NRaO Chapter 56 (Patreon)

I sucked my teeth as I watched the four Kage all work together to stop my explosion from killing them or collapsing the building onto them. The Raikage aimed upwards blasting through several feet of stone, then a dozen feet of dirt before disintegrating the remainder of the roof. Then the Tsuchikage brought earthen walls up around them, they would have still been injured if the Mizukage and Kazekage also didn’t act. 

The Mizukage created a bubble of water to encase them all as the Kazekage strengthened its defenses with a layer of iron sand. I hadn’t thought they’d have died but for them to be completely uninjured was a disappointment. It proved how much better they were prepared for sabotage than the others. Many, many ninjas had died not expecting anything until the formation activated every explosive tag tied into it.

After the first large-scale explosion, there were many smaller explosions as the fire spread to the gunpowder barrels or oil barrels I set up through the entire village as I saved people. The explosion was so severe that I had to reinforce the walls three separate times to not have them collapse around us. As if they finally knew what was happening, I felt several earth ninjas begin tunneling down to us.

I motioned to them again. “Hurry, things are about to get interesting.” It was a few at first but more and more kept appearing. Most stopped at the surface, attempting to get out of the reach of the flames but some must have felt the shifting earth or empty area beneath them through a tremor sense ninjutsu. Those would be the stronger ones, possibly Jonin level.

We kept fleeing as more and more ninjas caught on to what was happening. The only bit of good news was that the Kage didn’t chase us. I lost count of how many I killed or how many we lost. There were only a handful of combat-ready Uzumaki and I was already exhausted from tunneling the three days before the attack. Every mile we ran they took a life until we finally made it out of the tunnels, my body practically ready to collapse as we moved the last bit into the Konoha borders.

Any knowledge that we helped them would quickly be discovered so why even bother trying to hide it? I just wished I had built up my clan better. If we had more ninjas to help than just me many lives could have been saved and many of our enemy's lives could have been taken. The skilled ninja women of my clan pulled heavy-duty work on ensuring our safe escape as they collapsed the caves onto the enemy ninja over and over again. 

Raphtalia and Tsunade handled most of it but Tsunade couldn’t be tied to the incident. I was happy Tsunade was high enough in the Senju clan that she could protect my family. I met up with the Hokage who was waiting for us to bid our final farewell. It was my plan to ‘betray’ the village and help out the Uzumaki. It meant that any of my women who I hadn’t done a marriage or concubine ceremony with could stay but many would have to leave with me.

…It was frustrating and I wished I was strong enough not to have to fight in this convoluted way but if all the ninja villages and the daimyo’s territories attacked us at once even the Hidden Leaf wouldn’t be able to handle it. Hiruzen puffed on a cigarette pipe, and he couldn't help but start to chuckle. His laughter was infectious, we had just spit in the eye of everyone, caused severe casualties to our enemies, and ruined the plans of the Daimyo.

Tapping the ashes off before placing the pipe back in his mouth he spoke. “For what it’s worth I wish I could have helped you more but I am the Hokage of the village. I have to act for the sake of the village.” With a soft smile, I answered him. “I know… I just wish I would have caught on earlier. You’re actions didn’t make any sense unless your hands were bound by demands and breaking them would cause the Leaf’s destruction.”

We prepared a false battlefield and many of the Uzumaki that died in their village or while fleeing were sent out to show that they were attacked and had no home even in the Hidden Leaf. There was only a handful left, out of thousands of Uzumaki only hundreds were left of their clan. That seems like a lot but all of their military might was gone and most were children. It would take years for them to recover enough to defend themselves and that is what I was going to buy them.

With the attack, I was kicked out of the village and so were the wives and concubines I claimed while the rest were allowed to stay ‘under watch’ by the village. I was called a missing-nin and had the highest bounty ever placed on my head. I happened to know several good hiding spots to build a small village but it didn’t make sense to have everyone in the same spot in case we were found out.

The locations were all the old villages of the wiped-out kekkei genkai. I hadn’t really thought about it but of course, the daimyos would target ninjas who had an inherent advantage against them, unless they were trying to tie their blood to them as the cloud daimyo did with the ketsuryugan but his enemies betrayed him and gave his enemies reason to kill and expel the ketsuryugan from their country.

That was one of the areas I was going to move to. I never really understood why people fought over land, with the power of ninjutsu it wouldn’t take more than a few generations to turn a barren wasteland into lush fields perfect for growing crops and raising the next generation. It was laziness, people would rather spill blood and steal than put the effort to make something new.

The first Hokage, Hashirama made the forest that still protects Konoha to this day and that was something a single ninja did in a single moment of time… If he wanted peace he should have given each village a forest instead of a jinchuriki. So, I chose worse areas that no one would want, they might have even been deemed unsafe and moved the Uzumaki there. Slowly we could cultivate the land and turn the desolate landscapes into bread baskets to rely on in the future. We could develop the land so much that people would start to fight us for it.

All I had to do was lay low, build back up, and prepare for the future… That’s what the Hokage thought I was going to do at least. My plans were different. I was going to kill all the daimyos and toss their lands into the battle of succession while possibly planting my own people in charge but really just destroying the partnership between the five countries.

I had also developed my snake clone ninjutsu to the point that not even a Hyuga could see through them. It meant the infiltration plan was back in full swing as I added more than one spy into each ninja village in preparation to annihilate them. So many plans to work through with so little time. I think I was going to spend a year or so building my strength… I felt that I needed to be stronger than I was. I could compete with a Kage on strength… But what about two? What about four? What about the four and their villages and the Daimyos' villages?

I grabbed Koruna around the waist. She knew I was the reason so many of her clan members survived and things had already progressed to open contact in front of her people between the two of us… I planned to push our relationship further than this in the near future but I had the time to be patient now.