Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Naruto or Game of Thrones.

A New Game

Chapter One: Plot Revealed

Year 283 AC

The position of royalty stood as the single most coveted position in the entire realm. Every man, woman, and child dreamed of obtaining that power at least once, but even with millions of dreamer gunning for it, only a handful of privileged people won that prize. Warming the top seat of man came with danger, but more often than not, the power that came with the Iron Throne won out. People expected the person in the station of King or Queen to take care of the realm. A good King or Queen lived long enough to see the benefit of benevolence because the people adored them. A poor King reaped the consequences of the chaos they created. The perfect example of this came in the form of the current King, Aerys II Targaryen, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men.

Under the shadow of royalty, a never-ending game of maneuvering and intrigue played out. This game found its players in the form of the Lords and Ladies of the Seven Realms. They went about things in different ways, but they all did it for the mere chance of inching themselves and their family toward the Iron Throne in King's Landing. Play nice with those above and exploit those beneath, that is how things went. Take, for example, the Starks in the North and the Baratheon of Storm's End, at one time they were staunch defenders of the King, and now they closed in on the Mad King's tyrannical reign. Not that many outside of the Targaryen name cared in the maniacal Aerys II died.

Of course, any Lord worth his salt had a plethora of knights to enforce their ambition. The skill of man aimed bows and swung swords, which made men as valuable as the lands they fought over. Sadly, a good soldier didn't make for a good man. Most times, knights were the men most capable of the greatest evils. These knights used their Lord's name as a shield to excuse sprees of heinous crimes such as rape, wanton destruction, and murder. More often than not, these dark acts got erased by the false light of bravery bestowed upon these men of action.

Then came the people who suffered the most at the hands of those who should represent them. Common folk created Lords and Kings, they breathed life into every realm from Westeros to Essos, and beyond. Commoners got treated like the mud on the bottom of a shoe simply because they didn't possess the means to compete. They, as a group, were treated like shit, simple as that. What the common folk didn't know and what those above forgot was the importance of the common man. It was these people that made the world turn, despite what the system might tell them.

It didn't matter if it was a King or commoner, a Lord or knight, because, at some point, a person had time to bask in the sun. At least once in the continual stream of time, things fell into place perfectly, which made a person feel on top of the world. Naruto couldn't say the same about his life, unfortunately.

Naruto with no family name, and no real home, stood out as an anomalous existence that didn't belong in this game of thrones, but here he stood. His skills didn't fill the mold of a shining knight. He was a man bathed in blood, an assassin through and through. Yet, at the same time, Naruto didn't truly fit into the order of killers who proclaimed themselves as Faceless. His refusal to comply with their ways didn't stop the group from trying to hunt him down for his services, the tenacious bunch. He might be flattered by the attention, if not for their chosen profession.

Not pure enough to stay in the light, but not absorbed by the darkness, Naruto existed in a strange space in this world. His life made him feel like a loner in a world that brimmed with people of all different shapes and sizes.

His life as an outcast ultimately led to Naruto working to fill the hole in his life. He took on job after job which meant, that occasionally he ended up working for days on end without a break and be none the wiser. Okay, perhaps it wasn't correct for him to label his tasks as jobs. No one paid him to do the things he did. He did as he did because they felt like the right things to do. He was an assassin with morals, something unheard of in a prolific executioner of men.

Naruto's mental rundown froze when a refreshing summer wind swept over one of the narrow passages into Dorne. Perched on top of a craggy outcropping of rock meant nothing hindered the breath of nature from running over his face. He blinked his azure hues several times before realizing he begun to daydream. He shook his head and a look of rolled across his face like a flash of lightning, there one moment and gone the next. 'There's no point in coming out here if I daydream and fumble my chance to get answers.'

He knew he needed something to stop his mind from drifting, and his thoughts focused. The assassin rolled out a scroll that he pulled out of his pocket, letting it sit over the top of his lap. Naruto's eyes examined the words he wrote on the paper. It wasn't hard to be interested in what got written down. 'It looks like Robert Baratheon, Eddard Stark, Jon Arryn, and Holster Tully will meet with the Iron Throne's forces at The Trident. I don't believe that the ten thousand men from the Martells will be enough to stop the Baratheon's fury, but we will see. There will be a clear victor, after all, is said and done at The Trident.'

Rolling that scroll back up, he slipped the tube-like shape back into his pocket where it was secure. Naruto glanced around to see that he still had some time to kill. He produced a second scroll, one different from the first. This scroll had the ongoing details of the happenings at Storm's End, the ancestral home of the Baratheon family. 'The Tyrell blockade has been going on for some time. The Stags are stubborn, but I wonder which one will come first? Starvation or salvation?'

