Misplaced Chapter 36: This is going to be awkward, a Naruto + Mass Effect Crossover fanfic

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Mass Effect.

Misplaced

Chapter 36: This is going to be awkward.

"Talking"

"Thinking"

"Bijū/VI/Geth/Reaper talking"

"Bijū/VI/Geth/Reaper thinking"

Reading/News/Intercom

(Location: Naruto)

He sat in the crow's nest of a ship sailing out at sea. Well, one could hardly call it a crow's nest when there wasn't really any nest of any kind to be found up there. Perhaps it was best to just call it the top of the ship. In the end, it didn't matter, just like how it didn't matter the sea became murky and blurry at the edges or how the sky was stormy and yet, it did not affect the sea itself.

It did not matter, his attention was needed elsewhere. In fact, it was needed downwards, to look at the deck of the ship. "Alright, where are you, Sakura?" he asked himself. If these…whatever they were (he was tempted to call them dreams) had one thing in common, they were focused on his old teammate.

He found her standing at the prow but she was too far away for him to hear. "I wonder if I can get down." It shouldn't be that hard. This wasn't reality, the same rules didn't reply. For all he knew, he could let go, fall, and land perfectly safe on the deck. So he did just that.

He would've like to say that he felt the wind rushing past him or the air screaming in his ear as he fell. But that would've been a lie. He didn't hear anything on the way down. When he landed on the deck, he made no sounds and he felt nothing in his legs. It was like he truly was one of those shades he had seen in the forest.

He made his way up to the prow. She was still standing there, her hands clenched into fists at her side. "I'm almost there, Mikoto," she said to the air. "Mom's going to find the men who killed you and make them regret it. You'll be able to rest in peace then, I promise you that."

"So, you're talking to yourself now, Sakura?" Naruto thought. "I know I do it, but at least I have someone with me to talk back to." At least, he used to.

She stopped talking to her daughter and unclenched her hands. "Naruto," she began. "I don't know if you can hear me. But you haven't heard me the last hundred times I've talked to you. It helps." He was too busy being stunned that she was even trying to talk to him to actually try and say anything. "We're going to be reaching Midgard soon. Once we're there, I will make them pay for what they did to Mikoto. They killed her; they ripped her apart like she was an animal. I'm going to give them the same fate."

She paused for a moment and then spoke again. "Would you have approved of what I'm going to do to them?" She shook her head and said, "Probably not. You were the one who was most adamant about bringing Sasuke back to the village. You never gave up on him, unlike the rest of us. Would you have tried to stop me from doing this?

"Kami, so many questions," she remarked. "But it all comes down to just two questions that were never answered: if you had chosen someone, would things be different? …If you've had chosen me, would you still be here?" She looked up to the sky. "Sometimes, I wonder 'If only we had a little more time on that hill. If only Kiba and Shikamaru hadn't revealed themselves, you might've been mine.' Would you have said differently?"

He didn't know about that, but he did know what she was talking about. Even though it was long in the past, he couldn't help but blush at the thought of the memory. She had been so close then. He could smell her scent, like fresh rain and her namesake blossoming. Her eyes were watching his, her lips just slightly parted…

Footsteps came from behind them both, echoing again and again in Naruto's ear and bringing him back to what was happening. He saw Shikamaru coming this way. Funny, they were out at sea and yet, he only saw them. There was no one else on the deck, just the three of them (if he counted at all). There also weren't any other ships, just the one they were standing on. "Sakura," Shikamaru said in greeting to her as he walked up to her side.

"Shikamaru," she replied, still looking out at sea.

"…Are you talking to Naruto again?"

"Yes." After a paused moment, she looked at him. "Do you think that this war would be different if he was here?"

"You mean if your daughter would still be alive if he was here?"

"Yes," she answered without hesitation.

He did hesitate, but only for a moment. "No, I don't think it would be different. He couldn't be everywhere all the time. The last war proved that."

It was obvious that she wanted to say otherwise but Shikamaru had been the leading tactician for the Alliance during the war for a reason. When it came to making judgement calls about battles and warfare, his word could be taken for gold. She knew that and that's why she didn't argue. "Then I guess it would've come down to whether he would come or not."

"He would've but not to destroy them. He would've come to make sure you were able to stop before going too far."

"I am able to stop myself, Shikamaru," she told him.

"No, you can't, Sakura. The only reason we've let you come is because if we tried stopping you, you would've turned on us."

"That's not true. I would never hurt my friends."

The look on his face told her that he didn't believe it. "I know Mikoto was your favorite child, Sakura. But please remember that you have other children too. Don't forget about them when you going through the Hlíf warriors, trying to take vengeance."

"If they offer up the ones who killed her, they will be the only ones who died horribly."

He frowned. "She wasn't the only one who died at Unraikyō. You aren't the only who lost someone there. How do you think Karin or Anko feel?" She didn't answer and he just groused, "How troublesome. Look, we'll be approaching New Álfheim in two days."

"Good," she said, her hands tightening into fists again.

"Sakura, you will be under my command during this invasion," he said in a hard voice. Shikamaru had rarely used that voice and when he did, all who listened paid attention to him. "I expect you to obey me."

"Just let me be at the front and you won't hear any complaints from me, Shikamaru," she told him.

"Fine," he said before he walked away from her.

AWOOGA!

"Oh, now what?" thought Naruto as he came out of sleep with that damn alarm siren going off over his head. He stumbled out of the bed, grabbed a couple of kunai off the table, started for the door. "Joker, what's happening?" he shouted over the alarm.

But as soon as it started, the alarm stopped. "Sorry, Commander," Joker said over the intercom. "Somebody hit the alarm by mistake. He was going for the button next to it and misjudged the angle of his hand."

He stopped at the door and then looked up. "Are you kidding me?"

"No. It actually happens more than you would think with the crew. Plus, this is a new ship. We're still getting used to how it works."

