Protector's pride:

In the nest of the snake

Sasuke stood with two other root operatives in front of Danzo, the leader of the root looked older than the time he had last seen him. There was a weariness in his bearing that he felt odd, everytime he saw the old warlord he looked almost unstoppable a stone statue carved out of pages of history book but now he had dark circles under his eyes. For six months he had been training extensively with the best root had to offer as well as training with Kakashi to increase his ability with the sharingan. The eyes were getting stronger but still Kakashi far out classed him and that only told him how far he was from the peak that was the kin slayer. He wondered what Naruto was doing sometimes, the boy was probably the only friend he had and the one who came closest to him in terms of power and skill. That was six months ago right now Sasuke was sure he could easily defeat his team mate. Even Kakashi would have been hard pressed if he truly went all out with the cursed seal's power in his finger tips.

"Hokage has assembled an elite squad to pierce deep in to sound village, you three are going there from root, kill any sound ninja you can find but your chief target is assassination of agent hawk stay behind others can go"

"Do you know why I asked you to stay behind?" Danzo asked looking at the strongest agent he had, in a lot of ways Sasuke's potential rivalled that of Itachi and Shishui. The power of cursed seal was largely under his control, he could maintain the power boost for over an hour before the rage tore through his composure and turned him to berserker.

"No, commander Danzo" Sasuke kept his voice monotonus, that was the teaching of root. Emotions were weapons and ninjas were warriors, he just was going to be sharper than the rest.

"You can't let anyone see the sharingan or cursed seal. Anonymity has to be maintained at all costs." Danzo had his plans in motion and one way or the other the elemental nations would bow to the hidden leaf. Within a few years Sasuke would be stronger than most of the s-ranked shinobi making him kage level in his powers and with his backing the sixth hokage post would be his.

'You seek to be the king-maker now and yet you underestimate the powers that set themselves against you. Blood of the Uzumaki runs strong and in the darkness of war only the brightest of sun may shine' the spectral figure of Hiruzen appeared beside him. Danzo clenched his fists, no matter what he did the ghost of his old rival came to him, haunted him. 'You are wrong, you were always wrong, you broke the stronghold of leaf, you let Iwa survive even after we had broken them, you allowed Kumo to poach blood lines without repercussions. You failed leaf and its villagers but I will not.'

'War never was the answer old friend' the ghostly voice faded away leaving Danzo shaken.

Jiraiya looked over the twenty elite jounin assembled in front of the southern gate, fifteen ANBU operatives led by Shikaku, Inoichi and Choza as well as Anko and Shizune. On the left side stood Danzo his three agents on their knees by his side. Jiraiya took a deep breath the move he was making went against his own morality, he was inciting war but it didn't matter. To save his god-son it was a very small prize to pay. With a deep breath he placed the mask on his face, the old armor from the shinobi wars covered his body like a second skin.

"On your command Hokage sama" Shikaku spoke as the sortie readied themselves for an extremely dangerous fight.

"Let's go" Jiraiya spoke at last and the squadron of some of the deadliest ninjas of leaf launched themselves.

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It took almost a day and half for the leaf warriors to reach the sound village territory the main village itself was still two hours journey but charging head on to war and death was stupid for shinobis with their experience but it didn't matter when they had the best sensor ninja of the village here. With a hand signal from Jiraiya Inoichi stepped forward.

"Sensory Bubble deployed, neural chakra link forming" he grunted as small bubble of chakra formed in front of him, tendrils of chakra linked it to his mind. "Hisagi lend me your eyes" Inoichi called out to Hyuuga clan member in the group.

Without a word the Hyuuga strode forward allowing the chakra tendrils of the orb connect to his eyes. The all seeing eye activated and scanned the horizon. The power of Yamanka patriarch helped increase the ability of the byakugan and at the same time the sensory ability of the Yamanka sensory bubble.

"There are only five shinobi patrolling the village perimeter, their chakra capacity is moderate, however there is a deep concentration of vile chakra around the northwest corner of the village I would avoid the place if possible." Inoichi reported as he collapsed the sensory bubble.

Jiraiya nodded his face grim with determination, "boys we want the job done as smoothly as possible, knowing Orochimaru the ordinary guard level shinobis will have no knowledge so no need to waste time on them."

The leaf squadron moved in to action, like blurs they shot towards the sound village, almost everyone had lost family in the invasion by sand and sound and thus a chance for vengeance only spurred them on.

Jiriaya however had no thought of vengeance on his mind he had already witnessed the purple cobra looking at him intently from the tree branch a bit away and in his heart he knew that Orochimaru was ready. Thankfully he had prepared for that scenario.