The battle-tested piece of him craved nothing more than the chance to test himself in these momentous battles. He honestly didn't care who won any given fight, but what did interest Naruto were the people fighting them. He'd love the chance to test his mettle against such famous warriors. He already imagined a test of might with Robert and his warhammer. Naruto tasted Eddard Stark's fine sword, Ice, as the two clashed in a heated duel for supremacy. Maybe he could find himself in a game of combat prowess with the Dragon Prince himself.

Naruto sensed the blood in his veins pumping up his lust for battle, an unshakable feeling that forced his heart to sing. As much as he desired to test himself against the realm's most celebrated people, he knew that jumping into a bloody war wasn't the way to do it. This sobering reality helped soothed the urge to jump into the battle. 'No matter, there are plenty of opportunities born from war for a man like me.'

His opportunity came in the form of the Lannisters hailing from Casterly Rock in the Westerlands. Tywin Lannister was a man of titles, too many in Naruto's humble opinion; Naruto opted to focus on only one of those many accolades. Tywin was formerly Hand to the King, which meant he should be loyal to Aerys II. That former position of power created an intriguing story to the perceptive assassin watching things unfold.

He remembered the day this whole thing started well. It was just another day of travel on the King's Road, or so he thought. Naruto came upon the most peculiar of whispers a few days out of Highgarden. The whispers told of Lannister force moving toward the south. At first, he discounted this tale as the claim of handmaidens with overactive imaginations, but then he grew restless and decided to investigate the handmaiden whispers.

The assassin discovered some twenty Lannister Lions moving with methodical efficiency toward the narrow pass that emptied into Dornish lands. Had it been any combination other than Lannister and Martell, Naruto would call it a diplomatic meeting between two influential families, but even the deaf have heard about the animosity between the two houses. That tension brought Naruto to where he sat now, and before the slow marching Lannisters no less.

When his keen ears picked up on the drum-like sound of stomping feet, Naruto pulled himself out of his thoughts. He surmised they must have been fifty yards out by now.

Five minutes later, an ensemble of gold plated knights marched into the natural bottleneck of the gorge. Their formation secure in a tightly knit order of five rows of four men. The moving box halted in front of the choke point, and one man stepped out from the formation.

"We have our orders, and as honorable men serving the Shield of Lannisport, we shall not fail in our task! Not one, foul Dorne, be it, man, woman, or child will be allowed further than this point! Do you understand me?" The speaker's helmet reflected the glittering sun that shone down on the man's armor as he looked out at the men who marched with him. Blinded or not, he didn't need his eyes to hear the affirming cries that his unit unleashed in earnest.

"We brave knights will march into these disgusting lands, we will hold here, and we will bring glory to our families by carrying out the will of our Lord, Tywin Lannister!" His cry to action injected a new wave of enthusiasm into the tired warriors. They began to beat the butts of their weapons into their shields, which produced a booming clash of metal throughout the pass.

Falling back into formation with the rest, the man at the lead pointed his blade ahead. The group of golden men began the arduous task of fitting themselves into the narrowing space of the pass. The burning sun didn't make things any easier. As one knight bumped against the other, their feet worked on uneven ground, but there wasn't even a murmur of protest from the men of the Westerlands.

Unknown to any of the twenty men in the group, a pair of sharp, sapphire eyes watched their clumsy trek through the mountainous terrain. Naruto bid his time and exercised patience as his prey continued further into the pass. Space grew more precious as men, sword, and shield crammed into an overflowing expanse.

'There goes the third line. Now I need to wait for the fourth line to follow.' Much like the restraint his body showed, the assassin's mind remained just as calm while he surveyed what played out in front of him. The space between each line varied by several paces, but it was plenty for someone like Naruto to use. He made use of that by falling silently between the fourth and fifth lines of the Lannister formation.

The fourth row of knights didn't hear Naruto's descent, but the fifth row saw Naruto or at least half of them did. While landing in the middle of their line, Naruto's dexterous hands lashed out with the swiftness of the wind. He flourished a pair of black blades across the throats of two men who crumbled like a puppet with its strings cut. The two knights that remained tried to bring up their weapons, but the assassin was too quick on his feet.

When his arms collapsed back to the cloak concealing his body, the black of Naruto's daggers became indistinguishable from his cloak until the moment he threw them. His weapons soared through the air and found a new home in the eye sockets of the remaining two knights. Shock took hold of their trembling forms before they stumbled back against the stone walls on both of Naruto's sides. It wasn't until their screams of agony came out that others looked behind them.

