Chapter 6: The Nine-tails attack

I was starting to think I had the timeline wrong. I had expected the attack to have happened already. In hindsight this doubt let me to let my guard down a bit, as I was beginning to think it had to happen later in the story.

I was wrong. I had forgotten about the full moon, on the day of the nine-tails attack, if I had remembered I would have been better prepared for what was to come.

The 10th October the year 65 after the founding of Konoha, would be a day of sorrow, joy and terror for the village hidden in the leaves.

It had started out as any other day, with my morning running around Konoha, before going to class at the academy. There was nothing to indicate that this day would be different, although that is not much of a surprise. The higher-ups in Konoha wanted to keep Konoha's jinchuriki giving birth a top secret, thus no one outside 4 people would know about. Well technically 7 people with me included. These people would be Hiruzen, Minato, Kushina, Biwako, Obito and Mardara. Although I am not sure if Mardara is still alive at this point.

I remember a scene from the anime, where Iruka has a flashback to being in ninja school, when an alarm happens, and the academy is evacuated. I am pretty sure this happens due to the nine-tails attack, and thus I was convinced that the first part of the attack, would be the evacuation of the academy. However in hindsight I either remembered this scene wrong, or there was something not fitting in the anime itself. Because on this day, school was regular. No alarm, and no evacuation, the day was normal. After school was over, Yugao, Shira and me went to one of the public available training grounds, to exchange pointers and train. We spend the entire afternoon together, until it was time for dinner.

We split up, after making plans to met again tomorrow after school, to continue training. And I went home to have dinner with my mother. When I got home, mother was not there. She must be working late again. So I started dinner, and after only 3 failed attempts to cook rice, I finally made a somewhat decent dish of rice and steam vegetables. And just in time, as my mother walk in the door

"Hi sweetie, I am home" Kione said

"I am in the kitchen" I yelled back at my mother, before I continued: "The food is ready"

My mother walked through the house and into the kitchen. For some reason the mention that I had made food made it look like she was scared of something. Strange.

After my mother checked over the food (and I am pretty sure made some adjustments), we finally said down together to eat. During dinner we talked about all sort of topics, nothing really important, though she did mention that the Hokage had cancelled all his meetings this afternoon, for some reason. Thus mother could finally clean in his office, which had been some time since last. In hindsight that should have been a clue for me, but I was convinced that the attack would happen on another day.

"Your aunt will be joining us for dinner tomorrow" Kione said.

I looked at her, and asked: "That's unusual, aunt Kiana is usually so busy. I haven't seen her for so long now. I hope she could find more books on fuinjutsu she promised."

"I just want us to have a nice family dinner together" Kione said.

"I would like that to" I said

After dinner, we clean up together, before we both turned in for the night. I used about an hour, after going to bed, to train with several leaves sticking to my body. This training doesn't do much for me anymore, but its the best training to do in my bedroom at night. The wall walking would wake up my mother.

After an hours of training with the leaves, I went to bed, to be ready for another early morning tomorrow.

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I don't know why, but I woke up after just a few hours, with this overwhelming feeling of dread. I looked around my room, to see if something is wrong. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, I got out of my bed to look out of my window. This house is situated on the outskirts of Konoha, near the border wall. It is situated on a small hill, which makes the view from my bedroom quite spectacular, if not for all the buildings and trees in the way, I could see all the way to Hokage mountain.

As I was looking out of my window, most of the town I could see is dark. Must mean that it's pretty late at night. Only very few people are in the streets, mostly just drunken idiots stumbling home. The sky is pretty lit up tonight, a full moon is casting it's light over the world. It is actually very beautiful like this, only a few clouds in the sky, sometimes partially cover the moon. Hard to believe this world, that can have such beauty and tranquility, is also the same world where kids are forced to kill before their 10th birthday. Where most of the powerful and "good" people, are mass murderers, and celebrated for that fact.

While caught in my own thoughts, trying to debate the morality of this life, with myself, I was suddenly interrupted. A huge gust of wind blew over Konoha, like suddenly a huge mass was summoned into existence and pushed all the air away from it. That is when a tremendous roar sounded over the town, that awoke every person in Konoha. And it is when I realized what was happening this night. The nine-tails was here.

As I had my realization, I saw a big claw that was shadowing over us, covering the moon. As if time was slowed down, the claw was starting to get bigger and bigger. I had maybe a few seconds left to do something, before I was going to be trampled by the nine-tails. The only thing, I could think about, was to escape. Get away from the approaching doom.

