'Thought'
"Speech"
"Whispers"
{Native\Foreign Language}
"Nothing is so strong as gentleness, and nothing is so gentle as real strength." Ralph W. Sockman.
'How long did I sleep this time? What an awkward position, I feel so stiff…"
Golden cross-shaped eyes fluttered open to the sight of a vibrant red, long red strings interwoven together.
As his eyes and ears adjusted to his surroundings, more things came into perspective. A woman with long and braided crimson hair whispering with two other men.
After adjusting to his surroundings he noticed things such as the dirty wooden floor and poor lighting due to windows being blocked by wooden boards. There was a door behind them but was blocked by a couch.
His bones popped as he tried to get in a more comfortable position and the three stopped whispering among themselves and whipped their head in the direction of the sound.
The man looked at them, glowing golden eyes were the only thing they could see through the spiky curtain on blonde hair.
The three stepped back towards the door and pointed their makeshift weapons at him.
"You think he's one of them?" Whispered one of the men, he looked pretty average, brown hair, brown eyes and a pretty average build for a young man. He wore a pair of faded blue jeans and a checkered button-up shirt. He seemed to be the oldest of the group and held a bloody 2x4.
"I don't know, didn't you check him Erza?" Another spoke, the tallest among them being around 6'1, he wore red shorts, a plain white tank top and had flip flops. He didn't seem to be much older than twenty, had short black hair and an athletic build. His weapon of choice being an axe.
The woman nodded. "I did, he seemed dead to me. Normal dead."
She didn't seem to be much over twenty as well. She wore a black tank top, black leggings and white sneakers.
The supposedly dead blond tilted his head and they tensed. The man with the axe stepped in front of then protectively.
"Where am I?" The blond spoke, his voice was nonchalant and relaxed contradicting the almost growl-like tone it held.
He pushed his hair backwards and out of his face to reveal that he looked no older than twenty. If not for the dirt and dust smudges in his face he was quite handsome. He seemed to have faint markings on the side of his face, tattoos perhaps? It was hard to tell with dirt on him.
The three relaxed and lowered their weapons slightly, still looking apprehensively at the blonde, who still stared at them with that unnerving stare.
"Speak quietly, you don't want them to hear us." The older man whispered and the blond raised an eyebrow.
"Who?"
"Them! Now shut it, they're outside!" The man repeated and the woman got in front of him.
"We were all kidnapped, I woke up in a house around the street, John in the neighboring house. What's important for you to know is that what's outside isn't human and they're hunting us, so I need you to lay low."
"…"
'Is this some kind of prank?' The blond lowered his voice to match their whispers.
They were serious, more than that they were stressed and worn out like they had a long day. Signs that they'd seen and dealt with a lot in a short period of time.
There was a long silence, broken when the blonde nodded.
"Okay. Fine, I haven't a clue what's going on but you guys seem serious so I'll play along. Names Naruto."
The now known Naruto got up and rolled his shoulders. At full height he stood just a bit below the tallest among them.
"I'm Erza, the jumpy one over there is John and that one with the axe is Dave." Erza introduced herself, and extended her hand.
Naruto went to extend his own but saw how dirty his were and retracted. "Better not, I'm dirty."
She grabbed his hand and shook it anyway. "It's okay, I don't think any of us are clean."
"Hang on a second." Dave got in between them. "You are taking everything awfully well, too well if ask me. John freaked out and couldn't believe it until one of them nearly bit him, and here you are…"
"Dave what are you saying?" Erza asked, while John's eyes widened slightly as he came to the same conclusion as Dave.
"Look at him! he's been sleeping through all of this without a worry! He's believing what you are saying as the truth without even wanting to see for himself, almost as if he already knew. I don't trust him." Dave whispered to Erza.
"Oh, right." Erza stepped back and behind him. "Now that you mention it, it is strange."
"You know, I am still right here." Naruto said in his normal voice. "Why would you tell me something if you don't expect me to believe it anyway?"
"Speak quietly! They'll hear you!"
