A/V: Like I said before, the pace is picking up, in all aspects of the story. Also, the reasoning behind an 'M' rating start to appear. I hope you guys enjoy!
*coughwaymoreHinatafromnowoncough*
Ahem.
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MYK-ON: I'm always glad you like my interludes! :3
Cover image: u/BendyWend
Disclaimer: Naruto stuff = not mine, the Rest = mine.
Chapter 5: I Found Brains on My Boots Two Days Later
The station rang with the sound of preparations. Cartridges slid into magazines, magazines rammed home into rifles. Mesh shirts slid on, hissing over skin and muscle, armor clacking and rustling as it was thrown on. Tape rolls were unfurled, strapping on extra ammo and explosives. I strapped my helmet on, fixing it squarely beneath my chin. As soon as it was on, text scrolled and flickered across my visor.
My HUD booted up, giving me readouts on my squad. Comms, health status, and the small minimap in the bottom right corner. It was clustered with blue dots over a small building that read Station 135. Alright, it was good to go. The HUD/data slate system implemented in our squad was enormously useful. Nicknamed Tac-Net, I could see what any other squad member was seeing (via their helmet cams), I could locate them anywhere, give them orders, as well as directions, updates, etc., all via my data slate.
I went above ground, checking on the progress Shikamaru and Sakura were making with the Landsknecht.
"I wish we didn't have to blow it up," Shikamaru moaned from underneath the car, "it's gonna be a pain walking everywhere."
"Just imagine the look on their faces when it goes sky-high." Sakura said, barely straining to lift the car. No longer bound inside a helmet, her pink hair was held back by her hitae-ate, leaving her (admittedly large) forehead free.
"We good to go?" I asked.
"Yup." Sakura said. "Took the turret off, figured it might come in handy later."
"Good thinking." I looked at her equipment. Most of her satchel charges were missing. "How many are in there?"
"Eight." She said with a sly grin. Damn. That, combined with the fuel tank, and we were looking at one big-ass boom.
"Nine, now." Shikamaru said, crawling out from underneath the car. He sighed and lit a cigarette.
"Save some for the jammer, huh?" I looked at the sun. Sinking below the mining spires, it was a hazy red globe, barely shining through the city's smog. Time to begin. I yelled down the stairs.
"Kosenjobi, reeeeeport!" A bit of squabbling, and then they tromped up the stairs, single file and in perfect step. It was like a light switch with these guys. Joking and playing one minute, born, organized soldiers the next.
"Kosenjobi reporting for duty!" They answered in unison. They weren't much for rank and posture, but they sure liked showing off when they could.
Looking everyone over, they were jumping and fidgeting in place, keyed up and ready to go. This is what we're here for, this what we were born to do.
"Ooh-rah!" I cried. They responded in kind.
It was slow going, but after a good two hours of trekking through burned out pre-fabs and rubble strewn streets, we diverged. Neji pointed out the way, putting those fancy eyes of his to work. With the Hyuuga cousins' byakugan, it was easy to avoid patrols and encampments, allowing us to pass unseen through enemy territory.
"This is where we split." I said, throwing a fist up and halting the column. "You guys know where to go. Keep in touch." I tapped my helmet.
Chouji was driving the Landsknecht, sweating profusely. No wonder, considering the metric fuckton of explosives he was squatting on. He gave me a weak smile and a two fingered salute.
Hinata and I entered the apartment building. My stomach hurt a bit, which meant that I needed to take a rest soon, otherwise I'd rip my wound open. The hallways were littered with trash, every single compartment in the lobby torn open and bereft of contents. Graffiti covered the walls, thick enough to obscure the original wallpaper completely.
We climbed the stairs, taking care to barricade the way with whatever we could find. Besides a few doors that were bolted shut, the building seemed empty. Finding an open door on the top floor, we holed up inside. With a small window facing the jamming station, it was perfect.
Falling onto a filthy, worn sofa, I tried to rest. I took off my armor and fatigues, checking on my stomach wound. Nothing. Hiking down my pants, I checked on my thigh. No blood on the bandages. Whew. If I strained myself, no doubt Sakura-chan would-
Why was Hinata staring at me? Her mouth opened and closed, working silently. Her milky, pale eyes wide in a wondrous hunger. I looked down and realized I was pretty much half-naked. Giving another 'eep!' she scurried away, throwing broken furniture against the door, in case anyone came knocking.
What was her deal? Why couldn't she stand me without my clothes on? We had practically lived together for eight years! Did my wound disgust her that much? And hell, why did I care?
Deciding to ignore her little outburst, I watched her shuffle about the room as she tried to avoid my gaze, setting up a resting place for her rifle well away from the window (to rest it on the sill or stick it out was idiocy of the highest order). Every move she made was so graceful and precise, no unnecessary energy expended. And this was just throwing a sniper's nest together!
