Out of the Unknown

by axellon2008

Naruto discovers a crashed starship outside his village and his life is forever changed. Under the unorthodox tutelage of a Sith Lord's spirit, he will learn the technology and history of a larger galaxy that he, and no one else from his planet, ever knew existed.

21. Chapter 21

AN: I don't own Naruto, or Star Wars

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36.3 BBY – Current Year

Chapter XXI: This isn't Tatooine

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AN: For a while I've put off naming the group but I haven't been able to come up with anything good so I'm welcome to any and all suggestions. Once I get them, then I'll put them all in a poll for everyone to vote on. Thank you.

Looking over the holocron, Plagueis once again attempted to communicate with the insectoid Sith Lord. It had been quit frustrating as the language was not something he had ever encountered before. Instead of a vocalization, the holographic creature was communicating through body movements. He already identified three different branches movements: the rubbing of antennae, the opening and closing of its mandibles, and abdomen movements. Each of those came together to form a language.

What began as incomprehensible was now starting to be understood by Plagueis. It was difficult but he was making progress. Languages were not his strength but he hoped to be done near the time that they arrived on Tatooine.

Their journey had lasted a few days and they were more than halfway to the desert planet. They were following minor hyperlanes and Plagueis was allowing Naruto to plot the hyperspace jumps and confirm them with instinctive astrogation, thereby practicing his use with the technique. He could just feel them coming out of hyperspace and no doubt Naruto was entering the coordinates for the next jump.

Hyperlanes were not usually single, uninterrupted jumps from one location to another. They usually involved coming out of hyperspace and making adjustments at least once on most journeys. No sooner than the ship was back to real space then the entire ship shook twice in quick succession. Plagueis put down the holocron as realization soon dawned on him. 'Those impacts were from blaster canons and ship-to-ship fire.'

Coming out of his captains quarters he saw two clones run by and head for the ladder that led to the top and bottom gun turrets. Following where they had just come from, he arrived at the cockpit and sat down in the second pilots seat. Naruto was already taking evasive action and he could see several lasers bolts fly past them, just missing the ships deflector shields.

"We came out of hyperspace and they were already on top of us." Naruto quickly explained as he did his best to maneuver out of the laser fire. Plagueis could already hear the sound of the clones returning fire from the turrets. Sitting in the second pilot's seat, he quickly determined the situation.

Three ships were in pursuit and attacking from behind. The hyperdrive had been damaged in the initial assault when their ship entered realspace. Determining their current location, Plagueis told Naruto to set a course for the nearby star system as several more hits rocked the ship.

"Do you know who they are?" questioned Naruto as he sent another clone to tell the rest of the crew what was going on.

"They could be anyone. Pirates, slavers, thieves, they all travel the Outer-rim hyperlanes and wait for ships. Its unfortunately unavoidable in these parts." responded Plagueis and thought perhaps they should have taken a different route. They followed the ships navigational computer which was taking them through less traveled routes but apparently they were just unlucky.

From his console, Plagueis armed the rear concussion missile launcher and got a targeting lock on one of the ships. "Prepare to come around." he told his student and right when the lock was established, he fired one of the missiles and Naruto brought the ship around.

Predictably, the pursuing ships scatter to avoid the incoming missile. It was already locked onto one ship though and impacted the ship's shields. Before the ships could regroup, Naruto had already turned their ship around and was tailing one of the undamaged ships.

The two turrets rotated and came to bear on the ship in front of them while Naruto began firing with the ships forward heavy laser canons. The combined fired ripped through the smaller ships deflector shield and the unhindered shots struck vital areas, causing it to soundlessly explode in space. Naruto dodged the debris but their ship was soon under attack again by the two regrouped ships.

Routing more power to the rear deflector shields to keep them from failing, Naruto restored their heading to the star system while the clones continued to fire upon the pursuing ships. Calming his mind, Naruto began connecting with his clones at the same time he was flying the ship.

Plagueis looked over to his student as he noted a sudden change, 'He's coordinating the movements of the ship with his clones turret fire to take advantage of every opportunity to fire on our attackers.' he realized and then focused his efforts on getting another targetting lock on the ships behind them.

Approaching the system, Naruto found that they were heading for two large gas giants but soon he found a third planet hiding in between them. It was much smaller than the gas giants and appeared to be volcanically active. The sensors registered substantial gravitational attractions between the three objects and soon they would soon be caught in these forces.

Deciding that Plagueis knew better than he did about the area, he continued his course while his clones continued shooting. Plagueis soon had another targetting lock on one of the ships and fired another concussion missile. Only the targeted ship broke off pursuit to try and evade the missile but it was too damaged and its shields too spent from taking their laser fire to prevent its destruction.

With two ships down, the final ship apparently decided that they weren't worth the effort and fired two proton torpedoes at them before Plagueis could fire another concussion missile. The twin blue projectiles had a lock on their ship and began following it.

"We're too slow to dodge them and we don't have countermeasures, your clones will have to shoot them down." Plagueis informed him and Naruto went about controlling the clone in the top turret to fire only on the incoming torpedoes.

The top gunner clone managed to hit the first torpedo which caused it to explode. The detonation however covered the path and location of the second torpedo. The clone kept firing but it was too late.

"Fuck." was all the original said and Plagueis braced for impact after he fired a concussion missile at the last ship.

The proton torpedo passed through their depleted shields and struck the aft section of the ship. The entire vessel rocked violently and numerous alarms went off in the cockpit. A flashing red light indicated that they had a hull breach and another alarm told him that they were venting atmosphere. Naruto created a clone which ran to the back of the ship to access the damage.

The running clone passed by the meeting table where all of the crew were strapped in a even the original could hear Karin yelling, "WERE GONNA DIE!"

Getting to the engineering section, the clone could see a fire and both hear and feel the air leaving the ship. Doing the only practical thing, it closed door to the section and hoped the fire would be put out by the vacuum of space. The clone then dispelled to tell the original of what had happened.

Checking through the systems, Naruto found that the ship was not coming apart and that they had survived the hit. 'Hyperdrive is down, hull breach, environmental systems are compensating...engines unresponsive.' he said to himself as he went over the list.

It wasn't until he got to the last item that he realized that they were still heading towards the planet. In fact, it was now quite large in the cockpit windows. Quickly going over the sensors, he found that they were trapped in its gravity as well as the gravity of the two gas giants that were close by.

With the engines unresponsive, there was nothing he could do to stop their increasing descent into the planets atmosphere. It was only a matter of time before they crashed.

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As soon as the others had been told what was happening by a clone, there was panic on the ship. All but the demon brothers were running around and dumping all of their possessions as well as their sealed cargo into the other escape pod.

Suigetsu wasn't actually worried about the impending crash as much as he was about the planet they were headed for. It was a volcanic rock and he worried about dehydrating because of his technique. Karin would have laughed at the teen's fear but she was far to panicked and once everything she wanted to take with her was aboard the escape pod, she strapped herself in.

Naruto remained in the pilot's chair as he looked at the dark clouds and partially obscured surface of the planet. As long as he could avoid the lava flows...and lava lakes...and active volcanoes, they should be fine. Most ships could take a beating and he hoped theirs was one of those ships. Their previous ship survived an uncontrolled crash so their chances seemed good.

As the front of the ship seemingly ignited from the air resistance of entry into the atmosphere, he looked over and saw another fireball in the distance and knew it was the other ship. Plagueis's last missile hadn't destroyed them but they appeared to be in the same situation.

Naruto's attention returned to their situation as the ship began to shake as the turbulence increased and friction of the atmosphere increase. Plagueis soon returned to the cockpit after getting his items aboard the pod.

Turning to his Master, Naruto asked, "Did you plan for this?" He wasn't accusing Plagueis of anything sinister but just wondering why they had plotted a course to the planet.

Sitting in the seat and strapping Gato in, Plagueis replied, "Did I know that we would be hit by a torpedo? No, but I did foresee this or similar occurrences. As bad as this may seem, crashing to a planet is much better than being stranded in the void of space. Especially when I have considerable knowledge on the planet and its few inhabitants."

Naruto hadn't actually checked to see if the navigational computer recognized the planet, a quick check revealed them to be in the Mustafar system and heading for the planet Mustafar.

"You've been here before?" he questioned and Plagueis nodded as he focused on the controls and said, "We have to time this right in order get the best landing site. We also need to level out the ship and try to slow or descent."

Going through the sensors and the ships computer, he computed where they would land on their current course and then began adjusting it to find better terrain. They were entering the lower atmosphere and despite not having any engines to make a proper landing, they could still use the ships few maneuvering thrusting to change their trajectory.

Searching the topography of the planet, Plagueis found a nice plateau to land on and began the calculations. His keen mind recalculated their trajectory for that spot and Plagueis began to use the thruster to alter their course.

They were made for use while in space, on a ship not affected by the gravity of a planet, so the small thrusters couldn't move the ship much but they could nudge it in the right direction. Two of the port-side lower thrusters fired and it took a second for the ship to begin to gradually move. Plagueis eased off the thrust and the ship slowed to stay on its the new course.

As the ship came through the dark ash filled clouds of the planet, they saw the plateau and Plagueis activated the bottom thrusters near the front of the ship thrusters to keep the nose up and level their landing. Passing over a river of lava, the ship continued on its course. The ground was coming up fast but the nose started to lift slightly.

At the last moment, Plagueis diverted power to the ships bottom deflector and internal compensator to lessen their impact with the ground. The ships deflector had both ray and particle shielding and while the ray shielding wouldn't help them, the particle shielding would. The deflector shields scrapped against the surface of the plateau first and quickly overloaded. Though they only lasted for a moment, the quick use of the shields lessened the contact of the ship's bottom hull with the rock of the plateau.

Despite the internal compensator was working at full power, the entire crew felt a sharp jerk when the ship dug into the rock and their harnesses dug into them. The ship continuously shook from scraping against the rock but the did start to slow.

Looking ahead of them, Naruto began to see the edge of plateau and his eyes widened. Plagueis saw it as well but there was nothing either of them could do. There was no way to slow down the ship any faster than what the friction with the surface of the plateau was doing.

The edge of the plateau however kept getting closer and they soon realized that they were going over. The ship flew off the edge of plateau and the shaking stopped. For a few moments the ship remained heading horizontally before it began dropping. The front of the ship began to dip forward and revealed to both pilots an empty canyon that they were headed straight for. No relief flooded over the pair as despite the canyon not being filled with lava, they were still falling.

"Brace for impact!" Naruto yelled through the ships comm system and a moment later the front of the ship impacted the rock of the canyon floor.

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Naruto blinked to try and relieve the double vision he was having. Though he could tell he was still sitting in the chair, he felt like he was being suspended in the air by the straps. To relive some of the pressure from his chest, he absently unlatched his harness.

The loss of the harness, caused Naruto to fall forward. His chest hit the control panel but his head kept going and smacked into the cockpit window. Groaning, he pulled his forehead off the window and tried his best to sit up in the dark cockpit.

"It seems the ship's artificial gravity is off because there's no power to any systems. The ship is also sticking vertically upward with the bow in the ground and the stern up in the air." Plagueis informed him with the voice of the groggy Gato.

"I wish you would have said something before I undid my straps." Naruto complained and Plagueis replied, "I could use some assistance getting out of this chair. What just happened to you might finish Gato off."

Grabbing the armrest of his pilots chair, Naruto steadied himself and stood on what surfaces he could. As he helped Plagueis out of the chair, he looked around to see what had happened. The cockpit appeared to be fine and the windows weren't even broken.

"Did the ground give way?" he asked Plagueis and looking through the windows, Plagueis examined their situation.

"No, the front of the ship broke through some lava tubes." replied Plagueis as he moved Gato's body so the feet weren't on the console or damaged the ships controls.

"Lava tubes?" Naruto questioned as examined their situation. Looking out the window, he could only see rock all around them but there appeared to be some tunnel systems that they had crashed into.

"Lava coming out of the surface crust will flow in a given direction. As it flows, the outer surface of the lava will cool while the inner contents stay at a much hotter temperature. Thus the outside will begin to harden while the inside continues to flow further outward from the source. The structure may expand if the flow increases but once the lava flow is done, the hardened outside will remain and create lava tubes.

As more lava flows occur, the tubes may be covered up by further layers of cooled lava or tubes. It appears that the tubes prevented the ship from being damaged from the fall. Instead of striking solid ground, the front of the ship broke through layers of lava tubes and, to some degree, it cushioned the impact. That feature actually isn't very common on Mustafar as the lava is quite unique due to its fluidity and the amount usually produced by most eruptions.

