My apologies for not updating sooner, it took me awhile to get this together, and to plan this completely out. I do hope you enjoy. Also, I'd like to give a shout out to the Following for Reviewing: and HinataElyonToph, thanks for the reviews, new record of two reviews per chapter. Booyeah!
I own nothing. For I am Nobody. Let the story begin. Also, forgive my Japanese, for I know none.
Blink! Blink!
The eyes of the doll began to open, groggily, but soon darting wide awake. He stared at the area around him, a dusty room, metal parts rusted, and decades old. He continued to survey the scenery; until he noticed that his right hand was strapped hanging upwards by a leather strap, slightly restraining his appendage.
He took a look at his left hand, and noticed it was currently free, so using it; he began to work on unstrapping his bounds. Sadly, he didn't bother to look down; otherwise, he would have noticed that the strap was the only thing preventing him from falling downwards towards the ground. When he fell, he landed with tumble, feet first, and laid there for a few seconds.
When he finally got back up, he finally noticed something about his hands. He studied them, noticing that his fingers, though sharpened like a claw, had noticeable joints, and were made of metal. The palm of his hands was hollowed wood, covering the mechanics of the hands. His wrist was a metallic ball joint, and his forearm was armored metal all the way up to his elbows, covering up the mechanics, the rest of his arms were covered by burlap cloth. He looked down, and saw that his feet and legs were made pretty much the same way, more or less.
He then finally noticed the unzipped zipper on his chest, a bunch of wires hooked up to the inside of his chest as well, protruding from the outside. He began to panic and freak out at the sight, and began to pull each of the wires out of his chest. The moment the wires disconnected, a red glow came from his chest, not a grand one, but a small simple one. It was then he looked inside of his chest, seeing the inner mechanical workings of his body, the red glow coming from some kind of armored covered orb, a sort of core.
Deciding that this was way too weird, he zipped up the zipper all the way to his neck, the red glow dying away, and he began feeling comfortable to not be able to see his insides. He then noticed a dimly green glowing number on his stomach area, the number 9.
'Where am I?' he thinks to himself. 'For that matter, who am I?' A shocked look plays across his face. 'I-I can't remember.' In frustration, he grabs his head, only to notice a slight feeling on top.
He began to reach up to his head, and he grabbed what was on top. Instantly, for the first time since he woke up, he felt something, or to be more exact, he felt his hands as whatever he was holding had felt them. He began to pull the object down to his eyes, and what he saw surprised him.
Two orange fox like ears, with a blonde highlight to it. The whole of his body felt nothing, felt numb, but these ears were the only thing that actually did feel something.
Swish! Swish!
Correction, second only thing to feel anything, for when he looked behind him, he saw a long fluffy orange fox tail with the blonde highlights, swishing back and forth.
At this point, he decided to go back to trying to figure out his origins. 'There must be something more to me than just a number. It feels like I should be remembering something, but I just can't remember.' Images then began to flash in front of his eyes, like watching a television with bad reception, tuning in and out.
An image then became clear to him, showing a young man with blonde hair, blue eyes, and an orange jumpsuit, staring back at him. Upon closer inspection, he saw that the young blonde was actually staring at a mirror of himself; he was seeing his own reflection. Then the youth yelled out, "My name is Naruto Uzumaki, and I am going to be Hokage! Believe it!"
He then came back to reality, looking around him again.
'Was that me? Was that who I was? Is that my name?'
"…?" he tried to speak, try to say his name, but nothing came out. He held his throat area, and tried again, but nothing still came out.
Deciding to forget it for now, he continued to look around, spotting a spherical device, with three symbols on the front of it, and three power sockets on the back, in front of the spot where he had awaken, hooked up to a stand. Curious, he decided to climb the stand, careful not to fall again, to see what the device was. It was hooked up to an outlet connected to thirty six wires, three of which were the ones that were plugged into his chest. The rest of the wires were close to eight other spots, empty and unoccupied.
Before he could fiddle with the device, he spotted someone lying on the ground on their backs near a table with a mask looking contraption, covered by scattered paper. More curious about the person, the small fox-like doll jumped off the stand, landing surprisingly perfect on the ground, breaking or damaging nothing.