The surviving knights formed a stunned crowd that looked on at the gruesome sight of their kin, jutting blood from their pierced eyes. When the extemporaneous leader of the group pushed through, Naruto finally got the attention he deserved. Where the knights stood gilded in shiny metal, Naruto wore a shadowy cloak that hid everything about him apart from the lustrous blue eyes hidden beneath his hood.

"Assassin! You've decided to turn your blades on Tywin Lannister? Does that mean your kind has aligned itself with House Martell?" The knight didn't sound happy. And why should he be when a fifth of his forces died at the hands of a single person?

Shifting his eyes over the men in front of him, Naruto ultimately landed on the man bold enough to demand something from him. Two black blades appeared in Naruto's hands, re-arming the assassin with the same tools he used to kill four men. "No one orders my blade. I decide who I kill and when I do it. What are a bunch of lions doing treading into the snake pits of Sunspear?"

The leading Lannister bristled at the way Naruto brushed him off. That and how the assassin stood in the blood of his kin pushed the man over the edge. "We don't answer to assassins! The moment you spilled the distinguished blood of a Lannister, you were doomed to hear our roar!" His declaration came with a loud cheer from the men behind him. Four of those men moved forward to have their round with Naruto.

From under the hood, Naruto took a measure of the men that stepped forward to face him. They probably thought they had the advantage, but Naruto only thought them to be foolish. "Then it looks like I will have to turn more of this dirt into mud with the gilded blood of the Westerlands. Come lions, roar at me!"

There wasn't any need for a second invitation. The knights rushed at Naruto with their four roars becoming one sound. Their inability to fan out and surround Naruto stood out as something that the cloaked man could exploit. Naruto remained motionless as the first of the men approached his position. To Naruto, it felt like the man traveled through quicksand to get here. That's how sluggish the man looked in Naruto's eyes.

The first of the knights gave away his plan steps out. In doing so, he allowed Naruto to read his motions and react accordingly. When the Lannister opened himself to swing his weapon, he got caught across the inside of his wrist with the biting edge of Naruto's dagger. He seethed from the pain inflicted on him. That pain made the knight drop his shield in front of the assassin.

Naruto took up the shield in the knight's place. Now that he loaded up with Lannister hardware, he swung his arm out. He slapped the man across the face with the golden lion set on the shield.

With the first foe dropped, Naruto freed himself up to turn both his attention and new shield to the knight that was swinging his sword at him. The kiss of steel on shield came before the grunt of the knight doing his best to force Naruto to his knees. Naruto went down to his knees with no real resistance. From his knees, it became much easier for the assassin to bury his dagger hilt-deep in the man's thigh.

Ravaged by the pain, the knight dropped to his knees while screams of agony clawed out of his throat. Naruto swiftly silenced the man by burying the same blood-stained kunai in the man's exposed throat.

"Die!" Instinct moved Naruto to jump back out of the path of the falling pole strike that tried to cleave him in two. His departure came so suddenly that it made him abandon his kunai in the man's throat, where blood bubbled up from the blade's entry point.

The assassin took note of his feet sinking into mud created by the blood of the first lions he poached as he rose out of his crouch. He didn't let that mud stop him from standing proud in the mess of blood and mud. The crest of the Lannister still on his arm via the shield. Naruto's cloak stood as a thematic contrast to the bright red and gold of the Lannister family. He didn't care for the clash because the shield stood as a tool to be used, nothing more.

Next, Naruto heard the growl of a man that rushed him with a spear at the ready. The blue-eyed slayer attentively parried every stab with the center of his newly won shield. Naruto carefully blocked every stab in a way that left an opening on his left shoulder.

He made that opening purposefully to lull the knight in and strike at him.

It only took a few moments for the fog of the fight to clear before the knight saw Naruto's manufactured opening. He shoved forward to strike at the weak spot he saw in Naruto's guard. He saw the bait do its job and stiffly slammed his shield into the spear. This time when the spear's metal point met the shield, it didn't bounce to the side. The weapon's point fell back with the man using it. The Lannister bannerman got forced backward; Naruto snuck his foot behind the man's ankle, so when he stumbled back, he also fell onto his back.

Bounced around inside of his armor and having his head scrambled inside the helmet, the Lannister knight laid flat on his back. When he looked ready to fight him again, Naruto already stood over him with his blue eyes holding a glacial vibe in them.

Lost to his panic, the warrior in plates tried to clamber toward his discarded weapon, but Naruto didn't allow him to get far. He brought the man a swift end by slamming the pointed base of the shield into the man's throat, which collapsed it. Life left the man in short order.

Naruto looked straight down into the knight's wide, grassy-colored eyes. He could see the fear that swallowed those eyes whole. Naruto felt the desperation in the man, but that didn't hinder the assassin from continuing.

