Chapter 1: Prologue
I own nothing.
Vermillion and Black clashed in a display of raw power, far too much power for mere gennin. Red and blue auras formed around the best friends turned rivals. In a flash of brilliant light, the epic confrontation was over. Uchiha Sasuke, scion of the Uchiha, Last Supposed Loyal Uchiha of Konohagakure no Sato, walked away victoriously, set in his decision to seek out Orochimaru of the Sannin for power.
In his wake, Uzumaki Naruto lay collapsed, drained of nearly all chakra. He had fought his hardest, but couldn't finish the act. The Rasengan, so deadly a jutsu, would have killed his friend if it had not been deflected at the last moment. Sasuke, however, had not bothered to redirect his Chidori. The gaping hole just above Naruto's heart - already healing, thanks to the fuzball inside - was proof enough of that. He lay in the gentle rain, unconscious but alive, regaining his strength. He would lay there for hours before help - from an unexpected, unknown, source - arrived.
Aboard the IMC Colossus
"Sir! High energy levels detected from the star system just ahead." A lowly technician called to a weary General Marder, tired from the constant fleeing from inbound Militia space craft. "So?" He sneered, irritated that they were wasting time. "Why should I be concerned about this?"
"I-I just thought you should know, sir... I-In case of an attack. Sir." The woman stated, clearly intimidated by the General. Their conversation was interrupted by an intense beeping emanating from the control console. The woman hunched over, peering into the small screen. "S-Sir! Th-These readings... they're off the charts! They're even stronger than the Fold Weapon!"
This caught Marder's attention. The Fold Weapon was a technological marvel, one he had been lucky to discover. If this was bigger than that... He had to have it! It could turn the tides of the war! More importantly, it would help him save face from the failure Typhon had been. He shoved the civilian out of the way with nary an "excuse me." It was more of a "Get the hell out of the way, woman!"
The energy signature was present for a few moments, from the time the woman caught a hold of it, to the split second Marder had to glance at it. It was indeed bigger than the Fold Weapon. A cruel grin spread slowly across his aged face. He had to have it.
Hours Later
The IMC ship Colossus entered orbit in the uncharted world that was the birthplace of Chakra. Having mapped the residual energy fluctuations from the epic clash not four hours ago - Something of that size had to leave a trace - A team of a dozen shuttles, out of three dozen left on the Colossus, flew down, cloaked, to find the source of the massive energy signature. The rest of the shuttles had been long destroyed since before the week long chase out of Typhon. They believed they had lost the Militia forces, but they were not sure. Everything did leave a residual signature, after all.
They quickly entered the forests surrounding Konoha, looking for the elusive waterfall that Uzumaki Naruto still lay by. Tracking the fluctuations in chakra, the teams quickly found the waterfall, and in turn, Naruto. Dozens of men and women fanned out, firearms at the ready, and surrounded Naruto, him being the only sentient being there. The rest of the soldiers, what few pilots remained were in the crowd around Naruto, inspected the perimeter. Four shuttles that hadn't touched down laid in wait, still cloaked, available to lay heavy fire upon anything that entered the area. Two of these flew up at the word of Marder, via communications radio, to the top of the waterfall, laying snipers on the cliff edge and inspecting above the area as well.
Note: I have nothing against women, just others do. The people in charge in the IMC (men) however, may, or others about the vast galaxies humanity has spanned could. I am attempting to be as realistic as possible for this fic, and would appreciate constructive comments to help me with the realism. I have had to brush up quite a bunch on stuff I thought I knew for this fic, and so if any is wrong or off, I apologize. Thank you for reading and please, continue with the story. :)
The leader, seeing the relatively young age of the child in front of her, stepped forward, taking off her mask. With luck, the boy would be disarmed to see a woman waking him. It was relatively uncommon, even years in the future, for someone of the fairer sex to have such a high position. She had earned it, as all under her command, and the few brass above her, recognized.
She attempted to rouse him, only to freeze and let out an involuntary gasp. The Boy had a Hole above his freaking heart! No one could live with that!
Yet no matter how she tried to rationalize it, here he was, Uzumaki Naruto, living, breathing, eyes open and glari- wait what?! Naruto, confused, tired, and hurt, lashed out, kicking his legs out in an attempt to escape, not realizing the potential harm guns, which in his sheltered world he had never even heard of, posed. Seeing the movement, a trigger happy grunt let out a burst from his Hemlok assault rifle, grazing his side and pegging his ribs with two of the shots. A quick "Hold your fire!" From the commander had a pilot near the grunt punching him in the gut, stopping the spree of bullets that was emanating from the barrel.