He ran towards the man, wondering why he was laying on the ground. As he got closer, he began to slow his speed as a feeling of dread began to come over him. He soon stopped, and silently gasped in horror at what he saw before him. The man was huge in comparison to the small six inch doll, easily dwarfing his size, a giant if compared, but that was not what surprised the fox-like doll. The man was nothing but a skeletal corpse, decades old.
He was beginning to feel slightly nervous, but decided to ignore the inch of fear he was feeling once he spotted the corpse had two items in both its hands. In the hand close to him was an old dusty picture, the image nearly completely gone, and in the other hand a scroll with a symbol of a swirl shaped leaf, and the number 9.
Taking a look at the picture in the man's hand, what he saw was a nearly faded image of four people. There was man with silver hair, a headband covering his left eye, and a mask covering his face, who was behind three children, ruffling two of the boy's heads.
On the left of the picture was a boy with black hair shaped like a bird's wing, a permanent scowl on his face, and a look of 'rather be somewhere else than here' in his eyes. Next to that boy was a girl with long pink hair, a girlish smile on her face, her eyes closed from smiling, she seemed happy to be there.
The last boy caught his attention, though. It was the boy from his flashback, Naruto Uzumaki. He had an angry almost growling face, and he was directing that face towards the other young male in the group shot, arms crossed above his chest.
The doll continued to stare at this picture, wondering about its significance to him. Deciding for it to be a mystery for later, he carefully folded the picture into fourths, and then zipped open his chest and placed it inside of it for storage.
He was about to move towards the scroll to examine it, when he heard something behind the large tarp that covered the lab, and went to investigate. He moved towards the tarp, lifting a flap of it to see the other side, but accidently pulling, causing the already rusted rings to drop the curtain completely, piling up right in front of him. He jumped on top of the tarp, and what he saw surprised him, for it was the remnants of an old battle, human corpses long since decayed beyond recognition, scattered, only bones remaining, among the various junk piles.
By the look of the area, they were underground, dim light from above ground illuminating through the cracks. He heard the noise again, and spotted what looked like a miniature caravan of two carts, trekking through the wastes, with a figure at the front. He attempted to call out to the caravan, but then remembered that he couldn't speak.
Deciding to not lose them, he ran to them, moving surprisingly fast for something so small. As he traveled through the debris, he saw the bodies of the dead, becoming more nervous as he traveled to his destination. So distracted by the scenery, he did not see that he was closer to his intended target then he thought, and rammed right into the one leading the caravan of carts.
"Ugh!" cried the one he ran into. "Uh! What hit me?" the person spoke.
The fox-like doll looked up to see what he ran into, and what he saw surprised him. What stood before him was a doll that looked like him, or built like him, but with major differences.
The doll he was staring at had dull blonde hair, combed to stick upwards on the left of his head and come down over his forehead on his right. He had one eye on the left with a stitched area below the eye on the cheek, a purple pupil peering back, and the other eye on his right was dark and devoid of anything color, a crack running through the eye. He was wearing a green cloth on his shoulders and around his waist along with a greenish-blue sash on the waist. He had a strap on his chest area, the opening to his chest, and the number 3glowing in green letters on the left of his stomach. On his back was strapped a dentist pick, with a five pedaled flower tied to the top.
But what really caught the fox-like doll's attention was that on the other doll's back were a spiked grey tortoise shell and a spiky scaled tail swaying behind him.
"Hey! Watch where you're going bud!" the turtle doll angrily stated, getting up from the collision. But the moment he got a good look at what ran into him, his one eye widened. "Wait, hold on sec! I think I have seen you somewhere before."
He began to give the fox-like doll a once over, then noticed the nine on his stomach.
"Ah yes. Now I remember. You were the one all the way at the far end. My name is 3 in case you couldn't figure it out. I am guessing your name is 9. Right?" the now named 3 asked.
"…!" The fox doll tried to talk, but nothing still came out.
"Huh? Oh! I guess your voice component must be damaged. Here, follow me." 3 had then led the fox doll to one of the carts. 3 began to rummage through a bunch of junk that was scattered inside of the cart, until he pulled out an action figure of a samurai. He pressed a button on the old toy, and the action phrase "For Honor" was instantly spoken by said toy.
"That'll do!" he began to fiddle with the toy, taking it apart and tearing out the sound mechanism. He then motioned towards the fox doll, looking at the doll's zipper. "May I?"
