Naruto ducked a vicious right hook and struck back at empty space, only for bristly white hair to expand around his throat tightly and yank him harshly to the floor courtesy of a smirking Jiraiya. He gasped harshly for air, even as he summoned a trio of Kage Bunshin and set them after the Sannin. They were swatted aside like they meant less than nothing even as Naruto dragged himself to his feet.

This was how much of his training with Jiraiya had been going. The bastard had been relentless since they had gotten out of the forest, sparring with him at several levels above where he was at. Naruto had grimly accepted the task, particularly as Jiraiya had provided him a courtesy he didn't tend to - he had sat down and explained why it was necessary the evening the training had started.

The civilians didn't know it, nor did many of the shinobi underneath the level of Jonin but Konoha was going to war.

Well, going was perhaps a stretch - war was coming to it.

It was something Jiraiya and himself had talked about previously, and he had picked up on the hints and clues from his sensei and the Sandaime. To have it confirmed though sent an uneasy twisting and pulling in his stomach that had absolutely nothing to do with out of date milk. This was the village he had sworn to protect, and now its enemies were moving against it. Naruto was action personified, and now he was being forced to wait sitting on his thumbs while their enemies manoeuvred themselves into position to strike.

Their only advantages lay in the fact their enemies did not know they were expected, and that they had made the mistake of choosing to fight on this village's home ground.

He glanced to the side, where Uzuki Yuugao - the special Jounin that had worked with him before Jiraiya had taken him on - was putting Hana through her paces. She wasn't being taught by Jiraiya but since they had worked together for the first time and had entered the Chunin exams together, they had sort of formed an unofficial team. Since Yuugao-sensei had been assigned to Naruto as a teacher and as protection, she had decided she could help with the training of the pair of them.

The four of them had spent the previous two days training hard. Not only to be ready for the Third Round, but to be ready for the coming fight for their home. Far more than rank was on the line now. His role, it seemed, was to fight and subdue Gaara before he could unleash his tailed beast. They were being attacked by a combination of Suna and Oto, led by Orochimaru. Jiraiya was adamant that he and the Sandaime would have their hands full with the snake Sannin, leaving very few shinobi in the village that possessed the knowledge to seal Gaara and therefore fully neutralize the threat he posed. Even killing him could unleash Shukaku, and simply defeating him might do the same. It would be down to Naruto to seal him.

Worry had been turning his stomach in knots ever since Jiraiya had told the whole truth of the invasion to him. The deaths of at least some of those he sought to protect were surely inevitable, and the thought made him want to empty his stomach. Jiraiya's fist suddenly collided with his jaw, making his head ring like a bell and sending him to the floor like an unwanted children's toy.

"You lost focus again, gaki. You switch off once the fighting starts worrying about who might and might not make it and you'll be dead before you can blink." Jiraiya hauled him to his feet by the back of his shirt. "You'll be no good to anyone once that happens, Naruto."

Naruto scowled petulantly as his sensei dropped him back onto his feet, but mostly because he knew the old pervert was right. Death was inevitable in war - he just wished he could accept it like a shinobi was supposed to. Ironically, accepting he couldn't change it made it easier to prevent what deaths he could but dragged him closer to being the kind of shinobi that stopped caring about the deaths and only cared about the victory. It was anathema to him and he was terrified of it, of having to become that to save everyone.

Somehow, it seemed many of the older shinobi - Kakashi, Iruka, Yuugao and Jiraiya for example - managed to find a balance between the two states. But he knew from Jiraiya and Kakashi how much of a toll it had taken on them to do so, how much they had lost.

There had to be a middle ground where he could protect everyone and not lose that crucial part of himself. Life had taught him otherwise, but he'd never been one to give up on the impossible.

"Ero-sennin, what will it be like? The battle I mean." He frowned at the floor. "I've been in a few battles now but a war? An invasion?" He trailed off, unsure how to really ask a man who had lived through wars that had swallowed the entire continent what he wanted to know. His sensei looked him hard in the eyes before seemingly deflating in front of him and dropping to the floor and crossing his legs. Naruto joined him wordlessly.

"It's nothing I can really prepare you for with words, kid. Battles outside a village are equally terrible in their own way but shinobi fights inside a village have an entirely different feel." He paused, glancing back towards Konoha, its roofs barely visible above the forest canopy. "Desperate and claustrophobic is the best way I can describe it. With a full invasion, there's no respite - every street corner and building has another battle, another thing that might kill you if you're not ready for it. Really, we're lucky to be the defending force - means we're the ones setting the traps. That said, you're going to see Leaf shinobi die, Naruto. We're well prepared for what Orochimaru is going to throw at us in my opinion, but there's no escaping that fact."

He knew it of course but hearing it out loud still made his insides curl up in fear - it was everything he dreaded and more. He worked himself to the bone too, as far as possible, prevent just that.

