Misplaced Chapter 25: When in slump, get help, a Naruto + Mass Effect Crossover fanfic

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Mass Effect.

Misplaced

Chapter 25: When in slump, get help

"Talking"

"Thinking"

"Bijū/VI/Geth/Reaper talking"

"Bijū/VI/Geth/Reaper thinking"

Reading/News/Intercom

(Location: Normandy team)

As they fought their way through the mercenaries in the building, Wrex had only one thought. "Maybe I should've waited for him to get out of that slump before asking him to help me with this."

He was referring to Naruto, who was currently fighting each and every unfortunate mercenary who chose to fight him with no mercy whatsoever. The blonde left many of them broken, crippled, or dead (of the three, the last would've been the most merciful). And it wasn't just how he fought either. Ever since Virmire, he hadn't been his usual self. He was curt with people on the crew, kept to himself, and brooded quite a bit.

The krogan knew where he was coming from, having lost a few friends in his mercenary years. It was hard to not see them there anymore, but one usually got over it. But he had made the mistake of mentioning that to the Spectre one time and it turned into a comparing of the people they've lost. As it turned out, the shinobi won by a good deal (but Wrex figured it was because he had more people he had cared for).

"Commander, please don't get too far ahead of us!" Ashely shouted at the blonde. He didn't reply to her, he just keep moving, attacking, and shooting.

"If you don't want him to get too far ahead, keep up the pace, mate!" Maya told her, moving forward to keep up with the blonde. "In case you haven't noticed, we're clearing rooms at a completely faster rate."

"I did notice," she replied.

"Just keep moving," Garrus told them as he went past both of them to stay close to the Spectre amongst them.

The rest of them had no other choice but to follow him and by extension, the blonde as he led a trail through the rooms of the base/mansion building. "All of this because of one request," Wrex thought to himself.

(Flashback)

"Hey, Uzumaki," he called out to the blonde when he saw him enter the hanger.

"What is it, Wrex?" the Spectre asked him, walking over to him.

"If you've got the time, there's something I want your help with. I need to recover something that was stolen."

"What, did someone steal your favorite gun when you weren't looking?" he asked with obvious sarcasm.

"…No, not that," the krogan answered. "Before I left Tuchanka, I made an oath to my father's father to recover my family's battle armor. It was taken from him during the uprising."

"Is that important?"

He shook his head. "It's a relic, but it was worn by five generations of my family before the war. It's rightfully mine."

"Uh-huh," Naruto said shortly. "So why was it taken? You krogan usually don't let your weapons go willingly, or your armor."

"You're right about that," he agreed. "After the war, it was taken by the turian military. Now it's in the hands of Tonn Actus. A turian scum who collects relics from the war," he explained once he saw the minor look of confusion on the blonde's face. "He's made millions selling krogan artifacts that were stolen from my people."

"And what do you want me to do about it?"

"Help get it back, obviously," he said with a snort.

"That'll be hard if I don't know where he is."

"That won't be a problem. The guy is scum, but he's also a showboat." He activated his omni-tool and sent the email. "Here, take a look at this. It's an article I found recently."

The blonde activated his own omni-tool with ease (which was a little weird. Even after figuring out how to use it, he was still fumbling a little before Virmire) and read the email. "This is about him boasting about his new house."

"Yeah, his new house where he's kept the most precious of relics he has found throughout his years of experience. And if the armor of the Urdnot clan head isn't a 'most precious relic,' I don't know what would be."

"Does this article have an address we can use?" he asked, looking up from the article.

"It's right there at the bottom."

"Good." He closed the article and deactivated his omni-tool. "I'll go tell Joker where to go." He turned around and went for the elevator.

"Commander, I want to be the one to end his life!" he called out to the blonde shinobi.

"No promises," Naruto replied as he stepped into the elevator.

"It's not much, but it helps," the krogan thought to himself. If he retrieved the armor and then went back to Tuchanka, it would make more of an impact. And when it came to the clans on the homeworld, every little bit helped. He was just glad the commander was helping out.

(End Flashback)

That had been the initial feeling. Then they had gotten to the planet that the article said the scum was on, landed in the port of the town where the scum was, went straight to the mansion/base where the scum was living, and then Naruto promptly (and literally) kicked the front doors down. The damn things flew across the entire front yard (which was big enough to land the Normandy in).

That had started the current course of action they were on and, he could admit to this, it was quite effective. It just left a lot of bodies that were broken and/or dead in their wake, something that didn't usually happen with the blonde. But to the krogan's mind, if it works, it works. They had already cleared out the front yard, the entrance hall, and the first floor.

Now they were standing before a large, grandiose and gaudy staircase that spiraled upward and downward. "Ugh, this guy has no taste whatsoever," Isobu declared when he saw the staircase. "Who the hell puts that much gold and gems in a rail?"

"Like you said, a guy with no taste," Son told the Sanbi.

"So, which was do we go now?" Ashely asked as she looked at the stairs and feeling a little more then put off by it.

"Do you think that the goodies are all upstairs?" Maya looked upwards as she spoke.

Her question, though, got her a dirty look from Wrex. "Those 'goodies,' as you call them, are artifacts from Tuchanka, going back a long time. Some of them would probably be even from long dead clans. Show a little more respect."

"Sorry, jeez," she said in reply.

"What clans are you talking about, Wrex?" Liara asked the krogan, her eyes alight with curiosity. She might've been an expert on the Protheans, but anything that had been long dead could get her attention.

"Only you, Shelia, only you," Maya said, rolling her eyes with a smile.

"Focus," Naruto said shortly, getting their attention back. "Garrus, Liara, Maya, and Tali, go up. Wrex and Ash, you're coming down with me."

The Battlemaster amongst them gave him a look. "You do realize there's probably going to be more guards down there, right?"

"Do I look like I'm fresh out of the Academy to you?" he asked in return, giving the same look he was getting.

"What makes you think it's going to be heavily guarded down there?" Tali asked them.

"The guy we're going after is scum," Wrex told her.

"The general rule with scum is that when they're in danger, they burrow and put everything that could stop invaders between him and them while he escapes," Naruto said as he walked up to the rail and climbed up on top of it.

"If that's true, then shouldn't more of us go down there?" Liara asked him, while also wondering why he was standing on the rail,

"No need," he told her, pulling out his pistols. "Another law of the universe: scum always hires shit for guards, for they will believe anything the guards will tell them to get hired." He channeled his chakra to his feet. Once they were secured to the rail, he crouched down and started sliding down the rail, picking up speed as he went.

When he disappeared from sight, Ashely got up onto the rail as well. "You coming or not?" she asked Wrex.

"I'll actually take the stairs, thanks," he told her. She started sliding down the rail and he went down the steps. The rest of them just shared a look and went up the stairs, ignoring the sheer gaudiness of it.