He went to wrench the shield free from when he heard the roar of another enraged lion coming after him, the last knight in the second wave. Naruto ripped the shield out of his latest kill. He bent the shield by standing on one end and pulling up the other end. His frightening show of strength made the shield bend until the color distorted, and the shield snapped.

Twirling the broken chunk of his shield, Naruto minded the jagged edges when he grabbed the makeshift weapon. He steadied his grip on the shield. Then he propelled it forward at the man running toward him. Everyone in the pass saw the weapon coming, but that didn't make it possible for the knight to stop the chunk from shredding through his gut.

"W-What?" The mangled gasp that carried that question was hollow at best. Everyone in the contingent from Casterly Rock contingent would remember that sound, and how their comrade collapsed face first in the dirt. The knight's body kicked up some dust when it fell to the spot where it laid unmoving with a sharp chunk of wood sticking out of his lower back.

Naruto stood up, uncaring of the eyes on him after his unreal display of physical prowess. He stood stoic over the body of his sixth kill for an additional moment before he grabbed the dead man's spear. He strolled past the man skewered with his shield. The knight tried his best to crawl towards his people. But as a whole, none of the Lannister looked ready to move.

With no one to help him, there weren't any people there to prevent Naruto from spiking the spear clean through the knight's neck. The spinal cord strike was positive in that it was quick and clean, unlike the man that bled out slowly.

In less than ten minutes, a butcher killed eight knights with a limited armory at his disposal. The showing sent ripples through the shaken soldiers that had the displeasure of seeing Naruto work firsthand.

"He's a monster, a blue-eyed monster! He's like one of those damned White Walkers that the crows on the wall rave about when they're drunk!"

"Fuck that! He's worst! That thing is a demon straight from the Stranger!"

That last remark sent an unholy wave of panic through the men of The Seven. With the image of Death attached to the shadowy figure, none of the Lannister had the will to fight. They dropped their weapons, turned tail, and ran for a sanctuary that didn't exist deeper in Dorne.

Lynceil Lannister ripped off his helmet and threw it at the ground in disgust. His golden helmet bounced away from him twice while the man under the armor watched his allies flee in a frenzy of fear. "Get back here, you cowards! Do you hear me? I said get your asses back here and fi-"

His command came to a dead halt when a pair of shuddering blasts shook the entirety of the mountainous pass. The eruptions of explosive power were high enough up the mountain that none of the retreating Lannisters got caught. The explosions did create an avalanche of rocks that fell from the sky like the bastardized version of hail. Screams of fear tore through the battlefield, and all that Lynceil could do was observe. One at a time, his men were snuffed out, their brilliant, golden armors crushed like a flame under the dirt.

When the final scream fell silent beneath the weight of the rockslide, Lynceil fell to his knees in disbelief. That anger that served him earlier replaced with unspent tears that left his green eyes glimmering. "What has happened to us? Are the Gods punishing us?"

Lynceil was a man faithful to two things. He was faithful to his Lord Tywin Lannister, and he was faithful to his belief in The Seven. So when he saw a rain of rocks on one side, and an emissary of death on the other, Lynceil assumed this was the work of something greater. Something or someone was punishing them for an unanswered sin.

"Maybe it was something you did. Or maybe it is because of the plans hatched in your devious Lord's mind?" Naruto knew what caused the rockslide; it was him. That didn't mean he wouldn't take advantage of a religious man's fears.

The once brave knight felt his eyes widen. The action itself caused the moisture welled up in his eyes to trickle unimpeded down his cheeks. Like he feared what waited behind him, cause he did, the shaking blonde turned his armored body slowly to look up at the man in the cloak who opposed them.

"Please... please spare me! You've already taken so much! Please allow me to keep this life of mine!" To grovel for any reason was a heinous crime for a Lannister, but Lynceil cared not for his pride. He valued his life more than the entirety of his ego.

Naruto smirked at the shambling man in the golden armor from beneath the dark veil created by the hood of his cloak. "A good way to earn my mercy is to tell me what Lannister men are doing marching into Dorne. I know you two don't see eye to eye, but shouldn't you be more neutral than this? This approach seems much too obvious."

Turning his body so that he sat on his knees and also faced the assassin, the knight looked at Naruto with no small amount of fear in his eyes. "I don't know anything! I swear on the men that you killed here that I don't know our reason for being here!" Lynceil followed the morbid path of mud and blood to Naruto's feet.

Not buying the Lannister's shit for a second, the man under the hood drew another kunai from his sleeve. The small, black weapon came into view right in front of Lynceil, which made him recoil with fear. "Lying to me won't do. I overheard you so proudly telling your men that you knew why you were here. Now I'm going to need you to tell me the details."

