When we left off, the Hidden Leaf Village had a rough awakening as a giant rectangle "Thing" had fallen from the sky covered in flames, and hit the ground a few miles south of it. As a group of shinobi go to investigate, they find within it a sleeping giant, who after a misunderstanding and dealing a mayor ass-kicking, collapsed. They take the giant back to the village, where they put him in a hospital. He then awakens again, and after causing a great amount of confusion, collapses again. Let's see how this thing continues…

"Wake me, when you need me"

That's the last thing he told her.

She checked the scanners again. Not a single ship or planet within range.

"Wake me, when you need me"

Those words rang in her head. She was alone. It had been a year since she heard those words from him. A whole year. Now all she had was her thoughts and a Chief-popsicle.

In the time they had been stranded in the middle of nowhere, drifting in what was left of the Forward unto Dawn; she had rewritten the ships remaining systems 42 times, Chief's armor's firmware 12 times, and was half-way done on solving the problem of Rampancy on AI's. She also had long debates with herself over philosophical matters and, most recently, over the crab's immortality*.

Then, something startled her.

Cortana checked the scanners, and then the ships alarms went off. They were caught in a black hole's gravity well, and were accelerating towards the event horizon!

Seeing this, she started calculating. 3 minutes untilled the ship went over. it took a minute to open the cryo-tubes. Another from this room to the drop pods (the Life-Boats were all on the part of the ship that actually made it through the slipspace portal). They would have just 30 seconds to launch, to be able to use the ships own acceleration and the black hole's gravity as a slingshot to escape. It was a slim chance, but it was their only hope. Just as she started the cryo-tube deactivation protocol, a large hunk of rock struck the ship, taking out the main and back-up generators. Her program deactivated almost immediately, she had only enough time to reroute power to cryo 2 and to the emitter that was transmitting their SOS. With any luck, they wouldn't be crushed and swallowed by the black hole.

As she deactivated, her last thought was "I'm sorry, John, I really am"

A few minutes later, the ship went over the horizon, and everything went dark.

Moments later, the ship lurched from a gash in the fabric of space and time, and started falling towards an unknown planet, in an unknown region of the cosmos. Its hull heats up dramatically as it enters the atmosphere, with large chunks being burned off as it fell. As the ship breaks through the stratosphere, it starts to cool off, the hull changes color from orange to a dark grey, though it is still engulfed in flames. It soars over a large town and crash-landed 20 miles south of it.

He Chief slowly woke from cryogenic-sleep. He stirred. Weird, he thought. Usually waking from cryo didn't take so long. He then felt a sharp pain in his abdomen as he stood up.

Still confused by the cryo's anomaly, he took a look at his surroundings. Noticing he wasn't alone, he took a defensive stance, reached behind his cryo-chamber and took up his Assault Rifle, and aimed at one of the perpetrators, the man with the gray hair and a mask. He seemed to be the one in charge.

Then he remembered. Cortana!. He slowly made his way towards her terminal. Taping the control panel, he expected the AI to appear in her usual cheerful mood. But nothing happened. What?! He thought. With a more concerned state of mind, he banged at the blasted thing (it is said that if something's not working, you give it a whack and BINGO! Good as new). He then checked the side of the pedestal and took off a small panel. He then moved some cables, reconnected some, and cut one. Then, Cortana's chip came out of the terminal. Chief took the chip and connected it to his helmet, praying that there was nothing wrong with it, or Her.

To his relief, he then heard Cortana's voice as she rebooted.

"Chief? What happened?" asked the AI,

"We crashed into a planet of some kind. The ship's been boarded by a team of operatives of some kind" he replied (A.N: this conversation was going on with Chief's speakers muted, so that no one else could eavesdrop on him).

"Oh?! Wait a second, let me start up your suit's Firmware and O.S" said Cortana. Seconds later, Chief could see his HUD perfectly. He had his shied monitor (he noticed that his shield was functioning, for which he felt glad. He wouldn't need to be overly careful if he had an engagement). He could also see his ammo counter (which showed 400 for the Assault Rifle, as well as 4 grenades) last but certainly not least, he checked his movement detector. Then, he noticed a blip getting closer, behind the line of ¿kids? He looked up to the door, and when it opened, a Sangheili with space gear appeared, energy sword raised above its head. Chief didn't think twice. He raised his weapon and fired 3 bursts, and relaxed a bit when he saw a patch of blue appear on the alien's chest, and then it slumped to the ground dead.

"Watch out!" yelled Cortana.

Chief side stepped, barely evading one of the kids, who had jumped at him. He realized he had startled them, and they retaliated. "Watch it, that kids eyes tell me that he's going to do something serious.

"Gentle fist, 8 Trigrams, 64 Palms!" yelled the kid, as he charged towards the Chief at incredible speed. Chief simply ducked under the kid's first blow, and delivered a powerful roundhouse kick. His foot impacted the kid's back, and sent him flying towards the wall, leaving him there, motionless.

"He's alive, if that's what you're wondering" interceded Cortana.

Then, all of the other kids jumped at him, included the two adults with them. Chief threw a barrage of punches, knocking every one of them back.

Something didn't feel right.

He couldn't move.

"Ino, now!" yelled one of the kids, who had stayed back.

Then chief saw the blond girl behind him (the kid, not the chief) holding up her hands, doing a strange hand sing, aimed at him

Chief somehow knew that this was bad, and tried to jump out of the way.

"Mind Transfer Jutsu!" said the Blond girl.

Then, chief couldn't move anymore. He couldn't even twitch.

It was as if he didn't have control over his own body anymore.

His mind went black as he saw the ground closing fast on him

Cortana knew something was wrong.