The intercom went silent and he was left standing at the door with kunai in his hands. "Aren't they supposed to have trained before this thing gets out to space?" he asked the air. He didn't get a reply. He scowled and stomped back down to the bed, placing the kunai back on the table. Then he stared at the bed for a long second. "I'm already up," he decided.

So he went over to the closet and fished out some clothes and sandals. The sandals were a perfect fit and made him realize how much he had missed wearing them. When he wore them, it felt like his toes could actually breathe. Plus, there was no need to wear socks when it came to sandals. Sometimes, socks could be very annoying.

Once he was dressed and armed (he would be stupid not to be), he left the Den and went down to the crew deck. When the doors opened, he stepped out and then around the elevator, heading straight for the kitchen area, passing a few people sitting at the mess table. He was hoping to find something that was edible, maybe some ramen. Then he saw the cook and knew the choice was going to be out of his hands.

The cook looked particularly grouchy as he stood behind the counter. That is, until he looked at Naruto and stood up straighter. "Jōnin Naruto Uzumaki, hero of the Citadel! It is an honor to serve under you, sir," he declared. "You did Humanity a great thing that day, showing the aliens that we were something to be feared if pushed."

"…Thanks," the blonde replied. "And you are?"

"Chūnin Shin Sato from Iwa," he introduced himself with a salute. "I joined the Akatsuki when I realized the Alliance was bowing to the Council and didn't want to be a part of that. What can I get ya?"

"Just whatever is edible."

"That would be nothing!" one of the people from the mess table shouted. "If you want to live, stock up on instant!"

"Shut it, you!" the cook roared. "My food is perfectly edible!"

"Yeah, if we want to die or have a heart condition!" someone else at the table shouted.

He glared at the table but then turned his attention to the blonde still standing in front of him. "Aye-aye, Commander, something edible." He went to work and Naruto was soon given a warm bowl of…something.

It looked edible but actually being edible was something else entirely. The food inside looked like it was about halfway between being soup or paste and couldn't decide which one it wanted to be. He could see some solid lumps in it but that just made him question it even more. He began walking to the mess table when he stopped and looked over his shoulder at the medical center. He grabbed a fork off the table and headed towards the medical center.

"Chakwas, you in?" he asked as he walked through the door.

She was sitting at her desk looking over some files as he came in. She turned her head to look at him and smiled. "Yes, I am in. It's good to see you again, Commander Naruto."

"Nice to see you too, doc. I'm glad to see you out of the Normandy alive." His attention went back down to the food he held in his hand. Should he eat it? Should he not?

"Have you never had oatmeal before, Commander?" she asked him with an amused look on her face.

"Oatmeal?" he repeated. "What's that?"

She chuckled at that. "Just try it, you might like it."

He stared down at the bowl again. The warmth of the bowl was leaving and he probably didn't want to eat this thing cold. So he braced himself, dug the fork into the "oatmeal," pulled out a scoop, and ate it. He chewed for a moment and then swallowed. "Hmm…not that bad actually," he finally decided. What exactly was the crew complaining about with the cook?

Chakwas watched him as he ate his breakfast, a sad face forming. "I heard about what happened to you. I am sorry for what the Tribe did."

He stopped eating for a moment and looked at her. "Is there any chance you could get the inhibitors out of me?" He didn't trust what the Akatsuki said when it came to him and his body.

But she just shook her head. "I looked over what they said, Commander. If you wanted to get them out, you would a surgical procedure, a team of highly trained medical personnel, half of which would most likely have to be medical shinobi, and a great deal of luck."

"So I've basically only got one out four, is that it?" He always did have a good amount of luck.

"Yes. I am sorry."

"Please don't apologize; you weren't the one who put these things in me. But tell me, why did you leave the Alliance?"

"After the Normandy was lost, the surviving crew was reassigned. I was stationed at the Odin Naval Medical Center. A very respectable position, but it wasn't on a starship. I'm used to all of this." She gestured widely with both arms. "I'm used to the engines humming, the bulkheads creaking, that subtle vertigo when the momentum dampeners kick in. Compared to that? Life on a stationary planet was just too static, too boring."

"Some people would consider that a good thing."

"Not me."

"So you joined the Akatsuki? Not exactly the best deal one could make."

Her eyes hardened at that, enough to warn him that he needed to tread lightly. "I don't work for the Akatsuki. I work for you."

"…So I can trust you to watch my back."

"Yes, you can."

He smiled at her, glad to hear it. "Thank you." Her eyes lost the hardness at those words and she smiled gently back at him. He looked around the place. It was bigger than the previous one. He wasn't a doctor so he did not know if everything was in the right place. "So were you supplied properly?" he asked Dr. Chakwas.

"Of course," she answered. "The only thing missing is my private reserves. I had a bottle of Serrice Ice Brandy that I had been saving for a special occasion."

"You want me to keep an eye out for a replacement?"

She shook her head at that. "You shouldn't worry about it. It's expensive and quite frankly, we have more pressing matters to attend to."

"You know, if Tsunade had heard say that, you risk getting a slap that'd knock you to the ground or being called a blasphemous heathen."

She laughed. "The Godaime Hokage enjoyed her drinks, didn't she?"

He nodded in agreement. "If alcohol was a religion, she would've been the high priestess. But she also had a saying when it came to the stuff."

"Which was?"

"To treasure the small moments," he told her. "Those are always the good times to remember."

"…Those are good words."

"I know." He turned around to the door. "I will see you soon, doc. I'll keep an eye out for the Ice Brandy. I gotta go."

"Goodbye, Commander," she said to him.

"Bye," he said with a wave of his hand as he walked out the door. "Now to go find that…sister of mine," he thought to himself. Kami, that still took getting used to.

"Ruko! Ruko! Where are you?" he shouted as he made his way through the pipes and cables that ran beneath the engine deck. The two engineers had pointed out this place when he asked where they had seen Ruko (they also made mention of some kind of cables that they would like to have in the ship).

"What the fuck do you want?" he heard her call out from just up ahead.

"Aren't you supposed to ask who?" he asked as he came into sight of her.

