Caliburn Initiative Chapter 4

Fourth Step: Meet Caliburn

Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha belongs to Seven Arcs and Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

Happy 2013!

Righto, everyone remember my Christmas present to readers last year? This year, I decided to do something similar. We're updating this, along with True Faith, Caliburn Initiative and The Hunter the moment the clock hits twelve in Australia, which means the guys in America got lucky. That's right, Four chapters in ONE month. Bow before my awesomeness. Bwahaha.

Soundtrack List

May'n – Lion

Mark Petrie – Prophecy Fulfilled

****Caliburn Initiative****

Blue eyes snapped open, and Naruto threw himself out of the bed keeping his back to the wall as he stared around d the empty room wildly. He slapped his left hand to his forehead and wiped away the cold sweat as he tried to calm his heavy breathing, "Just a nightmare... just another nightmare." He mumbled to himself as he gripped his right hand. It was trembling uncontrollably, "Well... there goes my afternoon nap."

Shaking himself, the blonde crossed his fingers into a plus sign, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu."

Exact copies of himself began appearing all over the room, every single one of them looked like death warmed over. He gave a dry half smile, at least he didn't need a mirror, "Everyone start reading."

"What should we read?"

"Just... just read anything that might seem important. I need to keep my mind busy." The blonde sighed as he took a seat on the window sill and began picked up the small wicker basket that contained two needles and a ball of yarn, desperately feeling the need to keep himself busy.

****Caliburn Initiative****

"Naruto?" Lindy knocked on the door to the blonde's room carefully before turning the door knob and peeped in, "Are you awake?"

It wasn't the most bizarre thing she had ever seen or heard, but it certainly came close. Very close.

All around the room, sitting on every inch of free space and bickering heatedly with each other, was an entire army of identical blondes, each of them holding a book of some sort. The only one that stood out was the one knitting on the window sill and watching over proceedings with a hawk like gaze.

"No, no, I'm actually serious, they actually let this guy go around enslaving innocent little creatures by throwing stuff at it, then they torture these little creatures with some sort of tools or by forcing them to fight other little innocent creatures until they turn into massive, bloodthirsty loyal pets that will never disobey his orders."

"This world is pretty screwed up huh?"

"Oh c'mon, that's not the worst, I mean, this poor guy got his balls kicked in just because he wanted to be nice... why are they making such a big deal about him being a stalker? What's wrong with liking plants and wanting to introduce it to others?" one blonde on the other side of the room complained with a bored look.

"More like, why in the world are you reading a women's magazine?" Another blonde retorted from the other side of the room.

"Smartass over there was wondering why 9 year old girls wouldn't leave him alone." A blonde who happened to be walking on the goddamn ceiling piped up, "Hey, that's right. They don't like plants right? Maybe we should grow a plant or something and kiss it."

"Just be glad you don't have to read this one," Yet another identical blonde boy said dryly as he threw a contemptuous look at his creator, "If I see the words 'true love' and 'handsome vampire' or any variation thereof appearing in the same sentence one more time I am going to commit suicide." The Naruto but not Naruto paused and reconsidered, "Better yet, I'll make someone else commit suicide for me. You guys know where we can find some vampires?"

"Weren't they somewhere called Italy? Where'd you even get that toilet paper anyway?"

"I found Lindy reading it. It looked interesting since she obviously liked it so I borrowed it... without her knowing."

"Can we stop reading and blow something up instead? I mean seriously. We've never read so much before, there was a fucking WAR around us and we didn't read, so why are we reading now?"

Offhandedly, Lindy closed her eyes and proceeded to pinch the bridge of her nose in some disbelief as the discussion devolved into an all out brawl, noting the fact that the personalities on display ran the gamut from childish, calm and stoic to psychopathic pyromaniac. Clone magic wasn't exactly rare per se, but usually when clones were created, their personalities were an exact copy of their creators.

It made her wonder if there wasn't something that the psychotherapists had missed in their evaluation of the blonde.

When she opened them again, the only one that remained was the one on the windowsill and the room had miraculously returned to its previously Spartan condition. The blonde boy sent her a lazy wave with sleepy half closed eyes, "Is something wrong, Lindy-san?"

