After defeating Kaguya Ōtsutsuki, Sasuke turned on Naruto. It turned out that old grievances were hard to forget, and that friendship did not always trump everything. It turned out that the 'Curse of Hatred' never quite existed and in it's stead, it was merely a placebo effect. Because the Uchiha thought they were cursed, they acted like it, and everyone else believed they were cursed because of it.

This did not alter anything. In the ensuing fight both Sasuke and Naruto died. Their power was immense of course, and so when they died, everyone was quite sure that the Sage of the Six Paths would revive them, or some divine intervention would occur to save them both.

It did not.

With Sasuke and Naruto both dead, the unified shinobi army fell into discord. Perhaps Naruto and Sasuke had not been as holy as had been assumed prior to the fight. Some mused, was it all just luck? Did the defeat Kaguya without fully having the Sage's blessing? Were they not the Sage incarnated? Others wondered if perhaps they'd been fighting for the wrong side. Sasuke turned on Naruto rather easily after all. Perhaps it'd all been one big trick to get them to fight for them, and not Kaguya. Was the Tsukuyomi, perhaps, not so bad after all?

The villages returned to their respective homes, and years passed once more. The great bond of friendship crafted carefully by Naruto faded, kage's died and old feuds revived themselves. New clans rose, old clans died, the wheel of time churned away carefully as it always did, since there was no stopping it. Time churns and churns, and waits for no one. Trees withered and their seeds planted the setting for the next generation - your generation.

Fifty years later it seems like everything is back to how it was during the great shinobi war. Diplomatic ties are on edge, shinobi's are often working against each other when missions where they cross paths have incompatible goals. And sometimes, just sometimes, it's just to settle a score, or obtain a kekkei genkai for yourself. The world is a lot more dark than when Naruto was still running around.. you need to watch your back lest you are watched from the back.

And like this you are dropped into the shinobi force. You were a genin for a long time, doing menial tasks like genins before you had done - it was part of the initiation some of the older shinobi told you. But it was different and you could feel it. There was a more heavy focus on getting field experience - painting picket fences turned to digging trenches, rescuing cats turned to tending to the ninken in the kennels, and escorting a merchant turned to rooting out a bandit encampment with another squad of veterans. Everything pointed at combat and field experience. Why?

Recently you were promoted to the chunin rank after a rather hard exam. It seemed that whoever was in charge of the exams that year was after you, though you knew that to be untrue. The exams were simply hard. But you passed it's many tests and you should be happier for it. Some of the other villages did not participate, Kumogakure, Sunagakure, they chose to hold their own exams. You can't help but wonder why. Amegakure was present at your exams, strangely, but they were rather quiet, reserved.

Well. Problems for another day. For now, rejoice, as you are about to hear what new squads have been created.