"Are you trying to be this deliberately reckless and stupid?" Kurama chastised his Jinchūriki as he went down the rail.

"What? I've done this before," he replied, seeing a guard and shooting him. It happened in about five seconds.

"You flew off the last time and almost broke your leg."

"The key word there is almost."

The Kyūbi didn't have anything else to say. He knew what the blonde was doing. He had gotten like this before, when he had lost people he knew during the war. The closer he knew them, the worse it had been. It usually had taken one of the Konoha Twelve to bring him out of it (the one time they couldn't, he had begun his work). But now, the Konoha Twelve weren't here and that was a problem in-and-of itself.

As he slid down the rail, Naruto could hear another one behind him. "Must be Ash," he thought to himself. He kept his attention focused on where he was sliding. The rail was in a spiral going downward on the inside, which gave him room to shoot anyone who had a gun and was pointing it at him.

When the rail ended and he hopped off, he found himself in what looked like a wine cellar. He had wobbled slightly when he hopped so he didn't land on his feet. Instead, he managed to roll when he landed, coming out of it safely. "There, see?" he said to Kurama.

"You still didn't land on your feet," the fox told him.

"When did you get to be a perfectionist?"

Kurama could only shake his head in exasperation and sadness. "It's is going to take something good to pull him out of this one,"he thought to himself. "And I have no idea what that something is going to be."

The sound of someone sliding down a rail was replaced with the sound of someone leaping off said rail. Ashely landed near him and had her rifle at the ready, as well as her Sharingan. "Where's Wrex?" he asked her.

"He's taking the stairs," she answered. They could both hear the sound of Wrex quickly coming down the steps to catch up with them. If the blonde had wanted to put a description to it, he would've called it a loud shinobi getting off duty and heading for the nearest bar.

"Nice of you to wait for me," the krogan said once he had got down the stairs and went to their side.

"It took you long enough," Naruto said shortly. "Let's move."

Neither Ashely nor Wrex said a word. They just followed him into the wine cellar. The guards that had been put in their way kept trying to stop them, but between the fact that they weren't that good(hence, why they were called shit) and the fact of the mood Naruto was in, they didn't stand much of a chance. The Spectre didn't even bother to use firing mechanism of his guns, just their hilts.

"Commander, you're breaking a lot of the wine down here," Ashely said as she watched him throw a guy against a nearby rack, destroying it and the wine it held. There were plenty more destroyed racks in the path behind them.

"And your point is?" he asked as he broke a guard's leg and then brained him. He kept moving forward, leaving the guard on the floor behind him.

"I'd just thought that you might want to be a little more careful, that's all." She had seen a few labels that her mother would gladly sell an arm and a leg to get. Some of the stuff down here was damn pricey.

But it seemed that the commander didn't see that. "It's something you drink, that's it," he said while in the process of delivering a hard kick a human guard's crotch, making him fall down into a blubbering mess.

"As you say, sir," she said, seeing that there was no point in continuing the conversation. All she could really do was avoid the incoming fire and return fire, taking out her targets with one or two shots with her Sharingan helping her out.

Meanwhile the guards were not having a good day. "What in the name of the goddess will it take for them to just die?" demanded an asari with a large shotgun in her hands.

"How the hell should I know?" a turian who was trying to hide behind a wine rack said to her. "Why did we take this job anyway?"

"The pay was good and all we had to do was look menacing, that's why."

"Like I said before, shit," Naruto thought to himself.

"Oh shit, here they come!" the asari said, noticing how the three of them were getting closer.

"What should we do?"

"Does it look like I know?"

"You're the one who got us hired for this job!"

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"Are you kidding us!?"

"Hey, it was my turn as spoke-person, that's all!"

"They're still coming this way! Oh by the goddess, what are we going to do?"

"Here's an idea, shoot them!"

"Like that's going to work! Look what happened to the rest of the guys!"

"Maybe they'll let us go," one of them suggested before looking at the people walking towards the rest of them while leaving dead or close to it guards in their wake. "Could you please let us go?" That earned him a bullet in the leg. "AH, FUCK!"

"Really?" a fellow guard said. "What the hell made you think that would work?" He got a bullet in the stomach about ten seconds later.

"What's with these people?" Naruto thought to himself as he broke a leg in mid-step and then tossed the guy at a wine-rack. "Shit isn't usually so chatty about their doom. They usually try to bluff and swagger their way out of this kind of thing."

"That would be because you're not giving them the chance to bluff and swagger their way of this kind of thing," Gyūki told him.

"Oh, okay. Might as well keep doing it," he decided, throwing a guard off to the side and almost tearing out his arm in the process.

Some of the Bijū winced at that. "How about a little restraint there, Naruto?" suggested Isobu.

"Why?" he asked back before head-butting a turian to the ground. He kept moving forward with Ashley and Wrex keeping to his sides so he wouldn't be flanked. They had left the wine cellar and gone into what looked like a large break room.

The remaining guards had barricaded themselves in a corner with a lot of couches and chairs. In front of the barricade were the bodies of guards that didn't make behind it in time. "Please don't kill us!" shouted out one voice, an asari from the sounds of it.

"Will you shut up?" another voice of an asari (an older one) told the first.

"Do you want to die?"

"I know I don't," a salarian's voice chimed in.

"No one was asking you, you goddess-damned lizard!"

"Put a cork in it, woman!" a human's voice ordered the older sounding asari. "If you keep talking, that guy is going to kill us."

"He's one guy!"

"He's Naruto Uzumaki! That's a death warrant if I've ever heard of one!"

There was a scoffing sound. "Please, Naruto Uzumaki is a myth, a legend! If you'd get your human head out of your race's stupid and idiotic stories, you would realize that."

That was when Naruto chose to speak. "Did your mother ever tell you it was rude to talk about someone when they were in the room with you?" he asked, projecting his voice to the barricade to make sure they heard him.

The talking from behind the barricade fell silent at his voice. "Sorry, Lord Uzumaki," the human voice said, apologizing. "Please don't kill us."

"He is not Naruto Uzumaki! Get your head back into reality, Kuro!" the older asari voice told him.

"Sellis, shut up for once in your life!" he shouted at the asari. "Sorry about that, Lord Uzumaki. She's an asari who doesn't care about anything that isn't her race."

"Then are you here?" he asked shortly.

"Just because she's like that, doesn't mean she won't hire people who aren't asari." There was a paused moment. "It's a bit hypocritical, if you ask me."

"I didn't," the blonde said curtly, stopping the way the conversation was going. "And to be quite frank, I don't care about you pieces of shit. All I want is Actus. Where is he?"

"No one says a word!" ordered the older asari.