Lindy narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously.

The boy's expression was artfully composed into a mask of absolute innocence.

Despite Naruto Uzumaki's interaction with the rest of the Harlaowns', he had a tendency of being passively offensive towards authority figures, and the Admiral was quite aware that he was significantly softer in his interactions with her in comparison with how he treated all the other officers. At least they were making progress, she supposed, which was probably why Crowbel had stuck him with them. Getting tricked was certainly a far better alternative than getting liberally dosed with knockout solution and then super glued to the ceiling of Headquarter's main hall, like a certain official that annoyed the blonde. No one could prove it was him of course, especially since doing so meant they would have to admit that a ten year old had managed to sneak his way through layers of heavy magical security, but the vicious smile that he wore as everyone watched the officer painfully strip in front of everyone to free himself, just to then fall into a tub full of itching powder that was waiting for him said a whole lot.

"I… never mind. I guess I haven't been getting enough rest."

"Of course," The ten year old answered amiably before he winked at her with a decidedly mischievous smile, "Was there a reason you were looking for me?"

"Yeah. Commander Crowbel sent us a message; apparently your new Device was completed yesterday."

The blonde boy cocked his head in interest, "Does it come in orange?"

Lindy gave him a strange look and an amused smile, "A custom made prototype that might revolutionize the way TSAB functions was finally finished, and the first thing you do is ask if it comes in orange?"

The blonde boy shrugged, "If I'm going to kick ass, I want to look good doing it. Incidentally, when can I try it out? Flat Chest's brakeless ski board aside, flying was actually pretty fun when I didn't have to use my face as a landing pad."

The green haired woman smiled faintly, "Debatable, but I'll ask if they can accommodate your request. As for trying it out, it's still a blank slate; the Research Department wants to run a few more tests and fine tune its specs to make sure its fit for duty. According to the Head Researcher, when they're done with it, its shields and batteries will be powerful enough for you to dive out of the nearest satellite and hit ground in one piece. Once they are satisfied, it'll be sent to the Arthra for final adjustments."

Naruto shrugged again in a careless manner, "I've survived without it thus far. A few days won't hurt," He looked at her expectantly, "Was there anything else you needed me for?"

Lindy braced herself, "Yes, with all its maintenance completed, we're moving our base of operations back to the Arthra."

He continued knitting without missing even a beat, "Will we be abandoning this house then? Pity, I was getting rather… fond of this room."

The green haired lady paused and reconsidered her answer; originally, the plan had been to leave the house, citing an unavoidable family emergency to all their neighbours, but now that the blonde finally seemed to show a sense of belonging and stability, even if just a little, and she was loathe to take it away from him.

Lind Harlaown smiled warmly, "It wouldn't hurt to have a secondary base already established, I'm sure we can arrange something."

The blonde nodded slowly, it was faint, but she could see the gratefulness in his posture; a slight relaxing of the shoulders and jaw muscles, "Do you need any help moving everything?"

"No, we'll be fine. Why don't you take the time to rest a little more?" Lindy paused and stared at him with some embarrassment, "Oh and I expect you to put that book back where you found it when you're done." She said firmly despite the heat suffusing her cheeks.

****Caliburn Initiative****

Perhaps going to Nanoha's house had been a bad idea, Naruto silently admitted to himself as he deftly caught a set of kendo armour along with a wooden blade that Kyouya had thrown at him. The moment he had arrived, he had been given an extremely warm welcome, along with supposedly free cake and tea, only to find out that there really was no such thing as a free lunch.

All the other commissioned officers had already returned to the trans-dimensional warship to get operations back online, leaving the only one, i.e Naruto, who couldn't help their efforts in any way, to stay at home alone until things were done. Chrono had been exceedingly smug when he pointed out that Naruto was as blind as a bat when it came to technology and might as well stay at home rather than bother those that were actually doing work.