"I knew it was you," she told him from where she sat on the bench.

"How?" he asked.

"I got a set of ears, don't I? Plus…I could tell it was you." She said the last part with a small measure of uncertainty. That uncertainty didn't last long.

"I said that we were going to talk."

"So talk."

He eyed her for a moment. She was most definitely his clone, from the blonde hair, blue eyes, and the whiskered birthmarks. Even the skin tone was the same, a healthy complexion if not a little pale from the lack of light. But even then there were differences between them, three that were noticeable right from the stop.

The first was the fact that she was a woman and thus had a woman's hourglass body and breasts that looked like they were a D-cup (once again, he had Jiraiya to thank for that useless little technique). The second was that every part of her visible body, stopping at her neck, was covered in tattoos. It wasn't just one giant tattoo on her body, but a myriad of them. There was no sense of pattern or flow to them. It looked like they were placed there when she felt like it. The third was her hair. The best description he could find for it was a messy pixie cut. There was enough hair to form very short locks on her head and that was it. She was still wearing the clothes she had on when she had been free, the prison jumpsuit zipped up to her waist and black shirt that left her arms bare and stopped at her midriff.

"Did you find anything you needed in the files?" he asked. There had been more files on the Normandy then there had been on the other ship, something he was sure that she preferred.

"Nothing about me so far but I gotta say, your friends in the Akatsuki are into some nasty shit."

He frowned. "They aren't my friends."

Her face wince in pain for a moment and then returned to the self-confidence and barely held anger it had on before. "Could've fooled me," she told him.

He noticed the wince. "What was that?"

"What was what?"

"That wince your face just made, what was that?"

"It was nothing."

"Really?" he asked.

"Really," she replied with a tone in her voice that told him to drop it. Then she felt guilty for no reason and decided to change the subject. "You know, that Hunter woman is interesting to hang around with. Did you know that?"

Now he was the one who was telling her to drop it, only with a look. She took the hint. He looked around the place they were in. "Why are you down here? You can get better quarters." He would make sure of it.

"It's dark, quiet, and hard to find. I like that. I like it when I'm on my own."

"You don't have to be. You're not alone anymore."

Again, her face winced. Was it something he was saying to her? "I'm always alone. Anyone else who said otherwise ended up leaving."

"But you're not alone. I'm here."

She was getting angry at his words. What the hell did he know about her? "Oh, and what exactly does that make you to me?"

To that, he smiled and said, "Your brother."

That just made her even angrier. "I don't have a brother."

"Yes, you do. You've got me."

"No, I don't. I don't have a brother. I don't have brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, or even a mom and dad. Do you get it? I have no one!"

"But you do now. You've got me. You're my sister. I'm your brother."

She barked out a harsh laugh at that. "You think I'm stupid? You think I'm blind? They told me what I was when they experimented on me, calling me nothing but a fake, a clone, a waste of time and skin whenever they failed. I'm not your sister. I'm just Naruto Uzumaki who they decided to turn into a girl."

But he didn't back down from his words. "I never said you were stupid or blind. But I am saying that you are wrong. You have someone now. You have me and I say you're my sister." He smiled warmly at her. "I always did want one."

She didn't know if it was the words or the smile. But Ruko was just so angry at him, angry…and afraid. "Don't call me that!" she screamed, her red biotics flaring up. "What the fuck do you know?" She took her biotics and threw them right at him.

They hit him square in the stomach and sent him flying back into the wall, banging his head against it with a resounding clang! He fell to the ground, completely dizzy. "Ow, that hurt."

"Gah, finally!" shouted Kurama.

Wait, what?

"What the hell took you so long in getting these damn things off, gaki? Are you getting soft on us?"

"You're…talking to me."

"Yeah, I am. It's kinda hard to talk when you've got a muzzle around your mouth."

"Kurama, do me a favor and complain when you're stuck in a jar!" Saiken shouted.

"Or have your head stuck in a head case!" Isobu added.

He could hear them talking in his head. Was he hallucinating them because he missed them so much? Wait, if he could hear them and he wasn't hallucinating, then would that mean…?

He stood up from where he fell and faced the wall. With no hesitation, he placed one foot on the wall and channeled his chakra into. Nothing in him was set aflame and he wasn't screaming on the floor, wishing for it all to stop. He put his other foot on the wall and channeled his chakra into it as well. Still nothing happened to him.

He did a quick jog up and around the area, coming back to the floor with a stop. "Heh, heh, heh, heh, heh," he began chuckling.

Ruko had been watching him, unsure if she should try apologizing to him (a big part of her wanted to but the rest of her screamed not to show any weakness). But when he started chuckling, she looked at him with confusion. "Hey, you okay?" she asked him.

"Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!" he began laughing loudly and joyously. Without warning he swooped over to her, picked her up, swung her around once, and gave her a big kiss on the forehead. "You are the best sister I could have ever asked for!"

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Nothing, that's what, you beautiful angry woman!" He let go of her and ran back for the stairs, all the while screaming happily at the top of his voice "I CAN USE CHAKRA AGAIN!"

"Okay, let me see if I've got this right," Miranda said as they all stood in the medical bay, surrounding him and Dr. Chakwas. "After you incited a border-line psychopath biotic, whose powers and abilities are on the far side of the danger scale, into a rage, she threw her biotics at you and now you can use chakra again?"

"Yep, that's what happened," Ruko said from where she was leaning against the bay wall.

"I was not talking to you. Please remember your manners."

"Ooh, the cheerleader's upset," she remarked with a smug grin on her face. "What fun."

"I will have to do a few more tests," Chakwas said to Naruto as she removed the last needle from him. The syringe it was attached to was full of his blood. "But based on the preliminary findings, I would say that she didn't crack open all the inhibitors, just about 81 of them."

"But I can still use my chakra," he said in slight protest.

"You've used it to walk on the walls and that's it. I think the question is not if you can use your chakra or not but to what degree you can use."