Chief's vitals were off. Usually, he had the vitality of 2 oxen, but now, it was barely a grown mans. She ran a scan on his body. There, she thought. He had several torn organs, and was bleeding internally. His heart and lungs were okay, but everything else? He would need surgery, and soon. Then, she saw the blond girl weave a series of had signs and aim her hands at the Chief. She tried to warn him, but was apparently too late, as she noticed the Chief go into shock and then pass out.

She remained silent, being full aware of the Cole-protocol. But she listened. And carefully.

It was mostly nonsense like "What the hell was that!", "What is it?" and "Why did it attack us?" as the kids argued amongst themselves.

Then she heard a much more mature voice say "hey, come look over here". She turned Chief surveillance on, and turned the cameras view angle so as to see what was going on. She saw the group approach the fallen alien with care. The leader, as it seemed, said "look at the wounds. These were probably caused by that thing's weapon. In fact, it seems that it saved us. Judging from this creature's position and on our position as we surrounded the giant, it would have had a clear shot at all of us, and would have probably killed at least three of us. If the giant didn't kill it, that is…"

This was met with confused looks from his comrades.

Then, he added "We should take the giant back to the village, and put him in the hospital. Maybe Lady Tsunade might be able to make something out of it."

Everyone agreed, and then proceeded to lift Chief's unconscious body, to take him with them, but were unable to, because of his weight. Then one kid yelled something, there was a poof of smoke, and then there was a mob of orange kids standing in the room. The mob then lifted the Chief, albeit with difficulty, and then they all left towards the exterior of the ship.

Along the way, one of the orange kids bumped Chiefs grenade pouch, and dropped one. Out of curiosity, the kid picked it up, and ignoring his comrade's warnings, started to play with it, until he released the pin, and the grenade went off, the kid disappearing in a cloud of smoke. The loud explosion startled everyone. The group then proceeded to check Chief's equipment, confiscating every weapon and ammo he had. They put it all on a large bag, and then continued their journey, scolding the orange kid.

After they arrived at the village, a blonde woman with large "attributes" started yelling at them about something. About what, Cortana couldn't tell. A few moments later, the lady instructed them to take the "giant" to the hospital, and to be put under strict surveillance, and for the weapons and equipment to be taken to the science division to be analyzed. That didn't sit well with Cortana, but she had set her top priority as having stabilized Chiefs condition, and if possible, mend his injuries.

Chief was put in a room that had a bed and some furniture for visits. There was a pair of armed sentries put to stand guard at the door. They worried Cortana, as they barely registered in the motion tracker. This was worry some, as the thing could detect the slowly beating heart of a dying turtle at a range of 20 meters, but these two barely even compute. And that meant that these guys were standing even stiller that the Guards at Buckingham Palace in London, and could also lower their heart rate to an almost inexistent beat. She heard the Door open, and saw a pink haired young woman enter the room, followed by a man who seemed to have no expression on his face. They wore similar head bands, she noticed, as did almost everyone else in this village. They didn't talk, but the girl sat beside the Chief's bed, and looked at him with a worried look. Eventually, curiosity got the better of her, and the girl stood to try and look into Chief's face, but instead she saw her reflection on his visor.

Cortana realized that this girl was just curious and worried for the Chief, so she decided to ignore the Cole-Protocol; she activated the suit's speakers and asked:

"Can someone help me?"

This startled the pink haired girl and the man. The girl approached the bed very slowly, with a doubtful look on her face.

"Is anyone there?" repeated Cortana, so as to catch their attention.

The girl then looked towards the visor and asked "Um, hello? Who are you?" with a trembling voice, as if she was trying to sound confident.

Cortana decided to try something different.

"My name is Cortana, what's yours?" she asked, so as to try to calm the girl down

"I… I'm Sakura, and that is Yamato" responded the girl.

Okay, so at least they are good willed thought Cortana.

"Well Sakura, can you help me?" asked Cortana. "Do you have any medics or medical training?"

"Well, I do have some abilities with Medical Ninjustu…" replied Sakura. "What do you need?"

"Well, this idiot doesn't know how to take it slow. He always does it. And apparently, you forced him out of cryo before I could reboot the security protocols" said Cortana matter-of-factly. "Wait, what's Medical Ninjutsu?" she asked.

Just then Chief moaned, as if he was waking with a killer hangover, and then sat up.

"Where are we?" asked Chief

"Hey, weren't you a girl?" asked the man called Yamato, obviously confused.

"No" replied Chief, with a slight tone of annoyance.

"He isn't a girl. But he needs help. He won't admit it, but he is injured and is bleeding internally" said Cortana.

Chief then slapped his helmet, as if to tell her to shut up.

"Chief, you need medical assistance!" said a very annoyed Cortana.

"Wait, there are two of you in there!?" asked Yamato. Apparently his mind was exploding in confusion

Just then, Cortana noticed two blips appear on the motion tracker. Those weren't there before she thought.

"Hold on, Chief, you have 2 unknowns close by, looks like an ambush" warned Cortana.

Chief jumped up, and took a semi-aggressive stance looking at the window, just as a teenager and a man burst in.

"Now, stay calm, we don't want anything to happen" said the man, whilst reveling his covered eye. It was red, with black circles.

Muting the speakers, Cortana said "Chief, be careful. That eye seems to be following every move you make, and the way it is looking at us is making me nervous. Do not underestimate them"

Chief then weighed his options, calculated every possible escape route, but still there was a variable he couldn't account for. That red eye.

Concluding that escape wouldn't be possible in his current condition, he raised his hands in a non-aggression sign.

Can someone please explain to me how there are two people in there, and how did you know about Naruto and Kakashi being outside!?" yelled Yamato

"It's a long Story" replied Cortana.

Chief felt his insides turn, and then he collapsed, face first. His last thought was "This is going to leave a mark…."