Naruto, cursing in pain, collapsed, and more of the Kyuubi's chakra rushed forth to heal the new wounds, covering his chest in a glow of crimson. A civilian, one without a gun, though armed with sensors primed to the energy flux's signature gasped. The energy was coming from the boy! "Commander! Commander!" He shouted, gaining the attention of everybody but the in shock Naruto.
"What is it?" The commander snapped, irritated with the idiots surrounding her. "What do you want?" The poor civilian near stumbled from the ferocity of the glare that was presented to him by the woman, helmet still off, dull brown hair cascading in a ponytail down her neck, clear, sparkling blue eyes out to bear. She was quite young, quite surprising considering the dark nature of her job. "I-I-I-"
"Spit it out man!" The commander's second in command growled, the same one who punched the trigger-happy grunt earlier. "We don't have all day! The kid needs med-evac now!" Cold blooded killers they may be, but no one, not even those under the employ of the IMC, wanted to see a child die. "The reading! It's going haywire! It's comin' from the kid!" The thoroughly intimidated man choked out, bringing everyone's attention to the near-unconscious Naruto once more. The red glow, Kyuubi's chakra having gone into overdrive, was faded slightly, having plugged the bleeding from the bullet wounds, absently healing the hemorrhaging the bullets had caused. It's main focus was ridding the body of the foreign chakra Sasuke's Chidori had left, and plugging the substantially wider gap in his chest.
He'd survive, that was sure, but he wouldn't be able to move, Kyuubi's chakra or no Kyuubi's chakra. His fate, however? It depended on the all too cruel General in charge of the lone star ship.
Three Months Later
Naruto panted again, the electric shocks from minutes earlier still leaving his beat up body twitching. He'd been held captive by the IMC for months now, he couldn't tell how long, and much of that had held nothing but pain, torture, and no ramen to be found. The General's scientists had found out about his rampant healing and were now testing it, hoping to glean it's secrets for possible future use. When used, even something so lowly as a grunt would become powerful, deadly so.
They had allowed him a section of rest, they hadn't wanted to kill him, after all. Then, they got to work. Horrors of every kind were placed upon the teen, making his experience as a guest of the IMC not very pleasant, to say the least. At least the way to the base they were currently located wasn't so bad. The team that had found him turned out to be decent people. The only real reason they worked for Marder was that they had nowhere else to go.
Most people working in the IMC were fanatics, true, they crazed shouting during battle was proof of that. His personal favorite was the hundreds of repetitions of "Die Militia Scum!" They had tried to make him loyal to the IMC, defaulting to playing on Humanities' greed, offering him large sums of money in return for service and the secret to his healing. He refused, spitting back in their face. He hadn't told them anything about chakra, the Kyuubi, or given up anything on Konoha, or the limited info about the rest of the Elemental Nations he knew.
He wasn't that dumb... He hoped.
He quickly fell into a dreamless sleep, exhausted beyond measure.
Unknown Time Later
(A/N: So this is about the end of the time-skip btw)
Naruto sighed, sitting up in bed, yawning as he struggled to wake up. He had just finished a raid, quite successful, by the way. It was to an IMC shipyard, a sneak attack that crippled the fleet in the sector. A few reactor explosions goes a long way after all. He got up, gently pushing the covers off his side. Lindsay Russell, the one who helped him escape, and ironically the Commander who turned him in. She was also currently his girlfriend/lover. Her team, consisting of her second-in-command and a few elite pilots, were "released from their contracts." Read "fired." They had failed an op after receiving bad intel. It had turned from a few Militia ships into a fleet. The measly amount of ships they brought, though outnumbering the original number, were decimated, and their ships escaped alone.
After that, they were fired. They decided, pride and reputation tarnished, that they would leave with a bang. Literally. They set charges along the main power grid on the planet Marder was stationed on, and executed the final part of their revenge. What better way to get back at Marder than stealing his newest pet? That's right. They were going to free Naruto. They entered the facility he was held in - read "tested and tortured in" - and promptly killed everyone minus Naruto. They narrowly escaped, alarms blaring, and left promptly, blowing the charges - and the nearby ships - to smithereens. The only complication? Lindsay was shot, stabbed, and burned to hell. Slight exaggeration.