Usually the flows are so quick and of such a volume that they don't have time to cool until they are a good distance away from the source. Perhaps we're in a more stable area or at least an area that hasn't had many of the typical lava flows that the planet is known for. We were quite lucky, had the ship struck solid ground, the cockpit may have been destroyed." explained Plagueis in his lecture mode and Naruto was very thankful for the presence of the lava tubes, which may have saved his life.

Looking almost straight up from his position, Naruto realized that he would have to climb up the main hallway that spanned most of the ship. Since he could stick to the floor it wasn't a problem but he knew that he would have to carry Gato's body while doing it, which would be a pain.

Extending his senses out, he could feel the others in the escape pod. He couldn't determine if they were injured or not but all of their signatures were present. Getting Gato's body on his back, Naruto began walking up the decking and headed for the escape pod.

Passing the medical bay, he noted that the medical droid would likely need some repairs as it wasn't secured during the impact. Coming to the escape pod, he hit the panel to open the door and found the rest of the group.

All heads in the pod turned to the opening and Tayuya greeted Naruto with, "Way to fly, asswipe."

Aside from bruising, the rest of the group seemed to be alright as well. The inside of the pod was a mess as all the scrolls had gotten tossed around. Deefour was stuck in its harness and Kabuto was healing a few minor injuries on Karin and Juugo. Plagueis was taken by the demon brothers and they helped him into the pod to stand on one of the empty seats.

"We probably won't be able to get out on the loading ramp, you should try the top hatch. It may be above ground." suggested Plagueis and Naruto quickly moved up the hallway to the top hatch. Fitting his breather mask, he crawled up the hatch tube and then used the emergency controls to force the hatch open.

The opening however proved to be discouraging as all he found was rock. Moving out of the tube, he climbed higher to the engineering room and opened the door that his clone had sealed. Looking over the damage, he found the hull breach. Through the new hole in the ship, he could see black clouds in the sky which prevented most sunlight from touching the planet.

Climbing out through the breach, he was hit by the warm dry air. Sticking to the hull, Naruto moved up to the tail end of the engines and looked over the surrounding landscape. Their ship was in the middle of the canyon and stuck halfway in the ground with the rear half of the ship sticking almost straight up in the air. The canyon walls were shear black rock on both sides and they were near the apex of a fork in the canyon where it split up into two directions.

The canyon floor appeared to change elevation quite a bit and it was evident that they were in what had been a channel for flowing lava that had dried up or hadn't seen an eruption in a while. A red glow reflected in the smoke of many areas in the distance showing that there were active lava flows nearby. Not too far away, he spotted a huge active volcano that took up most of the landscape. Several rivers of lava were coming out of it and smoke was rising from the top.

Focusing on the ship, he didn't find very much damage from the half that he could see but he noticed that the escape pod was buried under the surface.

A low rumbling grabbed his attention and caused him to look around for a source but he soon realized it was just the beginning of a quake. The ground began shaking and areas of the canyon floor began cracking while rock from the canyon walls broke off and crashed to the ground below. The shaking continued for several minutes and actually seemed to be getting worse. Looking back to the volcano, he saw a massive amount of lava explode out of the top and into air. While it had been spewing out lava before, it was obvious that it was now erupting. As huge flows of lava came down the side of the mountain, Naruto felt through the Force that something bad was coming.

Looking down the right side of the forked canyon, he noted that the canyon floor and wall that was miles away from their position began to glow. His eyes widened as he realized what was coming and given their position, they would be right in the path.

Signaling Plagueis, he then created thirty clones that set about going through earth jutsu. The group began spewing lines of mud to create a wedge shaped wall in front of the ship to diver the coming flood of lava. As the clones finished making their lines of mud, Naruto went through a second set of seals, "Earth Release: Moving Earth Core." The earth jutsu caused the rock blocking the escape pod to sink down further into the ground enough that the pod could jettison.

Telepathically contacting Plagueis, Naruto watched the pod leave the ship and use just enough of its rocket boosters to clear the canyon wall and then grind to stop on the surface. Looking back to the flood of lava heading at him, he gave a signal to his clones and pulled out the speeder bike scroll to get to wall himself.

The clones finished their jutsu and a tall, thick wall of mud sprang up and formed an wedge shaped defense in front of the ship against the oncoming lava.

Naruto drove the speeder bike moved to the opposite side of the fork, which appeared safe for the moment, and he looked back as a twenty foot wave of lava reached the wall and moved around it. The clones had remained in order to make sure that the wall held and reinforce it if needed.

Sealing the speeder, he ran up the wall of the canyon and headed to the escape pod.

x-x

Exitting the escape pod, the group got their first look at the barren and hellish landscape of Mustafar. Seeing the area and feeling the temperature, Suigetsu decided to remain inside the pod lest he begin to dehydrate. Karin again would have made fun of him if she wasn't so disturbed by the planet they were marooned on.

Naruto soon reached the top of the wall and glanced over at the ship to make sure it was still being protected by the wall. His attention then turned to the group and he was hit by a wave of emotions coming from them. There was fear, sadness, anger, despair, and more emotions that seemed to be directed at him.

He didn't look at the group as they stared down at the ship and the river of lava that was flowing around it. It made him angry that they believed it was his fault. He hadn't chosen the route they were taking, nor could he have foreseen the pirates or whatever they were waiting for them when they entered real space. They had won the fight but the memory of the blue proton torpedo hitting the ship refused to leave his mind. Not only had he been in touch with his clone as it happened but the memory from the clone had returned to him when it dispelled during the crash.

He tried to calm himself down but nothing seemed to be helping. A glance to the opposite side of the canyon revealed the damage to the plateau that they had caused when the ship raked against the surface. Looking into the sky, he found the trail of the other ship and followed it down as far as he could before it disappeared behind the horizon. Taking out his scroll that held his speeder bike, he made to unseal it and follow the trail to the ship. There he would finish off the people that attacked him.

Plagueis could feel his student's anger rising and knew what Naruto was up to. Signaling Gozu, he made to stop Naruto before his student did something. If their ship survived the lava then there was a good chance they could repair it and the enemies ship could be the key to doing that. Having Naruto go off and possibly lose control of himself would not help them. He might end up further damaging the other ship.

Plagueis placed his hand on the newly unsealed speeder bike and Naruto turned to him. The Sith Lord could feel anger in his student but before he could say anything, Gozu smacked Naruto in the back of the head with his gauntlet. Staring at the slumped over Naruto, Plagueis turned to Gozu and said, "I was going to reason with him and try to calm him down."

"Oops." responded the demon brother and he looked at the unconscious Naruto. "Do you think he'll be angry when he wakes up?"

"Probably, but I think it's best that you go out and take care of any survivors in the other ship before he wakes up. Make sure there are none still alive and watch out, this planet does have a good number of dangerous creatures." Plagueis ordered.

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Opening his eyes, Naruto found himself in the last place he wanted to be, inside the seal. Getting up out of the water, he walked down the starship-like hallway to where he knew the Kyuubi to be. Turning the corner at the chamber with the Kyuubi inside it, he soon stood in the middle of the large room and looked ahead at the shadowy creature behind the golden bars.

"Why have you come?" asked the Kyuubi and Naruto was confused as he hadn't meant to go into the seal, he thought the Kyuubi wanted to talk with him. Deciding that it really didn't matter either way, he decided to get to the bottom of a few things, "You've been pissing me off a lot lately, in more ways than one" stated Naruto and he could tell that the vulpine creature was smiling behind the bars.

"Have I? Sometimes I don't even know I'm doing it?" lied the Kyuubi and Naruto glared at the creature which only made it's smile grow.

"Its only a matter of time before I'll be able to suppress or control you." stated Naruto but he was soon confused when the Kyuubi laughed.

"Oh really? You think you can to that do me. I'm afraid that won't be possible. No matter what you use, there is nothing that you can do to control or suppress me."

"Why not?" asked Naruto and he made a slight motion with his hand to try and manipulate the fox into revealing more. He wanted to know why the Kyuubi was so sure of itself.

"Trying to manipulate me I see. Now that I know about that little trick, I won't be fooled by it again. However, just to show you how hopeless your situation is, I'll indulge your curiosity. Once you cracked open the seal, you gave me the upper hand. I can influence you because of the hatred in your heart. The same hatred that you use for those special techniques of yours. The more you use your special power, the more I can push my chakra through the seal and influence you. The seal itself hasn't weakened that much but because of all the hatred you hold, it doesn't matter. You're probably thinking that a sharingan will be able to control me or perhaps Mokuton jutsu? Is that what you're planning?" the Kyuubi inquired and while Naruto didn't reveal any answer, he was quite focused on what the Kyuubi would say next.

"Neither of those can help you suppress me. Mokuton requires more than just being able to use the jutsu. There is another item that you would need and you don't have it. As for the sharingan, you wouldn't be able to use it against me. That cursed eye requires that the user's chakra to be more sinister than my own. Their hatred would have to surpass my own and even if that did happen, you still couldn't use it against me.

I gain my influence over you because of the hatred and anger in your heart. You hold a great deal of it but not nearly enough to surpass me. Increasing it would only increase my ability to push chakra through the seal and influence you. The more hatred you hold, the more power over you I would have. You don't have any power over me and you never will." finished the Kyuubi.

"Then I suppose I'll just have to find another way to get rid of you. The galaxy is vast and it has many secrets." stated Naruto and the Kyuubi laughed at him.

"You only have a small amount of time before I am able to get out of this prison. The darker your heart becomes and the more you use that special power of yours, the more I can influence you. All it takes is for you to lose control of your emotions for one instant and I can take advantage. You don't even possess the key with which to tighten up the seal." Kyuubi gloated and Naruto's jaw tensed. He knew about the key but he had no idea where it was. He certainly didn't have it and he hadn't been able to see enough of Jiraiya's memories to find out more about it.

Seeing that he was breaking through the boy's defenses, the Kyuubi decided to push farther. "Not even that teacher of yours can help you. Though, I don't know how much you should even trust him. He never did tell you about your parents." revealed the Kyuubi and he noted the change in his host. The boy was in shock but the anger was boiling just beneath the surface.

Reddish-orange bubbling chakra began seeping under the golden gate and it moved towards Naruto while the boy's attention was still unfocused from what had been said.

"The first time he came here. I unknowingly gave away quite a bit of information about your parents to him. He was quite interested but he never did tell you about them, did he?" Kyuubi guessed and he could tell that his guess was accurate. Not until the seal began loosening did he find out more of what was happening on the outside. The information concerning both adults had never come up while he was secretly watching so he guess that the man known as Plagueis had never revealed it.

The chakra moved closer and it was only when a tentacle of chakra tried to reach out for Naruto's leg that he realized something was wrong. Jumping back, he Force pushed the mass of chakra away from him and the Kyuubi chuckled at how close he had come.

"What would you know about my parents." Naruto demanded and put emphasis on the word 'my'.

"I won't tell you." relied the Kyuubi and it could feel it's host growing more agitated, which was exactly what he wanted. Naruto responded by trying to probe the creatures mind with the Force. The Kyuubi's smile went away as it snarled from the attempt to intrude into it's mind. As the creature roared at him, Naruto lost his concentration and his efforts to try and break into the fox's mind were stopped. He was still a novice when it came to such a technique and he realized he would need actual contact with the Kyuubi in order to make it work and get the information he wanted.

"If you really want to know, question the person you call 'Master'." stated the Kyuubi as it glared at him in response to his attempt to gain the information by force.

Frowning, Naruto left the room and traveled back down the hallway. His mind was a mess of thoughts. Most concerned what little he knew about his parents and the rest centered on why Master Plagueis would keep such information from him. Stalking down the dark metal hallway, he headed for what was likely the exit.

The farther he got from the chamber, the more he found that he could think more clearly. Confronting his Master about the topic at that moment may not be the best course of action. There situation on the planet was dire and Plagueis said he knew a great deal about Mustafar. They would need to work together, and without any problems, in order to get off the planet.

He had waited years to learn about his parents and a person with information was apparently near him all the time but just never willing give it to him. He could broach, or demand, information when they were in a more favorable position on the planet. Trying to calm himself down, he walked through the dark shroud at the end of the hallway to come back to consciousness.

Sitting in its cage, the Kyuubi was triumphant in its victory over the host. A conversation with the cloaked figure concerning the cursed Yondaime and Kushina could send the boy's emotions over the edge and be the catalyst that freed him from his cell.

x-x

Ast Kikorie

x-x

The red Republic consular-class cruiser moved into docking position alongside the skyhook and extended a tube to attach to the stations airlock. Standing on the inside of the airlock stood two figures cloaked in brown robes.

"You seem troubled." noted the taller figure and he looked over to his padawan.