"Yea, yea, whatever." Naruto waved him off. His hair fell in front of his face and he lifted it up again. "Dammit, fucking bastards took my headband."
He then unceremoniously tore up the bottom of his cloak and wrapped it around his head as a bandana.
"You're making too much noise!" Dave hissed, his veins bulging making his anger and irritation evident.
"My hair is bothering me, I should probably get it cut it later…" Naruto said to himself and went past them, to one of the covered windows.
"Wait, what are you doing?" Erza asked and he raised his leg.
Dave reached for him, but it was too late, with one swift motion he stretched his leg and his foot went straight through the window. Perfect form, not a shred of hesitation like he'd done it a million times.
"I'm seeing what all the fuss is about." He replied and jumped off the window.
The sun was just a bit over the horizon and casting its light straight at his face, but his eyes were quick to adjust.
The first thing he saw were people with rotten bodies attacking one another in a frenzy. The second thing he noticed was the surroundings in itself, where exactly he was.
The neighborhood was ruined, broken windows, broken cars, mostly houses of no more than two stories in height except for one building in the center that seemed to be five stories high.
In itself the town wasn't so big, having two main streets intersecting forming a cross. Beyond it was a forest of miscellaneous trees.
Everything ceased with his presence, the "people" fighting and killing each other all turned towards him.
There was something off about them, their eyes were vacant, haunting even. Their bodies mangled beyond repair, with several of their internal organs laying on the ground, some even had their intestines trailing behind them.
'This must be what they meant by not human…' Naruto's eyes narrowed into thin slits.
As if a signal had been sent, at once they charged, stumbling, falling and trampling one another along the way. The first one, and as far as he could tell it was female, lunged at him jaws opened with an inhuman snarl upon its lips.
He side-stepped it while at the same time giving it a chop to the neck.
Its body went limp and crumpled like a stringless puppet while its head flew over and struck the blocked window.
-Inside-
Inside the house, the two men had flipped a table and used it to block the busted windows.
"This isn't right, we shouldn't have shut him out like that." Erza paced around the living room.
"What are you saying, it was him or us, we had no choice." Dave spoke and something hit the table on the other side. "Now be quiet or we're next!"
A loud thud came from the door and the three flinched. A sound which came followed by groaning and more thuds.
"What the hell do you think is going on out there?!" John panicked and went to the door to hold it shut.
"He must be fighting we should help him!" Erza went over to the door.
"Are you nuts? No way he's still alive, as far as we know this could be them tearing him apart!" John countered and pushed her away. Getting in between her and the blockade of various furniture
"I'm tired of sitting here doing nothing, we have to fight! Out of the way John!"
"Stop it you two!" Dave got between both of them. "Listen, it stopped."
The groaning, thudding and noise ceased, the only sounds that could be heard coming from them.
"Strange…" John said, mostly to himself, relaxing visibly.
"We got bigger problems than to fight among ourselves." Dave sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Now we shouldn't be careless, they can still be out there."
Dave then went to another window on the side. It wouldn't give a view of the front, but it would be something.
Reaching it he peeled the newspaper from the corner and peeked outside.
John and Erza approached him from behind.
"So, what's going on?" John asked, and Dave began to shake slightly, his face paling significantly.
He peeled more off of the window and they caught a glimpse of what he was seeing.
Red.
The more he peeled the more was revealed. The grass was drenched in red and there were heads and limbs scattered all around.
"What the…"
John then went to the other window and pushed the table aside.
Bodies scattered everywhere, torn asunder like a tornado had passed through and ripped them apart.
Their eyes followed the trail of bodies to the end of the street where he stood, body and hair drenched in blood from head to toe.
"Who the hell is that guy?"
-Meanwhile-
'Kidnap the hobo they said, no fucking paperwork they said, easy target they said…'
A technician grumbled as he watched the blond "nobody" rip through their test subjects as if they were wet rags.
'What the hell is going on?'
The man wore shades, he sat on a swiveling chair overseeing the main control room, which had several monitors observing the newest batch of infected be destroyed.
If things weren't bad enough, that thing was coming towards their building.