Which was why a certain beloved blonde who was lacking any sort of currency and nearly delirious with boredom inevitably wandered himself to the nearest source of entertainment; namely Nanoha. Unfortunately, the aforementioned mage wasn't home and the poor blonde had been forcibly conscripted by her older brother for a practice match with another dojo.

It said something about his luck when he, Kyouya and Miyuki finally arrived at the dojo, and the first person to step forward was a very familiar rose haired woman. Kyouya had gone and shook her hand warmly with a firm grasp, "It's good to finally meet you Instructor Yagami, I've been hearing a lot about you even though you just moved here recently."

Her violet eyes slowly shifted from the blonde who was steadily banging his head on the wall in a corner of the dojo back to the brown haired man, "My thanks for allowing us to have a practice match before the competition, it will be good practice for my students."

As the opposing members started getting ready, she placed her bag down by the blonde who was still pounding his head into the wall at regular intervals.

"I didn't know that you practiced kendo." She noted in an aloof manner before sighing, "I should have listened to Shamal about having a practice match with someone who was coincidentally named Takamachi, I thought she was just worrying needlessly again."

Naruto removed his face from the wall before slowly face palming, "I don't." and jerked his blade in the direction of a bouncing Kyouya who was talking with one of the older practitioners from Signum's dojo, "He wanted to have a match with you so badly that he forced me to help in return for cake. I'm just here to bloat up the numbers." One blue eye observed her from between the gaps of his fingers, "I could say the same for you though. I didn't expect you to be working such a… mundane job."

The unspoken, 'I expected you to be out there hunting cores.' Rang out loud and clear.

"It helps to pay the bills," Signum commented blandly as she started putting on her own gear, "Besides, if we don't keep doing this once in a while, Master might get a little suspicious." Hefting a wooden sword up, she called out to Kyouya, "Takamachi-san, I'm ready." and left the blonde to wonder about her words. From the way she spoke, it seemed to imply that the Master of the Book of Darkness had no idea they were hunting cores.

Naruto sat himself down to watch a good match with narrowed eyes; it was a three on three match with him going last against the youngest member from Signum's dojo. Then again, given his presence, he wasn't entirely surprised to note that the rose haired woman only used the most basic moves in the match… and still managed to overpower Kyouya.

"Yo, good match." Naruto smirked as he joined Kyouya and Miyuki, handing both them a towel and a bottle of water.

The sweating brown haired man grinned widely, albeit a little painfully from the bruises he had accumulated, "Wasn't it? Too bad we both lost though, at least Miyuki won her match eh? Looks like the two of us have a long way to go before we can catch up to her." He ribbed his sister with a good natured grin. Surprisingly enough, the ten year old boy got along with the two of them very well for some reason.

"Mou… the two of you are plenty good. I just got lucky with the draw," She sighed wistfully, "Still, I wish that I got to have a match with Instructor Yagami, the way she fought was so elegant and graceful."

"You do that." Naruto sighed and leaned back onto the wall, covering his eyes lazily, "I'm happy to stay exactly where I am." He had been very relieved to finally get out of the hot and restrictive traditional kendo armour and he would be the first to admit that the way he had fought with the bokutou had been no better than if the piece of wood in his hands was nothing but a clumsy club, resulting in a very fast and embarrassing loss.

Put simply, he could not see himself using an awkward blade anytime soon.

Kyouya slapped his knees and got up with a little trouble, "Yosh, I'm going to train harder."

His sisters sighed in exasperation and slapped him up the head, "Train later. It's already late and time to dinner." Turning to the lightly snoozing blonde, she smiled sweetly, "Naruto-chan, why don't you stay for dinner?"

One blue eye peeped at her before the blonde leapt up and ran a hand through his damp hair, pushing them out of his eyes, "I better not, Lin…Kaa-san doesn't know that I'm out and I don't want to make her worried. I'll just take a quick bath in the showers before I head back." The blonde waved as the two Takamachi's left the dojo in a hurry to cook dinner and was about to enter the showers when someone threw something at him from behind.

Play May'n – Lion

Stepping aside, the blonde easily caught the projectile. He glanced at the bokutou and sighed.

"We didn't get to have a match." His attacker commented, her intentions all too clear.

