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The Method by Zabzab
 Anime » Naruto Rated: M, English, Adventure & Humor, Naruto U., Words: 63k+, Favs: 1k+, Follows: 2k+, Published: Dec 8, 2019 Updated: May 19734Chapter 6
AN: I'm quickly going to acknowledge here that with only five chapters, this story has nearly 10,000 hits already and close to a hundred positive reviews. That's an awesome response and I thank you all for it. I think every author who posts hopes for good reception and you all definitely delivered!
Now enjoy this train wreck.
Naruto was seating in his cave, the round boulder of his own carving sealing the entrance shut. A powerful flashlight was standing upright and illuminating the dark interior. The blond was eyeing the faithful piece of parchment he had dragged around for four entire years.
"'Thod?" The blond mumbled, dispirited.
"Wassup?" The ink scribbled.
Naruto contemplated the scroll, unsure of what he wanted to say. Someone knew who his father was which meant they knew who his mother was. They could not reveal it to him because of a law which meant the Hokage knew which meant the old man had - as Naruto had known already - lied to him. It was simply confirmation.
Naruto really, really wanted to break something but he had nothing on hand and there was no way he would damage his boulder. He had taken too much time to carve and smooth the round piece of granite to waste it in a surge of anger.
The Hokage knew who his parents were, had lied to him by saying he didn't know, and for some reason had refused to tell an orphaned boy anything about his lineage. The thought was playing in repeat in Naruto's mind, going round and round in the boy's head, echoing in every single nook and cranny of his brain.
And there was something, something that was boiling in his stomach. The sensation was filling him with a disagreeable heat, was making his hands shake, and was causing his teeth to grind together. He really, really needed to break something.
"I'm angry," whispered Naruto, his voice so low it was almost inaudible as if he was afraid of the admission.
"About what, idiot student of mine?"
Naruto ignored the jib - that wasn't even a good one - and sighed. What was he angry for? Being denied the basic right to know of his family? Being lied to all his life by someone he thought he could trust? Being treated unfairly again?
"About the way I've been treated." Naruto eventually chewed out.
"Well," scribbled the scroll after a few seconds, life isn't fair so…"
"No," said Naruto while shaking his head vigorously. "Life is a neutral ground and some assholes make it fucking difficult for the vast majority of people who didn't ask anything."
"You might be simplifying the thing a little here, you little twerp," prodded the parchment. "What happened exactly?"
"I've been lied to all my life." Naruto began in a dead voice. "I knew nothing about my burden until a day ago, I thought I had the choice to live my life but I actually don't, and the identity of my parents have been hidden from me as well. I can't think of any reason the Hokage would inflict that on me. The Kyuubi is an open truth, it damns me to a life I've no real interest in, and my identity, my birthright was denied." The boy counted on his hands. "You know what it looks like? It looks like the Hokage actually hates me and wants me to be miserable!" He finished, his voice rising and rising until it was a scream of anger that punctuated his statement.
"Maybe maybe not, idiot disciple. Maybe the Old Man had super good reasons, maybe he is just an asshole. Whatch'u gonna do about it? Break his knees?"
Naruto looked at the scroll but his eyes were gazing at emptiness. "I don't know. And I'm not sure I even want to break his knees." The boy fell silent for a few seconds before a crooked smile twisted his lips upright. "I can declare war on him though. Would you help me 'Thod?"
The scroll scribbled fast. "Not helping you killing anyone. Your Hokage might be an ass but he hasn't threatened your life directly yet."
Naruto pouted and glanced sideways at the scroll. "He literally told me he'd rip the Kyuubi out of me and kill me if he had to."
"Nah, idiot disciple, as you're now, that wouldn't kill you. More like make you weak in the stomach for a bit." Method dismissed in a jerk of black ink. "Anyway, what do you have in mind?"
Naruto cocked a brow at the scroll's assurance. The blond didn't know anything about fuinjutsu and the condition of jinchuuriki so he couldn't tell who was in the right here. Was the scroll putting too much faith in Naruto's talents or had the Hokage no idea of how it actually worked? The blond stored the thought for later and eyed the scroll again.
"I'm pranking him into next year. I need to be stealthy. Like, very very stealthy."
