeezing once before he slips away to Tsume's side, and a moment later, the Inuzuka clan leader starts yelling to summon the nin-kin to search the destroyed buildings for survivors.
There wouldn't be anyone in them at all if the proper procedures were followed, Kakashi thinks wildly. Where the hell are his parents?
He hopes, almost desperately, that they're not in the rubble of their home.
***
I hope to God that I have fought my last battle… I am wretched even at the moment of victory, and I always say that next to a battle lost the greatest misery is a battle gained. Not only do you lose those dear friends with whom you have been living, but you are forced to leave the wounded behind you.
Duke of Wellington
***
Present Day
: :Hatake Kakashi's Apartment, Konohagakure: :
It will take two more days before the demons too stupid to slip off in the chaos of battle are nothing but piles of rotting flesh and broken bone surrounding the village. The great wall of Konohagakure, once stone, mud, and grit, is made of death and decay now. The stench so thick nowhere in the village is free of it.
It will take years to get rid of it.
They burned as much as possible, too much, maybe. A cloud of thick black smoke floats above the village still. Though Tsunade forbade any more corpse fires the day before. More than a few shinobi had run themselves into the ground, casting wind jutsu after wind jutsu, until Tsunade was finally forced to put a stop to that, too.
They still had a month before the winter winds really started up, though no one among the village leadership was pleased with the idea of a dark cloud literally floating over the village after everything that had already happened.
And now there were yokai in the world again.
They'd have to be hunted down. Add that to the ever-growing list of things that need to be done.
It had taken almost a day to triage all the wounded, and Kakashi will never have the heart to complain about a medic slowing down a mission ever again. Not after watching them comb through the wounded, marking foreheads with their eerie system.
Three for anyone who'd survive the next six without treatment.
Two for anyone who'd need surgery in four.
One for those who needed to be operated on immediately.
Zero for those it was a waste of time and effort to save.
There had been a lot of zeros, and most of them had been aware enough to realize what number had been drawn on their forehead. There'd nearly been an entirely new battle when the surviving Uchiha- thirty-seven of fifty, the highest loss of any of Konohagakure's clans, had abandoned the task of burning to tend to those marked with zeroes. Confusion had briefly given way to fear that they were executing the dying until Sakura had ventured close enough to overhear the Uchiha recording a dying shinobi's message to his family. Sharingan whirling slowly as the man spoke through the blood pooling in his mouth.
Hyuga Hiashi had nearly had to be carried off the field when Itachi appeared in front of him with a message from a young clan member whose parents had died years before.
They'd left them alone after that. The Uchiha hadn't bothered returning to help with the cleanup, instead carrying death messages to all corners of the village.
Moro and Kuromoro had disappeared as soon as the battle ended, with brusk instructions not to bother them. Of the gods wandering Konohagakure, only Okuninushi had lent any aid after the battle, spinning delicate cocoons of silk around the wounded and buying time for the medics to treat them alongside Tsunade's slugs.
Kakashi had finally made it to his bed an hour after Tsunade had released him.
His apartment was only a fifteen-minute walk from the edge of the battle.
He'd finally laid down, and by lay down, he meant teleported into his apartment the last of his chakra, crawled to his bed, and just didn't move again.
Pakkun made a half-hearted effort to help pull off his clothes, but Kuromoro had summoned him before he could make any progress, and Kakashi couldn't exactly counter the order of his nin-kin's god-creator.
Which was annoying.
He'd been about to give up and pass out fully dressed when Iruka appeared on his windowsill.
His chakra, which had never been as extensive as Kakashi's, was just as low, the last of it letting him cling to the windowsill.
They did need to talk. Not that Kakashi actually wanted to.
….
"I really don't have the energy for this now, sensei."
"Me either. Can I sleep here?"
"We made that much progress?"
"No. But I'm two seconds away from stabbing the next person that talks to me in the eye with a dull kunai, and there's a gang of teenagers and suddenly not-dead relatives in my apartment."
Ah, right…
"I'll smother you if you snore."
"Put me out of my misery. Get your filthy sandals off the bed."
"It's my bed. I can put whatever I want in it."
Iruka proved him wrong rather violently. Stripping him down to nothing without giving him a chance to resist and shoving them both in the shower for a scalding thirty seconds, where they nearly fell asleep on one another and killed themselves on the slippery floor.
Kakashi petulantly demanded to be carried to bed and only realized after he was flying through the air that he probably needed to stop underestimating the Academy sensei.
"Big talk tomorrow, sensei. Big."
"Your porn has ruined your vocabulary."
"What's the right word then, oh educated one?" As he burrowed under the blankets and dragged Iruka in after him.
Iruka wrapped around him like a koala and stuck his face in Kakashi's neck. "-s an -miai."
"Um, what?" Which left Kakashi wide awake and panicking and Iruka dead to the world. "What the fuck, Iruka? Wake up right now."
He started snoring instead, and no amount of squirming could dislodge him. Not without resorting to serious bodily harm, and Kakashi wasn't quite there yet…
He was getting there rapidly, though.
Very, very rapidly.
Then he fell asleep.
***
In a battle, the ones who get in the way are not the ones that lack power but the ones that lack resolve.
Rukia, Bleach
***
~tbc~