"We could probably say that he can walk on water again," Miranda said. "It's the same basic principle as walking on water, plus we're not likely to find water out in space."

"And what if we land on a planet that a lot of water? What then, princess?" Ruko asked her.

"Actually, there's an easy way to determine it." Dr. Chakwas took a deep pan and filled it with water. Once it was sloshing with the stuff, she put it on the floor. "If you will, Commander," she said to the blonde.

He rose up a foot and placed it on the water, channeling his chakra through it. It stopped on the surface and stayed there. He smiled at the sight, glad to have been able to do it. "Thank Kami," he said.

"Well that's covered," Jacob remarked.

"But the question of how they were broken in the first place still remains," Miranda told him. She looked over at the doctor and asked, "Do you have any idea which ones were broken?"

"I hit him in the stomach if that's any help," Ruko said.

"As a matter of fact, it does," Dr. Chakwas said. "I suspect that you broke the inhibitors surrounding the seal."

"And damn good thing too," Gyūki said. "We really didn't like having the muzzles on."

"Hey, there was a good thing about it," Shukaku said to him.

"What?"

"It kept you from talking all the time."

"We could say the same thing about you."

Naruto started to laugh, getting everyone's attention. "Sorry, sorry," he said to them. "My tenants are arguing and complaining."

Uncertainty was the look they all shared at those words. "Is that…normal?" Ruko asked him. She may have been his clone, but he was the one who had the demons sealed away in him.

"Oh they do it all the time. I'm just glad to be able to hear them again. They were saying that they had been muzzled by the inhibitors."

"Which is another question," Miranda said. "Since you can hear the Bijū again, can you access their chakra?"

"I don't know. Let me find out." He closed his eyes and turned his attention inward. "Hey, fox, a little help here?"

"Working on it," Kurama replied.

He began to feel the chakra coming towards, only to have everything be set on fire. He distantly heard screaming and someone shouting "Hold him steady!" Luckily, the pain only lasted a few minutes or so, leaving him panting like he needed water in the chair.

"Ow, damn it! Kurama, how about some warning before you turn on the pain?!" yelled Shukaku.

"Hey, I didn't know it was going to happen."

"What the hell did you think was going to happen? We feel the pain every time he's tried it before!"

"Commander, are you okay?" he heard Dr. Chakwas ask him.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," he answered, still breathing heavily.

"So I'm guessing that using the Bijū is a no go?" Jacob asked him.

"No, he just started screaming and thrashing around for the hell of it," Ruko said with heavy sarcasm to weigh them down.

"Hey, I'm the only one who gets to use that kind of sarcasm on me," Naruto told her but with a small weary grin.

"I'll take that under advisement."

"And that's not the worst of it."

"What would be?" Miranda asked.

"They feel the same pain I do. That puts a problem on trying to figure out which jutsus I can use. I can handle the pain but them? I don't want to put up with them being angry with me."

"Smart, gaki, very smart," Kurama told him.

"Doctor, any suggestions?" asked Jacob.

"I'm afraid not, sorry," Chakwas said. "This is not exactly my field of expertise. You'd need a Chakra Scientist to help figure this all out."

"Well we don't have one of those and we can't afford to break into one of their strongholds to get one," Naruto said. "So we're basically up shit creek without a paddle."

"No, we are not," Miranda said. "There is someone we can go to: Mordin Solus."

He had heard that name before. "That salarian doctor your boss told me about?"

"The very same," she said. "Officially, Dr. Solus is a retired professor with advance degrees in genetics and biology. He now works as a healer on Omega."

"And unofficially?" he asked. Nobody used the word "Officially" unless there was an "Unofficially" to go with it.

"Unofficially, he is one of the leading aliens on Chakra Theory. The Council has made numerous attempts to bring him in so he can aide them but he has refused each time, saying that without chakra, it would be pointless."

"So now, we're going to have him look at me and my chakra. That's the plan."

"Yes."

"Not exactly a good plan," he told her. Humanity would rather have died out completely then give up the secrets to chakra use. Now they were telling him that they might just have to do that.

"It may be the only plan we have."

"Not only that but we don't know what the Tribe has on you," Jacob added. "They had you for over two years, Commander. For all we know, they could bring him on with what they have on you."

"But even then, they don't have him to work on."

"So they'll send someone to hunt him down," Cuanmiztli said where she stood at the door. It had been the only thing she had said.

Miranda nodded in agreement. "We need to get to Dr. Solus first. He might be the only chance we have to figure out how the inhibitors can be taken out safely. I doubt that biotic punches to your body will do the trick." She threw a look at Ruko as she spoke.

She noticed. "You wanna go, cheerleader?" she growled, flexing her hands. "I wouldn't mind giving you a beat down."

"Please, you wouldn't five seconds me."

"See, that's where you're wrong. You won't last that long against me."

"Hey, no fighting in the medical bay!" barked Naruto at both of them. "You will not be breaking that sacred rule!" He had learned not to break that rule by watching what happened to rule breakers by Tsunade's hand. When she was being gentle, it looked like they had been knocked to the ground. When she wasn't…it wasn't pretty.

"What are your orders, Commander?" Jacob asked him.

"It's not like we have a choice here," he remarked. "Miranda, go tell Joker to chart a course to Omega."

"Aye-aye, Commander," she said, turning for the door. Cuanmiztli got out of her way as she passed. She spared Ruko a passing look which the biotic kept as she walked by, the door closing behind her.

He stood up from his chair and also began walking for the door. "Jacob, with me," he ordered. "Cuanmiztli, go about your business. Ruko, we still need to talk."

The Hunter just saluted and Ruko rolled her eyes. "Whatever."

"Sir, what are we doing?" Jacob asked him, hurrying to follow him,

"We have reached that 'eventually' I told you about. It's time I got me some charka clips!"

(Location: Omega)

Every time he had gone to Omega since the first, whenever Aria wanted him, she would send her swordsman to go collect him. Sometimes it had been when the ship had just docked and sometimes it would be in the middle of their time there, but he would always be there, waiting in full view of the security feeds.