Naruto half grinned, "I was under the impression that you didn't want to show me your moves."

"I could say the same to you."

"In my case, it's more of an 'I don't HAVE any moves to show' thing." The blonde pointed out as he got into an awkward two handed stance.

Signum looked his stance over critically before whacking his extended knee with her bokutou, "Your centre of gravity is too low. It works for a brawler, but when you're using a sword it's just too inefficient." She whacked his shoulder and forearms, "You're gripping it wrong as well. It's no wonder you were flailing it around like an idiot earlier."

The blonde rolled his eyes before adjusting his stance and gave her a dry look, "You ARE aware that I'm quite happy to stick with using my fists aren't you?"

"I am," She admitted, ignoring his sarcastic tone as she began poking him with her stick, testing his defences, "But there's nothing more dangerous to a person than remaining purposefully ignorant."

Naruto weaved through her thrusts, trusting his body more than the block of wood, "I assure you, you're not the first to say that to me. Fortunately, it works out to my advantage." In that instant, his eyes hardened, and the boy darted in with a thrust, allowing the woman to catch his bokutou and fling it out of his hands. Undeterred, Naruto spun forward, barely evading her blade and snatched his own sword out of the air with his other hand, the momentum of his spin resulting in a full horizontal swipe that should have cut her back in half when he came full circle.

Signum leapt forward, barely feeling the swish of the blade graze the back of her uniform. Spinning around, she grinned at him, "Hoh…. Tricky little child."

Naruto smiled half-heartedly in response and bowed mockingly, "People have this unfortunate tendency to underestimate you when they think you're an idiot that's dressed in bright orange." The two of them began exchanging a rapid flurry of strikes that blurred the air between the two fighters. "Unfortunate for them that is." Naruto commented dryly, "Especially when they suddenly have this rather pressing need to find him and disembowel him but can't see or find even a shred of orange or a loudmouthed blonde anywhere they look..." The blonde dissolved into mist mid strike, causing Signum to instinctively whirl around and block an overhead strike, "It takes skill to notice a ninja that is trying to hide his presence," However, instead of being stopped, the intangible wooden blade simply phased through and another blade hit her side viciously, "But it takes even more skill to pretend not to notice and turn it on him!"

The two of them leapt back from each other, breathing heavily. Naruto could only smile a little painfully as he rubbed his side where a black and blue bruise was already forming from where Signum had hit him mid counter, "Alright, I give. You're good."

Signum half smirked, half winced as she rubbed her own side, feeling a little surprise at the amount of satisfaction that she had gained from competing with a ten year old boy in a straight up match of skill and wits, "That's a given isn't it? I've lived longer than you've eaten rice boy."

"Meh, rice is overrated." the two of them chuckled lightly at the reply.

"How is Testarossa-san by the way?"

"She's recovered properly. Even if her Core wasn't hurt much, someone sticking a hand through her chest probably did." The blonde replied shortly as he parried a strike and followed it up with an upper cut. His stance was half assed and his movements were crude and inefficient, especially once he got used to the flow of battle, but Signum noted that those disadvantages simply became an advantage to him when he applied his great flexibility, reflexes and instincts that enabled him to strike from strange angles, even while backpedalling.

Signum nodded noncommittally but she couldn't help but feel relieved, "Glad to hear it. Have you caught the man that attacked her and Nanoha-san?"

The blonde looked vaguely surprised and back flipped away from her, looking wary when he landed, "You know about the one that attacked Pigtails?"

She gave him a dry look and resettled her stance, "Vita told us about it."

"Ah..." The blonde scratched his whiskered cheek and reversed his blade into a reverse grip like how he would have used a tanto, "Not yet… but my attack definitely left a distinctive mark on the man," Naruto replied, referring to the whorl mark that would have been left by his dual Rasengan, "Based on that, sentinels have been posted at all registered healers, but they seem to be staying low." The blonde's eyes hardened once more and all of Signum's long honed instincts told her to move when the blonde disappeared and the sound of wood whistling through the air reached her ears.