A smiley doodle etched itself on the scroll. "Ah ah, fear not idiot disciple, you're as immovable as the mountain already, you'll be gentle as the forest when I'm done with you."
Naruto smiled excitedly. "How am I going to do that, 'Thod?"
"Get naked."
"Oy!"
"Now."
My name is Konohamaru Sarutobi. I am the eighth Hokage, student of the seventh, Toad Sage and amateur historian.
Much like my master and probably because of him, I developed an interest in History during my time under his guidance. This little book you now hold is my humble attempt to cast light unto the events we know today as "the Lineage War", that was waged in Konoha in seventy-eight after founding between my master, who was twelve at the time, and the regular and special forces of the village.
This war saw the utter defeat of the konohan ninja forces and the surrender of the third Hokage, my grandfather to the terms of my master. We are getting ahead of ourselves, however, so let us begin with the beginning.
My master is an orphan and while this status is not rare for people in Konoha, the customs and laws of our village make it so that, normally, they are properly taken care of. It was not the case for my master. Due to his status as the Kyuubi's jinchuuriki and the misplaced fear and hate the civilians still held even so long after the attack, my master was ostracized by most of the Konoha population.
By his own admission, my master was never the victim of physical violence. However, people often misunderstand the true extent of what he still had to endure. His ostracization was complete which brought its own slew of problems, especially for a twelve years old boy without day to day support.
The orphanage got rid of him as soon as they could (at age six) and my master was expected to take care of himself. He had no knowledge of hygiene, cleaning, cooking, or what else. Only through the help of Yuugao Uzuki, at the time an agent of ANBU did my master not live in squalor. It did not mean his life was remotely easy: people ignored him thoroughly to the point they would not serve him in their business. He could not buy food seeing as cashiers would ignore him, was refused any and all play since parents would drive their children away from him, and he was refused education since teachers would not answer his questions.
Those are well-known facts about the life of my master but I think that to understand the war, it was necessary to remind them to the reader briefly. It is important to remember as well that my master had, at the time, no idea of why he was even treated like that. The last bit of crucial information is that my master had no idea of the identity of his parents, the knowledge of them denied by my own grandfather.
A shame our family is still trying to recover from.
Surprisingly, my master did not hate the population for his treatment. On the other hand, he did not love them either. This sentiment, along with an admittedly negligent gestion of the situation by the standing Hokage at the time, brought my master to consider not following the path of the ninja.
My master fancied himself more of a historian or a doctor and while today those choices would be seen as perfectly acceptable, the simple fact that my master was considering them caused an upheaval. Not being a ninja was an impossibility given that my master, as the Kyuubi jinchuuriki, was considered as a weapon of high importance by the Hokage, as per the military doctrine of those times. We are speaking of an ear before the treaty of Red Iron Crater was signed.
My grandfather the third Hokage was at the time one of the very few who did treat my master humanly. I am not proud of him however; given his powers, he was in a position to do much better than paying my master a visit once in a while and paying for his ramen. No matter, my master did see my grandfather as a person he could trust and hence, when doubts about his professional career came to him, he naturally went to the Hokage.
My grandfather made his first mistake that day when, after finally revealing his condition of jinchuuriki to my master, he strong-armed him into becoming a ninja. That was a diplomatic mistake he would come to regret in the coming months.
At the time, my master did not dislike the idea of being a ninja. He simply was not certain of what he truly wanted to do. What was important to him, however, was that he had been promised the freedom to become whatever he wanted. This promise, given to him as a very young boy by the Hokage, had been forgotten by my grandfather but vividly remembered by my master. Hence why the notion of being forced into something by the one person he thought he could trust felt especially distasteful to my master, who then decided he would not be a ninja on principle and as a way to protest his treatment.
He was twelve and even my master could be what would be colloquially known as a brat.
His decision was not immediate, however. My master was at first cowed by the Hokage, who made his second mistake by giving him the Shadow Clone Jutsu to learn, as a way of passing the required ninjutsu section of the Academy graduation examination.
By an extraordinary concourse of circumstances, this led to my master meeting his first teacher, one Kakashi Hatake, sixth Hokage and Hound Caller.
The exact way their meeting went is unknown but my master learned that day that Hatake knew his parent but could not, by law, reveal it to him.