The fact that he was now standing before the gate leading to the docked ship as the team came through did not bode well. Neither was that amused smirk on his lips. "You, my friend, are in the deepest shit I have ever seen," he told Naruto as he held his sword by his side.

"I take it she wants to see me," the blonde replied. It wasn't a question. He knew the answer to it.

But Kojirō's smirk grew wider. "It's not a question of whether she wants to see you or not. It's a question of how she's going to mount you."

"Ooh, nice wordplay there," Matatabi commented.

"Really?" asked her host.

"What? It was."

"She does have a point," Isobu agreed.

"Yeah she does," Chōmei added.

"Lead the way," he said to the swordsman, ignoring his tenants.

"But of course." He turned around and started walking. They followed hm down the corridor. No one said a word as they walked through Omega and not even as they walked into Afterlife.

He felt the music wash over him and he watched everyone go about their business. "Nothing's really change." He didn't know if that was a good thing or not, especially with Omega. As Kojirō led them to the back, he saw that one of the new bartenders was new and he knew who she was. "Guess it was the bartender job after all."

He came into that familiar private area and saw her standing at the couch, looking over what was hers. There were guards all around them, just like the last times. As he took this all in and noticed that she still hadn't turned to look at him, an idea came to him. "Gaki, that's liable to get you splattered across the wall behind you," Kurama warned him.

"I know."

"…Aaand you're still going to do it."

"You know me well." He lifted his head slightly to look up and said, "Hi, honey, I'm home."

While the guards, Miranda, and Jacob looked at him like he had grown a second head, Cuanmiztli showed nothing and Ruko just snorted in laughter. "You've got balls," she told him.

"What he has is gross stupidity," Aria said as she finally turned around. She walked down the steps until she was face-to-face with the blonde. In the blink of an eye, she pulled out a kunai and held it against his eye.

Everyone raised their guns, pointing them at everyone else. But those two did not move. "You still have it," Naruto remarked with a small grin. "It's nice to see you have some sentimentality."

"Do you want me to kill you right here and now?" she threatened him.

His grin still stayed there. "Has anyone told you that you are very sexy when you're angry?"

She kept the kunai there for a few seconds more. Then she pulled it away. "Only you, usually we've fucked each other a couple of times."

"Just me?" he asked. "Wow, those others you've taken for lovers must've been really blind."

She snorted ever so slightly at that. "You think you were my lover, Naruto?"

He fell silent for a moment, his grin disappearing. "…If I had been younger? Perhaps I might've thought that."

"You still are young."

He shook his head ruefully. "No, I'm not. I'm older then you, Aria. We're not lovers, we're fuck-buddies." He held up a hand to stop her from speaking. "Wait, wait, I believe the term you used was 'personal stress reliever,' right?"

She smirked at him. "How nice, you remembered."

"I was only gone for two years."

The smirk vanished. "I am aware." She turned back around and walked up the steps to her couch, where she sat down. "What do you want, Naruto?"

"Can I come up?"

"No, stand there and tell me what you want." She leaned back and crossed her legs as she spoke.

"As sexy as always," he thought to himself.

"Focus, gaki," Kurama told him.

"I know, I know," he replied. "I'm looking a guy named Mordin Solus."

"And what makes you think I know where he is?"

He sighed. "I get it, Aria. You're a little more than pissed at me. I take you out on a date and then disappear for two years. I get that. But I'm not here to beg for your forgiveness. You and I both know that you wouldn't see me if I did. So let's focus on what I want from you and talk about what you're going to do to me later, okay?"

No one said a word after that, letting the music fill their ears. They were all waiting for her to make the reply. She didn't do it right away. She stared at the blonde with a neutral expression, like she was looking for something. No one knew what that something was. Some of them wanted to ask but were too afraid to do so, either to her or to the person she was looking at with her undivided attention.

Finally, she smirked and leaned her head against her hand. "I forgotten how much I missed your honest tongue," she told him.

"You missed my tongue for more than just my honesty," he responded, again making everyone look at him like he was an idiot.

But she just laughed instead. "True, very true," she admitted, that smirk of hers getting more seductive. "You have a very talented tongue."

"Aria, could you please just answer my question?"

"You haven't answered mine, why should I answer yours?"

"I didn't answer yours because it was so obvious a blind man would've seen it."

"Indulge me," she told him.

He sighed again, this time in irritation. "You are the queen, boss, CEO, daimyo, lady, Kage, and Goddess of Omega. There's not a damn thing that goes on here that you don't know about and no one even so much as breathes without your say-so. Happy now?" he asked.

"Yes, I am."

"So could you give me an answer already?"

"Last time I heard about him was that he was trying to help the plague victims in the quarantine zone. I always liked Mordin. He's as likely to heal you as he is to shoot you."

"I'll take that under advisement. Anything you can tell me about him?"

She shrugged her shoulders, somehow making both enticing and careless at the same time. "He used to be part of the Salarian Task Group. He's brilliant and dangerous. Just don't get him talking. He never shuts up."

"Duly noted," he told her, keeping his gaze on her.

"If you really need to find him, take a shuttle to the quarantine zone. No guarantee they'll let you in, of course."

"This is Omega, nothing's guaranteed," he reminded her.

She chuckled and said, "How true. You've learned."

"Is there anything else I need to know about him?"

"Not to my mind, no," she told him.

"Alright, my team and I will go pay the good doctor a visit." He turned around for the stairs. "Let's go team."

"Naruto," she spoke, making him stop in place. "You'd better not die in there, we still need to talk."

He looked up at her and smiled, his eyes suddenly alight with mischief. "Die or not, I'll see you again in the afterlife, Aria. But it's nice to know that you care."

She watched him leave, never saying anything. But she did smirk.

After getting through the elevator to the quarantine zone (through which he had a brief argument with the turian guarding said elevator and the woman he was preventing from getting in), Naruto and his team stepped off into the quarantine zone. The first thing they noticed was how quiet it was. There was absolutely no noise except for what they made.