Noticing I was watching her she smiled and looked away. I couldn't see for sure, but I was damn sure she was all red in the face.
Strapping my armor back on, I took out a pair of binoculars. Sure, Hinata could see the station no problem, but those of us without godly eyes had to make do.
Aw, shit. There were four tanks in the station now, as well two more trucks full of troops.
"Kosenjobi, be advised," I said over comms, "we got two extra Hoplites and almost a full platoon of troops, over." Examining the emblem on their truck, I cursed, opening comms again. "They're the 111th Mobilized. Rakshasa."
"Aww, fuck." Kiba cursed into my headset.
"What the hell are those butchers doing here?" Ino asked.
"I don't know and I don't care. I was getting tired of killing conscripts anyway." Sasuke said coldly. As per usual.
"Alright, we got a few more obstacles, but this is still doable!" I said, trying to keep everyone steady. I knew they weren't intimidated exactly, just a little thrown by some unforeseen complications.
"How goes the approach?"
"I'm out of the car." Chouji said, audibly relieved.
"Surprised you fit." Mumbled Tenten.
"Whaaaaaaat?!"
"Now you've done it." Shikamaru grumbled.
"Tenten, I'm gonna end you!" He roared.
"Save it for the rebels, Chouji." I said, laughing despite the imminent danger. This is what I missed during those first few hours in Erebus. It was nice hearing my squad's bickering, inevitable and unchanging as the tide.
"Hey Tenten."
"What's up, Gunso?"
"Can you tag the Hoplite in the front? Kiba's gonna need to take at least one of these out before you can make it in."
"Right-o Gunso!" She chirped. Tenten was the squad's weapon specialist, and carried a variety of handy tools and unique weapons that aided the squad as a whole. One of which was a targeting label that was linked to all rocketry systems in the squad. To make lots of complicated electronics simple, it was a guidance tag that, when fired, gave an unerring targeting signal to the smart rockets we used. No matter how many flares the target spat out, no matter how much smoke, that rocket was hitting home.
"Eight, Sakura, how are you guys doing?"
"In position." Shino said.
"Alright. Let's go guys. Good hunting."
"Hai!" They replied. I looked back at Hinata. She looked worried, but gave me a small smile.
"Engaging auto-pilot." Shikamaru said.
"Hinata, can you give me updates? The night vision on these things is terrible."
"Of course, Naruto-kun." She had settled behind a desk, where her rifle was resting, primed and ready. "The car is approaching... it's through!"
"Bombs away." Shikamaru drawled.
I didn't need her to tell me when the Landsknecht blew up. Fire shot into the sky, the resulting noise reaching us without difficulty. Tenten clicked her comms on, the sound of small-arms fire constant and sharp in the background.
"Tag placed! They're all yours, Kiba-kun!"
"Copy that! Signal... locked on!" He replied, undoubtedly grinning his sharp-toothed grin. "Rocket away!" He said, accompanied by a thwunk-fwoooosh.
I heard Hinata exhale behind me, the breath easing out of her in a hushed whisper. She squeezed the trigger, her rifle kicking against her shoulder and engulfing the apartment in noise.
Looking through my binoculars, I saw one of the spotlights closest to teams nine and ten burst apart, raining glass and metal onto the chaos below.
A high-pitched whine was next, Kiba's rocket screaming down on the foremost tank with an extra burst of speed. Smoke spewed out of the tank, a last ditch effort to avoid being destroyed. It failed.
The rocket hit the Hoplite's turret, breaking through the depleted uranium hull with a gout of flame, before engulfing the tank in an flash of detonating anti-matter.
The Hoplite disappeared, seventy tons of metal ripping apart in a white burst of pure destruction. The explosion caused me to put the binoculars down, my eyes stinging from the light. Anti-matter's some kick-ass stuff. Too bad Kiba only carried one at a time.
"Yatta! Fucker went up real good!" Kiba howled, pleased with his handiwork.
"Neji here, tank aside, we're getting lit up!" I could believe it. Tracers spewed out of the station, white flickering lights engulfing the blue dots on my HUD.
"Sasuke, Hinata, take out the emplacements!" They affirmed the order, and I heard Hinata open fire beside me, not letting a second pass without a target falling. I grimaced. All those satchel charges and that anti matter rocket, and my squad was still pinned!
A rumbling blast sounded from a Hoplite, ripping apart the street outside of the compound. Chunks of asphalt rose into the sky, the air choked full of red dust.
"Report, everyone okay?"
"We're fine." Shikamaru coughed.
"Shaken up, but alive." Neji added, sounding dazed.
"Sakura, how're those guard towers coming?" It was hard to make out, but I saw her hulking form rising steadily on the ladder.
"They're coming, give us a second."
Another rippling explosion. The Hoplites were tearing into my squad.
"Kiba, you there?"