The fox doll nodded, unzipping his chest, a red light emanating from inside.
"Ah! Interesting! So you have that one!" 3 stated, full of astonishment. "Ok, now hold still."
He pulled out of the doll an old broken voice box, damaged somehow, most likely overloaded, and then began to place the new voice component inside, fiddling with fixing it. "There we go! It is now plugged in, try it."
"NaH%ar#U!" He tried to speak, but the voice was distorted and full of static.
"Hold on! Let me try to adjust it." 3 stated, continuing to fiddle with wires inside of the fox doll's body.
"NrU#o!" the fox doll kept trying to speak, the voice coming in clearer and clearer with every second. "NrU#o! NarU#o! Naruto!" He stated with smile, coming in clear, a bit of a childishly gruff voice.
"Huh? You want some fish cake?" 3 asked, confused.
"No, that's my name! Naruto Uzumaki!" He answered back.
"Oh! You mean your past life's name. We all choose to call each other by our numbers instead." 3 stated.
"Wait! Past life?" Naruto asked.
"You got that name from a memory that wasn't yours, but someone else's. You on the other hand are an artificial being with the memories of someone implanted. Because of that, I am just going to call you 9." 3 explained.
"I would rather go by the name Naruto Uzumaki!" the now named 9 said in a frustrated tone.
"Well, I am sorry, but I am going to call you 9, and knowing everyone else, they will also call you 9, because it is much easier to remember than Naruto Uzumaki." 3 retorted back.
Before 9 could respond, he heard something with his big fox ears, twitching from the sound.
"Is there someone else here?" 9 asked.
"Not that I can think of." 3 said, slightly nervous, hands slowly reaching for his pick.
3 spotted a wheel on its side nearby. "Go hide in the wheel. Don't come out for anything." 3 murmured. 9 looked at him, wondering what the sound was. "Go! Now!" 3 whispered harshly, pointing towards the wheel.
9 decided to obey, and ducked and covered inside of the rim of the fallen wheel.
3 drew his dentist pick from his back, and then held it at his side, surveying his surroundings. While surveying, he spotted a canteen of water, his eye widening. The canteen was a large 1 liter black plastic jug that was still surprisingly standing upright. With surprisingly great speed, he moved toward the canteen, hoping there was water inside and to get to it in time.
Suddenly, a large cat like beast made from random parts jumped in between 3 and the canteen. The beast was the size of an average house cat, having the skull of one for a head piece, a red glowing optic eye in the left socket.
3 took his dentist pick, and jumped abnormally high in the air above the metallic beast, pick raised above his head in a striking position. Before 3 could bring down the pick, the 'Cat Beast' struck him with one of its metallic claws, sending him rolling on the ground, knocking him out.
The 'Cat Beast' began to stalk closer to 3, getting ready to pounce, when suddenly; a rock pebble hit it in the back of the head, catching its attention. It turned to the source, which was 9 by the tire, picking up another pebble, and taunting the beast.
"Come get me you overgrown pussy!" 9 yelled out.
Whether or not the 'Cat Beast' understood what 9 said or not was irrelevant, it saw another target, and needed to catch it while the other was incapacitated.
While the 'Cat Beast' was going after 9, another 9 came out of a pile of junk nearby, and ran towards 3 to try and awaken him. "Come on, get up. We don't have much time." 9 whispered harshly.
3 began to stir, and stared up at 9, eye widening with a start. "What happened with the beast?"
"It's distracted now, but I don't know how long it will last."
3 stared over to where the tire was, and saw the other 9 still catching the attention of the 'Cat Beast.'
"A Clone Jutsu?" he questioned.
"More like Shadow Clone Jutsu. At least, that's what I think it's called." 9 answered. "We don't have time, we got to move!"
"Wait! I think that thing busted my leg; I won't be able to out run the beast if we tried to run now. Help me get to the water canteen." 3 said sternly.
"What? Why?" 9 questioned.
"Just do it!" 3 yelled.
9 complied with 3's request, grabbing 3 under his arm, 3 using his pick as a cane, and aiding him toward the large water canteen.
The 'Cat Beast' pounced toward the 9 clone, grabbing it in its teeth, attempting to rend and slice it to shreds. It was caught off guard when the clone instead went 'Poof,' smoke covering the area around its mouth. When it noticed that the doll was no longer in its mouth, it roared in frustration, turning its head towards 3 and the real 9, who were slowly approaching the canteen. With great speed, it leapt into the air, covering much ground, closing in on the two dolls.