"I'm just not sure why we are needed here, Master Qui-gon. This seems like something the local authorities should investigate and not the Jedi. As far as I can see its just an isolated incident." responded Obi-wan to his the taller bearded man as they waited for the airlocks to synch up and open.

A small smile formed on the Jedi Master as he nodded to the statements logic, "The Alsakan investors funding the research on the station felt that the local authorities would not be of any help. They used their political ties to have their Senate representative request the help of the Jedi to look into the matter. It's entirely possible that they just want the investigation to be as discrete as possible. I would imagine that it would be difficult enough to get researchers to travel all the way out here, but add in the possibility that they would be in danger and it might be difficult to keep the research going. This also wasn't just a random act of violence, someone went to quite a bit of trouble to cover their tracks after the Director of the station was killed. We seem to have quite a mystery on our hands."

"From the preliminary investigation it appears that the Director may have been involved in illegal activities. She was probably killed because of it." stated Obi-wan.

"Things aren't always what they appear, my young padawan." was the wise response of the Qui-gon Jin.

"Sometimes they are." countered Obi-wan but their conversation was ended by the opening of the airlock.

x-x

Mustafar

x-x

Naruto opened his eyes and sat up. He reached a hand to the back of his head and could feel the remnant of a lump there. Looking down at his chest, he found that several chakra suppressing seals had been placed on his torso.

"While you were out, your chakra began growing agitated. Kabuto just put those on a few moments ago." Naruto turned to see his Master looking at him. Gato was seated on a piece of rock and for a brief moment, Naruto let some of the emotion that he was feeling come out as stared at his Master.

Plagueis noticed the look and the emotion but said nothing as he tried to think of a reason for the look. The moment passed and Naruto made to get to his feet. "Why did you have Gozu knock me out?" he questioned but it came out as more of a demand.

"I didn't ask him to knock you out, there was a miscommunication. I did want him to restrain you if necessary. Your thoughts and emotions were running away from you again. You were so distracted that you didn't even notice someone coming up behind you until he had already struck." Plagueis explained and Naruto frowned at the truth in the statement.

"I was just going to go and deal with the other ship." Naruto informed him as an excuse.

"Did you really go to so much trouble to acquire a specialized and talented group so that they could sit around and watch you do everything? There was a reason for recruiting them, wasn't there?" Plagueis asked sarcastically and Naruto inhaled sharply as he thought about forming a counter statement.

"Until such time as you can better control your emotions, you will have to keep those seals on when you don't absolutely need to use your chakra. You may want to consider making a more permanent solution with fuinjutsu. The others are starting to suspect something is wrong with you and are asking questions. I didn't tell them anything but Karin is probably closer than the others to finding out about your tenant." Plagueis informed him.

'Kami damn it.' Naruto cursed as he didn't want to give up his chakra but knew he might not be able to keep it in check, especially if he planned to ask Plagueis about his parents later on. He also didn't want the others to know about the Kyuubi. Being out in the galaxy was supposed to be his chance to put those things behind him and start out fresh.

"Since you've been out, I sent the demon brothers to deal with the ship. They are already on their way back. Central Volcano is still erupting and likely will continue for the next couple of hours or perhaps even the next few days. The ship is still fine but unreachable to us given the river of lava that is still flowing around it." Plagueis updated him.

Deciding to put his other thoughts out of his mind until a better time, Naruto asked, "How do you know so much about the planet? You even seem to even know the names for local features?"

"When I was still alive, I had a secret facility built on the planet. Its likely still there. I gathered a great deal of knowledge about the planet before selecting it among a list of other locations. The Techno Union has owned this planet for several hundred years and the native Mustafarians only number less than twenty thousand while living in a single settlement.

The only other thing of note on the planet is the mining facility that removes precious minerals from the lava flows. The facility is overseen by workers from the Techno Union but maintenance and the more dangerous jobs are done by some of the Mustafarians. The secret facility is not that far away but will be difficult to reach because our path is currently blocked by the lava. The mining facility is much closer but also difficult to reach. The Techno Union personnel also might not help us." Plagueis answered and Naruto took in all of the information.

It seemed that they would have to wait out the lava flow or try to find a way around it. The canyon was far to wide for them to even think about jumping across and even the speeder bike wouldn't be able to make it across because it had a restriction on the altitude it could reach. They could use the speeder to follow the lava flow but that may not lead to anything and it could go for miles.

"What about the escape pod? Can we use it to get us closer to your facility?" asked Naruto and Plagueis quickly responded, "That is the most logical choice right now, however its very likely that Sidious has taken the facility over. In that case, the security systems and codes may have been changed. It will be difficult to get into it without setting off a subspace alarm that will alert him to intruders. We will have to be cautious." Plagueis explained as he had thought up the plan while Naruto was unconscious and worked out all the small details.

The pod would be difficult to fly but would take them much closer to the facility. He had been waiting for the demon brothers to get back so the group was all accounted for. No sooner had he thought that, then Karin emerged from the pod and he knew that she had sensed the demon brothers coming back.

x-x

Ast Kikorie

x-x

"Three similar looking children, two of them carrying a wounded ugnaught with the third shooting security with a blaster, and an astromech. They secretly boarded the station to murder the researcher and then escaped from an entire station of personnel with reinforcements from the ground." Obi-wan cited from the report on the datapad he was examining. He had taken bits and pieces of the overall statements from the station personnel but it was all in the report.

Both Jedi and padawan were in one of the laboratories of the station and looking through the information that had been given to them.

"You doubt their statements?" asked a slightly amused Qui-gon.

"It all seems...less than credible." admitted Obi-wan and he placed the datapad down on a nearby table to get a better look at what his Master was doing, "What are you after with those pieces from the damaged desk?"

Qui-gon looked up from his work and replied, "According to several accounts from the station personnel, the Director hadn't left the station in quite some time. If she was involved in any illicit activities then there must be some evidence or at least some messages that would corroborate that theory. Someone certainly went through a lot of trouble to get to the station, cut through the outer hull and subsequent decks to get to this room to murder the researcher, and then managed to flee the station using three survival capsules."

"Only three?" questioned Obi-wan as he reexamined the contents of the datapad for the information. Finding the information, he asked, "Can you fit more than one person in a survival capsule?" If there were five intruders on the station then it made sense to find five capsules missing and not just three.

"Only if they were indeed diminutive individuals."suggested Qui-gon as he finished piecing together the portions of communication systems from the desk. With just a few more adjustments, he should be able to see what messages the Director was receiving and what she had been sending out.

x-x

After Gozu and Meizu got back, the group piled into the escape pod again. While Plagueis worked over the controls, Naruto focused on contacting the remainder of his clones, which had stayed at the ship to watch over the mud wall. They hadn't dispelled yet and he was going to make use of them. Though the ship was safe inside the lava river, he was making the clones put Sith runes on the mud wall to keep the ship hidden from view.

Plagueis informed him of the possibility that the native inhabitants were already looking for the downed vessels. Most likely they wanted to scavenge the ships for useful items. Their ship had already been through enough and if they were going to use it to get off the planet, then they would need to keep it from being scavenged as well.

Finishing up his flight plan, Plagueis closed the hatch on the escape pod. Everyone was crowded into the pod and scrolls covered the floors as well as the few unoccupied seats. The current short-term goal was to head to the secret facility and use it as a staging area for helping them get off the planet.

Kabuto had used earth jutsu to raise the nose of the pod so they could take off at a good trajectory. The flight path that Plagueis plugged into the ships computer was to take them around the volcano and land, or rather crash, near his old facility.

Initiating the controls for launch, Plagueis got into one of the seats and the escape pod thrusters engaged. The ship shot off into the sky and following the programmed flightpath that Plagueis had put into it, it leveled out and then began curving around the large volcano. The escape pod then straightened out again and headed for the location of the hideout.

Looking around the pod, Naruto could tell that most of the group were not happy with the impending crash landing. The pod wasn't able to make a controlled landing so they would have to crash, for a third time that day. They soon began descending and the nose of the pod elevated as they aimed for a relatively flat area on the surface. The initial impact with the ground jolted the whole ship and then slowly ground to a stop on the hard surface of the planet.

Once the ship had stopped moving, each person began extracting themselves from the seat harnesses. Juugo was the closest to the door and hit the panel to open it. The landscape that greeted them was oddly similar to the one they had left. The only major differences was that the large volcano was now farther away in the distance and the the terrain was no longer flat but more mountainous.

Looking around, Naruto found no evidence that any facility was near them. There were no signs of any man-made objects and only the extruded rocky surface. They appeared to have crashed on a relatively flat area but were mostly surrounded by higher hills and one mountain.

The ground once again shook from the eruption and each person steadied them selves. With the tremor over soon over, Plagueis moved to the middle of the group and informed them, "We need to get to the top of his hill. The facility is inside the caldera."

Each person's head turned to look at the feature and wondered how they were going to get all of their supplies up there. They had filled up all of the scrolls they had brought and the pod was filled with other belongings as well. Reorganizing them would take time and they would still have to carry more than a dozen large scrolls.

Seeing the obvious problem, Naruto moved to the suppression seals on his chest and removed several of them. He noted the glances when he removed the seals but he ignored them. Unsealing his fuinjutsu supplies, he went to work placing a seal on the hull of the escape pod. The seal would allow him to summon the escape pod so they could leave it there and transport it to them once they were inside the facility. Considering the climb, they left Deefour inside the pod as well. The droid wouldn't be able to go anywhere on the rocky terrain and would have to wait for them to summon the pod.

Moving to the base of the hill, Meizu grabbed Gato and then he began scaling the cliff-side with the others close behind. Normally such a task wouldn't have been difficult but the frequent tremors from the erupting volcano in the distance made it more treacherous.

Naruto kept the suppression seals off of him so he could climb to the caldera much easier. It was doubtful that he would have a problem with the Kyuubi while climbing and not having his chakra would make the trip much harder.

As they group moved up the slope, the incline became steeper until they were running up an almost vertical cliff-side. With the top coming up fast, Plagueis ordered them to slow down so he could look for any new security devices. He knew the layout and security systems he had put in when the facility was created but he had no idea if Sidious had put anything else in place.

Slowly, the ninja moved to the top of the hill. The top was a ring of rock that was ten or more meters wide. Moving to the edge, they looked down into the bowl. Below them was the caldera which was basically a bowl of volcanic activity. Lava, or more precisely magma, churned and bubbled in a large lake at the bottom.

There were small trails of lava coming out of the sides of the caldera and trickling down below but their attention was caught by the structure. A large metal facility was attached to the wall of the caldera. It was over half a dozen stories tall with two additional structure attached to the main building, though there purpose was unknown to most of the group.

Several seconds passed by as they all stopped and stared at what was beneath them. It wouldn't be that difficult to get down to the facility but making sure no alarm was sounded might be difficult. They would have to disable the communications, then the security and surveillance systems to make sure that their presence remained unnoticed by Sidious.

Plagueis reached out Gato's arm and Meizu stuck a pair of electrobinoculars in his hand. Looking over the facility in detail, Plagueis examined it for any additional security measures. He had built the facility inside the caldera, which ironically was the best place to put it. The area didn't have any eruptions as the lava just bubbled away in the lake. The station was supported by repulsor lifts, heat shielded from the lava, and attached to the wall of the caldera in such a way to eliminate all vibrations from the tremors of the volcanically active world.

The caldera and the other systems he put in even prevented the station from being detected by surface scans. Droids continuously monitored and maintained the station and it was powered by energy collectors that fed off of the lava lake so it was basically self-sufficient. Unless there was a massive failure of the gravity supports or complete power loss, the station could remain waiting for use for decades.

Having finished his thorough check, he was confident that the station was exactly how he had left, at least on the outside. Turning to Karin he asked, "Can you sense anything?"

Karin stopped looking at the structure and focused on her abilities. Extending her range, she carefully examined the whole facility and found nothing that was alive or moving. Her sensing could not detect droids however but that was all Plagueis wanted to know.

Considering that the station looked exactly the same, it was possible that Sidious did nothing to change it. He would have to check the stations sensor and activity logs to be sure but they would have to get inside first. The control room would have everything that he needed, however, there was still the task of remaining undetected.

x-x

Looking at the shelf, Obi-wan patiently waited for the crime scene investigation droid to finish. Whatever was stored there should have left some kind of trace behind, even if it was too small for him to see. The droid should also be able to collect it and then they could figure out what was taken or what had been stored there.

While he was supervising the droid, Qui-gon was looking through the messages that were received by the deceased. The first message that the Jedi had found was definitely incriminating and the Jedi Master had set about looking through all of the other ones to determine what the Director may have been involved in.

Obi-wan really wasn't sure what the droid might find or what the message his Master found would lead to. Any number of items could have been hidden inside the compartment and the assignment had been anything but ordinary thus far. Nothing was making any sense to either of them. If Qui-gon had any good theories, he was keeping them to himself.