My master, for the first time in his life according to him, was furious against someone that was not himself. He was furious against the Hokage and by extension, the village. It was the first of his now well-known bout of anger.
Konoha had no idea, at the time, what would befall them.
It began without a single sound. My master proceeded first to disappear in a spot that is even today known by him and him alone. He replaced himself with shadow clones to not arouse suspicion and apparently, trained his stealth and various other skills for a month with the help of countless shadow clones, the jutsu neural link allowing him incredibly fast progress.
Then, a month after my master disappeared, the third Hokage received a letter, unsigned, demanding in no uncertain terms that the lineage of one Uzumaki Naruto be revealed, under due threat of "exponential retaliatory pranking upon the entire village if such conditions weren't met quickly".
My grandfather made his third mistake that day by ripping the letter in half and ordering two ANBU to find and bring Naruto to him.
Needless to say, the ANBU were unsuccessful as the one Naruto they brought before the third Hokage revealed himself to be a clone after my grandfather told him in no uncertain terms that the identity of his parents was unknown. That was the fourth mistake of the Sandaime and the last as the clone declared the war started and immediately dispelled.
After that strange episode, nothing happened for three days and the threat of my master was dismissed, foolishly. My master, like a true strategist, lulled Konoha into a false sense of security before he struck.
On the morning of the fourth day after the war declaration, people awoke to see the main street of Konoha entirely painted in bright hues of orange, yellow, and blue. The street itself was littered with thousands of flyers reading "the Fox is your friend, don't believe the Hokage Tower".
The incident, while embarrassing, was quickly put under wrap and gave countless genin teams D-rank mission to wash away the paint. Secretly, ANBU was dispatched to various warehouses in an attempt to locate where exactly my master had procured so much paint. Their mission could not be completed in time.
Indeed, the following day, a giant orange fox had been painted over the Hokage Mountain. On the forehead of each past Kage was the same message: "the Fox is your friend, don't believe the Hokage Tower".
Once again, it was taken as an opportunity for D-rank mission, ANBU was told to continue to try to locate the paint used, and the Hokage talked to the people in the evening, assuring them that everything was under control.
My master heard that, apparently, because on the morning of the third day, a new message had appeared next to the old one: "the Hokage is lying, he doesn't have anything under control". This had been painted on every house of Konoha and signed by a stylized fox head. On the Hokage Tower itself, my master had somehow painted "very well, escalation it is". My grandfather did not realize then how much of a threat this actually was.
On the fourth day, the deer of the Nara clan disappeared, the hounds of the Inuzuka were doused in pheromones, the food caches of the Akimichi were plundered and completely emptied, the Yamanaka were poisoned with an inoffensive hallucinogenic drug, the Aburame lost control of their insects to countless jars of honey, the Hyuuga found their laundry to be tinted in all the colours of the rainbow, the Sarutobi found apes plundering their kitchen, and the lone Uchiha was gifted with an angry striped cat.
Covering each clan compound was the now dreaded message: "the Fox is your friend, the Hokage Tower doesn't have anything under control." ANBU was dispatched all around the village and the forest around it in search of my master. They came back empty-handed. Patrols were tripled and the black-ops were put in high alert, a state normally reserved for a possible enemy invasion.
The following day, Konoha as a whole was holding its breath, waiting to see what had been inflicted to them.
Countless civilians found themselves locked in their own home, the lock mysteriously changed during the night. The stocks of various merchants were swapped with one another: the butcher of Mainstreet open his fridge room to find rows upon rows of fishes while the tailor in Shodai avenue opened his business to reveal the hosts of the ninth street's animal shop. And those were merely examples of the chaos that reigned this day in Konoha.
Once again, everywhere, the message could be seen. "Don't trust Hokage Tower, they lie."
Needless to say that the citizens of Konoha were, by now, rather upset at everything that was happening. It is interesting to say that the anger, far from being focused on my master, was actually halved between him and the Hokage, who was seen as responsible for the pranking spree that the "demon brat" had decided to enter. It was expected of the Hokage to stop my master and the fact that he couldn't angered many civilians.
The ninjas were torn between admiration and anger.
ANBU once again came back without anything to show. Patrols were quintupled, the military was set in high alert and in an allocution, the Hokage once again affirmed he had everything under control and that Konoha "didn't negotiate with terrorists."
