"Thud!" A kunai struck him from behind, "You bastards." Kitsune cursed his life fading.
"Clean up the scene." Yashiro ordered, his left hand was mangled, blood gushed dripping onto the ground. Ichirou closed in on their captain a green light flashing as he performed medical ninjutsu while Sasaki and Ito cleaned up the battlefield.
A few hours later, before dawn…
"Lord Fugaku." Yashiro and his team kneeled before Fugaku seated in his office, looking at the condition of his clan members, he sighed heavily "I take it Danzo made his move." "Yes. Yashiro was too tempting of a bait." Ito answered, shock appeared on Ichirou and Sasaki's faces, they had thought that the attack was coincidence and not really an assassination against Yashiro.
"This is the 5th ambush an Uchiha squad has suffered in the last 6 months, too spread-out to be coincidence but targeted." Fugaku spoke as he mulled the situation over, "We can't afford to lose any clan ninjas given the disparity in numbers with the Hokage faction.
Danzo is likely acting by himself, Hiruzen is too concerned about the Kirigakure situation whether it might spill into another war. He needs the Uchiha, Danzo has already lost 12 root ninjas among those 4 elite jonin, 5 jonin and 3 elite chunin. He cannot withstand a war against the Uchiha with root's resources alone. But the Shimura clan won't move at least officially." Fugaku said, "Won't he stop given his losses already?" Yashiro asked perplexed. "No, Danzo loathes the Uchiha. If he stops now, it's an admission that the Uchiha are superior. Monitor the black market for bounties on Uchiha clan members, even if insignificant. That is most likely his next avenue of attack, mercenaries."
"Go and rest." Fugaku ordered taking the scroll containing the root bodies.
"If it's war you want then it's war you will get, Danzo." Uchiha Fugaku said grimly.
After dawn, the day had begun and it was a Friday…
Kudo entered the classe and nervous tension rocked him; his classmates were sitting silently and tense.
At 8 am, Iruka entered the classroom with a bunch of papers, "Morning, before we begin with the lesson. I will be handing out your evaluations. Ranks are 1st to 30th, for rank 1 if you become rank 1 at the end of the year you might receive a gift from lord Hokage." Iruka's words tore away the tense mood leaving a fiery passion, 'I wonder what I can request?' Kudo thought.
"I will start with the least ranked students; Date Koreyoshi 30th, Hushiba Chikakiyo 29th, Isshiki Kunisada 28th, Amano Sukeyo 27th and Chiba Yono 26th." Five kids immediately started showing tears, with a sigh "You are not expelled from the class but this is a warning that you need to perform better." Iruka said softly, what they did not know was that they would only lose their position if someone in a lower class performed better than them because there is no sense in replacing a rotten tomato with a rottener tomato. Both are rotten, nonetheless.
"For the top 10, starting at rank 10; Naruto Uzumaki." Immediately a hush silence overcame the room and many eyes widened in disbelief.
"Heey! What's with those looks? I am gonna be the Hokage, of course I'm awesome!" Naruto declared with laughter.
"Quiet Naruto." Iruka admonished but his words failed to reach Naruto, he was on cloud nine.
"From 9th to 1st; Enya Yorusuke, Sarutobi Ai, Manemi Hatake, Shino Aburame… 4th was Kudo Tanehiko, Hinata Hyuga 3rd, Sasuke Uchiha 2nd and 1st Sakura Haruno. Let's congratulate them."
Sasuke's gaze froze for a second, 'I still lost but I will beat her at the technical skills.' Sasuke thought, they were still on basic chakra control but he had started on the Uchiha's fireball jutsu.
After 6 months in the academy, Kudo in the last recent test had once again ranked at fourth but none of that mattered because the first years had been granted access to ninjutsu scrolls in the E-section of the academy library. For the last six months he had grasped the power dynamics between the great villages and minor villages but that paled in comparison to his yearning to learn ninjutsu.
He started with basic seals; over the past six months he had improved his chakra control lasting shy of 2 hours.
There were 12 basic hand seals; Saru, Tatsu, Ne, Tori, Mi, Ushi, Inu, Uma, Tora, I, Hitsuji and U.
He started with the first seal, Ushi/Ox hand seal, with the right hand horizontal with gaps between the fingers, the left hand vertical and its fingers inserted into gaps in the right hand, the middle finger and ring finger resting on the knuckles of the right hand.
It took a while to get the hand angles and figure out the chakra flow but also the speed. He repeated forming the seal repeatedly until he was conformable with the speed, hand alignment and chakra flow.
Going over the other hand seals the most difficult part was the erratic and foreign movement of chakra when performing the seals, unlike normal chakra flow through all chakra points the hand seals focused chakra along certain pathways which needed getting used to.
Kudo spent the rest of the day in the library going over hand seals. In his practice routine he reduced the leaf exercise duration to 3 hours and added hand seal training for about 2 hours.
In the Hidden rain village; in a base underground…
"Obito, the Uchiha are quickly growing in power at this rate they might really cause a coup in the hidden leaf village." White Zetsu said hanging from the ceiling.
"There is no need to worry about the leaf right now, the Uchiha clan lack the ruthlessness to take the leaf for themselves. They don't understand that they will never negotiate with the village as equals, that the seat of Hokage will never be held by the Uchiha clan.
Right now, the only thing worth my attention right now is destroying Kirigakure. For taking Rin's life, they will atone with their deaths." Obito said.
'As for Kakashi, I will settle things myself. Playing at being clan leader? It's a little late for you to escape your sins.'