"It was an interesting attack, it the same one that broke through Laevantein's defence wasn't it?" She leapt over the extremely swift wide slash and continued evenly as she whipped her blade at the back of his unprotected head which was avoided when the boy rolled away, "Later that night, when I asked him how that was possible, he gave me a rather surprising answer; when your technique hit our Feuer Orkan, Laevantein counted 198 hits in one second, all focused on one spot." The woman paused, feeling slightly surprised as she realized that they were speaking to each other in an almost polite and conversational manner, "He was understandably displeased; in fact, despite his limited ability for emotions, I get the impression that he wants to fight with you again. I actually feel rather bad that I'm doing this without him."

Naruto smiled briefly; maybe they would even get to try out some of his stronger Rasengan variants, "The one I used on Laevantein was actually one level higher than the ones I used on the masked man but I'm glad to hear that. Then again, I was surprised it did as much damage as it did. I was aiming for capture him rather than hurt."

"On any other person, it would have probably worked, but the spell array that appeared shortly after you beat him was a delayed teleportation spell designed to activate if the target was knocked unconscious. It was what I would have done in a sensitive operation." Signum noted with a grudging respect at the blonde's ability to adapt and improve even if he was handicapped with a sword he was unused to as they clashed blades again, "Word of advice though, from the way you speak, I can only assume that you've gone up against field and barrier type spells; but shields are far harder to break. Something of that level wouldn't have even dented a proper shield."

"Good to know." He narrowed his eyes and grunted as the woman's greater strength began pushing her back, "I'm surprised that you're actually giving me advice rather than attacking me to stop me from reporting you to my superiors."

His poor bokutou began cracking under the stress.

The rose haired woman shrugged carelessly and calmly continued in her smooth and deep tone as the blonde let himself be pushed back and landed in a handstand, one foot shot up at her chin.

Signum leaned back and began hacking away at the upside down boy, "If you were going to, you would have done it after that day and came after us mob handed while Vita and Zafira was hurt. That and the fact that you came alone instead of in a squad and unarmed told me that you weren't associated with them, or at least not willingly."

"Point to you." Naruto conceded with a nod as he back flipped away from Signum, "That being said, I'm not really part of the strategic sessions since I'm nominally a civilian, not to mention I don't really understand a lot of what they're saying, but it sounded to me like filling the Book is a bad thing. You do realize that even if you succeed, you're going to fail aren't you?"

The two of them locked blades again with guttural growls as the conversation headed deeper and deeper into uncomfortable territory, "We will gladly bear her resentment if it means that she will live past this Christmas."

"Even if it means that she gets hunted by the TSAB for the rest of her life for something she had nothing to do with? Will you subject her to something like that?" Naruto inquired with cold eyes as he felt his back come into contact with the hard wood of a wall.

Signum took a deep breath and pushed the blonde away from her, giving her enough space to start landing heavy blow after heavy blow on the boy's flimsy defence. It was true that the way he fought was unorthodox and very unpredictable, a style like that could never hold up under pressure once cornered, as shown by his increasingly desperate attempts to parry her attacks as best as he could, "We, the Wolkenritters, existed as nothing but magical constructs, programs in the Book as part of its Defence structure until recently. My memory of the past is spotty at best, but I do remember that, for as long as we have existed, every single one of our former Masters have always treated us as tools in their greed and lust for the Book of Darkness' immense power; our actions have caused so much bloodshed and sadness to all parties involved that we have resigned ourselves to it. In a way, it was easier for our psyche to simply think ourselves as weapons. She was the first one of our Masters to treat us as independent beings, with kindness and respect." The mature woman's blue eyes stared at him penetratingly, "She has no wish to abuse the Book's power, and ultimately, we bear no grudge against you or your superiors but even if I have to fight my way through the entire TSAB, I will make sure that-"

Naruto's bokutou finally shattered under the relentless assault, causing Signum's words to be interrupted when she was jerked out of her rhythm, lurching forward when the blonde caught the blade with one bare hand and pulled, stabbing the end into the wall beside him and stopping her from moving away, her nose was barely an inch away from his, blazing sky blue peered into cold baby blue.