When 3 and 9 successfully made it to the canteen, 3 began to place his hand over the canteen, waving it back and forth. "Good, it does have water still in it." 3 stated, relieved.
"That's great and all, but how is that going help us in our current situation?" 9 yelled out.
"No time! Help me poke a hole in this thing!" 3 yelled, using his pick to try and jab a hole into the plastic.
9 picked up a screw bolt he found on the ground nearby, and began to try and jab it into the jug, both 3 and 9 failing the attempt.
The 'Cat Beast' was drawing nearer and nearer, until all it needed to be upon them was a great pounce. 9 noticed this, and stopped what he was doing, putting his mechanical hands together in a hand sign. He began to focus, and suddenly, red chakra poured from his body. "Multi-Shadow Clone Jutsu!" he yelled.
Suddenly, a large explosion of smoke filled the area, and when it cleared, it revealed hundreds of clones of 9. 3 looked with amazement, his one eye and mouth widening with awe. "Amazing! How long have you been awake?" 3 asked in awe.
One of the 9's gave him an incredulous look, wondering why he was asking that now. "I just recently woke up. Why?"
"Just recently? And you already remember a Jutsu? It took me and the others weeks to remember most of our Jutsu. You remembered in a matter of minutes. This is incredible." 3 clarified.
The 'Cat Beast' gave off another roar, and began to charge through the masses of 9 clones.
"Attack!" the real 9 yelled, causing all his clones to start charging towards the 'Cat Beast,' grabbing whatever objects they could use as a weapon they could find. They all jumped up on the beast, the sound of metal hitting metal as many tried to jab their makeshift weapons into the beast's metallic hide.
The 'Cat Beast' began to try swiping at many of the 9 clones, flailing and thrashing about to strike all that approached it.
"That should buy us some time!" 3 stated, "Help me open this water container, quickly!" he then continued to try and stab it with his pick. 9 continued stabbing with the screw bolt as well, using all of his strength to apply pressure to each strike, until finally, it poked a small hole, water leaking out in drops.
3 noticed this, and then took his pick and stabbed it into the hole, trying to widen it. He pried it open just enough to allow the water to gush outward. The 'Cat Beast' was knocking the 9 clones away like flies, the number of clones quickly dwindling.
"We're almost out of time!" 9 yelled out.
3 ignored 9, placing his hands together, and began going through a complicated set of hand seals.
"Ushi, Saru, Ju, Ne, I, Tori, Ushi, Uma, Tori, Ne, Tora, Inu, Tora, Mi, Inu, Ushi…" 3 began to say while making the hand seals.
At that moment, another flashback began to go through 9's eyes again, coming in like a static picture on a screen. The image that appeared in his mind was of two men; one was the silver haired man from the picture, the other was a large masked man with an even larger sword on his back, both of the men face each other on top of water. They both suddenly began going through the same hand seals as 3 at the same time, already through a good portion of the required seals.
"Jin Saru, Tori, Tatsu, Tori, Ushi, Uma, Hitsuji, Tora, Mi, Ne, Saru, Ju, I, Tatsu…"
9 then realized that he wasn't just a spectator in this flashback; he was seeing through Naruto's eyes again when he noticed his reflection in the water. The flashback faded out again before anything could happen, and returned to the sight of the 'Cat Beast' finishing off the last of his clones.
"TORI!" 3 yelled out, a grayish colored chakra flowing out of his body through the seams of his fabric and into the water. "Water Style: Water Dragon Jutsu!"
The Water began to rise up, and take the shape of a large serpent like dragon, and began to rush towards the 'Cat Beast,' slamming into it, and pushing it back.
Though the water was strong, the 'Cat Beast' proved to be stronger, pushing through the water, inching closer to its prey.
"It's still coming!" 9 yelled out.
"Tenacious bugger, isn't he? Take this then!" 3 yelled out, beginning to make a new set of hand seals. He then placed his hand against the raging water, the grayish chakra flowing out again. "Ice style: Ice Prison Jutsu!"
Suddenly, the water changed to ice, freezing part of the 'Cat Beast,' and immobilizing it, but small cracks began to form on the ice.