On the sixth day, there was a single message on the Hokage Tower.
"Very well, phase three."
It had been painted in black and there was a pirate skull next to it.
The end of the week and the seventh came without incident and tension reached unprecedented height as every ninja Konoha had to spare were searching the forest for my master. In vain, needless to say.
On the eighth day after the declaration of war, chaos, true chaos like Konoha had never known, struck Konoha.
Electricity was cut and people realized that their drink water had been poisoned the day before with a very powerful laxative, bringing countless people to the hospital which had been bombed with stink explosives. Mission scrolls had disappeared from the Mission Office, effectively paralyzing Konoha's business while flyers had been dropped along the various roads to the village, asking potential clients to "go sit on a dildo" and seemingly signed by the third Hokage himself. Countless patrols fell to harmless but painful and humiliating traps that littered the forest around the village.
The people who weren't sick were in the streets that night, brandishing panels and protesting, screaming for the Hokage to explain himself and for some, to give his resignation letter. A few fights erupted between ninjas tasked with maintaining order and protesters. Twelves people were wounded.
Seeing as there is no higher level of alert than high alert, the Hokage had no choice but to declare Konoha in a state of war.
"Very well," was the answer scribbled for all to see on the Hokage Monument.
The next day, ANBU headquarters was flushed with a paralysis gas that forensic could not identify, taking down fifty agents or so, the T&I low security cells were opened, allowing a hundred low profile and low danger targets to escape, and the cryptology department had their hardware hacked or destroyed, rendering them incapable of doing their work. The Hokage Tower once again was in no capacity to ensure business and the Hokage's pipe had been stolen.
The city itself was bathed in the pungent smell of gutter and rotten fish. When ninjas were sent to investigate, they found a large portion of the evacuation network flooded or blocked, causing the odour to rise. Several colonies of rats were released upon unsuspecting citizens, pillaging and plundering their home. Shinobi and kunoichi found their gear blunted and could not repair them, given the forges were forcefully closed due to an invasion of tarantulas from the Forest of Death.
The citizens who were physically able to protested for the entire day, ninja marching alongside them, demanding the Hokage to leave his office or give the Fox what he wanted.
On the evening of the ninth day, a white flag was unfurled from the Hokage Tower.
"You don't think it was a bit much?"
"Look, Kakashi-san. There comes a time when a man has to put his foot down and say enough."
"Still, the laxative and the rats were vicious, Naruto."
"I didn't want to go that far but the Hokage forced my hand."
"What would you have done if he hadn't surrendered?"
"Mhhm. I had one more phase in mind I could have escalated too. Let's just say phase four would have left nothing here."
"You… wouldn't have killed people, right?"
"Kill? Nah. I'm just saying Konoha would have become a place impossible to inhabit with what I had in mind."
"I see. I'm glad you didn't have to go that far. I also want to thank you for sparing me as you did."
"Well, you were the one who informed me about my parents. My debt is now paid."
"That wasn't a debt. A younger brother doesn't have to repay the older."
"You're so not my older brother, Kakashi-san. I obviously am the older brother here. I was the one who brought Konoha to its knees, I was the one who got the Hokage to unconditionally surrender and accept my terms, I was the one who just fought and won a war by myself. I feel like I deserve to be the older brother."
"And who exactly coached you for an entire month on asymmetrical warfare? It's my victory as much as yours!"
"What?! You didn't lay out the plan, you didn't prepare the resources needed, and you certainly didn't participate, so nu-uh, it's my victory!"
"Ungrateful little brother! Who gave you the money to buy all that paint! It's at least thirty per cent my win!"
"Urgh, fine! Fine! That still doesn't mean you're my older brother!"
"That's what your father wanted!"
"Well that's not what I want and that's not what you need, mister broody!"
"M-mister what?!"
"You're brooding, always! You think you look cool but you're so aloof! You need a firm hand in your life and that's me! From now on, you'll go out with Gai-san and co. more often and you're forbidden to stay more than an hour per week at the Stone."
"W-wha-what!?"
"That's right! As an older brother, it's my mission to make sure you're happy!"
"You brat!"
AN: Do you want to leave a review?
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