"You all want to die? My friends and I can make it happen."

"No one says a word!" the voice repeated.

Next thing that the Normandy team heard was the sound of a quick scuffle and then someone being knocked out. "What was that?" Ashley asked, shifting her sniper rifle at the barricade, ready to open fire if she had to.

"Nothing to worry about back here," the human voice spoke again. "We were just knocking Sellis out; she was being a counterproductive bitch."

"Where is Actus?" Naruto repeated himself, still waiting for the answer.

A hand came up from behind the barricade and pointed off to the opposite side of the break room. "He's down that way, saying that he had a way out and wanted us to make sure he got out safely," a turian's voice quickly explained to him, jabbing the air rather rapidly in the direction it was pointing.

"Thanks," he said as he turned in the direction pointed to and began walking towards the door that was being pointed at. Wrex and Ashely fell in right behind him.

"Um…what about us?" asked Kuro, still hiding from behind the barricade.

He stopped just in front of the door, not turning to look back. "If I get back and you lot are still here, it's open season," he finally said in a short tone of voice. "And I'm not in a mood for taking any prisoners."

He and his squad walked through the door while the guards behind the barricade quickly scrambled out and ran for their lives, the sound of which was muffled by the closed door and faded rapidly. "Commander, you know there's a good chance that they're going to run into Maya and the others, right?" Ashely asked the blonde.

"Yes," he answered shortly as he started walking down the long corridor in front of them.

"And that doesn't bother you?"

"Do you have something to say, or are you going to keep asking stupid and pointless question?"

Seeing that she wouldn't get anywhere with the blonde, she fell silent and followed after him. As they walked down the corridor, the comm came to life. "Hey, Commander Naruto," Maya's voice said through the comm.

"What is it?" Naruto said abruptly, placing his hand on the comm in his ear.

"The upper levels are cleared. There weren't a lot of guards up here."

"What a surprise," he remarked sarcastically.

If anyone on the other side of the comm could hear it, they didn't say anything about it. "We found some interesting things up here. A piece of krogan armor, what looks like some sort of bladed weapon, and some bits and pieces of carvings on rocks."

"I think these are parts of Krogan poetry," Liara said, joining the conversation.

"That actually exists?" Garrus asked, completely surprised by her words.

"Yes, Garrus, it exists," she told him. If they could see her, the team in the basement would've seen her roll her eyes.

"How can you tell whether it's poetry or not?" asked Tali.

"I minored in Krogan History while in the university," she answered. There was a moment of silence and then they heard her say, "What?"

"Sorry, Shelia, the thought of a Krogan History minor just sounds a little farfetched, that's all," Maya told her. "No offense, Wrex," she said just as quickly through the comm.

Wrex just rolled his eyes as he followed the Spectre down the corridor. "Why should I care about what the asari studied in university? I didn't go there."

"It was something that helped round off my degree. After that, I focused more on the Protheans," Liara told them all. "Hmm, from what I can make out on this piece, it looks like the writer was talking about a female and there was a lot of swearing involved."

"What kind of swearing?" Garrus asked her. When it came to poetry, swearing could've meant that they were taking an oath (at that moment, the turian was glad to have taken that poetry class in school, even if it had been to impress a girl).

"The kind you shouldn't let children hear," she answered. "Oh…oh my," she said after a moment of silence. "I don't think that should even be written down."

"That must be the Romantic age," Wrex said off-handily. That got him a look from Ashley (he would've gotten one from Naruto, if the blonde wasn't in the mood he was in). "Krogans had a Romantic age," he told her once he saw the look. "Is that so hard to believe?"

"Um, just a little," she told him.

"On the other hand, maybe we now know where Wrex gets his love of poetry," Garrus commented over the comm. "And it would explain why there are so many exclamation points in his poems."

"When the hell did you read my poems?" Wrex demanded.

"He had me hack your omni-tool when you were asleep," Tali answered, making it sound she had borrowed a pair of pants from him.

He stifled a snarl, but he did have something else to say. "Vakarian, when this is all done with, you and I going to have a little talk. And if you're lucky, I won't break too many bones in your body."

"Shouldn't you be making that threat once that talk had started?" the turian asked him.

"Enough," Naruto said without stopping. They were nearing the end of the corridor and he could see a door there. "Garrus, take your team back to the main floor. If you find any guards still kicking and they try to kill you, kill them first."

"Aye-aye, Commander," he said before the comm went dead.

When they got to the door, the blonde opened it without any hesitation. Beyond it was a large museum-like area that probably would've made Liara start to drool if she saw (more so if it had been filled with Prothean artifacts). Not only were there krogan artifacts in the room, there were also human ones as well. At the other end of the area was a turian trying to type in a password into a door. "What is wrong with this?" he shouted to himself as the screen in front of him flashed red. "That is the password!"

"Not just scum, but an idiot as well," Naruto thought to himself. On the way to the place, he had Tali hack in and do a basic reset of the entire place. Which was the turian there couldn't get through what was most likely his escape hole.

Wrex made a lough, annoying cough, getting the attention of the turian. "Who the hell are you!?" he demanded when he saw the three of them, his eyes wide and slightly glazed, telling them that he must've taken some kind of drug.

"Tonn Actus, right?" the blonde asked, taking a step forward.

"Stay back!" he shouted, waving a big gun.

"Yeah, that's the scum, alright," Wrex said to the commander.

"How do you know?" Ashley asked him.

"You mean besides the fact that he's the only turian in the room and was trying to escape?" he asked back. "The armor over there on the stand belongs to my grandfather and hence, me." He gestured to his left at said rack. There stood his family's armor, just like his grandfather described to him.

"Well at least we know it's him," Naruto said, taking another step forward.

"I said stay back!" Actus screamed, waving the gun around. "I know how to use this thing!"

But the blonde's attention wasn't focused on him anymore. Instead, it was on a wall, where something had been set out as a grand collection. It was something that he hadn't seen parts of it in over two thousand years and would never have thought to see here.

Even some of the Bijū were surprised by what they saw. "That can't be them," Isobu protested.

"It's them alright," Saiken assured him.

The Sanbi got angry at that. "Naruto, that turian is a dead man!"

"You don't think I don't see that already?" the Jinchūriki asked him.

"Make him tell you where he got them and then make him pay!"

"Hey, scum," the blonde called out to the turian. "Where did you get these?" He gestured to the wall.

"Step away from them!" Actus ordered him, swinging the gun around towards him. "Step away or I will blow your head off! I mean it!"

"Ash, shoot his kneecap off," he ordered Ashely, who did as she was ordered. The turian went down to the floor with a scream of pain, dropping his big gun. He would've wriggled around in agonizing pain, but a hand grabbed his upper jaw and dragged him over to the wall, adding to his pain.

