The distant sound, the one that had been slowly gaining strength over the sound of Shou's powerful engine, was close now. The air was thinner here, but the years of working in the dank smoggy depths had allowed him to get use to harder to breath conditions. It still was more laborious than normal for the young boy sitting behind the premier fighter pilot. Kakashi's very smooth almost lax expression from what little he could see was both impressive and grating to the boy as he caught his first glimpse of the enemy squadrons.
On the horizon, the thunderous roar of engines combined with the massed of close formation squadrons caused the sky to darken in a mechanical storm cloud. So stunned by the coming death, Naruto broke his silence with a awed gasp. Kakashi's bored look quickly changed to surprise, as little as could be seen from behind his coverings as he realized he wasn't alone.
"NARUTO?" He exclaimed turning back to see the panting figure behind him.
"Sorry... Taichou... I was working on Shou... I didn't mean to get in your... way... sorry." Kakashi turned back to the enemy a moment later as he passed back a spare oxygen mask to the boy.
"It's alright Naruto. We'll talk about this after the battle." Kakashi clicked a button on his console, bringing up a microphone. "Flight Control this is ANBU lead." He waited until the radioman responded to him. "Flight Control, I have Uzumaki on board. He was caught working on my plane when the alert sounded." There was a garbled response for a moment as the flight control and command crew of the Konoha struggled to understand
This was the third rewrite of this chapter, I had so much more written but I kept having hard drove failures. A shame I liked where it was going.
Naruto just went too far for me to enjoy anymore and RL has left me with no interest in trying to keep writing in this fandom. Therefore, this fiction is as finished by me as it every will be, and any one may continue should they wish. PM's are always welcome if you would like to know where I was heading with the story. Adoption papers are a go.
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