"Yeah, just reached the top."
"Light 'em up! Sakura?"
"Right here, Naruto-kun!"
"Get those spotlights in their eyes then take care of those Hoplites!"
An explosion filled my binoculars. I wished more than anything I could be there with them, getting a better idea what was going on.
"Shino here. Targets are easy and plentiful." Eesh. Shino's a good guy, but once he gets serious, he's one cold son of a bitch.
"They're taking severe casualties, but they're not budging!" Hinata said, slamming another mag into her rifle.
"Sakura!"
"Working on it!" What I saw next was a thing of beauty. Sliding down on some cabling, Sakura dashed forward, her Hellhound blazing, dodging and twisting under the rounds screaming over her head.
Reaching the rear Hoplite, she leaped onto its turret. With her ungodly strength, she ripped the hatch open, threw a grenade inside, and shut it again.
Hitting the ammo stash, the grenade fried the crew inside, the tank spewing flames from its turret and engine casing. She dived away from the explosion, rolling into a ditch.
"Lee-kun what are you doing?" Hinata shouted into her helmet.
"What is it, what's going on?" I asked.
"He's got Chouji's grenade launcher!" Sure enough, I saw a tiny form running inside of the compound, white explosions bloomed around the remaining Rakshasa. Tracer fire followed him, but never caught up. Lee was always our fastest. Diving behind a concrete divider, I heard comms crackle, and a breathless voice sing out.
"That is the power of youth! Wait until I tell Gai-sensei!" Utilizing Lee's distraction, more fire poured into the station area, pinning the rest of the rebels down, and keeping the Hoplites from drawing a bead.
"Sakura here. Augh!" She cried, clearly hurt. Before I could ask her myself, I heard Sasuke call out.
"You ok, Sakura?" Huh. Well that was weird.
"I'm... fine! Gonna blow up the jammer. Shino, Kiba, cover me!
I could hear their fire from here, rattling, short pops that carried across the city to our tiny window.
"Shino, I'm viewing your HUD!" I said, pulling up my data pad and pressing a few buttons. After a short wait, I was treated to a blurry, pixilated, shaky cam. "Cover Sakura!"
Before me was a hellish battleground. Corpses littered the ground, and blood pooled into small lakes. Dominating the camera's limited field of view was an M-34 rifle, muzzle flash spitting death at any Rakshasa dumb enough to pop out of cover. In the midst of it all was a blurry navy-blue form running towards the center of the compound. The windows on the jammer station tore themselves from their frames, bullets raining out in a steady stream. Too little, too late. The M-34 jerked again, shooting into the windows, spinning the men inside into a dance of death. Sakura lobbed her last frag inside, ducking under the window frame when the grenade's loud wumph tore the survivors apart like wet tissue paper.
A rebel popped out of cover behind her, and I heard Shino's rifle click through the camera. Empty.
"He's mine." Sasuke said, calm and collected as ever. Shino had ducked below cover to reload, so besides my shitty binoculars, I was blind again.
"Hinata!"
"He's down! Aaaand Sakura's away!" I didn't need a squad mate's helmet cam to see the jammer go up.
"Yosh!" Lee shouted.
"Way to go, Nee-chan!" I shouted, exuberant.
"Yeah." Deep breath. "No problem." Deep breath. "Please, Nii-chan." Deep, rattling, breath. "Never let me do that again."
"You got it." I said, grinning.
"We got the rest of these assholes." Kiba said.
"Ugh. Leaving us to clean up. Typical." Shikamaru said, the complaints unending.
"Hey Sasuke! Watch me hit this Hoplite!" Ino said. God, was she still keeping that 'impress Sasuke' game going?
"Hn." Guess he didn't know. Or care. Shocker. Another earth-shattering bang, and the third tank went up.
Whew! That was close, but damn was I proud of my squad. Not many others could pull that off!
Hinata was beaming, smoke pouring out of her rifle, beautiful lavender eyes focused solely on me. I gave her a hug, laughing. She returned it, her face red enough to heat my own. We were in the clear! So why did I feel anger? Fear? Wait... shit!
I heard a growl outside the apartment. In English.
"Get down!" I yelled, pressing Hinata's face into the floor. Just in time. Bullets whizzed over our head, the wall by the door sprouting hundreds of holes. Plaster from the walls filled the apartment, spraying out in thick tufts.
Trying to stay as low as possible, Hinata pointed in three separate places past the wall. Thank god for the byakugan. Snatching up my rifle, I fired where she pointed, getting a thumbs up when I hit.
"We gotta go!" I yelled. I could barely hear my own voice, the roar of rounds over my head almost deafening. She nodded, picking up her own weapon and pressing the butt against her shoulder.
"Let me lead!" She yelled back. I nodded, readying myself to sprint. Counting down from three, I gave the signal, and we burst out of the apartment.