"I'm going to ask you again and I want an answer," Naruto said to him as he let released his grip on the turian's jaw and placed his foot on the now destroyed kneecap. "Where. Did you get. The Seven Swords of the Mist?" He forced the turian scum to look up at the swords, which were all there, from Samehada to Nuibari, hanging on the wall.

Actus might've tried to lie his way out of the situation, but his destroyed kneecap was being pressed down on and was sending him immense waves of pain. "I got them from a contact—" his words were cut off when the foot pressed down, intensifying the pain. "I found them on Shanxi!" he screamed out for everyone to hear. "They were just lying there in the rubble and I figured they might be worth something! So I shot the only human there who was still alive and took them all!"

Those last words enraged the blonde. "You shot the only person who was still alive just so you could steal from the dead? You could've saved that person!"

"She was barely breathing! I did her a favor!"

"A favor?" he repeated. "Is that what you call it?" He tossed the turian to the center of the large room and went for the wall. "Sorry, Wrex, you can't kill him," he told the krogan.

"Why not?" asked Wrex, his trigger finger feeling itchy.

"It would be too quick and too merciful. I don't plan on giving him that favor."

"Then how is he going to die?"

"Painfully and with a lot of screaming," he answered as he stopped in front of the wall. He reached out, took ahold of Samehada, pulled it off the wall, and promptly dropped it on the floor. "Wake up," he ordered, kicking it.

"That's a sword, Uzumaki, it doesn't wake up," Wrex said to him. It was a sword wrapped in cloth, but still a sword. Imagine his surprise when he saw scales burst out of the cloth and touch the ground, allowing the sword itself to rise up.

When it had risen to the height it wanted, it turned at growled the blonde Spectre. "None of that," Naruto told it with a sharp tone in his voice. The growling stopped abruptly at those words. The sword somehow looked at him without any eyes, a curious hum vibrating from the cloth. "You know who I am. You had my chakra back when I was twelve and you belonged to Kisame." It seemed like the sword understood the words that were being said. The curious hum it was vibrating disappeared and was replaced with a purr of acknowledgement. "Nice to see you too, it's been a while."

"How the hell can you understand that thing?" Wrex demanded.

Samehada swung itself to look at the krogan and hissed at him. "Easy," Naruto told it. "He doesn't know about what you can do." The hissing stopped, but there was still a growl of warning. "Yes, yes, if he disrespects you one more time, you'll eat him alive. But I don't want you to eat him." The growl was replaced with the curious hum. "Yes, he's not a human, he's something called a krogan."

"Sir, could we move this along?" Ashely asked him

Samehada's curious hum was now directed at her. "Yes, she's human and yes, she's a shinobi," Naruto told it. "But I don't want you to eat her either." He looked over at the sobbing turian on the floor. "He's the one I want you to eat."

"Wh-what!?" screamed Actus, his sobbing stopping for a moment when he heard those words.

The sword was curious as to why it had to eat this alien when the other looked much more meaty and tasty. Its louder hum said as much. "Was your last wielder a woman?" Naruto asked it. It purred in the positive. "Was she the only one on the team this time?" It hissed in the negative. "How many women were on the team this time?" It was silent for a moment. Then one of the scales holding it up tapped the floor three times.

"Ple-please don't kill me," the turian blubbered.

"Shut up," the blonde told him before turning his attention back to the sword. "So, there were three women and one of them was your wielder, right?" Samehada purred in agreement and then hummed curiously again. "Why do I want you to eat him? It's simple, really." He knelt down so he could get closer to it. "He's the one who took you and the other six from the dead hands of your wielders. What's more, one of them was still alive and he shot her so he could get away with them."

Slowly, the sword turned to look at the weeping turian. A growl began to emit from it, slowly filling the room and getting louder until it started to rattle what was hanging on the walls. "Don't kill me! I don't wanna die!" Actus screamed.

Wrex could only look at the scum on the floor with disgust. "I wanted to kill this guy?" he thought to himself. "What a pathetic waste of skin."

It appeared that the cloth-covered sword did not share the sentiment of the krogan. It kept growling at the turian, scuttling forward a few paces. It was enough for the turian with a busted kneecap to try and start crawling away. Neither Ashely nor Wrex stood in his way, but he was not going anywhere.

"You want some help?" Naruto asked it and it nodded once (how it could actually do that and realize what it meant, Wrex did not know and he did not want to know). The blonde reached for the base of the sword and undid the knot that was there.

The cloth that covered the entire sword (save the hilt) fell away and revealed Samehada in all its glory. Those who had not really known about the sword of the Seven Shinobi Swordsmen quickly discovered three things. 1: the sword had no actual blade. 2: it was completely made of shark-skin scales. 3: where the tip of the sword should've been was a mouth. And said mouth was big, had many teeth, and was looking rather hungrily at Actus.

He understood the implications quicker than the others would've given him credit. "AHHH!" he screamed, trying to get away faster than before. "DON'T KILL ME!"

If it heard him, it didn't show it (it was a sword after all). It was on him within a matter of seconds, its jaws wide open. With no hesitation, it descended on Tonn Actus and began to eat him alive. It was not quick, it was not painless, and it was most certainly not merciful.

Ashely and Wrex could only watch in silence as the turian was eaten. His screams of fear were mixed with the screams of pain, eventually mixing into one incoherent sound. The eating sword was methodical and thorough when eating Actus, yet still managing to make it look incredibly messy. Blood and guts galore were everywhere and it also didn't help that the turian just would not stay still. He was trying to alternatively fight off the sword or trying to get away, but it was proven pointless quickly.

It was over quickly. All that was left of the turian was a bloody spray on the floor. Samehada was on the floor next to it, purring contently. "That…was just a little more than disturbing," Wrex declared, staring at the sword (or whatever the hell it was). "And I want you two to consider where those words are coming from." They were coming from a krogan who had practically seen and lived through a lot of gruesome things.

"Considered and noted," Naruto said to him as he laid the cloth over Samehada. Both Ashely and Wrex weren't surprised to see the cloth wrap itself over the sword and create the knots that held it in place. Even though that had happened, the sword was still purring.

"Sir, is it…sleeping?" Ashely asked, almost not believing it. She had read about Samehada but to see it with her own eyes was something else entirely.

"Most likely," he replied, pulling out a scroll and rolling out on the floor. Once there was ample paper rolled out, he went back to the wall and began taking the rest of the seven swords off it. Once they were off, he placed them down on the paper and then he carefully brought Samehada over onto it as well.

"What are you doing?" Wrex asked him.

"Sealing them away so it'll be easier to hand off to the Alliance," he answered, making sure that they were all properly on the scroll. Once that was taken care, it was hardly any trouble to seal them away. He rolled up the now precious scroll and placed it in his pocket. "I believe you were here to find a set of armor?" he asked the krogan pointedly.