"Where the fuck is everyone?" Ruko said aloud as they walked down the corridor, her voice echoing off the walls.

"Do you not know what quarantine means?" Miranda asked, being both cross and sarcastic at the same time.

"Shove it, bitch."

"Not now, you two," Naruto said to both of them as they came out of the corridor into a small open area that gave them their first look at the district. It wasn't an improvement and that wasn't because of the fact it was a district in Omega. The smoke covered the outside like a faint wall but they could still see through it and saw nothing. They heard an alarm in the distance and smoke hissing through the grates nearby.

The area they were in was scattered by packing boxes, the large kind that came with steel reinforcement. The way that they been stacked facing the two entrances meant it was supposed to prevent both people from getting out and getting in. The only problem with that was that there was no one there.

Cuanmiztli saw the same thing he did. She moved forward around the blockage to see if there was anyone crouching in wait for them. "We've got a body," she said instead, "Looks like a turian who got the plague."

"There's nothing we can do about it," Jacob said. "We should keep moving."

Naruto nodded silently as he pulled the hood of his robe up over his head, letting it drop so that all people could see of his face was just the lower half. He started down the next corridor, heading into the district proper, his team following him. Once they were through and out the other side, he saw a wall, not a blockade but a proper wall, before him.

A turian popped up from behind the wall and pointed his gun at him. "Don't shoot," another voice spoke from behind the wall. "They're cleared to come through." The turian raised his gun and held it there. Naruto just gave a nod and looked around. The wall didn't extend to the walls. They could easily slip around, which they did.

They walked down to the door that led into the actual district. "Good luck in there," the guard standing by the door told them. "The Blue Suns and vorcha are shooting anything that moves."

None of them said anything as they walked through the door and down the steps. But at the bottom, they came across two Blue Suns standing in front of the next door. They noticed them just as quickly. "Hey, what are you doing here?" the guard on the right, a batarian, demanded as they walked closer.

"We want to go inside," Miranda told them.

"Why?"

"We need to see Mordin Solus," Jacob answered.

"Why?"

"It's important business."

That just made them rise up their guns. "No one from outside goes to see the doctor," the guard on the left, a human, said.

"You're going to let us in," Naruto said to them, his voice at a normal tone.

"Why's that?"

"Because we're willing to kill you to get through," he answered. "Last chance, let us in."

"You're not going in," the batarian said, holding his gun right in the hooded blonde's face.

But he was not worried. "Ruko, the left one," he said to his sister.

Her grin was feral as she clenched her hand into a fist, letting her red biotics course through it. She drew it back and then swung it at the Blue Suns human, hitting him with an audible THUMP! He flew backwards through the air, his neck hanging languidly showing that it had already been broken. He hit the wall and fell down in a crumble.

Naruto moved in three motions, knocking the gun out of his face with one hand, breaking the batarian's knee with a single kick, and firing one bullet into his skull, right between the four eyes. And it was a Fūton-enhanced bullet, so the hole in the back of the head was bigger than the one in the front. The blood that splattered against the wall did so in a spiral pattern.

As the batarian fell to the ground, he just stared at the body. "I did warn you," he said shortly, lowering the gun. "Let's move it," he told the others, stepping over the body.

"We're likely to encounter more opposition like this from the Blue Suns," Miranda told him.

"I know."

"We're going to have a fight on our hands."

"No, we won't."

"Are you sure about that, sir?" Jacob asked him as they came to the door.

"Yes."

"How?" he asked.

The door opened but they did not step through, not yet. Instead, he looked back at them. "Just stay behind me." But before they did that, he raised a hand to stop them. "Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Ruko asked him.

"I hear it, sir," Cuanmiztli told him. It was the sound of someone coughing and wheezing out their existence.

"Come on." He stepped through the door and they followed him.

The first thing they saw in the next room was the piles of bodies burning in stacks. Naruto had seen it before during the war. Sometimes the only way to get rid of all the bodies was to put them all in a pile and burn them. It was especially true when shinobi died on the field. Later and later into the war, the fear of Obito using Edo Tensei started taking hold in people's minds. So the best way for that not to happen was to burn them when they died.

Amidst the burning bodies and the smell of cooked flesh and smoke, Naruto only had one, very morbid, thought. "Feels like I never left."

"Could you be morbid later?" the Kyūbi asked him.

He found the source of the coughing and the wheezing. It was a batarian on the ground leaning against the nearby wall. He walked over and looked down. "Are you alright?" he asked as his team watched from a short distance.

"Human. Should've guessed," spat the batarian at him when he looked up. Then he started to cough. "Bad enough you infect us with this plague. But now you lack the decency to even wait until I die before you come to steal my possessions."

"You need help. What can I do?"

He reached for the gun at his side and pointed it upwards at the human, "Get away from me, human! Your kind has done too much already! Your plague did this to me. Your feigned pity is the final insult."

"Do you know where Mordin Solus is?"

He scoffed at that, coughing again. "Humans looking for the human sympathizer," he spat. "I hope the vorcha burn Mordin and his clinic to the ground." His coughing grew rapid and worse.

"I don't give a damn about what you think about humans. Just tell me where Mordin is."

"Go…fuck yourself. You and your slut of a mothe—"

He fired one shot into the batarian's skull, killing him instantly. "I don't care about what you think of humans," he said to the dead body as it slumped even further down. "My mother, on the other hand, is someone you insult at your own risk."

Ruko grinned at him. "Damn, who knew you had a set on you?" When she heard his words, an iamge of a red-headed woman flashed before her eyes and made her want to cave the batarian's skull in.

"Why did you do that?" Jacob asked him, surprised that he would even do something like that.

"I don't take insults to my parents lightly, not when the insulter is within my grasp," he answered as he put the gun away. "Besides, he was dying anyway."

"What do we do now, sir?" Cuanmiztli asked him.

"What we were going to do." He looked past the batarian to the hallway next to him. "We're going to the clinic. Stay behind me."