With all the concentration, I could muster, and all the adrenaline pumping through me, I made a few hand seals, and traded place with a log. At the same time a giant crashing sound tore through the night, when the nine-tails claw flattened several houses in the outskirts of Konoha.

My substitution does not have a large range, so I was still in the area, and not out of any danger yet. Luckily for me it seems like the nine-tail was ignoring me, and focusing on causing as much destruction on the village as possible. The only danger that was left for me now, was the 9 tails, that was randomly lashing around the giant red fox. I don't think the nine-tails was controlling it's tails, but was just randomly swinging them around. To a certain degree, this makes them more dangerous, as I can't predict when a tail is going where.

I dodged a tail narrowly that smashed down on some trees and a few houses. Trying to orientate myself, another tail smashed down right next to me, that I had not seen at all. I was surprised and panicked. I was desperate to get out of the range of the nine-tails, and made a fatal mistake. I used my substitution jutsu, but I was not aware enough of the place I was going towards. I traded places with a log, that was instantly smashed apart from a tail thundering down on where I was a second earlier. However another tail took me by surprise at my new location. I had only a second to dodge, and threw my body in the direction I deemed furthest away from the tails coming impact, hoping not to end up as a pancake.

My dodge succeeded, but not without a cost. I didn't end up as a pancake. However I couldn't dodge the splinters of wood and debris that flew in my direction. I protected my face and vital organs by curling up into a ball, but my back and limbs were bruised and punctured to many times, for me to count. I didn't count on the air pressure from the tails impact. The pressure flung me into a few threes. I hit the first three, who split in half, with me passing through, the tree to hit another behind it. Hitting this second tree, I passed out, not to wake up again for some time.

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*Perspective change to Kiana*

I was on patrol tonight. For some reason the Hokage and Hiruzen had both requested extra patrols and higher alertness for tonight, thus instead of having dinner with my sister and niece, I was out on the rooftops running around tonight.

The night had been quiet so far, and we were getting close to midnight. When a gigantic roar sounded out over Konoha. My attention was immediately drawn toward the most massive creature I had ever seen. While the tailed beasts are not common knowledge with most ninja, as a jonin of Konoha I knew what this creature was. The strongest tailed beast, the nine-tailed fox. I was shocked, the nine-tail should have been sealed away, how did it escape? A question for another time. With Konoha protocol, in cases where there is an attack on the village, protecting civilians are the highest priority. I signaled my team, and we started to make our way towards the combat zone as fast as we could.

We arrived close to the nine-tailed fox, and the carnage is devastating. Entire sections of the town has been demolished, and it has only been a few moments, since the nine-tails has started it's attack. The fox is a monster of destruction. I can se a few ninja, who have arrived before us, some are evacuating civilians probably genin, and a few have engaged the nine-tails in combat. I assume the ones attacking the nine-tail are chunin and jonin. I can already see to many bodies among the rubble from both ninja and civilians.

"All Konoha jonin! The nine-tailed fox is attacking Konoha village. Order is to immediately engage the nine-tailed fox. All Konoha genin and chunin are to protect civilian while evacuating" a message beam directly into my brain. It could only be a Yamanaka ninja, probably with direct order from the Hokage or other higher-ups. It seems the plan is to throw bodies at the nine-tails to try and overwhelm the nine-tails with numbers. Although I don't think is a good strategy, I don't have a better plan at this time.

I signal my team to attack the nine-tails. We go with our normal tactic, with my using my lightning release sword style on the frontline, while the rest stay behind and use long range attacks.

More and more ninja are joining in on the combat, and more and more ninja are loosing their life to the fox. One of the thing I have noticed, after a few minutes of combat, is that the fox is not moving fluid. Almost like it's not used to move it's body around.

I dodge out of the way of a claw swipe, that take the life of several other ninja. I counter attack with my lightning kenjutsu, and I hit one of the tails of the fox. I do manage to give it a wound, but within second the wound is closed up again. This seems to be futile, as there is no permanent damage. Taking a short moment between attacks I wonder why none of the village big guns have joined the fight. The Hokage is not here, and while there are some ANBU, there should be more here by now. I get back to the fight, just as a giant tail seem to be targeting me. It is to late for me to dodge, so I do a few hand seals, and extend both my arms:

"Lightning style: Lightning shield" I say as about a 1 meter radius circle of lightning appears in front of my outstretched arms. This is the strongest shield technique I have in my arsenal.

The tail hits my shield with all of the power and weight of a 400 meter tall fox behind it. My shield holds out for about 1 second, before it breaks. The good think about this, is that I took out most of the momentum out of the tail, and gave other ninja a chance to flee. The bad think, is that the tail power through, and hit me, sending me flying into a mass of rubble, that was one a building.