The droid finished collecting any dust or other materials from the shelves and began its analysis. A few second later it began explaining its finding. Obi-wan listened to the listing of different minerals and rocks. When the droid was finished, he was left with only one thought, 'Some kind of artifacts were kept there.'

The listing certainly didn't tell him anything else about the items but the materials weren't really expensive on their own which led him to think about sculptures or other artifacts. It was possible that the Director had a private collection of some sort which may or may not have been illegal to own or obtained legally.

However, none of the station personnel even knew about the hidden compartment which led him to believe the items were not put on display for a reason. Most likely because the deceased Director did not want anyone else to see or know about them. It was quite suspicious and if the items were very expensive then it could have been a robbery.

Deciding to update his Master, he left the room and went back to the lab that his Master was working in.

x-x

Two plumes of smoke quietly flowed over the volcanic terrain and down the steep slope of the caldera. The purple smoke brushed against ash and small sized debris. The ash was kicked up into the air and created a larger plume that concealed the purple while the small debris started a very small sized landslide.

The smoke and material eventually reached the facility and stopped when it contacted with the building. As the ashen plume began to disperse, the two plume of purple smoke moved through the shadows of the outside features on the metal building. They moved to the tallest level and to the antennae there.

No sensors were tripped by their movement as the winding trails of smoke reached their target. They wouldn't trip any motion or typical scanning device. The smoke surrounded the base of the antennae and began entering into the very small crevices that held the circuitry and cables that ran to the devices.

The hum being produced by the devices soon stopped and indicated that they were no longer working. The smoke then completely entered the crevices of the device and traveled along the network of cables that linked the device to its control system.

Inside the control room of the station, the smoke appeared out of the control console and flowed over the controls. The large plume split into two and they received further instructions from Plagueis on what they had to do.

Tendrils came out of the large plumes and partially solidified before tapping some of the control systems. The sensors, defenses, and security systems were all soon disabled. Any droids that may have been monitoring the station were ordered back to the maintenance room for checking and the outside doors to the facility were unlocked.

x-x

"They've done it." stated Plagueis and he motioned to Kabuto to help him down the caldera while the others began descending to the facility. Naruto was first and quickly slid down the slope.

Between sliding and running down the slope, they eventually reached the facility. "Why did it have to be a lava world?" commented Suigetsu as he looked over the edge and frowned at the lake of lava below. He was already sweating profusely from the temperature of the planet and now they were descending into a volcano. Taking a water container from his belt, he drank the last of the water he had on him.

"This place is gonna be temperature controlled, right?" Suigetsu asked as he really didn't want to sit inside of a hot building for the rest of their stay on the planet.

"The facility can accommodate all of us for quite some time." Plagueis stated as Kabuto reached the facility. He originally designed it as a place to teach acolytes the ways of the darkside but he never got around to teaching any. The plan involved kidnapping Force sensitive children but he encountered problems as the information he needed was contained in the Jedi archives and he had no way of getting to it at the time without alerting the Jedi to the Sith's continued existence. His research eventually took up most of his time and he put the plan aside for a later date, which never came.

Moving to one of the outside access doors which was on the level with the landing platform, Naruto pushed the adjacent control panel and the large door instantly opened for them.

The demon brothers were standing on the other side and Plagueis walked past them with the use of his cane as he led the way into the dark facility. There was still much to do as they needed to secure the facility and make sure that no trace of their presence would be recorded when he turned the facilities systems back on.

With a few alterations and with the help of Deefour, Plagueis was sure that he could confuse the facilities systems and the droids into not even registering their presence while they used the facility. However, he needed the droid and therefore they would have to summon the escape pod to the facility.

Walking into a nearby lift, he mentally told the others to follow. The pod could have been summoned on the landing platform but he wanted to put it inside the facility where it could remain as hidden as possible. On the extremely small chance that Sidious or someone else came to the facility, having an escape pod in plain view would be a dead giveaway that someone was already there.

The lift quickly took the group to the lowest level of the facility where the storage areas were. The rooms were large enough to hold the pod but items would have to be moved.

The group left the elevator and with a mental order from Plagueis, they began picking up containers and stacking them closer to the walls of the room. They just needed enough room for the pod to fit. They were all tired but as soon as the pod was summoned, he would let them pick rooms in the upper floors and rest for the day.

Naruto moved to the center of the open area as the demon brothers finished moving the last of the heavier crates. He was about to summon the pod when he decided to create a shadow clone instead. As he moved with the others, the clone went through the handseals and put its hand on the floor. White smoke erupted and cleared to reveal the pod.

Naruto grimaced at the memories that flooded back to him. The summoning had forced the clone up into the air and it was crushed against the ceiling. 'I'll have to remember that in the future.' he thought and made a strong mental note of it.

Juugo opened the pod door and with the help of Suigetsu, they got Deefour out of the pod. The droid moved around the area before Plagueis beckoned to it to follow him into the lift.

"Rooms are on the fifth level. You can leave the scrolls in the escape pod for now. I don't know how long we will be staying but all of you can get some rest until tomorrow." said Plagueis and went up the lift with Deefour. The door quickly closed and the others were left to wait a moment or two for the lift to come back down.

x-x

Looking over the new information his padawan had gathered, Qui-gon thought about the investigation and where their information was taking them. Using the Force to try and piece together what had happened and possibly why it had happened wasn't getting him anywhere. There were too many inconsistencies and missing pieces of information.

After a thorough search through the memory stored in the Directors desk, he found no secret messages or any strange communications. The only thing he did find was that the Director had sealed a file from the sensor logs and it was accessed the same day she was killed, from the very lab he was standing in.

The log concerned a ship that had crashed on the planet but that had been years prior. The only thing he could think of was that the individuals that killed the Director were after something off the ship but the amount of time from when the ship crashed to when someone came looking for it was quite odd.

"We'll need to look at that crashed ship." said Qui-gon as he placed the datapad down and headed for the door.

"What ship?" asked Obi-wan as he followed his Master out the door.

x-x

Sitting in his new room, Naruto took off all of his gear and placed it on the desk. There were just enough rooms on the station to accommodate all of them but a few would have to share.

Taking off his body suit, he pooled chakra into his stomach and looked at the revealed seal. He hadn't detected any deceit from the kyuubi when it told him there was no way to control it's power or at least to stop it from trying to influence him but that didn't mean that he had no other options available to him.

Keeping chakra suppression seals on his body to stop him from using his chakra wasn't something he wanted or thought he could live with. There was no telling how long it would take to find a good solution to his fox problem or how long they would be stuck on Mustafar but there was something he could do.

Holding the wrist of his right hand, he focused chakra into his finger tips. Chakra flared to life and took the form of several kanji. It was a five pronged seal that he was forming and something that would stop the Kyuubi from having any influence over him. Placing the seal over his seal would seal off his access to the Kyuubi's chakra and therefore stop the Kyuubi from trying to influence him.

The only problem was that the five pronged seal wouldn't be compatible with his his seal. Having an odd numbered seal on an even seal would mess up his chakra control but it he would still be able to use chakra. He unfortunately didn't know if there existed an even numbered seal that would mesh with his seal, so he was left with the only seal he did know that would do the job. The seals finished forming on his fingers and letting go of his wrist. With firm resolve, he pulled the hand up and then thrust it into his stomach.

Five new seals formed outside of his seal and his eyes widened in pain. The whole ordeal was over in a few seconds and he fell backwards onto the bed, completely unconscious.

x-x

Looking over the monitors from his seat, Plagueis looked through the facilities logs. After he was done, he would try to re-familiarize himself with the planet. He had remembered quite a few facts about Mustafar but not certainly everything.

According to the logs, Sidious had not been to the station for years. Everything was still functioning at peak performance and there had been no problems. This was not the only good news. Looking through the information on the planet's inhabitants, he found something interesting.

The planet had a single species but the Mustafarians were divided into two distinct subspecies which was something that he had not remembered. There were northern and southern Mustafarians. The northern subspecies were tall and thin while the southerners were short and stocky but much stronger.

His interest focused more on the northern subspecies as they had qualities that he had been looking for in a body. His original body was a Muun which were apparently very similar in body-type to the northern Mustafarians. In fact, taking one of the northerners would give him a very suitable host to possess. The added bonus of choosing a Mustfarian was their insectoid features. Their hard outer shell was made to protect them from the harsh environment but it also protected them against standard blaster fire.

'I'll need to procure one of these northerners. Gato's body may not last the length of our stay on this planet.' he noted and decided to send a few of the group out to scout for him. The majority of the planet's inhabitants still lived in the only city on the planet, which was called Fralideja, so it wouldn't be that much trouble to spy on them.

The beeping noises from the astromech made him turn in the chair and face the droid. Defour was hooked up to the computer terminal and accessing all of the station's systems. They would need to wipe their presence from the logs and falsify all the information. The station's droids also needed to be programmed to go about their daily business while ignoring the new guests.

From what he could gather and from looking back to his own console, the droid had already managed to forge the new logs and it was currently altering the ships systems and droids to ignore them.

"Let me know when the sensors can be turned back on." Plagueis ordered and the droid beeped in response.

He had hoped to be on Tatooine by the following day but now but they would again be delayed. It was an inconvenience but hopefully the new body would make up for it. Once the eruptions had ceased, they would need to visit the ship and determine the damage. Few ships came to Mustafar and the only ones that did were large cargo ships that belonged to the Techno Union. They were too large to properly hijack and would be too cumbersome and too much of a target to take to Tatooine.

The only viable option was to fix their current ship. They would have the other crashed ship to take parts from since the Mustafarians wouldn't be interested in the ship, only its supplies and cargo. He just hoped that the damage to the Vulture wasn't too extensive.

x-x

"Well that will certainly hinder our efforts." commented Obi-wan as he stared at the ship they were after. Almost two decades ago, the ship had been hit by a meteor shower and crashed on the planet. Then, at some point after that, it had been salvaged and taken to a junkyard. The picked apart shuttle was now sitting among other piles of junk.

Without even looking inside the ship, they could already tell that most of its primary systems had been sold off and only the majority of the ship's damaged hull remained.

"We still need to see if we can find any of the components. Even just finding the navigation computer would give us something." Qui-gon reminded his padawan and turned to the owner of the junkyard, "We'll need to see your sales records."

"I don't keep any records." responded a green female Twi'lek as she stood with her arms crossed. She knew that neither of the two were likely to buy anything but the Kikorie City authorities had told her she was to cooperate with them.

"Of course you don't." lamented the padawan as he scaled the junk pile to look into the cockpit of the small ship. Everything appeared to have been stripped from the insides.

"Thank you for the cooperation." said Qui-gon with a small bow and the Twi-lek rolled her eyes while walking back to her office.

Noting his padawan's emotions, it was obvious that Obi-wan was frustrated at the lack of results. With no markings on the exterior and no other identifications, there was no way to trace the ship back to its origin or find out where it was coming from. They also didn't know why it was going to Ast Kikorie in the first place.

The best scenario that he could come up with was that the Director of the station found something on the crashed ship years prior and kept it in the hidden compartment of her quarters. The authorities had investigated the downed ship a few days after it was found and ruled the human pilot's death as a result of the crash. However, they had not found any items on board the ship, so it was likely that they were already taken from the ship when it first crashed.

There was nothing illegal about taking the items though as the planet's salvage laws were in the Director's favor. The ship had crashed and the owner was dead, though it was suspicious that she hadn't reported the crash as then she could have staked a claim to the salvage rights. Likely whatever was aboard was stolen by her and those items could have been some artifacts.

It was also strange that it took nearly two decades for someone to come looking for those items but it seemed that someone wanted their property or wanted what the Director had found.

'There's not much else we can do.' thought Qui-gon as he knew that they were at a dead end in the investigation and would not be able to determine who was responsible. Any information on the ship that had hastily left the planet was of no help as the transponder signal was obviously changed. They could alert authorities in the Republic about the ship but that was about it.

x-x

"We've spotted the one you're after" said Gozu as he looked over the rocky terrain with the electrobinoculars. Sitting next to him was Meizu, Karin, and Tayuya. The group had been tasked with spying on the local inhabitants and were in some higher terrain near the city of Fralideja.

"And you're sure its him?" questioned Plagueis through the small holographic communicator that Karin was holding. Most of the Mustafarians looked quite similar and wore clothing that hid most of their features from view.

"Yes, I can feel that it's the one you want and its heading with a group of other workers to the mining complex with the others for the next shift." Karin answered as she felt the tall Mustafarian that was among a group of tall and short members of its species.

"Excellent. Capture him immediately and bring him back here." stated the blue hologram of Gato and the communication was ended.

