A/N: I decided to replace the Devil May Cry elements from this. Don't get me wrong, great series, but it just seemed...out of place. And, keeping with the Disney/Pixar-theme pain17ification set for the worlds Naruto and Aqua go to, this fits.
"Speech"
'Thoughts'
"Kurama Talking/Techniques"
(Translations and A.N. Numbers)
[Scene Shift]
Chapter 2: Rough Playtime, part 1
"Gotta admit, this is pretty cool! So can anyone make these just by tossing their keyblade?" Naruto asked as the pair zoomed along the lanes between worlds.
"Nope. It's a secret of the Keyblades you have to learn to unlock. Although each Keyblade Glider is similar in the manner that they are formed, by throwing the Keyblade into the sky, where it transforms into its vehicle form, the gliders have drastically different forms. Terra's Keyblade Glider resembles a bike or speeder, Ventus's vehicle is shaped like a winged waveboard, and mine transforms into a two-part bow-and-platform device. The Keyblade wielders can also use their glider to attack. Another thing is, no matter the key chain attached to the keyblade when the glider is formed, the glider is always formed from the wielder's original keyblade." Aqua explained.
Naruto looked over the black and orange hover bike big enough to seat two, with nine thrusters in the back, and the fox-head hood.
"So...no matter what, Kuruma will always turn into this very sweet ride?" Naruto asked.
The bluenette nodded.
"So...what can you tell me about yourself?" Aqua asked. Then frowned as she felt the male suddenly tense.
"Why are you asking something like that?" Naruto wondered.
Aqua shrugged, "Got time until we reach a world...figured we might as well get to know one another since we'll be watching one another's backs."
Naruto sighed. He LOATHED facts like that. "You sure you want to know? I'll tell you, but if I do there's one thing you need to know about me first: I don't need or want your pity. It won't do me a damn thing. That's not to say I don't appreciate it, but I've found that you can either piss and moan feeling sorry for yourself OR you can get up and actually do things to improve the situation. That's why I don't accept pity. Besides...having to spend so long in the dark makes it so I can truly appreciate the necessity and beauty of the light."
Aqua outright scowled. She didn't have to have been deemed a keyblade master of the light to know what a warning like THAT meant.
"...Not comfortable with sharing your past." Aqua said. It wasn't a question.
Naruto sighed and slumped in his seat. "Nope. Not to say you couldn't prove you mean it, but...I don't give that out easy."
The woman nodded, a person's past was a touchy thing and not to be given out lightly. "So...how'd your world get...you know...?" Aqua asked, hesitating.
The blond grunted. "The Uchiha. Bunch of psychotic emos...well...Itachi was the lone exception to that, least as far as I'm aware...consider free will a myth, laws to be just empty words, and were nothing but the kind of people who didn't care about anything but their own ambitions, people who let nothing, not even morals stand in their way...I mean, seriously? Take Sasuke for example. He throws his future away, locked himself in the past, and REFUSED think beyond killing what he hated. Last time we saw one another, he even told me, "I'm fighting you out of HATE, pure and simple. I hate you, I hate that your stronger than me, I hate that you , but most of all, I absolutely HATE that you can somehow find happiness and acceptance when all I've ever found is more reasons to hate!". Moron. He was trapped in the past with only his body being all that existed about him in the present, and was why couldn't find happiness. But, kami-sama forbid he be able to forget the past and move forward with his life already. Besides, its not like there was anything left for him to hate. Guy only had his hatred left to live for and nothing to direct it at, it made him insane." Naruto noted with a shake of his head.
"Ugh...don't take this the wrong way Naruto, but these Uchiha people sound like the source of all the Darkness that plagued your world." Aqua told her male counterpart in disgust. From everything she'd ever been taught by Master Eraqus and how they were described, these "Uchiha" people sounded just like the type that the Darkness couldn't help but notice.
"Hump...she has no idea how right she actually is about that." Kurama muttered darkly, thinking of Indra Ōtsutsuki, the forefather and progenitor of the Uchiha clan...twisted, power-mongering little bastard! Indra was so rotten his existence was an insult to his father, the Old Man Six Paths, Hagoromo, as well as Indra's younger brother, Asura, who was everything Indra wasn't.