He grinned, "You will make sure that she lives because she is precious to you." The blonde leaned away with a half smile, "That simple acknowledgement that she gave you is more than enough reason to ensure that you're willing to go to any lengths to help her, even if you know what you're doing is wrong, something that other people don't understand, because to them, acknowledgement is something they receive everyday and take for granted."

Naruto grinned cheekily and the bokutou's edge in his grip suddenly began vibrating violently before shattering explosively without any apparent reason, sending shards of wood all over her dojo, "Sounds like someone I can relate to. Can I meet her? My superiors are certainly interested in her."

"In your dreams." Signum instantly shot back calmly, although she was a little unnerved by how close the ten year old boy in front of her had hit the nail on the head. She glanced at the leftover hilt of the destroyed sword and made another mental reminder about staying away from his hands.

And eyes.

"Siiignum!" a short red haired girl entered the dojo in a whirlwind of energy and ran up to the two of them with a bright smile, "We're done. The doctors say that she's cleared to go home." Following behind her at a more sedate pace was a lady-like blonde woman and a large dog. However, the moment the gentle looking woman caught sight of the dirty and sweating blonde boy, she froze and began to rapidly pale.

Vita, realizing that Signum wasn't alone, narrowed her eyes at the whiskered boy, "Who are you? What are you doing with Signum?" She asked rudely.

Signum smirked again, unable to resist taking another dig at the blonde, "He's just a helpless, lost little child that asked me for help. I'm sure he can find his own way home now that he knows how to defend himself, right?"

Chuckling lightly, Naruto hefted the bag containing his borrowed kendo gear over his shoulder, "Un! Thanks oba-san!"

The two of them discretely glared at each other, eyebrows twitching when the blonde suddenly plastered on a completely unassuming grin, making the strangely shrewd ten year old look like a complete simpleton, probably for Vita's benefit.

He spun around and began walking away, hands clasped behind his head in a carefree manner, "I'll pay you back someday for the training, oba-san."

Signum quirked her lips in amusement at the strange boy, "What's your name boy?" She just realized that all this time, she still didn't know his name.

"Naruto Uzumaki." He waved over his shoulder, "Tell Laevantein we'll play again soon, properly next time."

Vita frowned worriedly, "Who was that? And why does he know about Laevantein?"

Signum briefly glanced at the smaller girl; they hadn't actually told her about the attack, preferring to give her some peace of mind. By now, Vita herself had already brushed it off as a bad dream. No point stirring up a hornet's nest now though she would have to let Vita know that the boy would inevitably be an enemy further down the road, "An… acquaintance… for now."

She squinted at the darkening horizon, "Shamal?"

"Y-Yes?"

"Please put up the strongest barrier you have around our home, they must not find us before we are finished." The boy had dropped a hint in his words that the TSAB would now focus more on finding their Master rather than face the Wolkenritter head on, not that she had been any better. She had let slip far more information than she was happy with in the heat of battle.

"Understood."

****Caliburn Initiative****

Humming to himself, the blonde slowly strolled home after a rather interesting day. Internally, he was wondering how to properly phrase the situation to the rest without alerting them to the fact that he had talked to Signum when he came across a boy dressed all in black standing outside the Harlaown residence in a very suspicious manner.

He knew only one person who dressed all in black like that. Grinning viciously, the blonde tiptoed up behind the boy before smacking his back with a loud yell.

Chrono yelped and nearly jumped into the air, the package that he had been trying to fit under his bulky shirt clattered onto the ground.

Whirling around, the raven haired boy promptly tried to punch a grinning Naruto who side stepped the attack with a casual, "Yo." Then he noticed the brightly coloured box peeking out of the torn brown wrapping. "Hmmm? What's this?" Naruto bent down and picked up the package curiously.

One eyebrow slowly rose as he read the words emblazoned across its front, "Love-Love Plus?"

"Give me that!" A red faced and strangely high pitched Chrono snatched it out of his hands and slid it into his pocket, "I-It's not mine! I borrowed it from Amy!"

"Alright, alright," A confused blonde held up his hands in surrender to calm the agitated officer before leaning forward inquisitively, "What is it?"