Two days had passed since they commandeered the Sith facility on the volcanic planet and in that time, Plagueis had begun the search for a new host body. Using the demon brothers, he had them infiltrate the Klegger Mining Facility and used them to institute a blood screening of the Mustafarians that worked at the facility.

The screening was masked as a routine physical which was quite unusual because the Techno Union employees that managed the facility cared nothing for their Mustafarian workers and never gave them any periodic physicals. Given that the Techno Union employees never put themselves at risk for injury, as they let the Mustafarians do that, they hardly used the infirmary and didn't even notice the screening.

With the information, Plagueis found a suitable northern Mustafarian that had a higher than average midi-chlorian count of about 4,000. This was over three times higher than average and enough to have slight Force sensitivity. With the body chosen, it just came down to simple kidnapping.

As the demon brothers moved over the terrain in the smoke form, Tayuya readied her fingers to create handseals and put the entire group of workers under genjutsu. She was slightly nervous as given the fact that Mustafarians were an insectoid species, she had no idea if her genjutsu would even work on them. The illusionary art did not work on animals or insects but given the sentience of the species she was looking at, it was possible that it could still work.

Once the demon brothers were in position, they waited for the group of workers to come closer to them. The remaining members were positioned behind some volcanic features on a the side of a cliff which overlooked the pathway that the workers typically took to the mining complex to take over for the previous shift. They had spent the morning scouting the position and preparing the trap.

Hearing the footfalls of the group below them, Tayuya began going through handseals. With the jutsu finished, she put her flute to her mouth and started playing notes, waiting for the shouts to occur as the genjutsu was transmitted directly to her foes.

A large ball of fire soon appeared in the sky and hurtled toward the group of workers. Buzzing shouts filled the air as several of the Mustafarians noticed the incoming projectile and warned the others as they scattered for cover. If it was a fireball then their thick shells would have protected them from the flames but the their response was only natural when presented with a danger such as that.

In the chaos, two plumes of smoke came out from behind some rocks and wrapped around one of the tall subspeices. They quickly took it away from the area just as the flaming sphere was supposed to hit the ground. With the genjutsu finished, Tayuya began making handseals for another one to hide the kidnapping. Without anyone noticing, the surroundings in the area changed slightly to provide an area for the demon brothers to escape with the body and not be seen.

A few moments passed as the workers looked around to find that nothing had happened and whatever they had seen, was no longer there. It wouldn't be until they made it to the facility to report for their shift that they would notice one of them was missing.

x-x

Naruto's eyes opened and he quickly sat up on his bed. Looking over the room, he remembered where he was and checked the seal on his stomach. Five additional seals were clearly visible outside the seal that held back the Kyuubi.

A small smirk formed on his face. Though his chakra control would be hindered, he wouldn't have to worry about the Kyuubi for a time. There was no telling how long the new seal would hold or if it would ever weaken. His knowledge of the seal was limited to how to perform it and not much beyond that. Perhaps even Jiraiya wouldn't have known the answers to those questions.

Standing up, he found himself feeling...good. It was difficult to describe exactly how he felt or if it was from the uninterrupted sleep or something else. His thoughts seemed to be more clear and focused. 'Just how much was I being influenced by that damn fox?' Naruto wondered as he collected his things. If the kitsune was able to influence his emotions, was it also able to cloud his judgment as well?

Exiting his room, he sensed around the facility and quickly found Kabuto a level below him and Plagueis at least one level above him. Juugo was apparently meditating on the station's landing pad and Suigetsu life-signs appeared to be on the same floor as him. Where exactly the others were, he had no idea but decided to find out what was going on.

Since Suigetsu was the closest, so he headed down the hallway. Walking past the rooms on either side of the metal corridor, he found an entryway and walked into what looked like a galley.

Suigetsu looked up from the food ration he was eating and smiled. Spending all his time indoors was really making him bored. "So you're finally up?" he said and leaned back in the chair, sipping on some of his drink.

Naruto stopped moving towards the counter to look for something to eat and turned to the white haired boy. "How long have I been asleep?" he asked and was quite curious at the possible answer.

Suigetsu thought about the question and tallied some numbers in his head before answering, "Over two days." The surprise was evident on Naruto's face and it made Suigetsu chuckle.

The surprise soon turned to a frown as Naruto searched for food and drink. Had he really been out that long? Then again, when he thought about it, the amount wasn't that surprising. He hadn't been sleeping very well during the travel from Ast Kikorie. "Has anything happened since we arrived?"

"Sure, but nothing that I've been able to take part in." commented Suigetsu with some annoyance and he glared at the food on the table.

Though he certainly didn't want to say it, Naruto found himself asking anyway as he wanted to move the conversation forward and get to the more important matters, "And why is that?"

"Have you seen it out there?! The whole damn place is a giant volcano! I can't be out for more than thirty minutes before I start to sweat too much and need to head back in here to cool off and hydrate. And the worst part is every time I see that damn redhead, all she does is laugh at me and make comments about the heat outside." ranted Suigetsu.

'I should have just gone straight to Master Plagueis.' thought Naruto as he tried to tune out most of the rant. It wasn't his job to make sure the others were comfortable or not depressed. He had problems of his own.

"You're a jinchuuriki, aren't you." was the serious statement from Suigetsu that brought Naruto out his thoughts and back into the conversation. It wasn't a question and the boy seemed to know it to be true. Naruto's whole body tensed as a short silence elapsed over the table they were sitting at.

"I personally don't really care but the others might, especially Karin. She's so insensitive at times. I doubt Juugo or the demon brothers would care either. I'm guessing you did something more than those chakra suppression seals to keep it at bay." he said and Naruto looked at him with some interest.

"And how exactly do you know about jinchuuriki?" he questioned and Suigetsu smirked, "Our Yondaime Mizukage was a jinchuuriki. At times, some even thought he was being influenced by it but no one could prove anything. Crazy bastard started a civil war to purge the blood line users from the rest of Water Country. You're not gonna go crazy on us too?" Suigetsu joked and Naruto glared back while didn't give a response.

"This is really gonna suck. Being stuck in this metal building for who knows how long. Of course there would be something that could keep me distracted and take my mind off the situation." Suigetsu baited and Naruto wanted to sweat-drop. All he wanted was basic information about what had been going on while he was unconscious.

Deciding it was best to keep the conversation going to where he wanted it, he asked, "And what would that be?"

"That sword you promised me. Something like the one on your back, only made for me." answered Suigetsu and his eyes traveled to Naruto's sword. Naruto noticed the way Suigetsu was looking at the weapon again and countered with, "I suppose you know where a forge is so I could start working on it?"

Realizing too late, Naruto lamented his comment as he realized the trap, "There's more than one forge in the city on this planet."

"You've been looking into the city that Plagueis mentioned?" Naruto asked with renewed interest in the conversation.

"Not me, but the others have and they've even been to the mining facility." revealed Suigetsu and continued with, "So, about my sword..."

"I don't suppose we've also become good friends with the locals?" Naruto interrupted but Suigetsu's smirk didn't leave his face as he said, "Not yet, but we will have something worked out pretty soon."

Intrigued, Naruto pressed for more information and Suigetsu explained, "Plagueis is taking a new body. He's already chosen one of the locals and the others are out kidnapping the thing right now. With the new body, he plans to coerce the locals into helping us with the ship."

By the time Suigetsu was finished, Naruto was already out of his seat and heading down the hallway. Realizing he was leaving, Suigetsu shouted, "Hey! What about my sword, damn it!

x-x

Coming to the lift, Naruto was about to head up to the control room where he could feel Plagueis but stopped when he felt new signatures enter his range. He instantly recognized the rest of the group as they entered the facility but found one signature that he was unfamiliar with.

'That must be the new host that Master Plagueis is taking.' he realized and decided to wait on the lift. There was no longer a rush to get to where he wanted to be as Plagueis was already taking the lift down to where Kabuto was. Knowing how much his Master hated Gato's body as a host, he knew how eager Plagueis was to get a new body.

The lift soon came back up and Naruto took it down to where the others were. They appeared to all be in the infirmary area and that was where he headed when the lift doors reopened. Walking down the hallway, he found most of the group standing outside the infirmary door as they waited for the process to be completed.

Given how relatively easy it was for Plagueis to possess a new body, Naruto decided to wait outside the infirmary as well. He garnered a few looks from Tayuya, Karin, and the newly arriving Juugo but didn't look too much into it. Their thoughts contained mixed feelings about him but he ignored it while his mind moved to other thoughts.

Though he knew the reasons why Plagueis needed a new body, he couldn't help but wonder if it was due to how long they might be stranded on the planet. For all he knew, the large volcano on the planet was still erupting and the ship was damaged beyond repair. He hoped that wasn't the case but it was a possibility.

Looking to the infirmary doors, he could feel his Master's spirit move out of Gato and into the new body. He hadn't gotten a chance to look at the new body and knew it would take some adjusting. His senses alerted him to movement inside the room and soon the infirmary door opened.

x-x

Inspecting the body, Plagueis moved around the infirmary table that it was lying on. The Mustafarian was still unconscious with quite a bit of trauma to its head, no doubt courtesy of one of the demon brothers. The body was over seven foot tall with long arms and legs, both reminiscent of his own species. Both arms and legs appeared to have cybernetic enhancements to increase their strength to likely compensate for weakness due to the length.

'Those modifications will come in quite useful and I can already tell that Kabuto is incredibly interested in them.' he noted as he could see Kabuto looking over some initial scans of the cybernetic augmentation.

Moving to an empty table, Kabuto moved forward and helped Plagueis get Gato's body up onto the flat metal surface. Holding out Gato's arm, Kabuto unsealed the holocron in the storage seal and held it while giving it a once-over before placing it on the chest of the new body.

Plagueis's spirit soon exited Gato's body and moved to the Mustafarian. No sooner than he had left Gato's body than the short man started going into convulsions. Being in the body for so long and causing so much damage, the shock of his spirit could possibly kill Gato.

While Kabuto dealt with Gato, Plagueis entered the the tall Mustafarian. The process could be difficult and depended on the will power of the new host. Gato was quite easy to possess but the Mustafarian may not be. Once the process began, the Mustafarian awoke with compound eyes wide open in terror. It struggled to find out what was happening but Plagueis prevented it from moving off the table.

The battle of wills ensued but didn't last long. The Mustafarian calmed down as Plagueis took control and the beings consciousness was pushed aside. A few moments elapsed before Plagueis sat up and began experimenting with the new body.

Moving the hands and arms, he tested the cybernetics and then got a feel for how the body reacted. Turning on the table, he let the feet touch the ground and then slowly added the weight of the body to them. There was nothing wrong with the Mustafarians body but possessing such a short person for so long was causing problems with balance and spacial awareness. He had gained about three feet of height in a matter of moments and needed to brace the body while experimenting with walking.

He surmised that it shouldn't take him more than an hour to become moderately acclimated to the body but that it would require a few days time before he was completely used to the changes. Looking to the door, he could feel those that were outside of it, which was quite new as that wasn't something he had been able to do in Gato's body or while he was a spirit.

'The midi-chlorians in this body should allow me to use more of my former Force ability and power. There will be so much to do as I finally regain some normalcy to my existence.' he thought and moved to the door. Hitting the control panel after one missed try, the door opened and looked upon almost all of the group.

Addressing the group, Plagueis began to tell them they needed to get to the crashed ship when he noted their confusion. It quickly dawned on him that although he intended to speak in Basic, his new body was only capable of speaking in the buzzing and clicks of the Mustafarian language, which was completely unintelligible to the group.

'I suppose even the seemingly ideal body still has some drawbacks.' he mused and began speaking telepathically to them.

'It seems this body is unable to speak in a language that all of you can understand. I shall therefore be speaking directly into your minds. This will likely only be temporary until I make some modifications to the body.' Plagueis explained and moved on to the orders, 'Split up into two groups. One group will be following me to the ship and the other will be staying here. I want to leave within the hour.'

With that, he walked down the hallway and went to the lower levels to get some supplies and check what he already had on his body. With a more capable body, he would be able to do much more and be much more active.

Naruto watched his Master leave and the others disperse back to their rooms to either get ready or to leave. It seemed strange that in just two days time so much had happened. It now seemed that he was more on the sidelines with a more active Plagueis taking the lead roll. He also had trouble adjusting to the now more intimidating body that his Master had.

Deciding that he wanted to know much more about what would be happening or at least be involved in the decision making process, he rushed to follow Plagueis. Suigetsu was little help in the information department and he wanted to be as informed as possible, which was always something that his Master emphasized.