She was grazed in the ribs by a spray of bullets and had a knife jammed into her shoulder by an IMC pilot. A now dead IMC pilot. The burns across her left eye came from a stalker circuit flying from said robot after being blown to bits by a well placed frag. The splotchy scar ended up being the worst of the injuries, the knife wound having long since healed, and the bullets were hardly worth mentioning. Surprisingly, Naruto was a large part of the scars healing. His chakra - usually so hard to control - had finally let him practice medical chakra, at least a rudimentary form of it.
With so much time to sit to himself, he had a huge amount of time to practice anything he could. Using the dull knife and spoon they gave him for mealtimes, he practiced his version of the leaf sticking exercise, made exponentially harder for some, but easier for Naruto because of the dramatic increase in weight. Naruto, with his seemingly endless chakra, had a far easier time with the knife than a flimsy, delicate leaf. When he believed his control was at an adequate place, after graduating to the edge of his tray, he began doing different things with the knife, like balancing on it's edge, attempting to channel through it, and even strengthening it as much as he could. he got it to the point where he could flip the knife, catch it, then rotate it on it's tip using nothing but chakra.
He, in his boredom, began to do anything he could think of with his chakra, eventually recalling the healing Tsunade-baachan did, and set himself to mimic it. He began to try to heal the lesser wounds that his tormenters left him. It took him the majority of the four years he had been away to do anything close to it, but successfully began to heal lesser wounds, decrease bleeding, and sterilize wounds with his chakra. He finished what he could just weeks before the breakout.
Along with his medical chakra training, when he got frustrated he began doing other things with his chakra... more destructive things. He started out perfecting his Rasengan, forming it faster, almost instantly in fact, and one handed. Then he started making it bigger, and even combining it with a second Rasengan. He got to the point where he couldn't think of much more to do that wasn't Rasengan-related, so he ended up attempting to mimic abilities he had seen from ninja he knew. attempts to channel chakra to his eyes, jokingly attempting to activate an imaginary Sharingan yielded nothing but an increase in the sharpness in vision. He began to experiment with this, and the more chakra he pushed, the sharper, and eventually "zoomed in" his vision became. After his inevitably escape, this was one of the reasons he became such a great marksman, as attested to by the amount of confirmed kills he had.
Attempts to mimic Kiba's animalistic jutsu yielded nothing, the same with Sasuke's fireballs. He tried to copy Hinata's fighting style with what little he knew but aside from a slight warming sensation in his fingertips, he could do no more. He hadn't seen much of Tenten's fighting style, barring the weapons, all of which he could not mimic. And the less said about Rock Lee, the better. No progress was made with Gaara's brother's puppetry, since he couldn't figure anything out. With nothing to practice on, he didn't bother to try attempting Gaara's either. The blonde Suna chick's air cutting things? That's where he struck gold.
With the Dull knife he was supplied with, he began channeling chakra, a task that was similar to hardening it, but not entirely the same. He began remembering what she did and swiped with the knife, and a burst of air quickly followed. He was excited, apparently that was something he could do. That was just about as far as he got training wise, and thankfully his jinchuriki status kept his muscles from atrophying, so even with his little chance of physical training, barring exercises like pushups and sit-ups, he was fine.
After his rescue, and subsequent joining of the Militia, he kept training for the better part of a year, honing what he did in captivity, and training in the basic pilot skills of the age. Using his existing training as a ninja, he quickly excelled, going from a mere recruit to hotshot in a matter of months. His kill record was on another level, and so was the amount of people he rescued. Being a kind and relatively gentle soul, compared to most in the ninja world, he made it his duty to "kill to save."
His philosophy was that of someone killing to... well, save. He didn't kill in cold blood, except when he was exceptionally pissed off, and rarely accepted assassination missions. The only time he did, in fact, was when there was confirmed proof that the target was a criminal. Not to say he was a pacifist, he just didn't see the need to kill.
With his training, however, came the discovery that, while most pilots only had one attachment - the most common being grappling hooks or cloaking - he could have as many as he wanted. Using his jinchuriki status to its full effect, he could handle the implants, heavy suits, or mental stress involved with many of the attachments. He went lightly on the augmented ones, since they often required more implants than others, but he was able to effectively use grappling hooks, holo pilots, pulse blade,
Yeah, some of that may have been a bit of creative engineering, but it works with the story :)
R&R Guys! As a reminder for the rest of the chapters, I don't own anything! Thanks!