Where Asura had humility, Indra had arrogance.
Where Asura had compassion, Indra had hatred.
Where Asura had passiveness, Indra had ruthlessness.
And while Asura was born with no talent and thus could not accomplish much on his own, he valued depending on and cooperating with others. With the help of his countless friends and allies, and through sheer hard work and determination, he awakened his own power. As he never lost sight of his principles and the love he had for others, he believed love to be the key to achieving just about anything.
Indra, on the other hand...while it could be argued that his being a prodigy was a good thing seeing as he demonstrated an aptitude towards anything else he applied his mind to, it was due to his prowess that he led a solitary life as he felt no need to depend on others. As he did everything with his own power alone, he believed power and force could achieve anything, even peace, as well as a religiously fanatical adherence in the concept of Social Darwinism, where those deemed "weak" only exist for the benefit of the strong, and (big surprise) as he viewed himself as the "strongest", Indra felt he was allowed to do whatever he wanted with utter immunity. And the Uchiha adopted that mindset down through the ages.
"No fooling there, Aqua-chan, they were so crazy that the clan had to be very nearly wiped out about ten or so years back, leaving only three members left at the time. Sasuke was told his brother killed the clan, he became an avenger and eventually killed him, only to learn that it was someone else who was the cause of his family's death and went to kill him next, but that wasn't enough—he wanted to kill EVERYBODY around him because they were alive. He was that obsessed until the Darkness munched him."
Aqua rolled her eyes. "He thought he was some kind of an Avenger? More like a fool. I admit it would be a tragedy he'd have the right to be furious over, but all he did was become as bad as the one who destroyed his family." the blue-haired swordswoman stated and Naruto nods his head before cracking his neck.
"No kidding...He had a total disregard for non-Uchiha life in general; all he cared about was getting more power." Naruto sighed.
No sooner had he said that, then a too-thick, cold chilling feeling suddenly washed over the two key bearers like something was sapping all warmth from them.
Naruto tensed up and whipped his head around and saw a large winged creature with a pure black body, save for the eyes and fangs which were a bright yellow. It had a hawk's body, but the neck and head were that of a serpent.
"Trouble incoming!" he shouted.
Aqua instantly summoned her her Keyblade, Stormfall, "What kind?" she demanded.
"Sasuke Uchiha...or at least his Heartless." Naruto said as the two wheeled around to face the creature, but as they did, Aqua's eyes widened as the creature of darkness was surrounded by what felt like an unholy purple energy that slowly started to form into something around it.
'What… what is this abominable energy?' The young woman wondered until a ghastly-looking, dark purple monster samuri warrior of some kind appeared around the Heartless and roared lowly.
It had a helmet that featured a long beak-like nose, two spikes over each eye, a slit stretching across its mouth, three gaps on each of its cheeks and one additional gap on its chin, demonic horns, a malevolent grin, and two sets of arms with six fingers on each of its hands, as well as possessing a pair of wings for flight. It was clad with robes and ornate-looking armor. It was armed with a pair of katana, but its primary weapon, though, seemed to be a bow, manifested on the wrist of its left arm; and from the look of the design, it could also double as a shield if needed.
Before any of them could do anything, Sasuke's Heartless had the giant form an arrow and fired, but in that same instant, Kurama's Glider form glowed gold, but what that was For was lost as an arrow that took a highly genetically modified shinobi utilizing Sage Mode to be able to avoid was launched at the key bearers and they went tumbling through the lane between and towards another world as their visions went black.
[?]
"Kurama!"
That was the first thing Naruto shouted as soon as he awoke, gripping his keyblade, which had reverted back to it's default form. Picking up the blade and feeling a slight buzzing in his head through his connection to the kitsune, Naruto sighed, relieved. His friend was just unconscious. He then looked around and a few feet away from him, Aqua laid crumpled on the ground.
Naruto scrambled over and placed his hands on Aqua's throat and almost passed out again, from relief this time. Her pulse was strong.