Also, now that the Kyuubi was taken care of for the time being, he had a few more personal questions to ask. Taking the lift, he followed his Master down to the storage level.

x-x

The lift door opened and Naruto moved to where his Master was rummaging through storage crates. He had taken only a few steps away from the lift when Plagueis stopped and turned to look at him.

The Mustafarian was now garbed in an all-weather dark cloak similar to what Naruto liked to wear on occasion. The hood concealed most of the instectoid face and Naruto saw a glimpse of what his Master would have looked like years ago in his original Muun body.

'I tried to wake you a day ago but you were rather unresponsive. I thought about having Kabuto make something up to bring you back to consciousness but decided you needed the rest.' stated Plagueis but he found that his telepathic words were not what Naruto had come there for. The tension only increased between them.

Without turning, Plagueis noted the location of one of the smuggled weapon crates. He wasn't sure why his student had sought him out in such a manner but the tension and situation was unnerving. The weapon the Mustafarian had been carrying was left in the infirmary and he had no other means to defend himself, save for the Force.

Focusing back on his student, he noted something else and voiced his observation through their link, 'You're not wearing the chakra suppression seals.' It was more of a statement than a question and his mind raced over the possible answer. Could the kitsune somehow be controlling his student?

"I used some fuinjutsu and placed it over the seal. I shouldn't have to worry about the Kyuubi for some time but my chakra control will be diminished." Naruto explained but the tension and staring match did not let up.

Plagueis then noticed that Naruto's ninjato began slowly moving out of its sheath, only a centimeter every few moments as if preparing to be used by it's wielder. 'Not a good sign.' He thought and believed Naruto wasn't consciously doing it but that it might show his possible intentions.

'Is there a reason that you've sought me out? I can't say I know why and your mind is so closed off that I cannot begin to infer your thoughts and intentions.' stated Plagueis as he tried to get some idea of his students sudden behavior.

"What do you know about my parents?" Naruto finally asked and Plagueis was quite surprised at the question.

'I can't lie in this situation. Nor can I choose the wrong words to give an explanation.' Plagueis realized and his mind raced to come up with what he would say.

'I only know what little I could get out of the vulpine creature sealed inside you.' admitted Plagueis and he could feel his students anger growing. What was once a controlled and sealed off mind was now brimming with emotions and thought.

"Yet you didn't see fit to inform me of any of it?" countered Naruto.

'Yes, that is correct.' Plagueis freely admitted and continued, 'Keeping information from you isn't really lying or it isn't according to my definition of lying. You asked the Sandaime many times about your parents and he lied to you. Now you are asking me about them for the first time and I have told you I knew about them and I will tell you everything that I know.'

"Why?"

'What would you have done with the information if I had told you about them when you were a young boy? Would you have killed those that lied to you? Sought out every bit of information about them that you could? I had to protect the ship and keep it from being found and that also meant that I had to keep things from you. From my perspective, you were as much an asset as you were a liability.' said Plagueis and Naruto instantly demanded, "A liability?!"

'You first used the Kyuubi's chakra while still in Konoha. Did it happen at the same moment you learned of your parents?' he asked and Naruto's thoughts confirmed what he thought, 'I needed someone to help me. You were trustworthy, loyal, and an excellent student but with the Kyuubi inside of you, there was always a risk. I was always wary of its power and what influence it might have over you. Recent events have unfortunately proven me correct.

That is why you are a liability. The very things I taught you about harnessing your negative emotions seem to allow the creature to push you over the edge. The power contained inside of you is vast and dangerous. Without control, power is worthless and would be just as likely to destroy the wielder or those around them than to defeat his enemies. I didn't want to get found out while we were on Ibonihs and I still don't want to get found out while building up our resources in the Outer-rim.'

'I admit, there were chances to tell you about your parents but I didn't. There was too much risk to my plans. You might have tipped off someone about knowing who your parents were and then they would want to know where you learned it. There were a host of problems with revealing that information to you. Then we had to deal with Akatsuki once we left the village which only made things more complicated. I even entertained the thought that you might turn against me or not want to help me get back to the galaxy. I initially had to deal with you possibly ruining my plans if I told you and later the possibility of you turning against me. In the end, I never ended up telling you because you seemed so determined to put everything behind you. Pushing forward into the galaxy was something that motivated you and telling you might weaken your resolve to leave the planet.' finished Plagueis as he tried to explain his reasoning for his decisions.

It had been more than half a century since he had to explain himself to someone. The last time it had happened was when he was being trained by his own Master. If it was a young Sidious standing before him, he wouldn't have cared. He would have punished the boy for questioning and doubting him, but it was Naruto standing opposite him, and despite all his training and time as a Sith, he found himself acting differently. He could sense feelings of betrayal coming from Naruto and as much as he didn't want to admit it, what he sensed was disconcerting to him. It somehow affected him far more than he knew it should have.

He had never cared about anyone before or how his decisions affected others. This was somehow different and idly he turned back to the storage containers to continue what he was doing. Searching his feelings, he found it difficult to describe what emotions he was experiencing. It almost felt like remorse and regret, perhaps even shame. These were certainly not things he had ever felt before and it almost felt overwhelming but rather than push them aside, he allowed them to continue. Trying to stay busy was helping but not enough. However, ever the scientist, the experience was something he wanted to study so he let them persist. Perhaps then he could understand exactly why he was having those emotions.

Naruto for his part stood rather still and almost in shock. His anger had waned when Plagueis's normal mental barrier had cracked during the speech. He could feel emotions coming off his Master which he was never able to before.

'He's actually sorry.' he realized and never thought he would feel his Master be sorry about anything. Sith weren't supposed to be sorry or apologize to anyone.

Coming down to the storage level was a spur of the moment decision. He really didn't know what his intentions were and the Force hadn't told him to do it. He really just wanted answers and he had been given them. The statements Plagueis made were true but he was curtailed more by the emotions. As long as Plagueis told him what he had learned from the Kyuubi about his parents, then he saw no reason to press further on the issue. He had used all of his abilities to try and detect any deceit from his Master during their talk, but he had found none.

Plagueis was right, looking back was not something he wanted to do. It was harder now more than ever but he wanted to put Konoha completely behind him. That unfortunately meant putting aside his feelings on his parents and wanting to know more about them. He would just have to let it go and be satisfied with whatever information he could get. Perhaps in the future he could gain more from the Kyuubi. It certainly seemed to know more than it let on and Plagueis admitted that it hadn't revealed all that it knew.

'What would I have done if he hadn't told me the truth or denied it?' he idly wondered but decided not to dwell on that thought. Without Plagueis, he might be completely lost in the galaxy. There was still so much he didn't know about and so much he was still learning from his Master.

Turning around, he made to leave as there was nothing left to say. Stopping at the door to the lift, he said, "I'll go select the group and get everything else ready for traveling to the ship."

The door shut behind him and Plagueis was left alone in the room to decipher the emotions he was experiencing.

x-x

Swinging his sword down, Naruto decapitated the final dog-like creature that had attacked them. The pack of animals had been stalking them for over an hour before finally attacking from behind. The creatures were hard to kill but were not that dangerous to their small group.

Accompanying the two Sith were Juugo and the demon brothers. Karin had enough of the volcanic world for one day and though Suigetsu wanted to come, but he simple couldn't. Tatyuya didn't really care whether she went or not and Kabuto claimed he had something to work on.

They were nearly to the crash site and it had taken much longer than they originally planned. Both Plagueis and Naruto had slowed the group down as some of the terrain was too much for them. Plagueis couldn't walk up walls and Naruto was having great difficulty keeping his feet stuck to surfaces. His chakra control was abysmal and he ended up physically climbing a few vertical cliff faces areas along with Plagueis. Both refused to be carried and while they were quite capable of climbing, it still slowed the group down.

Central volcano was still an ever present feature that dominated most of the their surroundings. Their movements circumnavigated the feature as they traveled past the mining facility and to the crash site. Plagueis informed Naruto that the volcano had stopped erupting only that morning but that seismic readings and scans indicated that they should be fine for the day.

Coming to the top of next cliff-side they had to climb, the small group was greeted with a linear trench that showed where the ship had come down and struck the surface of the rock. Following the trench, they made it to the edge of the plateau. Naruto dreaded what they might see and was initially surprised to find that he couldn't see the ship, however, he then remembered the countermeasures he had used.

Instead of a crashed ship surrounded a wedge shaped mud wall, they were looking at a large outcropping of rock in the middle of the canyon that was the same size as the wall. The illusion however soon faded the more intently he gazed upon. Knowing what was really there negated the effects of the Sith runes which were only meant to fool those that might come upon the area. On first glance it wouldn't look very noteworthy and anyone in the area would move on.

Looking to the canyon floor, he could see that the lava had quickly moved through the area and only deposited a thin layer which had mostly cooled. While Juugo and the demon brothers swiftly moved down to the valley floor, Plagueis and Naruto were forced to take the journey in several controlled jumps until the ground had leveled out. To get to the ship, Naruto went through some handseals and spewed a stream of water in front of them in the direction they wanted to go. The water sizzled on the surface and quickly evaporated but left the surface a little cooler.

Examining his work, Naruto frowned at the fact that the water jutsu had much less volume than he wanted. He wanted more of a deluge but only summoned up a stream. Chalking it up to chakra control, the demon brothers took over and continued to cool off the surfaces in front of them as they made their way to the hidden crash site.

Once they reached the ship, the demon brothers got on top of the mud wall to act as lookout with a pair of electrobinoculars while Naruto and Plagueis began looking over the ship. Not having anything to do for the moment, Juugo decided to go into the ship and see if he could find a few things that the others had left behind when they moved to the escape pod before the crash. They had taken the most important items but the others had left a few things and had asked him to see if he could find them and bring them back to the their temporary base. Suigetsu was forced to leave a few of his weapons because the others objected to taking sharp weapons in the escape pod while they were about to crash on the planet.

Entering the ship through the still present hull breach, Naruto and Plagueis tried to restart the ships systems to see what was damaged during the attack and crash.

x-x

"This is boring as hell." commented Meizu and Gozu just grunted in agreement. Looking over the canyon and the the tops of the cliffs for any sign of Mustafarians or wildlife was not very fun. There just wasn't much to see. The mud wall didn't reach the height of the canyon wall so they couldn't see very far in most directions

"At least its better than sitting down there and doing nothing while they look over the ship." commented Gozu.

"You think we'll ever be able to pilot one of these ships?" asked Meizu as he looked downstream of their position.

"Who knows, it doesn't seem that hard. They seem to be able to take a beating and I don't think you need to know how everything works to fly it. All we need is to be on a non-hostile planet and have some free time." Gozu responded.

"Oh yeah, and when's that going to happen?" questioned Meizu with a chuckle and Gozu laughed as well. Their luck thus far with planets wasn't very good. Each of the three planets they had been too was far from peaceful. Something always seemed to happen to them.

"Oi, Meizu. Take a look at the big volcano." requested Gozu but Meizu brushed him off by saying, "I've seen it already."

"Now that's not what I mean. I seem something on the lower slopes." explained Gozu and Meizu turned around to reexamine the slopes.

Though a portion of the bottom-most slope of the volcano was covered by the curvature of the planet and the canyon walls, Gozu saw something on the lowest visible portion of the volcano. Among the rocky slope was an area that was slightly out of place from the rest. A small portion was jutting up from the rest of the rock and looked too straight and the sides too cornered to be a natural rock. The top of the anomoly also appeared strange.

Looking at the top of the feature, Meizu felt he had seen something like it before. He looked back down at the ship to call out for the others and realized what it was. The top gun turret on the ship looked similar to what he was seeing on the top of the object jutting out from the volcano.

"We better tell Naruto and Master Plagueis." he said and examined the anomaly one more time to be certain.

x-x

'I believe it is indeed a laser canon turret. It might be a part of a ship or even a whole ship. You've both done very well in spotting it.' stated Plagueis as he looked through the electrobinoculars at the volcano. It had taken him several jumps to get up the mud wall but he was now certain it was worth the effort.

Naruto looked over the feature with his goggles and could also see the similarities. Given how far it was away, the journey would likely take them another hour or more but that was not the primary concern. The fact that whatever they were seeing was on the largest volcano on the planet, which had only just stopped erupting after nearly two days of continuously spewing lava, was more prevalent on his mind.

If the volcano decided to erupt while they were on it, then they may not be able to outrun the lava if it came down on the side they were on.

"Are we going to go investigating?" asked Juugo who was also quite interested but didn't have a pair of binoculars to see with. This was the first real adventure that he had gotten to participate on. He had found the vibroaxe that Suigetsu had asked him to bring back and was holding it in one of his hands. Given that they had already been attacked, he thought it might come in handy.