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Fukasaku flipped back dodging the round house kick from his student, the training had progressed even better than he dared to hope. Over his three century old life he had taught five shinobi the secret of sage chakra but despite of being youngest of them all Naruto surpassed them all.

The boy in question pushed on the attack throwing kicks and punches with blurring speed but Fukasaku had no problem to stay one step ahead. Suddenly the onslaught of the attacks stopped as the natural chakra faded away from Naruto's body.

"How long did I keep it this time?" Naruto asked, the six months away from leaf had changed him a lot. The hair was longer coming down past his shoulders the face had lost whatever trace of baby fat that was once there. His body was lean as ever but the tightly coiled muscles were visible even more. What was most remarkable change was not physical but mental. Naruto had become calm the wild ferocity of his emotions and fighting style had been replaced with grace and lethal confidence. Every move was thought with three future steps in mind the plan was to lure your opponent to a trap where he could devastate him.

Fukasaku looked at the hourglass to the edge of the training area, the sand was about halfway down meaning the little training session lasted for about half an hour that was nearly double the time from the previous training session.

'the sage chakra is almost stabilized in his body now as long as he keeps practicing he is going to reach a point where the sage chakra will remain at his body for days.' the old toad sage master thought but out loud he only spoke one sentence

"This time use ninjutsu as well"

Naruto smirked as he heard the call. Three clones appeared beside him. Even as the clones rushed to engage the old toad sage he immersed himself in the flow of natural chakra. The eternal flow of life's energy filled him like a vessel, he felt the life force all around him like flaming torches and in between a inferno of sage chakra in the form of his teacher.

The clones had done their part keeping Fukasaku busy enough while the main body joined the fight. Quickly flipping through the handseals Naruto took a deep breath before releasing compressed balls of wind, the toad air bullet relied on users chakra to accelerate the wind ball to generate a force enough to break bones but with natural chakra in the mix the bullets were almost invisible even to the naked eyes of the veteran shinobi.

Fukasaku however relied on senses other than the five basic ones as such he could always stay just one move ahead. Still the power behind the move surprised him each hit created quite a deep crater on the ground. After dodging about a dozen of those wind bullet he went to offensive, he released a stream of fire, although fire wasn't exactly his strongest element but fire was Naruto's worst enemy and what better than to test his mettle.

However Naruto had been practicing against the element of fire for a quite long time, preparing himself for the akatsuki so it was quite easy for him to just dodge the attack with a burst of speed.

Chakra swirlled on his palms condensating from spiralling sphere of pure chakra within a minute. He thrusted his left hand first even as Fukasaku raised a rock wall with four layers, Naruto smirked as he fed sage chakra to the rasengan and it grew to a size at least ten times the size of a normal rasengan. The attack pulverized the wall still going strong it hit the ground just in front of the old toad. It was only due to his extreme agility the old toad was able to survive the huge explosion of chakra but even then the second rasengan closed in on its target. Suddenly Naruto felt the sage chakra leave his system with a groan he released the concentrated chakra, even after all his hard works he couldn't stay long enough in sage chakra to fight a ninjutsu battle.

"Damn it," he groaned as he sank down on the ground tired and dejected.

"You expect too much in too short time Naruto chan, without using the amphibian sage mode it is not possible to maintain sage form for long. You just have to work hard to extend the time of your sage form also you must work to gather natural chakra as fast as possible"

The words of wisdom from the old sage gave Naruto heart and an outline of plan began development. "Sensei, can we begin training again, but this time you take offensive, I must learn to reenter sage mode even in the heat of the battle."

Fukasaku considered the request on one hand no one apart from the sage of six path could enter sage mode on the fly even Asura with all his training needed time before he could so more likely than not Naruto would fail in his attempt to accomplish the impossible but there was a chance that the boy would figure something out or a miracle will happen.

Naruto barely had a chance to react when a spike of earth rose out to skewer him, only a timely jump saved him. With a quick hand seal he summoned five shadow clones. The second phase of his training just began.

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Ino sat in attention as her teacher explained the intricacies behind the unique nature of their clan's chakra. The potential was almost limitless, no matter how strong or weak the opponent the power of her clan broke them. The more secret and dangerous techniques that had seen them hold their own during the clan wars.

"The Yamanka ninjutsu directly controls the brain of the opponent, gives you the power to do anything or change anything in that mind but at the same time you leave yourself vulnerable. That means the attack must be quick and you will need backup to watch over you." The old veteran explained, "the more powerful genjutsus have certain similarities with our moves in that they completely control the senses but an illusion is just that an illusion but we control the mind, we can break even the strongest of the genjutsus after all it was based on our knowledge that most of the genjutsus have been designed."