'Our doors and walls are reinforced with a 2 foot thick titanium alloy, he shouldn't be capable of breaching the facility before reinforcements co-'
A siren resounded as the entrance doors were flung from their hinges.
"Well shit."
The man got from the chair and began to pace around the room.
"Breathe in. Breathe out. Okay, first things first, the extermination squad is only to arrive by sunset… but the alarms alerted HQ of our status, so they should be arriving early..." he pinched the bridge of his nose. "I need to get to get out of here, but for that I'll need a distraction…"
He looked down at the switches and smirked.
-With Naruto-
Several alarm blared and the red and white lights flashed in the large building.
The titanium doors that guarded the place were both on the floor in front of him. The inside of the building was white, all white, white floors, white walls, white doors.
The entrance was a lobby that on the side branched off into a corridor and at the end was a staircase.
"This is the biggest building here, whoever is in charge must be here, and probably at the top floor." Naruto said to himself and began walking towards the staircase.
The ground rumbled and Naruto stopped.
A large ball rolled and fell down the stairs. Two of the creatures clawed and attacked one another.
The blond tilted his head and crossed his arms, an action which seemed to bring their attention towards him.
They ceased their assault on one another, disengaged and turned to Naruto, then three more joined them.
"Listen here, I just want my head-band, and if you don't have it then you can go." Naruto said and one of them screeched and the others rushed towards him.
They were faster than the rest, they moved by jumping and running on all fours, skipping a dozen feet at a time.
It took but a few seconds for the first to reach the blond and when near it pounced, a mighty leap with fangs and teeth bared.
Naruto clenched his fist and punched, straight through its teeth, mouth and skull, spraying grey matter everywhere.
'I should just get this over with. This is disgusting… '
When the next arrived he yanked his hand from it, spun around and roundhouse kicked it, sending it flying backwards several times faster than it came, impacting against another and crashing against the stairs where they both splattered.
'Calm down Naruto, they aren't human anymore… still, it's all over my face, just awful.'
The final two, fearless and unaffected by his ruthlessness in dispatching its kin, attempted to flank him and tackled him on the waist from either side.
Their combined attack pushed Naruto but a feet back before they he'd stopped them both by grabbing their foreheads. He separated them and slammed their heads together, then tossed their limp bodies aside.
Time to keep on moving.
-In the control room-
"Five hunters in five seconds. This can't be happening, what the hell is this guy?"
The man took off his shades to reveal honey-colored eyes and then tucked them away in his pocket.
He sat on his chair and then pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Okay, c'mon, think…" he released a sigh. "As the overseer of this test site, this will be seen as my mistake..."
He then went to the desk and began typing.
Sweat poured from his face as his hand blurred through the keyboard. Then after a pause to straighten his tie, he gave the final keystroke.
Then all the screens went black except for the main which appeared '9:59'
The numbers then began to count down, and the man took a glock from beneath the table, some keys and ran out the room.
-With Naruto-
"I hate this place…"
Naruto stomped on the head of an infected popping it like a balloon.
The second level of the building wasn't very different from the first, except it didn't have a lobby, just a white hallway with open doors on either side.
Or at least the hallways were white, now they were a mixture of white, red, grey and black.
There were five on either side till the stairs, all of which belonged to the creatures he'd encounter thus far.
Moving onwards and scraping his boots on the floor, a person wearing a lab-coat stumbled down the stairs and a split second later a thin, hairless dog-like creature pounced at him.
The creature went straight for his neck, digging in and ripping off a chunk right after.
'Dogs now too… troublesome.'
Naruto sighed and the beast took another bite and ripped another chunk from the scientist and his body went limp.
Another dog-like beast came down the stairs, this one noticed Naruto and bolted after him.
Like the other dog, it lunged for the blond's throat… who responded by grabbing it mid air by the throat, crushed it and tossed it behind.
Then he continued walking as if nothing had happened.
The other dog followed suit upon noticing Naruto, but it was also dispatched without much care.
He was on a mission, get back his precious head-band. The last memento of his home, his history, he had no time to waste.
Reaching the third floor, he found it to be different than the second.