'Yes, I think we will but we won't stay for long. I could only determine that the volcano would remain stable for so many hours. Beyond that calculation, we could be endangering our lives. The find however could prove most valuable. If the other crashed ship doesn't have the parts we need, then we can scavenge off this new find.' answered Plagueis.

The quick overview of their ship revealed that their deflector dish was definitely damaged along with the engines and the power relay systems that went to the hyperdrive as well as other systems. They were quite lucky with the damage only being what it was. Had the hyperdrive been damaged, they would have been in some real trouble. Except for the obvious breach, the hull also seemed to be fine but they would need to get the ship out of the rock it was stuck in and on a level surface before determining that.

The ship had emergency power and most of the key systems were still fine but they needed to restore main power and fix the engines as well as the other systems before they could think about leaving the planet. Without the deflector dish they wouldn't have any shields which was also of great concern considering that they had already been attacked once and they were only just past the halfway point to Tatooine.

x-x

Traveling to the huge volcano was easier said than done for Plagueis and Naruto. The others were having an easy time but Naruto's attention kept moving to the smoke rising from the top of volcano thousands of meters above them and thinking it might start to erupt at any moment.

Eventually they made it to what the demon brothers had seen. They were still only a slightly up the long sloping side of the volcano. In their area the incline wasn't very steep but the ground was treacherous.

Looking over the exposed ship, Plagueis tried to identify it but had difficulty. The portion they were looking at was a trapezoidal prism that was about twenty meters tall and steadily got wider until it reached about thirty meters wide before disappearing into the volcanic rock. It didn't look like any known transport ship that he was aware of. There was no evidence of a cockpit or any other common characteristics of a vessel. Examining the very top of the exposed ship, he noted the weapon emplacement. Searching through what he knew about laser canons, he decided to revise his previous statement, 'My initial assessment wasn't completely correct.' he mentally voiced to the rest of the group and quickly got their attention.

'I based my assumption on the fact that the ship was likely a small transport or freighter. That is however incorrect.' he said as he continued to look over the piece of ship and try to identify what ship it was. Naruto quickly voiced the question that everyone else was wanting to know, "Then what are we looking at?"

'This isn't a laser cannon, its a turbo laser canon. It's far too large for a transport ship and unless this is a heavily modified cargo vessel, I believe we are looking at a small portion of a support or capital warship.' Plagueis revealed and

There was a long silence before Juugo asked, "And how big would that kind of ship be?"

'Approximately eighty to several hundred meters long, though I would expect this one to be more towards the two hundred meters or larger mark. Given the slight angle of this exposed portion, the rest of the ship is either not here or was completely covered by lava flows and is hidden from view beneath us. The earthquakes from the recent eruptions may have brought it to the surface or uncovered this portion of it.' explained Plagueis as he moved to the ship portion and began scrapping off some ash and other debris to reveal red metal underneath.

The others balked at the statement of the size. Their own ship was only fifty meters and they considered that 'big'. Glancing over the exposed area, Naruto didn't see any entrances into the ship. The best answer he could come up with was to make an entrance. The only question was where to do it. Pulling out his ninjato, he circled the exposed section. There was no telling what was really inside of it. The exposed section could be part of the front, back, bottom, top, or some other section. If the ship was as large as Plagueis believed, then it could just have fins that stuck up and had a weapons battery on top.

All he really needed though was a big enough space for the demon brothers to enter into. Selecting an arbitrary spot he activated the vibration mechanism on his sword stabbed into the ship. He made sure not to go too deep but found the hull was thicker than he expected. When he was finished, a glance back at Gozu and Meizu told them it was their turn to contribute. They grunted in acknowledgment and turned into smoke. The two plumes rushed into the hole and began slowly searching the dark area inside.

Hopefully, the two would be able to find a good location for all of them to enter.

It took a few minutes before he heard a clank come from the other side of the exposed ship. All three members of the remaining group walked to the other side. The clank came again and Naruto realized what Gozu wanted him to do. Moving his sword to the area he heard the noise from, he stabbed into the ship's hull. Three more clanks came from inside the ship and Naruto proceeded to put three more slits into the ship.

Gozu had given him the dimensions for a door that he could make and now he knew where the corners were. Naruto was about to finish his work on the entrance and cut it completely out of the ship when Plagueis spoke to him, 'Only cut three sides, leave one of the vertical sides uncut.'

Slightly confused, Naruto did what Plagueis suggested and only cut three sides. A quick look to Plagueis and the Mustafarian stepped forward. Extending both his arms toward the hull of the ship, though still several feet away, Plagueis began using the Force.

The metal hull began to peel and bend outward as Plagueis pulled the metal towards them and then bent it around, as if opening a door. With the hull peeled back, they were free to enter the ship and found an access ladder nearby.

Naruto was about to question why they hadn't just made the hole but Plagueis informed him, 'A door is better than a hole and if the ships hull can survive the lava, then leaving an opening that we can't seal will only allow a new lava flow to enter the ship and flood it.'

The Mustafarian ducked down to get inside the doorway and Juugo followed with Naruto following last.

x-x

Looking through the microscope at a high magnification, Kabuto starred at the new sample he had gotten that morning. Up until that point, he had been unable to get a sample from Naruto so he hadn't been able to see what he knew to be in the boy's cells. The other samples he looked at didn't have nearly as many.

Now with the sample from the Mustafarian, which was taken under the guise of looking for diseases or other ailments in the new host, Kabuto could finally see the small organisms that were prevalent in the cells of living beings and animals throughout the galaxy. All apparently except for their home planet. There were several thousand inside just the single cell that he was viewing which was far more than he had seen in previous samples.

According to Plagueis, they were sentient and lived a symbiotic relationship with the host. 'Such marvelous little creatures.' he thought as he continued to stare at them.

These were apparently the things that gave Naruto his added powers. What all those powers were he still had yet to determine but perhaps in time he would be able to find out more and ask the questions he really wanted to answer.

The main question that stood out from all the rest, was how Naruto had come to gain those organisms. He had yet to be told the full story but in time he would earn more trust from the group and finally be able to find out more.

If Naruto could form a symbiotic relationship with the organisms, then perhaps he could as well. He wasn't foolish enough to just go experimenting with them though. That was not something he would chance. There was no telling what the organisms were capable of or what experimenting with them could cause. He had been warned not to look into by Plagueis and told that at a later time, he would be let in on the Sith's research and be able to learn more about the organisms known as Midi-chlorians.

His own thoughts and questions continued to eat away at him but he resolved to wait. Thus far, the galaxy had turned out better than he had imagined. Remembering back to Snow Country, his actions seemed so foolish. The knowledge and discoveries the galaxy had to offer were even greater than anything he had been working on with Orochimaru. His former Master's work seemed to dull and insignificant by comparison to what was now available to him.

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Bodies, the ship was full of dead bodies. Well, skeletons to be exact. Despite being inside the ship, the flesh had decomposed at some point and left bones along with a mess on the floor. Remains littered the floors of the hallways in the area they were in. Without a proper examination, it was difficult to determine exactly how they died but Plagueis was sure that it was through violence or other physical means. There were many scorch marks from blaster fire but not all the bodies they passed seemed to be killed with those weapons.

'Hopefully Naruto will be able to use a medical jutsu and diagnose what happened to a few of the bodies that don't look like they were killed with a blaster.' Plagueis thought as he wanted to make sure that it wasn't something more sinister that had killed the crew. There were many ways that the other crew could have been killed. Bacteriological, viral outbreak, any number of gases, or perhaps something more sinister and related to the darkside of the Force. All were unfortunately possibilities.

From what he could tell, they were actually at the front of the ship and Naruto, Juugo, as well as the demon brothers were in the process of forcing the blast doors open to what he believed to the be the bridge. If there were answers to be found, then the bridge was the best place, however without power, there was little they could do. Therefore, once the bridge was found, they would need to find power or gain a power source to power individuals systems.

The ship likely had a few small power units or generators in storage that could be used to recharge droids and the like, so all they needed to do was find one if the ships power or emergency power couldn't be restored.

While the four worked, Plagueis held up the glowrod that he had brought so that they could see what they were doing. The Mustafarian's eyesight wasn't that bad in the dark but the pitch black ship was not easy to see in. Naruto and the demon brothers were much better off, but Juugo also couldn't see anything in the pitch dark of the ship.

He still found it odd that he couldn't place the type of ship they were on. Considering the Republic's lack of a standing navy, he thought perhaps it was an older ship but that also clashed with the location. Mustafar was far outside the Republic, which was one of the reasons he chose it for the facility.

A screeching and grating noise from the blast door told him that the four had finished getting it open and he walked with them into the bridge.

The dark bridge was illuminated by the yellow light of the glowrod as Plagueis proceeded to the head of the group to better light the room. Several more bodies adorned the floor near the adjacent control stations that operated the ship. Each body appeared to have been hit with a blaster bolt but they also appeared to have other massive injuries as well.

The one thing out of place in the room was a droid that was lying on the floor. Plagueis directed the light on the droid but found that he couldn't place it's model. The droids shell appeared to be an reddish-orange or perhaps it was just rusted. It also had quite a few scorch marks on its body and a blaster was firmly gripped in its hand. Given it's position in the room, it was possible that the droid was responsible for the deaths in the bridge but he couldn't be sure about that.

Naruto moved to several of the control stations and tried to activate them, but everything was dead. Turning around, he found his Master staring at and examining a damaged droid on the floor. Before he could say anything, Plagueis spoke to him and the rest of the group, 'Create some shadow clones and have them search the rest of the ship. We will be staying here for the time being. The clones should head to the reactor room and contact you when they find it or look for a small power generator in the rooms of the ship. I'd also like you to bring one of the bodies back that wasn't obviously killed by blaster fire.' stated Plagueis and Naruto put his hands into a cross-shaped seal to form a group of clones.

The results were less than he desired. He only managed to create half as many clones as he wanted so he had to to repeat the process. Using his link, he sent them out to complete the tasks. While the clones filed out of the bridge, the others chose a few of the open chairs and waited.

It didn't take long for two clones to return with the set of remains that Plagueis had asked for. The clones had quite a difficult time as the remains were practically falling apart in their hands The real Naruto moved to it and attempted to use a diagnostic jutsu. It took five tries before he managed to control the chakra enough to work the jutsu. Focusing and concentrating on the chakra control, he moved his hands over the corpse and quickly examined the body.

His control soon waned and the jutsu failed but he had found out something, "There are too many bone breaks in this man's body to count. Its as if his whole body was crushed by something." and to emphasize the point, he levitated one of the bones with the Force and the others watched while he fell apart into small fragments while in the air.

Plagueis took in the new information while looking over the body the clones brought back. It seems most of his theories had been wrong. While many aboard where initially killed by blaster fire, something else happened that finished off the rest.

'Did your clones see any other bodies with different uniforms?' Plagueis asked and Naruto closed his eyes to confer with the clones, "No, they have yet to find any other bodies that don't have this same uniform." he confirmed and Plagueis could finally hypothesize what had happened.

'It seems then that the ship was attacked by an inside force. The best explanation for these injuries is that the inertial compensator was turned off or disabled.' he stated and Meizu promptly asked, "What's an internal compensator?"

'Its 'inertial', and it is a device aboard a ship that protects the crew from the sudden changes in acceleration that ship undergoes while traveling. Normal travel and maneuvers can cause so much g-force and strain on a body that a person could be instantly killed without the inertial compensator. Starships simply travel too fast for most being's to be able to stand and the device reduces that feeling to where you won't feel anything. Our crash would have probably killed us without it being turned on. In this case, it is likely that the compensator was turned off and the crash killed the rest of the crew. There are many safety features in place to prevent that from happening, but they must have been overridden.' Plagueis explained.

"Who would turn off such a device while they themselves are on board the ship?" questioned Juugo as it made no sense unless it was a suicidal action.

The Mustafarian's gaze turned to the droid that was sitting across but he said nothing about his suspicions.

Naruto's head turned towards the door as he received some information from his clones, "It seems my clones have found the reactor room."

Plagueis turned away from the droid and nodded. He then gave explicit instructions, that Naruto relayed to the clones, on the procedures for trying to activate the emergency power. The clones followed the instruction and it seemed that the ship's emergency power had not been drained as emergency lights in the bridge began turning on.

Several low hums sounded in the bridge as a few key systems began starting up. Naruto sat down at one of the main terminals and waited for the monitor to activate so he could find out information about the ship.

The monitor however did not show him anything about the ship when it turned on. Naruto found himself staring at the image of a droid. The model appeared to be the exact same droid that was on the floor. The red photoreceptors stared back at him and he wondered what the hell was going on.

Every monitor in the bridge began turning on as well and the group looked around to see images of the reddish-orange droid staring back at them. Before Naruto could say anything, the droid began speaking, "Greeting: Welcome aboard my ship, Meatbags."