"You need to be ready - as ready as you could ever be - to see that and be able to continue with your mission. Every shinobi does of course, but for you, the stakes are higher. Your burden can be a great help once you learn to control it but before that... It will be looking for your control to slip, looking for an opening and someone that you know getting hurt could be just the thing that sets the Kyuubi loose. We're ready for Orochimaru and Suna, not a full-scale bijuu attack. We need you in control so that you can stop Gaara from losing his."

Jiraiya paused for a moment, looking thoughtful before a sly smirk crept onto his face and he placed a hand on Naruto's shoulder.

"Of course, if you suck even half as much as you do right now Neji will knock the stuffing out of you well before you have to worry about Gaara. Maybe I should hedge my bets and teach him the seals in case we have to send him after Gaara?"

Naruto scowled and slapped the old man's hand away from him before throwing himself at the Sannin, a trio of clones exploding into life as he did so almost by instinct. Still, he appreciated the man's levity. A heavy pit had begun to settle in the very centre of his stomach. Responsibility.

Like Jiraiya said, Konoha couldn't handle a full-scale bijuu attack, and it was his responsibility to stop that. If he failed - how many would die before someone could stop Gaara? Would anyone even be able to with two armies led by Orochimaru to contend with as well?

He had wanted to be Hokage since before he could remember - to protect the village and get respect. Now it was time to prove that it wasn't all just words, that every oath and promise he'd made weren't just wasted oxygen.

He would protect the village, or he'd die trying.

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* * *

"The son of the Yondaime..." Ino murmured to herself for the third time since Asuma had left the clearing. "But the village..." She trailed off again, still unsure how to process what their sensei had just told them. Even a decade after his death, the Yondaime had become an almost mythical figure in the village - for Naruto to be his son was an earthshaking revelation. Of course, it really shouldn't have been, Naruto was the spitting image of the man; and a newborn Naruto being handily available to seal the Kyuubi was far too much of a coincidence for nobody to have suspected it before it was announced.

"I wonder how people are taking it." Chouji asked from his position seated atop a tree stump in their clearing. "I mean, the way people treated him was awful - now to find out he's the son of the Fourth? That must be..."

"Troublesome." Shikamaru mumbled from his position on the floor.

The two other Genin turned to face the Nara. That was the most that they'd gotten out of him on the matter, and he'd refused to shift from his spot, hands joined in front of him in the shape of a circle. "What are you thinking Shika?" Ino asked, unable to keep herself from interrupting Shikamaru's thoughts any longer. "I know you don't like to be interrupted when you're thinking, but this warrants a little more than 'troublesome'."

Shikamaru's eyes opened, face set in a scowl. "You guys are focusing on the wrong thing. The timing for this is... odd. If I were the Sandaime, saving the announcement until after the final round makes the most sense. It gives Naruto the chance to show everybody in the village what he's really about before the announcement, make them ready to accept it as the truth. Right now, everybody still thinks he's the village idiot. Some might accept it, but not enough. Some will actively target Naruto out of a perceived insult - it's human nature."

Ino nodded slowly. Cognitive dissonance, the idea of holding two contradictory views at the same time, was a difficult thing to overcome for most people, including herself. People wouldn't be able to accept the new information ahead of the information they'd believed previously without some serious convincing. More likely, they'd reject the new information and lash out because some part of their subconscious recognised the new information as the truth.

She glanced back at Shikamaru, his eyes clouded over, scowl unrelenting and felt a tinge of unease grip her. "There's something else, isn't there Shika?"

He sighed, before fixing his two friends with an unreadable expression. "Have either of you noticed our parents are home an awful lot at the moment?"

The non-sequitur caught Ino and Chouji off guard for a moment. "I guess Dad hasn't left on any missions for a little while." She said slowly, and the Akimichi nodded in agreement.

"One of our Father's - elite Jonin - not having any missions outside the village for a while is unusual enough. All three? And the Genin sensei's too?"

"You think something's happening." Chouji's words were low, a statement, not a question.

"I've had a bit of an ask around over the last couple of days. The special Jonin are busier than they've been for a while - they're normally sent out on missions on a rotation so there is always a good number of them in the village in case of attack. They're picking up the full-Jonin's mission load so as not to arouse suspicion with the other nations that something is happening."

"Which we'd normally only do if we were in the middle of a crisis to stop other nations from taking advantage..." Ino continued thoughtfully.

"Or," added Chouji, "if we were anticipating a crisis."

"Exactly." Shikamaru agreed. "I've been thinking about the Chunin exams for a while. Suna sending a Jinchuuriki to another village..."

"They're planning to attack us at the finals..." Ino's horrified whisper gave way to the sound of a light afternoon breeze rustling through the trees.

Shino gazed into the treetops as he and Kiba sat and recuperated after their team's training session. It had been a hard session, but he had asked nothing less of their sensei. Round two of the exams had been a sobering reality check for them, and each knew without a doubt that had they been alone in that forest, they would be dead.