Keeping his hands against Aqua's carotid artery, Naruto sent a few Cure spells directly into her circulatory system.
She responded almost immediately, her eyes fluttering open and she groaned. "Wu...whuu..what...was that thing?" Aqua asked as Naruto carefully dragged her over to a nearby wall and propped her up against it. Then collapsed against the wall next to her. Sure he healed faster than a normal person, but that didn't mean he was immune to feeling exhausted when his body felt thrashed.
"One of Sasuke's stupidly overpowered moves— he had techniques with Shinto deity names...his family thought their eyes gave them the right to command gods. That damned battle avatar his Heartless just used was called the Susano'o...looked different than the last time I saw it, though, more developed...it takes on the form of a tengu. Sort of a bird/humanoid demon spirit often conceived of as the ghosts of the arrogant, and as a result the creatures have become strongly associated with vanity and pride. So much so that the expression "tengu ni naru", which literally means, "becoming a tengu", is still used to describe a conceited person." Naruto groaned. "Seeing as Sasuke's development was more often then not marked by intense feelings of hatred, the saying fits."
"...Why dose none of that not surprise me...? Oooowww..." Aqua groaned as she tried sitting up and rubbing her head and instantly regretted the attempted actions. "And I see that Heartless decided to take that 'Sasuke's-development-was-more-often-then-not-marked-by-intense-feelings-of-hatred' bit and rolled with it." Aqua turned her head, wincing at how she felt. "Where are we, how'd we get here, and why didn't that Heartless kill us?"
Naruto looked down as his weapon-shaped friend. "Kuruma," Naruto said miserably. "He took the fire for us, did something to fool Sasuke's Heartless that we hadn't survived the blast—we wouldn't have woken up if that Heartless hadn't thought it'd finished us off—and got us here while we were unconscious."
Aqua looked alarmed. "You mean he's...?" while she hardly knew the fox, what he'd done had just earned her trusting the nine-tailed creature, and she couldn't bear to loose another comrade to the Darkness. Besides, Kuruma was the core of Naruto's keyblade, if he died...
Naruto shook his head, "He's out of it, but not dead. Still...until he wakes up, might need to get comfortable, wherever we are." he said, dismissing his armor's helmet, but keeping the rest engaged.
Aqua felt relived, even as she copied Naruto's action of keeping her armor, minus the helmet. "He's gonna be ok?" she asked, then smiled, "That's great!"
Naruto nodded, leaning back and looked up, "Yeah...huh?!"
"What's wrong?"Aqua asked.
"Uhh...Aqua-chan? Am I crazy or is this...? I'm wrong, I'd love to be wrong...I'm just seeing things from hitting my head, right?" the blond said, "I can swear those are giant leaves..."
Aqua took a deep breath, she was more used to this than he was...different worlds sometimes required visitors to blend in. But this?
"Ok...two questions: numero uno...where the heck are we? And secondly...why are we smaller?" Naruto had been through some strange things, but this was new, however, to his credit, he was trying to keep it together.
"Naruto! Naruto! Relax, things like this are normal when you're dealing with Keyblades." Aqua said, trying to sound soothing.
At the reassurances of his mentor in being a keyblade-user, the Uzumaki took a deep breath and seemed to relax, "You're right. I'm sorry, I am just a little freaked, that's all. I can get through this."
Aqua frowned thoughtfully, "There's a reason for this...gotta be something specific about this world..."
After resting a bit longer so that it didn't hurt to move, and a few more Cure spells passing between them once they felt that well, both Naruto and Aqua were feeling good enough to move and pushed their way out of the hedge they'd been in and found themselves on a sidewalk.
"Uh...Aqua-chan? I know I'm new to this whole keyblade thing, but if we'retrying to find out about this world we're in...maybe we could ask them about that?" Naruto said, pointing.
The more seasoned keyblade wielder look to where he indicated and saw a group of five toys, but what was shocking was that they were moving and talking under their own power as if they were alive.