"Yeah, I was," he answered, turning and stomping over to the armor rack to look at the family armor. "I can't believe that my ancestors wore this piece of crap, but at least I've got it back." He reached out to touch the armor, almost hesitating at the last moment. Then the hesitation disappeared and he laid his hand on the helmet.

Both Ashely and Naruto looked at it and Naruto was the one who said the obvious. "It's pink."

"Yeah, so?" asked Wrex. "Pink has always been a color of Clan Urdnot."

"And you're forgetting the other color on that armor," Kurama told him.

"I could see the white, fox," he silently replied.

"Wow, that's a lot of pink," Ashely stated, looking at the armor.

The krogan Battlemaster turned to look at her. "You got a problem with the colors of my clan?" he asked her with a challenge in his voice.

"No, no I don't," she rapidly assured him. In fact, she thought the pink on the armor went well with the white, from a purely artistic view. The two of them complemented each other wherever they met on the armor. It was a simple but elegant design.

"Good."

"Hurry it up, Wrex," Naruto told the krogan. "We don't have all day."

"I'm going. Not all of us have sealing scrolls," he replied, beginning to take the armor off the rack.

"Commander," Joker spoke through the comm, getting the blonde's attention.

"What?" he asked, placing his hand on his ear.

"There's someone on the line who wants to talk to you, said it was vitally important for the Alliance and could only speak to you."

He looked over at Ashely and Wrex. "I'll be in the corridor," he told the two of them. He walked outside the room without waiting to see their reaction and stood in the hall. "Who is it?"

"Greetings, Commander," a digitized voice spoke to him. "I would say that is nice to see you again, but you wouldn't believe it."

"You're damn right I wouldn't," he said with a growl, knowing full well who it was that had contacted him.

"There's no need to take that tone with me. Believe it or not, Commander Uzumaki, but the Akatsuki have need of your skills."

"Do you honestly think I would willingly help you?"

"If the right situation was given?" the voice asked him. "Yes,"

"Funny, very funny," he said back. "Now fuck off."

"But you haven't even heard what I was going to tell you. I promise you, Commander, this is something that the Akatsuki needs your help with. The Tribe of Athame has done something that we had thought they would do but hadn't thought that they would do so in such a quick time. As such, we can't properly respond in time to prevent their success, but you can."

"And what exactly did they do that sent you into a panic?"

"They kidnapped one Hanabi Hyūga, the daughter of Neji Hyūga and Liesia Legos, and the only nonhuman in the galaxy that is able to utilize chakra. I believe that you had gotten to know her during your time on Thessia, correct?"

The entire Normandy team, both upstairs and downstairs, would always claim afterwards that the entire building shook when Naruto roared, "WHAT!?"

The team went back to the ship rather quickly and the Normandy itself took off rather quickly. Both sets of actions happened because both the team and Joker could see that the blonde shinobi that was their commander was on a fuse that was getting shorter and shorter as time continued.

Joker did not use any of his usual wisecracks when the Spectre came to him and gave him coordinates to go to. He just put the coordinates in and started flying the ship to the destination. Where they were going turned out to be just a patch of space, quite boring really (which he would've remarked about out loud, if not for that fuse).

The patch stopped being boring when another ship appeared on his screen. "Commander, we've got something here," he said into the comm.

"What is it?" Naruto asked. When he spoke, his voice was tight with controlled anger.

"It's another ship, a kind I've never seen before. It looks like someone tried to fuse a prison transport and a cargo hauler and made it worked." There was the barest amount of humor when he spoke that last sentence (he couldn't help it).

But if the commander found it funny, he didn't say it. "Go dark," he ordered.

"Going dark, Commander," Joker repeated for all to hear. That was the signal to start the internal emission sink process. It was a process that would make the ship completely vanish from the radar of any other ship. It wasn't a long process, but it was also a process that they couldn't hold for extended periods of time. "We've gone dark," he declared once the process was done.

It wasn't a long process, but it was also a process that they couldn't hold for extended periods of time. "We've gone dark," he declared once the process was done.

"Good," Naruto's voice said through the comm. "Do you have a name with that ship?"

"Hold on, Commander," he said. A quick scan revealed the information. "It's the Jewel of Thessia. Not very original, if you ask me."

"I didn't. Focused on what needs to be done."

"Aye-aye, Commander." He quickly checked the information that had been given to him. "That's the ship, sir."

"Cripple it."

He was a little confused by those words. "Um…what exactly do you mean by that, Commander?"

"I want that ship limping. Do whatever it takes to make that happen."

"Okay." He hesitated for a moment and then spoke again. "I know that I'm probably going to regret saying this, but while I can have the engines be disabled, I can also have the air systems get hit. Do you want me to do that?"

"If you're fine with me ripping your very soul out of your body, then yes," Naruto said with a growl. "I'm not risking Hanabi's life with that kind of move."

"Sorry sir, I had to ask."

"No, you didn't. Get to your work, now." The comm went dead.

"Okay, you could've been a little nicer to Joker," Saiken told his Jinchūriki. "He's just trying to do his job; there was no need to act like that to him."

"Don't bother trying to talk him now, Saiken," Kurama said, taking him aside and speaking quietly. "It's going to take something more than us and chastisement to get him out of that mood."

"Then what will that be?" he demanded.

"I'm not sure. But it's not going to be us, that much I am certain," the fox told the slug. "Kami, what I would give to have one of the Konoha Twelve here right now to talk sense into my idiot of a Jinchūriki."

Said Jinchūriki was not really paying attention to what the Bijū inside of him were saying. He was waiting in the airlock of the ship with the rest of his team standing behind him. He was waiting for the news that the ship they were looking at had been hit and crippled.

He didn't have to wait that long. "Their engines are hit, Commander," Joker said through the comm. "They're floating dead in the water. I also had the radio antenna hit. It's destroyed. They won't be able to send any SOS transmissions."

"Get close to it and find a hanger door you can hijack," Naruto ordered him.

"Aye-aye, Commander," he replied before the comm went dead. The team felt the ship move through space and right up against the damaged ship. They felt the ship shudder and then stop. "Door is hijacked, opening in 3…2…1."

The door of the Normandy opened along with the door of the Jewel of Thessia and the second they were all the way up, Naruto sprang into action. There were five Asari commandos on the other side and they didn't have a chance when he leapt into their midst. Within five seconds, they were all on the ground, stunned. In six, they were all dead.

Their killer moved on, not caring about them now that they were dead. The rest of his team followed after him. "I don't think this will end well for the kidnappers," Liara said quietly as she followed the blonde Spectre.