"How can I learn them, the clan library has no mention of the jutsus like that" Ino spoke the question that swirled in his mind, even her father held nothing even close to that power and he was the strongest ever to be born of the clan.

"Our power lies in the knowledge, we don't play with jutsus because we have no need of them, I have read your files you have survived things no one from our clan even dare to dream. So be confident in your achievements and believe in yourself. I will guide you provide you with knowledge but in the end its all up to you"

"In the first step your knowledge of the human brain must be unsurpassed, you will have to know where to strike to do the absolute damage. The human brain is divided in parts made of countless nerve cells, nerves that regulate every aspect of our senses close any such path and you have broken the threat of the shinobi." Inari spoke at length, he was surprised when one month ago his clan head came to him with the sole request to take over the heir's tutoring. Inari was surprised to say the least, he had retired from the shinobi life after the war and since then he had been largely left alone. The shinobi who had the title of the Mental Master had all but vanished, he wondered if he could ever return.

With a shrug he touched the girl on the temple, sending his chakra invading through the pathways of his brain.

"Ahh" the scream came tearing through her vocal chords as all of a sudden darkness filled her vision. She couldn't see anything the creepy old fucker had actually blinded her.

"What the fuck did you do?" Ino shouted as panick grasped her.

"Keep calm, this is but a demonstration of what we can do, now the best thing a Yamanka can always fight against the power of another Yamanka and most of the time the defender holds all the advantage but the will must be strong. So now put aside your panick focus on your rage and send chakra to your brain find the trace of my chakra and push it out." Inari was calm even as his student panicked.

The voice of her sensei steadied Ino's nerves, she took a deep breath and focused every bit of her chakra and tried following the instructions. It should have been simple a task but it proved more complicated. The brain was a vast place with endless webs of nerves filled with chakra it was like maze.

"Take your time sense the flow of chakra only point will feel alien" Inari spoke once more.

Ino obeyed without question, soon enough the maze simplified it was like a river of chakra flowing only one point she could feel a blockage. The concentrated chakra of her mind easily swept the foreign chakra aside. With a gasp she felt the vision return.

"That was exciting" she muttered

"Yes, it was but your training is merely beginning,I will see you next week but till then you have a lot of homework to complete. Your chakra control is mediocre at best and knowledge of the human mind below average now you need to learn. Study as much as you can and practice your basics."

Ino only nodded as her sensei left the area in a body flicker.

"How do you think she will do?" Inari hadn't expected to find the clan matriarch in the house. Then he should have and one day he wouldn't have been surprised by something so simple. "She has potential to go far, further than I or her father managed to go but there is also a matter of her fear, I looked in her mind and I saw her fears it can either propel her beyond all other Yamanka who came before her but if she fails if those fears hold her back then she will be nothing more than a mediocre shinobi like all who fill the ranks."

"Then guide her, help her overcome those fears" Ino's mother kept her voice calm.

"You chose the wrong teacher for that" Inari didn't even try to hide the frustration, for more than a decade he had never even accessed his chakra, tried to erase every trace of his life as a shinobi. He knew he wasn't the only one, he remembered going to the veteran center with his father and who could forget the fate of the great white fang.

"Inoichi doesn't make mistakes Inari-san may be you underestimate your self"

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Sasuke ducked under the wild swing of one of the weird man-beast thing that just came out of one of the larger buildings and started attacking everything. He was shocked when the two leaf shinobi in front of him were just torn to shreds even before anyone could be ready for the fight. Within minutes the tide of the battle had stalled but Sasuke had bigger issues to think about. His fireball jutsu collided against the monster but surprisingly the ugly brute didn't even flinch. His sharigan was the only thing keeping him unharmed against the monster, he drew upon the power of his cursed seal and at once he felt raw power coursing through his veins. He channeled lightning chakra to his sword tip before unleashing a slash of the lightning chakra. Miixed with the tainted chakra of the cursed seal the yellow glow of lightning chakra had a darker almost blackish tint to it.

The man beast howled in pain as the enhanced elemental slash penetrated his rock like skin drawing blood but he didn't get any chance to retaliate as another slash removed his head from the body.

Sasuke flicked the blood of the sword before scanning the battle raging on ahead, the onslaught of the konoha shinobis had all but come to a standstill against the numerous beastial opponents. He saw the dark tainted chakra flowing through them giving them strength, speed and in turn sapped away their cognitive powers. A fate worse than death and a fate that awaited him if not for Danzo's guidance.

Suddenly the ground beneath his feet rumbled spires of stone ripped out of the ground skewering the first line of cursed seal users. The hokage himself had finally joined the fight.

Author's note: hi guys sorry for being so late its just real life got in the way. I am starting a new job from next week so i will be less frequent please don't mind. Anyway i hope u love the chapter