It was a big lab with several desks and cages that were busted open. There were around three dogs and several dead people in lab coats.
Not all were dead however, the three dogs had backed a woman wearing a lab coat into the far right corner of the floor.
She held them back with a fire extinguisher, but they were closing in.
One of the dogs tried to bite her but she struck it with the fire extinguisher, which gave the opening for another to bite her in the ankle.
Naruto whistled and they stopped and turned towards him, ignoring the woman.
"That's right, good boys." Naruto said while picking up a CD from a desk. "Come to daddy."
They took off after him and he tossed the CD. It flew through the air in a arc decapitating all three dogs, kept on going, shattered against the wall behind the woman.
She gasped, and her foot slid off. Her eyes rolled back into her head and she fell to the ground unconscious.
Or at least that is what would have happened.
The last thing she saw was the red-yellow mixture of Naruto's drenched hair over her.
He grabbed her falling and tilted his head. She was young, didn't seem to be older than eighteen, slim and had slick red hair. She wore round glasses and had a name tag written "Matsu - Level 2".
"Well Matsu, for your sake let's hope this works. Maybe you can tell me what's going on later." Naruto ripped her lab coat, wrapped it around the stub of an ankle and tied it all together with his belt.
'Hopefully this should do the trick… but she won't make it without further treatment.'
It was then that Naruto noticed the sound of gunfire. It has hard to hear with the alarm in the background, but he pinpointed it to the floor above.
"If I take her then she'll get caught in crossfire, and if I leave her here she'll bleed out… decisions decisions."
An explosion occurred above and Naruto shook his head.
"Argh fuck it. Can't just let a pretty lady die like this." He holstered the woman over his left shoulder and glanced around.
A red suitcase caught his eye. It had a white cross on top and was unlocked, like someone had tried opening it but stopped halfway.
He picked it up only to see a horde of infected staring at him.
'I don't have time for this…'
-One short and bloody battle later-
Naruto jumped out of a giant hole in the wall, covered in an obscene amount of blood.
Despite the 3 story fall, he landed with a soft 'thud'.
He had the scientist over his right shoulder and held the suitcase in his left hand.
Once outside, the first thing he saw was Red, the same red he had seen when he had woken up too.
Erza.
She was just down the street near the border of the small town, coming back towards the main building where he was.
For a second he stared at her hair until noticing how the other two men weren't with her.
'I hope they're still alive.'
Making his way towards her there were several things he noticed. First was that she seemed a bit more worn out since they'd met, her hair was ruffled, her shirt was torn on the front showing a couple of cuts around her stomach and her hands were bleeding.
At a certain point along the road she stopped walking in his direction and raised her two-by-four up defensively.
"N-Naruto s-stop!" She ordered and he complied, tilting his head in the process.
'She's afraid… she doesn't recognize if I'm infected or not. If I were then I would be eating the doc, not her. Still I don't think I can blame her, I'm covered in gore after.
A shockwave erupted from behind him along with an ear-splitting boom.
The building exploded.
Erza shielded her face in time but was still knocked back from the explosion, while Naruto just stumbled forward a few feet.
A second later there were more explosions followed by another shockwave and a cloud of dirt.
The structure had fallen apart. The dust and dirt overtook them.
Naruto coughed and placed the scientist on the floor, then glanced in Erza's direction.
Only her silhouette was visible, but he could tell she'd stopped moving.
'Great, two unconscious women…' he tilted his head in the direction of the building's rubble. 'That would've hurt if I were still inside.'
The dust began to die down and fade away.
"What a mess. First thing's first, I should try and treat the wound before it gets worse. Which for that I should get them both out of the open."
Naruto bent down, picked up the scientist and holstered her over his shoulder like before. Then he repeated the process with Erza, except instead of holstering her over his shoulder, he held her under his arm.
Looking around he spotted a closed house. Then he walked over to it, kicked the door down.
Inside was what would expect from a standard house. Table, two couches and a TV on the living room.
'Shadow clones would sure come in handy now.'
He dropped Erza on the couch then placed the scientist on the table.