Chrono sniffed as disdainfully as he could, "None of your business."

"Aww… C'mon. It looked interesting." The blonde wheedled, "Is it one of those things called a game? I haven't seen one before."

The raven haired boy blinked, "You don't know what that is?"

"If I did, I wouldn't be asking you." Naruto pointed out easily.

"It's a….. uh…. Instruction manual on Japanese culture and relationships." Chrono replied evasively, "I was interested in it since I… uhm…. don't know much about Japanese culture."

"Really?" Blue eyes almost sparkled excitedly, "Can I borrow it? Just reading books get a little boring."

Chrono glanced at the package uneasily before grinning as an idea occurred to him. The raven haired boy smiled slyly, "I have a few others for beginners that I can loan to you. Just don't tell Amy about it. I don't think that she'd be happy if I did. Deal?"

The two widely smiling idiots shook hands.

"Oh yeah, before that, are you free?"

"Why?"

Naruto tilted his head and wrinkled his nose, "Someone told me about shields and fields or something, but I didn't really get it."

Chrono gave the package one last mournful look before nodding, "Sure, meet me in Arthra's simulation room. I just need to hid- uh… put this in my room first."

****Caliburn Initiative****

"Where's Uke?" the blonde asked as he dropped into a chair for dinner after a nice relaxing bath.

Amy stepped into the room carrying a platter filled with steaming dishes with Fate trailing behind her, giving her a helping hand with the rest of the dishes, "Chrono-kun won't be joining us for dinner tonight. He left to meet with his mentors along with Yuuno a few minutes ago, something about the Book of Darkness. Was there something you needed him for?"

Naruto smirked, "Nothing important I guess. Someone told me about different kinds of defensive spells. I wasn't sure what she meant so I figured Sir Uptight would definitely be able to tell me," The blonde scratched the back of his head in some frustration, "When I asked him, rather than show me, the idiot actually began to recite what sounded like a perfect definitions from the text book and the various theories about it." He made a tsk sound, "I nearly died out of boredom."

Plates clattered on the table with surprising strength as the brown haired woman glared at him, "Why are you so hard on him for something like that even after he helped you?"

The blonde shrugged lazily, "I just think that he would do a lot better if he relaxed a little. I mean, some things are easier to learn if you do it, right?"

Her lips thinned severely, her temper finally hitting its boiling point. She could stand a lot of things, but she would accept the blonde belittling her childhood friend, "Lindy and Chrono may be too nice and polite to say anything but I'm not. Not only are you leeching off them but you are also insulting both the memory of Clyde Harlaown and their principles every time you call him that."

When the stone faced blonde failed to reply, Amy only frowned as Fate and Nanoha watched the conversation with increasing apprehension, His father was one of the best officers in the TSAB, Is it so wrong to want to emulate your parents?" She inhaled deeply, "You are free to be as carefree and irresponsible as you like, you have problems fitting in, you're not happy that you have to stay with us. I GET that." Amy emphasized with a poke of her finger, "But the way you're acting towards him is like that of a bully that is jealous of another student in class getting better grades and taking it out on him through violence without knowing how much damage you are really doing."

Slamming her hands down on the table, the older girl breathed deeply again, looking more than a little surprised at herself, "I... I'm sorry, I don't feel hungry anymore."

As Amy stormed out of the room, Naruto rubbed his temples as he, glanced at a squirming Nanoha, "You knew?" It was more of a statement rather than a question.

"I guessed, but it wasn't my place to tell you." She replied timidly.

The blonde smiled and dug into his plate of stew without another word.

****Caliburn Initiative****

Play Mark Petrie – Prophecy Fulfilled

For the second time in the same day, Lindy knocked on the door gently before stepping in with a apologetic smile.

The blonde who was sitting on the bed barely gave her a look from the book that he was reading.

"I heard about what Amy said, Fate-chan was worried about you."

Naruto smirked, "There's nothing to be worried about. Amy wasn't wrong in the least but I have no intention of changing."

"That's certainly relieving." The woman with tea green hair paused before continuing, "Will you walk with me?"