"This is Naruto, we're under fire, where are you guys?"
"Mopping up! Almost done!" Sakura cried.
Hinata vaulted over our crude staircase barricade, firing two shots through the floor as she did so. Turning the corner, she fired six more times, recoil pushing her against the wall. Signaling me to cover her, she ducked down, struggling to reload. I obeyed, firing blindly down the stairs. Blood splashed the walls, dripping onto us and slickening the stairs with gore.
A wounded rebel groaned and writhed below us, her hands working feebly to stem the flow of blood from her lungs. I shot her in the head. Her helmet split and whipped back, covering the wall in brains. Better than the pain, I told myself.
Looking at Hinata, I held up a flashbang. She nodded, closing her eyes and covering her ears. Dropping it down the stairwell, I plugged my ears. After a muted blast, we stormed down the stairs, careful not to trip over the bullet-ridden meat sacks that used to be human beings. I reloaded as I went, clumsily jamming a new mag into my rifle before the next landing.
A few blinded rebels stumbled around, screaming and clutching their ears. We shot the ones in our way, moving too fast to watch them fall. Suddenly, I was flying. Hinata had ripped me to the side and thrown me against the wall.
Where I had been standing, bullets erupted from the floor, filling the cramped stairwell with dust and drywall. I returned fire; anguished screams letting me know my accuracy was better.
Hinata pulled a frag grenade from her webbing. Looking at me, we said all that needed to be said without a word between us. This was the lobby floor. We had to blast through and escape. We didn't know how many more there were, but we had to get out of this death trap before any more showed up. She pulled the pin and threw it.
When it exploded, we dashed out, guns blazing. Anything that moved was double tapped. The floor was a quagmire of rebel corpses, chewed up and ragged from the sheer volume of punishment.
We burst outside, diving to the ground before spinning around and filling the apartment building with whatever we had left in our mags.
"Come on!" I screamed in her ear. She didn't hear me. I shook her shoulder pauldron. That got her attention. Wide-eyed, she looked at me, sweat pouring down her face. 'Go!' I mouthed, pointing emphatically at an alley. She nodded and jumped up, sprinting over to the alley and hauling herself over a chain-linked fence. Following her, I fell into a heap beside her, panting and weak.
"Holy shit." I whispered, looking at her. That was insane. She nodded in bewildered agreement.
"Naruto-kun." She wheezed, "Are you hurt?" I froze in terror. Considering my kekkai genkai, as well as all that adrenaline, I had no idea if I was shot to hell or not. Looking myself over, that didn't seem to be the case. Whew.
"What about you?"
"I'm alright." She breathed. Physically, sure. But we were both covered in blood, bits of drywall, and other assorted filth. In short, we looked like hell.
"Kosenjobi." I panted. "Report."
"We're headed to your location, you guys ok?"
"We're alive. Made it out." I managed.
"Way to escape the ambush, dobe." A particularly unhelpful voice added.
"Blow me. Go on and head back to the station." I replied, bringing a weary smile to Hinata's face. It didn't last long. Anguish grew on her face, and she sunk down into the ground.
"I'm sorry, Naruto-kun!" What? Where was this coming from? "Because I wasn't scanning effectively enough, I allowed us to be ambushed!" She hung her head. I didn't like that. I couldn't see her face. So, I laughed.
"N-Naruto?" She dropped the honorific entirely. Must have been worried!
"It's fine, Hinata-chan!" My head fell back as the adrenaline petered out, leaving me exhausted and spent. "Oh, come on, I don't blame you! We were so wrapped up in the assault, we didn't hear them marching around downstairs." Her helmet fell into her hands, letting her luxurious raven hair fall free. Bound tight and matted with sweat, it still looked damn good. Wait, what the hell? Why was I thinking about her hair?
"I-if you insist, Naruto-kun."
"Damn right I insist." I said, beaming at her. She smiled back. I froze. That's right! The jammer's down!
"Shizune, you copy? This is Uzumaki-gunso." Static at first, before her bright and chirpy voice filled my headset.
"This is Shizune, solid copy Uzumaki-gunso! Glad to hear a friendly voice!" My fist went in the air, the word 'yatta' mouthed at Hinata. She giggled, putting an armored hand over her mouth to hide her smile.
"How are you guys doing down there?"
"Well," I said, finally recovering from our narrow escape, "we've had one hell of a day."
A/N: Urban warfare ain't pretty.
What did you guys think? Too much action? Too little? Too much sci-fi? Not enough? Good character interpretations/dialogue? Bad? Why the hell is Kiba using WEAPONIZED ANTI-MATTER?
If these thoughts crossed your head, let me know! PM's are just as good as reviews, if you want to share your thoughts without putting something up publicly. The reason this story's up here is to gauge a reaction... so react! Each review makes me ridiculously happy.
Next Interlude: The Mysteries of the Sharingan...