'Okay, what now, the first-aid kit! I think I left it outside..'
He was about to leave the house to grab the first-aid kit he had left behind when groans reached his ears.
It didn't come from either of the two.
'There, the Kitchen! C'mon I don't have time for this!'
He dashed towards the kitchen and spotted a couple. An undead couple. Or at least he assumed they were, they both wore wedding rings.
'Till death do you apart, I guess..'
Having first strike, he grabbed a wooden table spoon on the counter and jammed it into the male's head, then removed said spoon and shoved the other end into the female.
"Alright Naruto, where were we… first-aid? Right."
He rushed outside and spotted the kit. It was on the floor right where he left it.
On his surroundings he spotted several more zombies closing in.
He grabbed the kit and rushed back to the house to see that Erza was stirring awake.
"Great time to be waking up, can you lend me a hand?" Naruto asked while placing the kit on the table besides the wounded scientist.
"Huh, what?" Erza sat up and nursed a bruise on her head.
"Her, she needs help. You understand anything about first aid?" Naruto went to the door.
"I know a thing or two." Erza massaged her head and glanced at the woman. "Who is she? What happened with her?"
"She lost her foot."
"I see that… how did she lose her foot?"
"She was bit and I cut it off. So can you save her?"
"I don't know, I can try."
"Good enough for me, do your best! I'll be outside." Naruto gave her a thumbs up and left.
Erza glanced down at the woman.
She wore a lab coat, and considering Naruto came out of the building with her, she most likely worked there.
A part of her felt like strangling the unconscious woman for the suffering they went through, but she managed to quash it down.
Erza opened the first-aid kit and removed a bottle of alcohol, gloves, gauze pads, cotton, bandages and scissors.
"Lets see what we have here." The redhead began to release the belt around her leg, then removed the bloodied cloth wrapping the stub.
It was bad.
'Wow, he did a clean cut, just above the joint… there doesn't seem to be any infection. I shouldn't test my luck though… maybe I should do something in case she suddenly tries to bite.'
Erza glanced at the woman then at the kit. She took a roll of bandages and wrapped them several times around the woman's neck, then tied it to the table's leg.
'Better safe than sorry… now what…'
She then placed the gloves, took the alcohol and poured it over the wound, then placed cotton, gauze pads and wrapped it all together with bandages..
"Phew, that summer first aid course wasn't for nothing." Erza removed the gloves and tossed them aside.
'I wonder how Naruto is doing.'
Erza then glanced at the window, and there he was.
Multiple corpses scattered around.
If possible he seemed even more drenched in gore. His expression didn't show much, or anything at all. It was blank, void of anything, no anger, fear or disgust. Perhaps having a small mixture boredom and loneliness, or so Erza thought.
Naruto noticed her staring and waved. "Is she awake yet?"
"No, she's still unconscious. Probably for the best, because she'd be in a lot of pain - behind you!"
He spun around and high kicked a zombie that approached him from behind, striking it on the chin and turning its head backwards.
"Thanks, we should get moving soon, have a look around and grab anything you find useful." He dodged an attack from another zombie, got behind it and twisted its neck. "Oh and pants too, if isn't too much trouble for you. I need new clothes, think you can tell."
"Right, I'll have a look."
-Outside-
The hoard of infected had thinned out and almost all but disappeared except for the select few that was arriving late for the 'goodbye party'.
'Got to hand it to them, they are persistent.'
Naruto punched the last of the current wave through the face. He strayed a bit from the house as to lure them away from Erza and the Scientist.
'That should do it… these things are so weak this isn't even fun anymore, just annoying. Wonder if this is how Madara felt. Hm, what is that noise?'
Naruto turned around in search of the noise, and spotted a helicopter just above the horizon.
After the first came several others, from all sides.
'Looks like the cavalry's arriving. Erza isn't prepared to deal with something like this and chances are she'll get caught in the crossfire… I have to take the fight to them.'
"Oi Erza, you there?" Naruto called out and a second later the woman in question poked her head through the window.
"I'm here, what is it?"