"I think you're right," Ashley agreed with her. They could literally feel the waves of anger and rage rolling off of the blonde as he moved forward. They would later on agree that he did walk, he stalked.

And it turned out that Liara's words were prophetic, for it did not end well for the kidnappers. Wherever they were encountered, they tried to put up a defense but it was quickly proven to be useless. Naruto was angry and his anger was leaking into his presence, directing itself at those who were perceived to be enemies. That, along with his speed, all but eliminated the enemy forces that were in his way.

But when he wasn't attacking them, he was walking at a normal pace. That was probably the most terrifying thing about him. Even when the others had split up to cover more ground on the ship, he walked alone and at a normal pace. If he wasn't so utterly anger, it would've looked like he was just taking a leisurely stroll. But since he was angry, it was no stroll. It was more akin to a hunter stalking its prey with all the time in the world.

Needless to say, once they realized what he was doing, the members of the Tribe on the ship began to get very scared. They could hear the brief bursts of gunfire that their fellow members were shooting through their comms. Those bursts were soon followed by shouts or screams of fear or surprise that were abruptly cut off.

One member of the Tribe, an Asari Commando who had only joined recently, was crouched behind a makeshift barrier made of crates and boxes. Her grip was shaky but still held onto her gun. But because her grip was so shaky, she couldn't find it in herself to reach up and turn off the comm. That meant she had to listen to everything.

"Oh shit, there he is!"

"Shoot him! Shoot him! By the Goddess, sho—" The person shouting those words was cut short.

"By the dalatrass, did you see what he just did!?"

"Open fire! Op—"

"Where is he!? Where is that human!?"

"I don't know! I can't see—"

"He's killing everyone! Get us out! Get us—!" The turian who was begging died with a scream.

"What is happening? Someone give me answer!"

"There are more of them!"

"What? Where?"

"There! There!"

"That's the wrong human!"

"It doesn't matter! Shoot him!" The sounds of someone crashing into something else filled her ears for a brief moment.

"Fuck, he's a biotic!"

"So is the krogan with him!"

"Dear goddess, he's here!"

"Where is he!?"

"He's coming this way! ARGGGHHH, JUST DIE!" the salarian screamed through the comm as he fired his weapon.

"EAT THIS, YOU—" The curse didn't have any time to be spoken before the curser went silent.

"GODDESS, YOU'RE A MONSTER!"

"RUN! RUN AWAY FROM—AAAAAHHH!"

"HELP! HELP! IN THE NAME OF THE SPIRITS, HELP!"

"HE'S KILLING—"

"NO! NO! STAY AWAY! STAY AWAY!"

"WHY WON'T HE DIE?"

"KEEP FIRING! KEEP SHOOTING HIM!"

A scream echoed through the comm, along with what sounded like the breaking of an arm. But it wasn't a breaking. "SHIT, HE JUST TORE THAT ARM RIGHT OFF!"

"AAAAAAAHHHHHH, MY ARM!"

"HOLD HER STILL! HOLD HER STILL!"

"STOP THE BLEEDING!"

"SHE'S LOSING TOO MUCH!"

"LOOK OUT, HE'S—!" What came next was a scream of pain, multiple bursts of gunfire, and more screams of pain.

Unable to take it anymore, the crouching commando all but tore the comm out of her ear. If it wasn't attached to her armor, she would've thrown it away. Instead, she settled for bashing it to pieces with the butt of her gun.

Once she did that, she was left alone in the silence. Suddenly, the galaxy seemed to only be comprised of her makeshift barricade. She began to be afraid of the silence, wishing that she hadn't smashed the comm. She had thought that the chaos and all around panic that had come through the comm was bad, but the silence was much worse. It felt like it was going to engulf her, to swallow her whole.

"I will not cry. I will not cry," she told herself, trying to muster what remained of her courage. "I am not a little girl anymore. I am an Asari Commando. I will not cry."

That was when she heard the footsteps. It was only a single pair of feet that were walking towards her and yet, it was the single most terrifying sound she could've possibly heard at that moment.

Ka-thump!

It was getting closer with every step, but it was not going at a quick pace. It seemed to taking its time walking towards her.

Ka-thump!

She went still and started to breathe shallowly; hoping to the goddess that whoever those terrible feet belonged to would not find her and keep moving forward. That hope quickly turned into a prayer.

Ka-thump!

"Please, Goddess, don't let them find me. Please, just let them go by and give me time to make my escape. Please, Goddess Athame, let me have that."

Ka-thump!

As she kept repeating her prayer over and over again, one part of her mind noticed something that made her even more scared. The way the feet walked, how fast they were going, and the noise they were making made her feel like whoever was coming wasn't just walking. It was stalking. It was on the hunt and it was more than likely that she was the prey. "Please, please, please, please, please!" she silently begged Athame.

KA-THUMP!

"Please, please, please, please, please!"

KA-THUMP!

"Please, please, please, please just let them move on!"

KA-THUMP!

With each footstep getting louder and getting closer, sounding like the footsteps of death coming for her, she was getting closer and closer to panicking. "Please, please, please, please, please, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE! I DON'T WANNA DIE!"

KA-THUMP!

Just then, the sound of the feet stopped and silence engulfed her little world again. "I know you are hiding behind those crates," the voice of the hunter spoke, his voice a deadly whisper to her ears. "The question is, will you come out or will I drag you out?"

She said nothing, still hoping that if she stayed silent, he would go away. She still prayed that he would. "Please, please, please, please, please, please, just let him go—" Her prayer was interrupted when a hand smashed through the barricade and grabbed hold of her. "Merciful Goddess, please!"

The hand pulled her out from the ruined barricade without even a hint of gentleness and threw her against the nearby wall. Her back was laced in pain at the feeling but she did not have time to compute the feeling. The same hand that grabbed hold of her reached out and took her neck in a tight grip and lifted her into the air.

She found herself having difficulty breathing, but it wasn't impossible. She could only barely breathe. But that vital concern soon disappeared when she looked down and saw the face of her attacker. Her eyes widened in surprise at who it was, for she had met him before.

"I know you, don't I?" her attacker asked her, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration as he looked at her face. "Where have I seen you before?"

"Th-Thessia!" she managed to say.

A look of recognition appeared on his face. "Oh, yeah," he said. "I remember now. You were the FNG with that one group of commandos." His face hardened. "But that doesn't matter now. I've got one question for you." He brought her down lower so they could talk face to face. "Where is Hanabi?"

"W-who is that?" she dared to asked him. What she got in response was the grip on her throat being tightened.

"Where is Hanabi?" he repeated himself, sounding exactly the same as before.

"Don't know!" she wheezed out, which only got her throat squeezed harder.

"Do not lie to me."