I blacked out. I don't know for how long, but as I come to, I can still hear the fighting ongoing, so probably only for a few seconds. I am pretty sure all of my ribs are broken, and as I look over, I can see my left arm is missing. With sheer willpower I get up, to find out I am stuck under a collapsed building. I start to dig my way through and when I get close to the surface I see a body. I don't really notice the body, as I have to get back to the fight. Something makes me stop up though, and really look at the body. The body, with the rest of the building must have been crushed by the nine-tails, as most of the bones are broken. I can however still recognize the face of my sister Kione. I start to look for confirmation, and can recognize small trinkets around me. This is the house my sister and niece lives in. If my sister is here, then my niece was probably also here.

As this realization hits me, I become stunned for a second. Then a deep rage and hate well over me. I want that stupid fox to die. I blow the last debris of me, with a wave of chakra, and start to channel up my chakra for my most powerful attack. The nine-tails pays me no attention, and after a few seconds I release my attack:

"Lightning style: Lightning dragon"

A large lightning dragon comes out of my hands, draining me of all chakra. The dragon roars and flies towards the nine-tails. Before the dragon hits the nine-tails, a tail blocks the dragon. The tail and the dragon is struggling, but the dragon actually seems to win out. The tail is pushed back, and for a few moments everyone in the battle are focused on the struggle between tail and dragon. However the nine-tails, for the first time, also seems to focus on this struggle, and a second and third tail comes in to help. With more tails joining in, the dragon quickly is losing the struggle.

The last thing I see in this world, is a giant tail crashing through a lightning dragon, and descending down on me, and the nine-tails starting to charge up a "tailed beast bomb". My last though is about how I failed to avenge my sister and niece, before everything becomes black.

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*Time skip next day*

*3rd person perspective in Hokage tower*

"Sigh... What is the status of the village, after the last nights attack?" Hiruzen asked to the other people in the room. An emergency meeting is currently in progress, about the nine-tails attack. Present in the room is Homura Mitokado, Koharu Utatane, Danzo Shimura, and several of the surviving jonin.

"While we don't have complete numbers for casualties yet, but we estimate that the number of civilian casualties is in the thousands. The number of ninja we lost last night are in the hundreds. Several of our most promising ninja, most notable the Hokage and his wife passed away last night" Shikaku Nara said

"Also about a third of the buildings in the village have been demolished, leaving many homeless" An unknow jonin said.

"Ok, we need to setup a temporary shelter for anyone without a home, until we can restore the missing homes" Hiruzen said

"Hold on a moment Hiruzen" Danzo said "You do not have the authority to order this, you are no longer Hokage. Before anything we need to determine a new Hokage, to oversee the village and the restoration effort"

"Danzo is right, we need to establish a proper chain of command" Homura chimed in

"That would probably be best then. What candidates do we have" Hiruzen said, motioning to the room for suggestions.

"I nominate Orochimaru for the position" Danzo was very fast to come up with a candidate.

"I nominate Hiruzen" after a few moments Koharu said, earning him a scowl from Danzo's one eye.

A few moments passed, and no one else was put up as candidate.

"As those are all the candidate, let us discuss who to choose and get on with further the proceedings" Hiruzen said

"Lets just get to voting right away" Danzo said "My vote is for Orochimaru".

"My vote is for Hiruzen, as Orochimaru could not even be bothered to show up for this meeting" Koharu said. Pretty much everyone else agreed with Koharu, and thus Hiruzen was one again Hokage.

"Alright with that out of the way, let get on with it. Set up temporary shelter for everyone who needs it. Devote resources to search and rescue, and to the hospital. Set up ninja missions for both." Hiruzen said, and went about managing to get Konoha back again. After all of the practical stuff was out of the way, there was only a few topics left.

"And here are the end, I have only two topics left to discuss. We need to find out what happened last night. How did the nine-tails get free? We need to investigate this incident" Hiruzen said

"My Root will take this task, to find out what happened" Danzo said

"Allright, lets do that. I look forward to hear what you find out" Hiruzen said, he continued: " The last point is about the child of the fourth Hokage, and the new jinchuriki of Konoha."

Danzo's eye light up, but before he could say anything.

"I will take in the young Naruto, and I hearby brand the childs heritage and jinchuriki status as an S range village secret" Hiruzen said, leaving no room for discussion. Everyone in the room nodded.

"Alright, with that I herby end this meeting, you all have your tasks, and you know what to do." Hiruzen said and ended the meeting.