If anything, the singsong nature of Naruto's words only made the rate that Lynceil's face paled faster. He was painfully aware that Naruto caught him in a lie. In a furious storm of I's and Buts, the disheartened lion tried his best to preserve his shivering skin. At first, Naruto thought the sight of Lynceil on the verge of soiling himself as amusing, but the novelty of the situation quickly wore off.

Needing the man silent, Naruto settled his cold steel against the man's sweaty skin. He used that fear to create a silence between the two of them. The quiet made Naruto smile. "Sounds like the cat has the lion's tongue. I will only ask you one more time. Why are Lannister men in Dorne?"

The earlier infusion of playfulness that colored what Naruto said was long gone. He dug his weapon into the man's skin deep enough that he opened up a cut above Lynceil's jowls. "Failure to provide me with a satisfactory answer will result in death most painful, Ser."

A promise of pain meant one thing, but a decree of death meant something completely different. Lynceil saw up close and personal how masterful Naruto was in the art of massacre. Seeing was believing in this case. The Lannister knight had no doubt the haunting screams of his butchered friends, and the assassin's eyes would frequent his nightmares for a many a moon. "O-Okay, I'll tell you what you want to know!"

Happy to have compliance, Naruto took his weapon away from the shaking man's bleeding skin. His act calmed the man down at least a little, considering that Lynceil was no longer nearly hyperventilating. Lynceil stayed calm until he heard Naruto clearing his throat. Terrified green eyes snapped to calm blue eyes underneath the hood. "Speak"

"We were ordered to watch the borders of Dorne, and to make sure that none of Lord Doran's men leave their realm! That's all I know!" He promised his tormentor with a quivering voice and a quaking body ripe with fear.

"Why?"

Any inclination he had to lie got removed quickly with a single movement of the damned black blade in Naruto's hand. "I don't know for sure, but I heard s-some of my superiors whispering about something!"

If there was one way to garner interest, it was to whisper about it. Whispers were what got used when important people had something to hide. "What were these people talking about, huh? Keep in mind, if you choose to be short with me, then I will make you regret it."

Did he betray his house, or did he die? That's the question that flowed through the Lannister's head. Lynceil Lannister quickly found an answer to his dilemma. "They spoke of moving eight to ten thousand men from Lannisport to King's Landing! I don't any more than that, I swear!"

Naruto gathered that Lynceil didn't know any more than what he said thus far. Knowing what he knew didn't mean that Naruto understood why Tywin moved such an impressive force. 'That's too many men to bolster the Kingsguard. If he really wanted to aid the war effort, Tywin should send his men to The Trident.'

It didn't make sense, unless-

'Tywin, you are a crafty bastard.' Any chance at further explanation fell apart when the anxious sound of Lynceil's voice broke the streamline of his thoughts.

"C-Can I go now?" He didn't believe it possible, but when Naruto went silent, it became painfully clear that he preferred a talking Naruto. A silent death dealer made him feel like any number of gruesome plans were going through the assassin's mind.

The assassin showed that there wasn't a spot on him sullied by the blood he spilled when he turned away from the petrified man. Jerking his head in the direction the knights came from, he gave an order. "Go!"

Lynceil didn't need to or want to hear more than that. He gave Naruto one final look before forcing himself to his feet. The entirety of his golden plates moved as he pushed himself as fast as he could go. His legs hardly went ten steps before a barrage of kunai embedded along the man's spine. Dead before he hit the ground, Lynceil never saw the assassin's blade coming.

With blood to be found on every side of him, and a series of bodies both sliced and crushed, Naruto appeared every bit the assassin he trained to be. Going around the battlefield, he plucked the kunai from the bodies he left behind, wiping them clean of any excess blood before he stored them back in his cloak.

"So, Tywin Lannister has decided that the rebellion will win this war, and he is moving to secure Robert's victory. No doubt he intends to win favor with the man likely to become the next King, a shrewd move." The more he thought about it, the sharper the picture in his mind became.

Turning on his heels, Naruto started the long walk to King's Landing, each step moving him away from the mess he made. At least none of his blood contributed to the mess he left behind. "I don't really care that they plan on getting rid of the Mad King, but I have my doubts that the noble lions of Lannister will behave themselves. I can smell the pillage coming."

For all the gold, pride, and sophistication that they boasted about, the men of Casterly Rock were remarkably similar to horse riders that frequented the grass plains of Essos. Peel them down to their basic nature, and the men of Westeros were just as liable to ravage the land with plundering and fire like the savage Dothraki.

END