They did as they were told, staying behind him as they walked down the hallway. No one walked past his shoulder for even though they were behind him, they still felt a chill run down their spines and they knew what that meant. He had unleashed his intent to kill and kept it focused forward.

It was working. Every time that they came across Blue Suns, they could the gulps from across the room. When they got close, the guards quickly got out of the way. No one said a word to them and they didn't say a word back. They kept their focus on making sure they stayed behind Naruto.

But while it did work, it was also a method that troubled Cuanmiztli. She didn't remember the hooded blonde being like this. He would've just walked through the district, fighting everyone that tried to stop him. He would also stop and check every locked door that they came across to make sure that there was no one inside and if they were, ensure that they were okay. But now he would pass those doors without a second look.

They got far into the district before things turned against them. At some point, Naruto stopped seeing batarians and humans in Blue Suns uniforms and starting seeing vorcha. They were ugly looking creatures who looked like Kami couldn't decide on how to make, eventually settling for something between a bear and bug.

But what was surprising was the fact that there was a krogan and a tall human packing a heavy gun with the vorcha, wearing a horned helmet. "I thought the vorcha were alone in this," he remarked as he came close and close to them.

"If there are krogan and Einherjar with the vorcha, that can only mean one thing," Jacob said.

"The Blood Pack is making a territory grab and they appear to be quite successful at it so far," Miranda said for him.

That might've been troubling, if it had anything to do with them. "We keep moving," Naruto told them all, keeping his intent focused forward. He could see that the Disgraced Einherjar already had shaking hands and the krogan was becoming nervous. But the vorcha weren't reacting.

"You might want to stop with the intent there," Ruko told him.

"Why?" he asked.

"The vorcha take that kind of thing as an invitation, not as a warning." Already she could see the damn things getting eager and agitated.

Naruto saw the same thing. It was probably already too late to try and get past peacefully but he still had to try. He lost the intent, but brought his hands to his sides. "We just want to go see Mordin Solus," he announced loudly and clearly into the room. The krogan and the Einherjar shared at a look at that. "Let us pass and we won't kill you."

The krogan looked back at them and grinned. "Kill them," he ordered. The vorcha flooded forward like a pack of hounds after the scent.

"Miranda, Ruko, Jacob, take them out," the blonde told the three biotics with him. Two blues and one red arm rose up. A black hole suddenly appeared above the running vorcha, sucking them in and then holding them in orbit. The other two biotics just started throwing them to the walls, breaking every bone in their body. The few who weren't thrown by the time the black hole stopped were shot by Cuanmiztli and Naruto.

"Flash-bang," he said once the vorcha were all dead. The Hunter acted, throwing the grenade at the remaining Blood Pack. It was far enough for them to see it work and not feel a thing, while the krogan and Einherjar stumbled and blinked. "Take out the krogan," he ordered before sprinting for the human.

It wasn't a fight; it was a simple take down. The Disgraced was still recovering when Naruto struck, knocking his weapon out of his hands and then sending him straight down to the ground. He pointed a gun at that horned helmet. "Any last words?" he asked.

The Einherjar looked at the gun, then at him, and then at his own weapon. But he knew that he would not make it. So he just clasped his hands together. "Lady Sakura, Mistress of Vengeance and Final Judger of the Einherjar, may you find me worthy to enter Valhalla."

For a moment, Naruto didn't pull the trigger. Hearing those words brought him back to those dreams he was having of Sakura. He felt compelled to say something. "I knew Sakura. Your people murdered her daughter. I don't think she'll find you innocent." Then he pulled the trigger.

He heard something akin to a roar and saw the krogan fly through the air and hitting the wall in a crumpled slump. "My kill!" shouted Ruko as she reappeared.

"That was mine," Miranda replied, following her.

"You wish."

"I'd say that you hit him at the same time," Jacob threw in his two cents' worth.

"That's because you hung back with the gun and tried shooting him," Ruko replied. "You could've gotten up close and personal to take him."

"Like you did?" Miranda asked pointedly.

"Having fun?" Naruto asked as he joined them, stepping over the Einherjar's body.

"No. We still need to find Dr. Solus."

"I agree. Let's keep it moving." There was a door on the far side of the room. That's where they needed to go. They fell in behind once more as he unleashed the intent to kill before him. Fortunately, there was no one else to stand in their way as they went through the door and hanging a right in the next room for the next door.

Beyond the door was a flight of stairs going down. At the bottom of the stairs on the wall was a familiar cross with the word Clinic glowing brightly beneath it. "Sir, I don't think you need to keep doing that," Jacob told him.

"I know," he replied as he canned the intent.

They walked down the steps and took the right through the entranceway. It was a U-turn of a corridor that showed them a door and a counter on the left with a human on the other side. He held a gun in his hands and there were armed mechs behind him. "What do you guys want?" the human demanded once he caught sight of them.

"We want to go see the doctor," Naruto told him.

He eyed them for a second. He didn't know them and they didn't look like the regular crowd. But then again, this was Omega and they were dealing with a plague. "Alright, go in. But put those weapons away first. And remember, no funny business once you're in the clinic—not unless to deal with those mechs." He gestured with his head at them.

"That's fine." He put his guns away, so did the rest of the team, and walked through the door.

The first thing they heard was the noise. It was the culmination of people talking to one another, to themselves, or just flat out groaning in pain. They were everywhere too, huddled together, sitting in chairs, or leaning against something for support. The majority of them were turian and batarian. The receptionist barely looked from her computer to look at them, seeing that they were human. "Sorry, too busy to stop and chat. You should go find Mordin," she told them.

"Where is he?" Naruto asked.

"That way," she answered, waving her hand a vague direction as her head went back to the computer screen.

"Helpful," Saiken said acidly.

"You can see what I see," he silently replied. He looked around at where she was waving and saw a corridor going further into the clinic. Figuring it was a good place to start, he started down that way.

It paid off when he heard someone say, "Professor, we're running low on cipoxidin." It sounded human to his ears.

