A Lewd New World18+

~First Blood~

Twenty-five miles northwest of Konoha, the trees began to thin. Old wood rotted, frozen into pillars of lifeless rock, and no green things new did sprout. This was the last remnant of an ancient petrified forest, most of the fossilized trees long ago felled by battle or the elements.

A great portion of this dead wood was empty, barren and lifeless brown. It had been long ago blasted and broken in some great conflict, many said, and nothing stood above three foot in this region. It was a vast clearing with many tumbled, broken stones and scattered tufts of hardy scrub grass.

No highway or thoroughfare ran through here. The nearest road was seven miles east-by-northeast: scarcely aught larger than a fox ever came through this land. But this empty region was not vacant.

Not on this day.

The smoke of over nine thousand fires wafted into the blue sky, tents of every size and shape spread out in lanes and blocks as far as the eye could see. Multitudes bustled to and fro, innumerable supply crates being lugged this way and that.

A vast, sprawling camp was crowded with unnumbered legions of kunoichi, samurai, and volunteer militia. Women of every age and color armed themselves and their comrades, taking a light nuncheon and swapping stories of their real lives and the illusion.

Some were happy for the change to the world, content to accept the new order of things. A few were secretly (or not-so-secretly) gleeful to compare this illusion with the old reality, and many more admitted that they could get used to it if they had to.

Others were bitter, or indignant, defiant to the end against Project Tsuki no Me. Some of them still lacked for those they had held dearest, while some missed their birth genders, and others were simply displeased for things to have been so changed without their express consent.

It would have been hard to get a tally of what the general opinion was, whether most of them wanted things back to the way they had been before, or whether they wanted to keep things as they were now. Thoughts swayed this way and that, the tallies shifting from one side to the other as people chatted and supped and shared their viewpoints.

One thing that nearly everyone agreed on, though, was that they would follow Naruto on this day. The Lord Sixth Hokage had learned the truth of the illusion and set out to restore the memories of everyone he could, calling his allies to arms. He had sworn to overthrow Kaguya, for better or worse, and a great allied force had been mustered to the lands outside the Hidden Leaf for this express purpose.

The Alliance camp was vast and yet tightly packed, arranged in radial lanes around the central commander's tent. Iwagakure's forces set up camp in the direction nearest their home, as did the armies of Kumo, Kiri, Suna, and Konoha. Lesser shinobi villages, along with the Land of Iron, were gathered in a direction roughly facing the Land of Waves, and the former Hidden Eddies.

At the center of these mighty camps stood the tent of Naruto Uzumaki and his most trusted advisors, his bodyguards and wives. It was tall and broad, set upon four mighty oaken posts. Above its threshold was proudly branded the mark of the Leaf, the spiral at its heart painted in sunset orange.

Within the tent sat Naruto and his advisor, as well as his wives and guards, not to mention Tsunade and Miraiya. A low table lay between the Rokudaime and Shikamari, the Godaime and her teammate seated perpendicular to them.

Sasuki, Hinata, Sakura, and Gaara Uzumaki all sat behind Naruto. After overcoming the initial misgivings some of them had had, the four young mothers had all agreed that they would stay as Naruto's wives, for better or worse. They would keep his name for themselves as proud matrons of the Uzumaki clan.

They loved Naruto deeply and purely, each one after her own fashion.

Behind Shikamari, between the hokage and the tentflap, stood Kagome, Nadeshiko, Sai, and Yugao. They were each dressed in full ANBU regalia, ready and willing to give their lives for the Honorable Lord Sixth.