They had only been a team for a short while but the thought of either of his comrades being killed was enough to agitate his hive and it took a considerable amount of concentration to soothe them again. Anger and fear after the fact did him no good and generally, they would do no good at all. In the days since he had forced himself to emotionally detach from the events of the Chunin exams, a skill the Aburame prided themselves on, in order to see things as they were - divorced from his unavoidable internal biases and emotions.

Simply put, Team 8 had fallen behind. The quality of Team 10 was clear, as was their increased level of training and change in attitude, to anybody who examined them carefully. Team 7, containing both Sasuke and Sakura, was always likely to excel given their members. Most startlingly, however, Uzumaki Naruto's improvement defied all logic and reason; and the change in his character was so stark that it stood to reason that Shino's prior assessment of him was utterly wrong.

Kurenai-sensei's revelation as to Naruto's parentage presented a huge opportunity to assuage his own ego. Naturally, with the Fourth Hokage being his father, of course Naruto would reveal himself to be exceptional. Of course Naruto would be beyond them all - it was to be expected. Except that Shino knew that to be nonsense. An exceptional father did not guarantee exceptional offspring - particularly when that father was not around to teach the offspring.

No. Naruto had made himself exceptional, and in doing so had eclipsed Shino and his team. Even worse, he had been forced to risk his own life to cover for their deficiencies. As an Aburame, as a Konoha shinobi but most importantly, as Naruto's friend, this was unacceptable.

"Kiba. Would an extra hour of sparring be acceptable to you?"

His canine team-mate turned towards him, demeanour as taciturn as his own and Shino knew Kiba's thoughts had been mirroring his own.

"Let's do it, Shino."

* * *

One Month Later...

For the majority of the year, the village arena stood empty amidst the trees and buildings, a silent sentinel of Konoha. Today, as Naruto stood before its competitor's entrance, it was raucous with noise. Spectators from all across the Elemental Nations had travelled - some for weeks - to witness the spectacle of the Chunin exams. Naruto forced himself to suppress the bile that tried to rise from his stomach at the thought of it.

The waiting, the training was done and ready or not, he and Konoha would be going to war. The idea that he had to fight before an actual battle seemed entirely farcical. The fact that his first fight was to be against a Konoha ninja even more so, regardless of the score he had to settle with Neji. As it was, he could hardly bring himself to think of anything else besides the battle, yet he wanted to think of that least of all.

"Naruto-kun." A gentle voice broke him free of the train of thoughts he had gotten aboard before it really managed to pick up steam. He turned to face the interloper and found Hinata, dressed in civilian clothes - basic and black, fitting the mood - hovering awkwardly beside a tree, close enough that should she want to, she could flee behind it.

"Hey Hinata." He greeted the girl as casually as he could, a relaxed smile slipped onto his face as easily as it ever had. "How are you feeling?"

Directing the conversation back to the Hyuuga made the girl reflexively reach for the tree and hide from the attention. Naruto felt a little guilty, but he didn't know if he could take questions aimed at him right now. He knew the rest of the Genin hadn't been told, and couldn't risk alerting them that something was wrong too soon.

"Ano, I'm feeling much better, thank you. I'm told I was very lucky to be up and on my feet as quickly as I-" her sentence was interrupted by a wet, hacking cough and Naruto couldn't help but notice that the handkerchief she used to cover her mouth was stained red from it. His eyes narrowed.

"Hinata..."

"I'm fine, Naruto-kun. There is still damage but it's healing and I wanted to be here today..." Naruto felt concern well up in him. She shouldn't be here today - she wouldn't be able to defend herself properly - but she had been cleared by doctors. Trying to turn her back would be incredibly suspicious to anybody listening. Hinata stood for a moment, oblivious to his turmoil, before speaking again almost as though she felt that she was interrupting the silence. "I just wanted to say good luck, Naruto-kun." The words came out faster than she had intended, but she took a breath and continued in a more measured, albeit quiet, voice. "I've always thought you were an amazing ninja - I'm happy you're getting to show everyone else now. You're going to be amazing today, I know it!" The girl blushed violently, and before Naruto could reply she rushed past him towards the main entrance.

He watched her walk - almost run - for a moment before taking a deep breath. He wished he could thank her before everything started. She had no idea how much he had needed that. Had needed something, anything to get him through that door. Once he did, there would be no turning back, no escaping what was coming. He thought of Hinata, and her bloody handkerchief, and her smile that was scared and courageous all at the same time. He thought of everyone that would be inside that stadium when the attack began and for the first time since he knew Konoha was going to be attacked he didn't feel a near-crippling fear.

It was still there, a terror that even he didn't truly understand, but before it all, he could feel an iron resolve take him.

It was time to fight. It was time for him to go to war.