"Not lying, telling truth, swear to Goddess." And by the Goddess, she sounded like a salarian. But that was because of the state her throat was in. She could hardly breathe.

"And why should I believe you?"

"Just joined, thought it was another Citadel task force, was told this was a simple transport mission!"

"So you do know where Hanabi is." He squeezed harder on her throat.

She could barely breathe now, but she still forced herself to answer. "No! Swear to Goddess, telling truth! Was told this was a transport mission!" she told him with a huge wheeze of air.

"If this is true, who was this ship transporting?"

"Ma-Matriarch Moria Axeya!" she screamed with what air she had left. But that proved to a good answer, as the grip on her throat loosened enough for her to breathe in more air.

But even though the grip had loosened, it was still tight enough to squeeze her life out. "Where was she coming from?" the blonde human asked her. His voice had not changed an octave since he started interrogating her. It was truly frightening.

"Ear-Earth," she told him.

"You lie. She hates humans, I remember that well."

She shook her head weakly. "Not lying, we picked her from Earth along with her guards and special cargo."

That got his interest. "What special cargo?"

"Don't know what's inside," she told him, which got her throat being squeezed tighter again. "Do know where it is!"

The tightening stopped and he stared at her intently. "Where is it?" he asked her. He only said it once, but that was all he needed.

"In her quarters, near the back of ship, second deck, farthest away from engine room!" she told him rapidly.

For what felt like an eternity to her, he said nothing. All he did was look at her. She did not know what he was looking for on her face. She could only pray to Athame that he would not kill her. Her prayers seemed to be answered when the grip on her throat was released and she fell to the floor in a heap.

As she gasped for the rest of her breath, she heard the human talking over her. "Everyone, I have a possible location. I want the back of the ship and the second deck cleared and secured when I get there. Look for a room that's a private quarter." He must've been speaking into a comm of his own because she did not hear a response.

When he was done talking, he looked down at her. She felt his gaze and she could not help but look upward at him. "Wha-what are you going to do to me?" she asked, feeling very afraid. "Are you going to kill me?"

He didn't say anything at first, he just stared at her. Her fears began to come back to her. She began to think that she was a dead asari. Then he spoke. "Does this ship have any escape pods?" he asked her.

She nodded her head shakily but also rapidly. "Yes."

"…I'm going to keep walking. When I return this way and you're still here, you are a dead woman. Am I understood?"

She nodded her head even more rapidly. "Yes!"

"Good." He turned around and began walking down the corridor away from. She did not move from her spot in fear that if she did, he would turn right back around and decapitate her or something like that. All she could hear was his footsteps walking away.

KA-THUMP!

Ka-thump!

Ka-thump.

Ka-thump…

The sound of his footsteps finally faded away, leaving nothing but silence for her to hear. She didn't do anything at first, thinking that he had just stopped and was waiting for to move so he could come back and kill her with ease. That single thought kept her paralyzed in place.

But when she finally mustered up enough courage to move into a kneeling position, he did not reappear. "Oh, thank you, Goddess," she thought to herself with relief. She didn't need anything else to encourage her to stand back up on her feet and bolt down the opposite way of the corridor. She didn't care about trying to defend the ship to her last breath. She just wanted to get off.

Even though he knew where the location of Hanabi was, Naruto did not immediately run towards it. He gave orders to have it secured and he knew that his team would do as he ordered. So he kept on walking, filling the corridors of the ship with the sounds of his feet striking metal. He had done that on purpose because he had learned during the war that a good loud footstep would always terrify the enemy.

But the Bijū inside of him had a different opinion on the matter. "Okay, you've made your point, gaki," Son said to him. "You can stop with the footsteps of doom."

"Why should I?" he asked as he found a staircase and began to descend to the second deck. The staircase made his footsteps echo even more, giving it an added effect.

"You've probably killed everyone on the ship except for that Matriarch woman. What's the point of continuing it?"

"The fact that you used the word 'probably,'" he replied.

"I used that word because those you missed most likely went for the escape pods when they had the chance or were killed by the others."

"Everything's alright then," he said with a mental shrug.

"Naruto, there's a difference between killing someone and stalking them so they can possibly wet their pants!"

"Not from where I'm standing. They seemed to be the same to me."

"Son, come here," Kurama said, pulling the Yonbi aside. "Don't bother trying to get him to stop right now. It's pointless."

"We have to do something," Son replied.

"Look, I told Saiken this and now I'm telling you: it's going to take something more than us and chastisement to get him out of that mood."

"And what is that something going to be?" he demanded.

"I don't know, but I've got a feeling it's going to be nothing less than either divine or Konoha Twelve intervention."

The monkey looked at the fox. "Kurama, the rest of the Konoha Twelve have long been dead and personally, after everything we've seen, I don't think there's such a thing as the divine."

"I know, and that's what scares me," the fox admitted.

"…I never thought I would see the day when I would hear those words come out of your mouth."

"Don't read into it much," he warned the Yonbi.

By the timeSon and Kurama had finished their conversation, Naruto had reached the second deck. He went through the door and found Ashley waiting for him on the other side. "Commander," she said when she saw him.

"Have you found the location?" he asked, being all business.

"Yes, sir," she answered.

"Take me there."

"Aye-aye, sir," she said, turning around sharply and walking down the corridor. Naruto followed her and his footsteps echoed through the corridor.

Ka-thump!

"Sir, we've secured the deck and everything outside of the location," Ashely spoke as they walked. "So could you not do that now? There's no one else for you to scare."

He looked at the back of her head because she had not turned it to look at him when she spoke. "…Fine," he said after a moment of silence.

"Thank you." Already his footsteps sounded less ominous and more normal sounding. She wouldn't have admitted out loud, but those footsteps had put a chill into her when she began to hear them.

It didn't take them long to find the rest of the team waiting outside a door with guns aimed at it. "Why have you not tried to get in?" Naruto asked when he saw them, getting their attention.

"We could've, sir," Garrus replied. "But we thought it was best to for you to get here and take care of it."

Normally, that would've been the point where he would roll his eyes and make a comment. But instead, he walked up to the door, waited for it to open, and walked through to see the Matriarch Moria holding Hanabi in one hand and a gun in the other.

"Stay back," the asari told him in a calm voice. She had a black eye and busted lip, but she still looked like she believed herself to be in control.

"Moria, I know that you don't like humans, I just figured you would keep it to yourself like you were told," he replied, stepping into the semi-spacious quarters.

"I said stay back. Get me a channel to the Council; I want a way off this ship."

"And what in the name of Kami makes you think that you would get this channel when it would be so much easier to just kill you?"

She scoffed at those words. "You have no idea just who I am, do you? You can't touch me."