"I got to go now, things are about to get messy so I'd say to either barricade yourself in and keep your head low, or find a way to escape." he flashed a smile. "Regardless I'm sure we'll catch up later."
"Wait, before you go." Erza took something from her pocket. "This is yours."
A metal plated headband with an odd symbol imprinted on it.
"My headband! So you had it all along… shoulda said that sooner, would've saved me some time."
"You woke up and just left before I could remember even having it."
"I guess that did happen…it's all water under the bridge now, hang onto that for me for a little longer." He glanced towards the sky at something unseen from Erza's sight. "I gotta go now."
"Where? What you going to do now?"
"The one thing I do know how to do. Kick some ass."
With that said he disappeared in a burst of speed. One second he was there and the other he was gone, leaving smoke and burnt ground behind.
-With Naruto-
The blood-drenched blond stood in a clearing in the pine forest to prevent the others from being hurt in the crossfire.
Besides him were three bundles of rebar, with each bar being about 3-ft long.
The helicopters were approaching quickly. One in particular standing out among the rest.
It was larger and seemed much heavier, having reinforced plating and needing two propellers to keep it in the air.
'Seems important. Might as well blow it up first.'
He took a single rod and reeled his arm back.
The rod soared through the air, ripping it through it like a bolt of lightning and shattered upon striking the helicopter.
Or so it seemed.
'Oh? It was blocked?'
Squinting his eyes, he saw a something fall to the ground below the helicopter. A blonde woman in a tight black bodysuit that did absolutely nothing to hide her large chest.
There was a light blue aura around the woman, similar to a frosty mist on a winter day.
She landed with grace, and the fall didn't injure her, but she was having a hard time breathing.
'She seems familiar… I need to get a closer look.'
With the presented threat, the other helicopters converged around the larger one in a diamond formation.
'Must have something important in there… just makes me want to try harder.' Naruto shifted his attention to the woman and corner of his lip curved upwards. 'I'll deal with them later. Could she be one of us?'
"{Are you like me?}"
Welcome to the first chapter of a journey that I hope you guys enjoy!
Here is some background and general info you need for this AU… of sorts.
The main setting is supposed to be Highschool of the Dead… but HotD is very limited in the sense of a world-wide perspective, so I'm bringing other elements from other franchises to fill in roles as needed. As seen in this chapter we see Resident Evil(Rain - Umbrella), Fairy Tail(Erza) and Sekirei(Matsu) I could honestly have used OCs for the roles, but because their relevance to the plot I figured using established characters would make it easier on me.
All imported characters will be modeled to fit their original theme as much as possible to be somewhat familiar However, there are some changes due to being in a world where only Naruto's people have any supernatural abilities.
Because this is a story with a worldwide scope and not focused in Japan. The Language of Naruto™ will be considered wholly unique, distantly related to Japanese. The use of {foreign} language will mostly be for it instead of the use of Japanese Terms, I'm not a chunni dammit!
Because of the nature of this story, I am open to suggestions within reason. I got most things mapped out but I'm very flexible on plot. So do review with things you'd like to see happen, characters you'd like to see, stuff like that.
I do have some ideas for certain franchises being inserted into this AU, hit me up on the pm system if you got any ideas. I'll update every two weeks preferably.
-Celebratory first chapter Omake-
A group of survivors stood in a balcony watching several undead roam below. The survivors consisting mostly of high schoolers sans two blond adults.
"grawr~"
"Are they supposed to be this slow?" A blond man asked a buxom blonde woman in a wheelchair. "It's almost adorable with how slow they are."
"What are you talking about?" A brown haired teenager asked.
"Wait a minute, they're blind too?"
"Yep." A pink haired girl threw a rock below and they gathered to the sound of it.
Naruto's eye twitched.
"You kidding me?'
"Nope."
"Talk about easy mode. Slow, blind, almost deaf, how do they not eat each other?"
"That… is a good question."
"I wonder if they'll dance if I play music…"
Omake end
Not everything is at seems when it comes to this story so pay attention to the certain events. Expect some crazy shenanigans to occur later on!
Until then, Mini Danga signing out!