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AN: Yeah kind of a cliffhanger there. Sorry it took so long to update but the Christmas holiday has been busy for me. I hope to get the next chapter out much faster than this one.

For clarification, most of the responses that I have at the end of my stories are for the anonymous reviewers. I don't pick and choose select reviews to respond to. I get quite a few anonymous reviewers and sometimes repeat anonymous reviewers. Whether they have accounts and are too lazy to sign in, I don't really know, however there are times when an anonymous reviewer does have a question/concern and I try to answer those at the end of the next chapter. The other reviews I get from fanfiction members I answer in private messages so everyone gets their questions or concerns answered but only the ones that review anonymously get it answered in the chapter itself.

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Reviewer:luyos

Great job as always mate! Gotta say, I don't see romance happening in this fic, it wouldn't fit, maybe something purely physical, and not harem. I'm tire of seeing reviews of people asking for romance, though they are few, because, it doesn't seem to have a place here.

I like to see naruto get some soldiers or followers, maybe some sith spawn,(fingers crossed) it would be good too see him have normal followers, I mean people willing to follow his orders without force control or anything else. I like the review about naruto possibly uniting the ninjas, under one banner, his banner!

Anyways, this are just my thoughts; this is your story, and what a story my friend. Do and write what you wish, because so far this is the best story out there! ;)

Response: Well I kinda thought so too about the romance. In time he will have followers and maybe sith spawn. Unfortunately I don't have any plans for Naruto to unite the ninjas in this fanfic. Thank you for the review.

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Reviewer: Leadman

As usual, a coupla questions:

1. I know very little of Star Wars trivia, but it looks like you're aiming to have Plagueis eventually find out about Anakin... right? To be totally honest I'm okay if you have him take over and derail canon Star Wars and take it in a different direction. I like Star Wars but I'm not wedded to the canon details. As long as you don't turn this into a boring Naruto-is-godly story I'll enjoy the ride. It's the challenges he and his motley crew faces which makes this such a fun read.

2. You did mention your focus wasn't on the people left behind (the Narutoverse i.e. the people on Ibonihs), but what you've written previously was good enough that there are still hanging threads here. Are you planning on eventually letting us know what happened to Konoha, Akatsuki, and the whole insane Madara plotting to screw the world over thing? I admit Kishimoto jumped the shark (several times =_=) but it would be nice to read an alternate resolution to the mess he left behind. Especially since the Nine Tails is basically all but out of reach of the Akatsuki which puts a major wrench in their plans (although I hate them, they're not stupid, and a missing bijuu - especially the Nine Tails, the most powerful - WILL be something that they can not simply ignore).

Response: I'm not completely sure how much I will or will not follow SW canon at this point. I'm trying as best as I can to no turn this into a god-like Naruto story. Its actually tougher than it sounds. I think I will show some stuff happening in Konoha at some point in the future. I have to get to that point though. It may be a good number of chapters but not that much time in the story.

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Reviewer: tussu

Tres bien! Muy bien! Very good! Since you've been doing such a great job, I thought saying in a different language or two, could show my appreciation! :)

Tremendous work buddy..., and like every other guy i've got a question, hehehehe...

I'm just wondering if Naruto will get more followers, meaning, in Surfur (bad spelling) they kind of just fixed every body to work for them, mind control, which is fine, but will he get soldiers, dirty merchants, assassins, exct, to work for him normally, just because he's powerful, or gains their trust or buys them...

Keep up the great work my friend! ;)

Response: In Sarafur, they only mind controlled a select few people. From those, their influence may grow and they could become friendly with a few neighboring systems. He will get soldiers, smugglers, assassins and others that will unknowningly work for him as well as knowingly work for him. So some might think they are still just working for their bosses but actually work for Naruto and others will know that they work for Naruto. I don't want to spoil too much but there will be people he gains the trust of and those that he buys as well.

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Reviewer: Fan of Nightsisters

When will Plagueis go to Dathomir and meet the Nightsisters?

Response: At this point in time I don't have plans for Plagueis to go to Dathomir. That could change but it might not. Sorry if that disappoints you.

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Reviewer: fanfic-addict

My question is: How far do you intend this story to go in the Star Wars timeline? Or more prudently, how far have you planned to go till now? It's just that I don't see this story fitting in with Episode IV since that's basically the next generation and Naruto would be nearly 50 years old which would be weird. Even if Naruto would be the Emperor then but to be honest I don't really see him there either. Oh, and I want to know why Naruto was angered strongly enough to nearly draw on the Kyuubi's chakra. Only Jiraya's memories did that before and unlike in canon Naruto's seal was never loosened by Jiraya either.

Well, other than that I just want to say that I'm quite curious what you'll do with the Tessents since you can be completely original without changing the basic setting too much. Oh, and I think you shouldn't invent any more force powers. I can see that the mind techniques like "knowledge drain" were essential and necessary for the story but the "force astrogation" you mentioned in chapter 19 in the beginning is just way too outlandish in my opinion. While the Force often acts as some kind of guide for the Jedi and Sith, it's more about gut feelings, vague ideas and sometimes visions or in Mace Windu's case even shatterpoints. You can't use the force to substitute the extremly precise calculations of a high-tech navigational computer which consist of countless variables. It doesn't sound very usefull anyways.

Response: I don't plan to go past the clone wars, or at least not far past the clones wars, so my story will end about where the third movie ends and won't go beyond that. Hopefully this chapter explained the question about the Kyuubi's chakra and influence. I've tried to explain it better as other people found it slightly unrealistic that Naruto would get that mad.

Um...actually instinctive astrogation is a real force technique or it is on Wookieepedia as a force technique I didn't make it up. It could be quite useful if Naruto wanted to plot a course through an area he has never been before and that doesn't have good astrological data. The way I understand it, and I could be wrong, is that star charts are updated regularly because the hyperlanes do change slightly over time. Navigational computers need those updated star charts to plot safe courses. There are major and minor lanes and so if Naruto wanted to make his own path through space, he could do that without updated charts or using the navigational computer. This would allow him to possibly travel to places faster and on a more direct route but also work around pirates and other people that might wait at normal spaces lanes to attack ships that come out of hyperspace. It really would come in handy. If he didn't have a nav computer then he wouldn't need one. He could also use it plot new hyperlanes for use later on. Hyperlanes are very valuable as a quicker path is more money for shippers/smugglers, and would be incredibly useful in times of war. Having secret hyperlanes would be invaluable to anyone.

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Reviewer: Renegade

Hey since naruto over rode orochimaru when he tried to take over naruto's soul, doesn't that mean that naruto has to use the technique himself to keep him alive every few years?

Response: Naruto absorbed Orochimaru's soul, but he never took over his body. He still has his own body and the reason Orohcimaru had to keep switching was due to the fact that his new host body kept breaking down because it was not meant to hold his soul or his chakra. Naruto shouldn't have that problem because he never left his body or took over orochimaru's.

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Reviewer: Peter Kim

What about me answering your review on your fanfiction? When will Naruto's gang will face the jedis and most importly,Obi Wan Kenobi and his master Qui Gon Jinn?

Response: Unfortuantely not for a little while. They are in sort of a finding/gathering/building arc where they are making connections and building up their power base, so they won't be facing jedi very soon. Obi-wan and Qui-gon appeared in this chapter because I really wanted to test myself. I wanted to see how well I could write a standard star wars character and how well that would conform to what people expect them to say/do/act. It will be a little while before Naruto faces either of those two jedi.

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Reviewer: coldblue

I have been reading your responses on how you might run the story. It's sad that you might not put Naruto in a relationship with Karin, Tayuya, Naruto girls or any Star Wars girls. I understand that Naruto does not know how to love, but I can't help to be into some romance's. If you do reconsider romance than I can't wait to read about.

So if you are going to keep Naruto to the Sith ways, how will he interact with Sedious and the others connected to the dark side? When will Naruto wise up and kill Plaguesis? Why keep Kabuto alive if he is going to causemore problems for the group for his thirst for knowledge? Will Naruto be buing these new forms of driods that you say that you might show or will be through other situations like with DeeFour? Will Naruto find the tomb of Raven or someething special from finding these statues? What will Naruto light saber will look like? Thanks for the chapter and the responses to the answer from your readers. Keep writing!

Response: If a romance is going to happen in the story then it will be gradual and not happen right away. I don't exactly know if it will or if it won't. It would all depend on where the story takes me. I have a plan but something I end up writing spontaneous stuff that could alter the story later on. Basically, there are still possibilities for anything. I don't have many plans for him to interact much with sidious, the man stays in the shadows so much that it would be really hard for them to interact. I will have naruto interact with other Sith/darksiders and he probably won't like any of them. Since he has been taught so differently and hasn't fully submersed himself in the darkside, he won't be able to get along well with other darkside users. I don't have plans for Plagueis or Kabuto to die. Naruto will find the droids, he won't be buying any of them. Naruto won't find Revan's tomb or anything like that. I'm still working out what his lightsaber will look like. I was thinking it would be a katana handle without a guard or look similar to the handle of his ninjato.

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Reviewer: Silently Watching

Kyuubi is, quite frankly, more trouble than he's worth. But I need to ask, doesn't Naruto remember what his clone heard when the Sandaime and Jiraiya were discussing the "loosening" of the seal that would occur when he first used the demon's chakra? He has all his own research into fuinjutsu, combined with Jiraiya's knowledge, so simply retightening the seal shouldn't really be that much of an issue, should it? At least unless Naruto wants to modify the seal so that none of the demon chakra enters his coils.

As for the pairing issue that seems to have sprung up, the crew of the ship is going to be spending quite a long time with each other, working together in life-or-death situations. It's hard to PREVENT bonds from developing between everyone in those conditions. No, I don't think that Naruto should go ahead and get married, and even loving someone will likely be difficult, but I can easily see a friends-with-benefits relationship between Naruto and Karin, and possibly even between him and Tayuya. And with Karin's personality in canon, she would be able to fall in love (or become obsessed) with him. If that didn't make much sense, I apologize, but I can't think of any other way to explain it.

Response: Naruto can't tighten his seal because he doesn't have the key. His seal has a corresponding key that was made by the Yondaime and it is written on a summoning toad that is inside of Jiraiya. Naruto had no idea where it was or how to get to it so he can't tighten up the seal. What I had him do in this chapter is really the extent of what he can do.

Karin's personality in canon was based on seeing Sasuke as someone that he wasn't, so its hard to say how she would respond to Naruto. Her view of him was skewed and that moment certainly didn't happen with Naruto, so its hard to say if she would ever be obsessed with him like she was with sasuke. I do agree that they will be spending time together, so anything could happen but at this point I can't say for certain what will. Some of my writing is very planned and some isn't. Somethings I just come up with right on the spot while I'm writing a chapter.

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Reviewer: G L J

I really love your story, as it presents a nice what-if situation and has great follow through. I get the feeling that you're going to turn d4 into a pseudo r2d2, but that's all good. Lovable droids make the best OCs.

Have you considered giving Naruto the hiraishin? Since he knows so much about with runes and fuinjutsu it seems like a logical next step in his training. My personal belief as to why it has never been copied is that it has specific genetic markers designed to only let the marked person use the runes.

Response: I've considered it but at this point it would be a little bit much to have it and I also have something else planned that he will learn. I don't want to spoil it though.

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Reviewer: cuco

Great Chapter, as always my friend! But I've got a couple of bones to pick with you! lol ;) I understand, that for the story to be good, there have to be issues, that Naruto can't be 100% all the time, at least not when he's 12, and getting used to everything. But it bothers me how easily he lost control of himself when the droid hit him. Also, I could be wrong, but couldn't naruto use shusin, or whatever it's called,;) To bring themselves to the ship, from the skyhook.

That's it, for my fan-pestering part! Now I think you did a great job, mixing comedy and action, the chapter had a great flow, like the story! Keep up the great work my friend, you are the best!

ps: I agree, that there is no room for romance, something purely physical could definitely work later on!

Response: To be honest, I really wasn't happy with the way that part of the chapter turned out. I wanted for him to lose control at some point but I guess I kinda forced it to happen instead of letting it happen, if that kinda makes sense. I've tried to come up with a good explanation for that in this chapter but I don't know if it worked out. There are always things that don't go exactly how you plan and this was certainly one of them for me and this story.

Shushin or however its spelled is not meant for traveling really long distances like that. Its really meant for travel for a couple hundred feet maybe. I'm also not sure you can use it with more than one person or that you can move vertically with it.

AN: That was all the questions I noticed this time, if I missed anything just let me know. And again, this section was only for the anonymous reviewers so I could answer their questions.

Thank you to all those people that reviewed.