The one that was apparently the leader was a slightly obese spaceman action figure. On his head, he had fair skin, blue eyes, an outline of a swirl on his chin, a purple headcap and collar, a clear plastic space helmet with purple buttons on the sides that open or close it. His green torso consisted of a light blue sticker that had the words "SPACE RANGER" and a symbol of a ringed planet with a pair of wings, purple straps connected to it, three oval talk buttons - one blue, one green, and one red, a yellow sticker that said "LIGHTYEAR" above a red button. On his back, he had a white jetpack with a purple value and green triangular accents and two black and yellow stickers - one said, "DANGER", and the other said "JET EXHAUST". His white arms had grey circular elbows and matching spheres on the end of his upper arms with black rings on them. His hands had purple lines on his knuckles and fingertips and green squares on the back of each. His right arm had a red button on his upper arm with a yellow and black striped sticker that read "LASER" and a red light on his right wrist. His left arm had a blue, shield-like sicker that resembled an officer's badge with a rocket in the middle of it on his upper arm and a place where a wrist communicator nitch in his arm, though the lid of the wrist communicator was shut. A black bending with a thin green waist. His white spaceman pants had matching collars at the bottom and grey spheres behind his knees and held his white shoes with green toe accents and purple soles.
Next was a plastic potato with black eyes, pink ears, white arms with gloves, a pairs of blue shoes, a red mouth, an orange nose, black eyebrows, a black mustache, and a black bowler hat.
Then there was a pink, plastic piggy bank with a cork in it's belly, black hooves, a coin slot in it's back, and black dots for eyes.
After that came a green lizard with beady eyes, small arms, and large hind legs, and a big mouth full of pointed white teeth, it was mostly green with a white underbelly that extended to the bottom of it's tail.
And finally, a toy dachshund with a plastic front and hindquarters, with a very stretchable metal slinky as his middle, vinyl ears and a green collar.
However, as Naruto was about to go over to them, Aqua grabbed hold of his shoulders and spun him around to look her in the face.
"Naruto! Are you nuts?! Us keyblade users can't get involved in the affairs of other worlds! It's a rule that was made to keep the wicked from each different world from encountering one another and making sure the keyblades' powers weren't abused!" she hissed in an urgent whisper.
"Uh...aren't we, as keyblade users, technically breaking that rule anyways by simply coming to other worlds?" Naruto asked. "Besides, how can we keyblade users actually do our job if we have to stay uninvolved? It's not that I don't understand why that rule's there, butI don't know about you, Aqua-chan, but making it so that the Darkness can't swallow up an entire world and everyone and everything in it seems like being "involved" in that world's affairs if you ask me."
Aqua opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. She'd never thought of that...looking at Naruto, she had to wonder just what Master Eraqus would've thought of her current ally.
She shook her head, both amused and depressed by the idea. Amused because of her late master's reaction to Naruto and his sheer bluntness about things like that, and depressed because her master was dead and she missed him.
"Well...alright, just don't let them know we're from another world is all." she said and the Uzumaki grinned at her.
"Got it, Aqua-chan!" he saluted, then turned to the group of living toys and marched over.
Aqua shook her head, smiling haplessly at Naruto's antics before following him.
"Hell~llo~!" Naruto called out cheerfully, catching the group's attention. The plastic individuals turned to see a pair in armor, one was a girl, the other a guy.
The girl had bright blue eyes and short, blue hair that reached her shoulders and framed her heart shaped face. The girl's armor was mostly colored in shades of silver, black, grey, and blue, and included a silver breastplate resembling an upside-down crescent moon. She also wore a cape that was a dusty-rose color.
The male had nicely tanned skin, marks on his cheeks that resembled three whisker marks on each cheek, eyes as blue as the girl's, and bright yellow hair that was spiky and stuck up in all directions like the spines of a sea urchin. The male's armor was mainly gold, black, and orange in coloration. His, chest plate, and shin guards were gold in color while his arms and legs were covered in black and his cape was rust orange.
They were both holding some kind of a weapon...or at least what sure looked like ones. Some kind of weird swords.