"That won't hold it for long; let's get out of here while we can." 3 stated, grabbing his dentist pick, and leaning on 9's shoulder. They both hobbled quickly towards the carts, 9 setting 3 inside. "How we going to move the carts with my leg busted?" 3 questioned.
"Like this!" 9 then created ten shadow clones, which all began to push or pull the carts, moving it along fairly quicker, steadily gaining speed.
As they began to move much faster than the dolls could run, the original 9 as well as some of the clones jumped inside, the carts gaining enough momentum and speed to move on its own. The 'Cat Beast' suddenly shattered the ice, breaking completely free from the prison, and began to pursue both 3 and 9, already steadily catching up.
"Man! Does this thing ever quit?" 9 stated.
"Not really! We've got to lose it!" 3 said.
"Alright, hold on tight!" 9 yelled, and suddenly the clones began to lean the cart to left, causing it to sharply turn, and then quickly getting out pushing it again.
"What are you doing?" 3 asked.
"Just trust me! I saw something earlier." 9 yelled.
He then began to rummage through the junk in the cart, and found an old expired Soldier Pill, the contents inside oozing out of a crack."Perfect!" he yelled. Taking aim, he threw the pill towards the 'Cat Beast,' striking it straight on its red optic eye, the oozy contents exploding all over the eye, semi-blinding it.
"Yeah! A direct hit!" 9 cheered.
"Now what? That won't slow it down…" 3 said, worried.
"Won't have to. Alright guys, now!" 9 yelled to his clones.
All the clones began to lean to the left again, turning in that direction down a dead end, the 'Cat Beast' passing right by them, running into another dead end pile. The collision caused the huge junk pile to wobble, and finally, the pile began to collapse, its first victim the 'Cat Beast.'
"ALRIGHT! MOVE IT GUYS!" 9 yelled in panic, the junk pile tsunami head their way. The clones began to pull the carts out of the side dead end, and began running away from the wave of random items, moving faster than a bat out of hell, the wave gaining on them.
"Faster. Must go faster! Must go faster!" 3 repeated, nervously watching the pile coming closer.
Giving their all, the clones gave one last push, jumping the carts off a ramp, landing safely on a sand bag, having out run the pile up.
Both 9 and 3 looked up at the pile, staring straight at it. The then both looked at each other, let a breath they had been holding out. 9 then began to celebrate for finally losing the 'Cat Beast.'
"Woo-yeah! That definitely took care of that thing." 9 yelled a big fox-like grin on his face.
"I have to say man that was the dumbest, most dangerous stunt I have ever seen anyone pull. You almost got us both killed." 3 stated, slightly miffed from the experience. "But I got to say; you sure knew how to pull it off with style. Good job, man!" 3 said with admiration and respect in his voice.
"How did you know that was there?" 3 asked.
"I saw it earlier before I met up with you. I remembered the pile looked unsteady, so I thought that maybe we could use it to crush that beast." 9 explained.
"We better get going before anything else shows up. I'll introduce you to the others." 3 said, looking around.
Unbeknownst to the two, in the pile where the "Cat Beast" lie buried, a mechanical claw suddenly came out, reaching for the surface, and then revealing that the beast was still active. Its red glowing optic began to look for the group, searching for them yet failing at locating them.
Somewhere, in an undisclosed location, the "Machine" began to reactivate, watching the data that was sent to it via the "Cat Beast." It analyzed the chakra signature coming from one of the dolls, noting that out of the entire doll's chakra it has sensed so far, this ninth one was the most powerful, and enough power to run the "Machine" for an eternity.
It sent a new directive to the "Cat Beast," whose original directive was to hunt for any chakra signatures, and either beacon the location, or bring the source of the signature to the "Machine." It confirmed, and complied with this command, and continued its search, spotting a chakra residue made from 9's clones, leading it to the source of the signature, leading it to 9.
Well, I hope you all enjoyed that! I worked really hard, and lost a lot of sleep to work on it. I am bit dissapointed with this chapter though, it looked a lot cooler when I imagined it in my head. Sigh. Oh well.
Also, here is a challenge to you, write a 9/Naruto cross over of your own, or for that matter, a 9 crossover in general, and if you do, please PM me... I wouldn't mind seeing it for my self.
Please Review.
Signed,
Mr. Nobody
Life must go on!