"I know exactly who you are," he said, returning the scoff. "You are a disgusting, pathetic, weak excuse for a bag of bones and meat who stole a child from her parents. And in case you haven't seen the vids already, I'm a Spectre. I can touch you all I want and there's nothing you can say in protest."

She placed the gun on Hanabi's head, the barrel pressing into her temple. "If you try to take another step and take her, I will blow her brains out."

He stared at her in silence for a long moment and smirked. "No, I don't think so. You're still arrogant enough to think that you will get out of this alive and with Hanabi. How stupid are you?"

"I will kill her. I promise you that," she threatened, pressing the barrel down harder.

He didn't say anything to her. He looked at Hanabi instead. "You okay, firecracker?" he asked her, getting a nod in response. He looked at her captor, noticing the lip and eye. "Was that your work?" He got another nod which was a little more enthusiastic. "Very nicely done," he complimented her.

"If you want her to die, keep talking," Moria warned, her finger squeezing ever so slightly on the trigger.

He gave her a look and then looked back at the little girl in her grasp. "Hanabi, I want you to do something for me," he told her. "I want you to close your eyes and think hard about your family. Can you do that for me?" She looked a little confused, but did as she was told and closed her eyes, thinking with all of her might about her family.

Once he knew that she was thinking about her family, Naruto looked at Moria and directed all the anger and all the intention to kill he had at her, like he had been taught by Kakashi and Jiraiya two thousand years ago.

The Asari Matriarch was on the verge of saying something when his anger and killing intention struck her. Suddenly, she found that she couldn't speak and she couldn't move. All she could do was look upon the human who was glaring at her. Somehow, she didn't know how, she began to see nine heads of different Earth creatures looming over the human. They were all angry and they were all snarling at her. Fear began to coil up in her stomach. She was an Asari Matriarch, someone who was wise in the ways of the galaxy and strong in the ways of biotics. And yet, she felt like she was but a worm to this god she had angered. There was so much anger directed at her that she could not take it. She passed out.

When she came to, she found herself in an odd place she didn't recognize. "Where am I?" she said aloud.

"You're in the Normandy airlock," the voice of the god-like human said behind her. When she turned her head to look at him, she saw that he was in full armor, helmet included.

But now that there was no more anger and killing intent directed at her, she had regained her confidence and thought him to be just a human. "Where is the cargo?" she asked him. That question earned her a hard slap upside her head.

"Her name is Hanabi, and she's fine," he told her. "She's out of your reach and still like that. You, on the other hand, are a completely story."

"I have information, information about the Tribe that you could most certainly use," she told him, still acting very calm and confident.

"Do you really think that I would let you live for this supposed information?"

"It is not supposed and yes, you would. I know you and the rest of the human race. Once you have a good source of information, you'll keep it alive and keep coming back in the hopes of getting more."

"Then I should tell you two things that will make you realize your situation," he said to her. "1: One of the kinds of people I hate the most is the kind who turn traitor just to save their own skin." He felt a shiver go through her skin and he was glad for it. "2: I don't care about your little shadow war with the Akatsuki. You can fight and destroy each other and I wouldn't have given a shit. But you and your little Tribe decided to kidnap the daughter of someone I like to consider a friend. That's a line you shouldn't have crossed."

"You can't just kill me," she said, nervous fear echoing through her voice.

"Wanna bet?"

"I'm an Asari Matriarch and one familiar with the Council. You kill me, they will find my body and they will want to know why."

"Not if they can't find you," he told her. "Joker, open the airlock."

Her mind and body froze at those words. The airlock in front of her began to open slowly, terrifying her. Only her mind unfroze and that was because she began to silently beg. But when the airlock was fully opened and the vast emptiness of space was outside, all she got from her captor was a boot on her ass. Next thing she knew, she was out of the ship.

Codex Entry (Technology): MAGIUM (mah-gee-uhm)

Practically ubiquitous in Human technology, Magium is a salt-like substance used to make chakra-based semiconductors for chakra tech, and is a common material used to both strengthen a metal and to grant it chakra-conductive properties.

This is a relatively recent discovery, but Magium is also known to be used as a poison, and it is easy to see why it was once called 'Death Salt': it is odorless, tasteless, dissolves instantly in liquid, and kills the victim rather quickly in a manner not at all different from a neurotoxin (Salarians that have ingested the poison through their drinks are known to die within seconds of their lips touching the liquid).

Different impurities added to the Magium salt affects everything, and one can tell its purity by how white the salt looks; at its purest, the Magium salt is completely colorless, conducts chakra extremely well (which makes it ideal for use as a conductor in chakra tech), and is known to be strong enough kill a krogan within five seconds.

On the other hand, adding iron, carbon, tungsten, chromium, and a varying amount of the salt and other trace elements makes a steel that stores the chakra in an electromagnetic field outside the item (ideal for melee weapons and personnel armor), and makes a poison that crystallizes a good number of oxygen-carrying blood cells the very second it enters the bloodstream, which literally shreds the victim's blood vessels and causing them to die a slow and painful death. Due to its modular properties, it is a popular poison used by Systems Alliance spies and assassins even today.

The problem is that due to the time and effort involved in making it, as well as its ubiquitous nature in human technology, Magium has the potential of living up to its reputation as humanity's answer to Element Zero; at its purest, refined Magium salt can cost upwards of 65 million credits per ton...impure Magium on the other hand, costs less than that, depending on what it is used for. As with all chakra-related technologies, there is no black market on Magium, and the recipe to make the crystals that make up the salt is a closely-guarded secret...master poisoners on the other hand, share their method and ingredients only to their most trusted students.

End

Author's note: Thank you for all the reviews you've sent me.

Okay, I've read the ending chapters of the manga. While I am disappointed that he went in a different direction then I had hoped concerning pairings, I will not hold it against Mr. Kishimoto. It was his story, it was his right to make the pairings as he saw fit. However, I am still a supporter of Naruto/Sakura and will continue to show it my stories (with a few exceptions, such as Bodyguard of Azula).

I thought it would be a good opportunity to bring in something from Naruto's past when it came to Wrex's armor. And since Actus was a collector, it wasn't hard to make him branch out.

In case you haven't noticed, Naruto's in a bit of bad mood. He's been like that since Virmire where he lost two comrades, something that he had hoped to never go through again. And since he's angry with himself, he's taking it out on his team and the enemy, the enemy more than the team.

What? Did you think that Hanabi would be a one-off for this story? She's an asari with chakra. I could go a lot of different places with that alone. Plus, it gives Naruto a little more time to bond with her and to see the galaxy as she sees it. He still sees it as the future he doesn't belong in a little and she sees it as home.

I would like to thank the writer Kurogane7 for the idea in the Codex. That was something I never would've been able to come up with by myself.

I'll see you all next chapter!