The blonde stared at her momentarily. The book in his hands snapped shut with a clap and the boy shrugged before jumping off the bed.

"First I want to apologize for Amy, she may have had a point but there was no need to put it so harshly. She's just a little too protective of him." Lindy smiled nostalgically as the two of them entered the hall, "It's a little complicated, but I actually do approve of you teasing Chrono. The thing is; there are all kinds of people in the world. Those that are serious, and those that take things as they come are just two of many shades. Everyone has their own perspectives, values and opinions. That's what makes people so interesting... and so worth saving. Chrono is so much like his father that I don't know whether it's a good or bad thi-."

A faint voice echoed along the empty corridor, "Moeee!"

The two of them froze mid step and Lindy smiled stiffly at the door of Chrono's room.

She face palmed and sighed, "Far…. Far too much like his father…."

Naruto blinked and cocked his head in a look of innocent confusion, "What's moe?"

"Uh…. you can ask Chrono tomorrow," Lindy evaded the question with shifty eyes, "At any rate, from a young age, he has been training and working so hard that he hasn't really had time for friends or fun; sometimes I wonder if I should have stopped him from joining the TSAB until he was older. I heard that you were of a similar opinion when it came to Fate-chan and Nanoha-chan?"

The blonde behind her shrugged as the two of them entered the Arthra's main hull, Lindy's heels making a steady clacking in the almost empty ship, "Not exactly. Where I come from; those that chose to can join the Ninja Academy from the age of six. Defending our home was a great honour and age or gender was certainly no restriction. I simply didn't like to see them hurt, its a personal thing."

"True." She looked at him approvingly, "It seems your home world's culture shares a few similarities with that of ours. Because of magic, our people are far hardier, stronger and mature faster than those on Earth, but from an emotional point of view, we are of the same mould so we try to bar those under a certain level of maturity from taking the more depressing and severe missions, circumstances notwithstanding. In that sense, you have done much to help my son interact with people of his age, I've never seen him make that kind of face when his arguing with you. It was very refreshing."

The blonde grinned, "Or at least prepare him to deal with stubborn and idiotic people."

"That too, of course I wouldn't exactly mind if you decided to be a little more polite in your efforts to provoke a reaction from him."

Naruto sighed, "Technically, whenever I called him Uke, it was never an insult; I don't understand why everyone thinks it is."

The raised eyebrow from his guardian caused him to elaborate, "I call him that because he reminds me of an old…. friend. The two of them are so similar it's not funny. Uke is actually an abbreviated form of his name…before he went nuts anyway." Naruto muttered that last part under his breath so that Lindy couldn't hear. To the blonde, Uke was a completely different person from the revenge driven madman he turned out to be later in his life, though he himself had not reached this conclusion until it was too late.

Lindy chuckled at the blonde's words, "Maybe you should talk to Amy and tell her that. The word has a different connotation in our society." The two of them came to a stop in front of a pair of large steel doors, "You go in here, just wait while I prepare a few things." She instructed quietly.

The blonde stood there tapping his foot on the smooth metallic floor for a few minutes when the large doors suddenly separated with a loud hiss and retracted into the walls.

Squinting into the darkness, Naruto carefully stepped into the abyss.

A large spotlight suddenly activated with a loud mechanical clack, shining its yellowish white light down on a single pedestal in the middle of the mostly empty room.

On the pedestal sat a pair of glinting black bracelets with orange highlights running along the black metal bands.

The caring woman's voice gently floated into his mind through a telepathic connection.

'Naruto-san, meet Caliburn.'

****Caliburn Initiative****

Author's Note

Kishi: Can someone help summarize and clarify exactly how the TSAB and Mid Childa Army seems to work together, and the overall structure? Cause, to me, it looks as if the TSAB is Mid Childa's planetary equivalent of the JSDF and there's some sort of friction between the Land forces and the Space forces. Throw in the Enforcers/Inspectors/Investigators which look like Senior NCO's to me and it get's a little confusing. Kur0, being the flighty idiot she is, can't be bothered with the small details and is being no help whatsoever.

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