The guy's had a handle that was a dark red, almost like blood, and had a guard that surrounded his hand. The guard was a bright orange and had a silver chain on the bottom of it that had a keychain at the end. The keychain was in the design of a red swirl with a black outline on it. From the top of the handle, a black blade stretched for about three feet and a black fox head protruded from the side at the top of the blade. The fox head's eyes had red sclera, a bright orange iris, and a black slit pupil.
The girl's was different than his, the guard was circular and somewhat jagged around its edges while the upper half of the guard was black, the center was grey, and the bottom of it was white. The handle was a featureless, grey rod and the shaft was thin and navy blue in coloration; except for the tip, which was silver. The base of the shaft also sported two diamond-shaped bumps and the teeth were comprised by a rectangular frame lined with four short, blunt spikes. This frame and the spikes were all navy blue. The teeth also had three silver pieces bent at right angles; two on the inside corners of the frame and one on the inside center of one side. The key chain links and token resembled water drops in the rain.
"Who're they?" the potato asked.
"Must be some kind of action figures." the piggy bank said.
The spaceman walked up to the pair, noting they were as tall as he was with his dome retracted.
"Greetings." the toy said, "may we ask who you are and why your here without your owner?"
"Sorry...nasty blows to the head and we woke up in a hedge just now." Aqua said.
"Great...a pair of amnesiacs! " the potato said, causing the two to tighten their grips on their blades slightly.
The spaceman shot the spud a look of disapproval at that, "At ease, fellas. It's not easy when you first realize, or in these twos' case, relearn the rules when you're a toy." the spaceman said, recalling his own nasty shock of reality that proved he was a child's plaything...
[flashback]
He stared up at the yellowing popcorn ceiling of Sid's house, laying discarded at the bottom of the wooden staircase. His arm... His arm... laid beside him. He looked at it in disbelief.
Is this all that I am? He wondered. He felt like crying, but didn't think he would have any tears. Am I just plastic and batteries? Made for children to throw and abuse to their delight? Why?! He turned his head back to the ceiling. I thought... I thought I was more. I was Buzz Lightyear. Was that just an illusion? Some fluke in my wiring? Or do all toys start out believing they are... real? Buzz didn't know. There were too many questions, and no one is there to answer them.
Suddenly Hannah came down the hall, hollering out to her mother in her search for her Sally doll. But she stepped on Buzz's wing, and was distracted by his shiny plastic and pulsating lights.
Her mother's voice came and asked what her daughter had been asking a moment later.
"Never mind!" She called to her mother, picking the fallen Ranger toy and his arm off of the floor. She smiled at Buzz and he smiled back, for he has no other choice...
[end flashback]
The space toy shivered...he hated that memory!
"So anyways...this is Aqua, I'm Naruto. Who are you all?" Naruto asked, bringing him out of his thoughts, something for which he was grateful.
"Right, right...I'm Buzz, that's Mr. Potato Head, this is Hamm, that's Rex, and Slink." Buzz said, pointing to himself and the rest of his group as he introduced them.
"So...if I can ask...what are you all doing out here?" Naruto asked.
Buzz's face hardened. "Rescue mission...a friend of ours was kidnapped and we're going to bring him home."
At that, Naruto and Aqua shared a look, then turned to the plastic astronaut. "Well...want any more help?" the last Konoha shinobi said.
Buzz looked shocked, "Wha...but...ok, don't take this the wrong way, because the offer's appreciated, but, why would you ask that? You don't even know Woody!"
"Know he's your friend and he's in trouble, that's all we need." Aqua said.
Buzz looked at the pair in the eyes, then smirked and shook his head. These two really were action figures...or more accurately, figures of action! Their resolve was almost a tangible thing, and he could tell just by looking that they wouldn't accept it if they were told "no". Weather they were just going through the same phase he had when he thought he was an actual Space Ranger or not, it didn't matter to them, they had decided.
And from his "Space Ranger" days, Buzz understood and respected where these two were coming from: How much or how well did you actually have to know someone to help them when they needed it beyond the facts that they needed help and you could give it to them?
He held out his hands and the pair shook them.
"Welcome aboard." the toy grinned.