"Use malanarin," was the reply from the right entrance of the t-section he was coming up on. "Plenty on hand. Almost as good. Causes cramping in batarians. Supplement with butemerol."

His team had caught up to him. They made the turn and looked in the room where the voices were coming from. It was a doctor's room done large with more than one table to work on. There was one human working on a patient and a salarian working on another. It was the salarian he was interested. He was working diligently at his station.

"Mordin Solus?" asked Naruto, stepping up to him.

The salarian turned him. His uniform was red and white and was armored in just the right places to protect him. His skin was red paling to white with scaring underneath one eye and one of his horns was shorter than the other. He walked over to him and waved his omni-tool activated hand over him and his team. "Hmm. Don't recognize you from area," he remarked as he looked at his omni-tool. He went back to work, still talking. "Too well-armed to be refugees. No mercenary uniforms. Quarantine still in effect. Here for something else? Vorcha? Crew to clean them out? Unlikely. Vorcha a symptom, not a cause."

He came back to them, still talking. "The plague? Investigating possible use as bio-weapon? No. Too many guns, not enough data equipment. Soldiers not scientists. Yes. Yes. Hired guns? Looking for someone? Yes! But who?"

"You, Professor Solus," Naruto answered his question, stopping him before he could talk even further. "We're here for you. We need your help with something."

"Help? No. Too busy. Clinic understaffed. Plague spreading too fast. Who sent you?"

"You're going to tell him?" Isobu asked him.

"Of course, better him knowing from the start," he replied. "Have you ever heard of the Akatsuki?" he asked the salarian.

That got his attention. "Crossed paths on occasion. Thought they only worked with humans. Why request salarian aid?"

"Because quite frankly, I can't go to the Alliance for this one," he said as he lowered his hood. "Can you guess why?"

"Why are you testing him out?" Kurama asked.

"I want to see if he can figure it out."

"You could just tell him."

"But it wouldn't tell me if he's worth risking it."

Mordin stared at him, his eyes looking over everything. "Face familiar. Have seen on news. Naruto Uzumaki? Impossible. Been dead for two years. Unless…not dead. Kidnapped? Who? The Akatsuki? No. Would not work with them if captors. Tribe of Athame only other organization able to hide such thing for so long. Must be them. Why? Tribe only interested in obtaining use of chakra. Would never let go once had hold. Akatsuki must have broken you out. But Tribe much too smart. Would not let you go so easily. Probably handicapped in some way." His eyes came alight as he realized the situation. "Chakra blocked. Cannot be used. Came to me for help since could not go to Alliance."

It was fast paced but Naruto was able to hear all of it. "Yes. That's it."

"Dream come true. Have always wanted to study chakra. But must refuse. Priority must be plague." He turned back to his omni-tool and started working again.

"So if the plague is taken care of, you're free to help?"

"Yes." His eyes quickly glanced up. "Suggest help?"

"Yeah, I do."

"Help needed. Much thanks." He went over to a computer and typed quickly on it. Luckily, already have cure. Need to distribute it at environmental control center. Vorcha guarding it. Need to kill them," he stated, looking back at them all.

"We'll take care of it," the blonde assured him, understanding what he was silently telling them.

The quiet hissing sound that had been the sign of life in the district came to an audible groaning halt. The lights in the room turned red and stayed there. "That sounded troubling," Miranda remarked.

"No shit, cheerleader," Ruko said in reply.

Mordin was looking at his omni-tool, figuring out what had happened. "Vorcha have shut down environmental systems. Trying to kill everyone. Need to get power back on before district suffocates."

"We'll take care of it," Naruto assured him again.

He turned away from the computer and went back to him. "Here, take plague cure," he urged, handing it to the blonde. "Also, bonus in good faith. Weapon from dead Blue Suns merc. May come in handy against vorcha." He held out the gun in question.

"Thanks," he said, taking the gun and immediately handing back to his sister. "That's for you, Ruko."

"Sweet," she said with a feral grin as she took it.

"One more thing," Mordin said to him. "Daniel. One of my assistants. Went into vorcha territory. Looking for victims. Hasn't come back yet."

"I'll keep an eye out but I make no promises." He looked around the place for a moment and then back at him. "I'll leave two of my people here to provide you with additional manpower. You look like you could need it."

"Additional manpower greatly helpful. Thank you."

"It's not a problem. Jacob, Cuanmiztli, you're staying."

"Yes, sir," Jacob said instantly. Cuanmiztli said nothing.

"Miranda, Ruko, we're heading for the environmental center."

"Aye-aye, Commander," Miranda said in reply.

Ruko rolled her eyes. "Suck up much?" She got an eyeful but nothing else.

"Yes. Good. Restore power. Release cure. Will be here when you return," Mordin said to him. "Path to environmental controls will be through other door in lobby."

"Good to know," he said. He turned around and walked out with two biotics behind him. "It's time to play the game."

The other door in the lobby exited out to a flight of stairs just like the other one. The only difference was that there were vorcha waiting for them, behind barricades and looking like they armed. "They never make it easy, do they?" Ruko asked as she leaned out from behind the edge to look at the numbers. "Ah hell, what the fuck am I saying? This just makes it more fun!"

"I assume that you know how to use a gun?" Miranda asked her from the other side, looking down at the hand cannon the salarian had given them.

That earned her a look. "Did you think I was able to get away from you lot this long just by my biotics, badass as they may be? Don't worry your pretty little head, cheerleader. I know how to a gun."

"Sheesh and I thought guys were the ones who had to pound their chests," Naruto said from where he leaned against the wall behind Ruko. That got him looks from both of them. "Don't start, it was chest thumping."

"Could we perhaps just move along?" Miranda asked.

"Yes, let's," he answered, pulling his hood back up over his head and drawing his guns.

They all stepped out of cover and started shooting. While the vorcha were momentarily confused by this, they moved out of the doorway and into the room proper, ducking under the cover of stacked boxes. He put away his guns and folded his hands together. "Please don't make me scream on the floor," he silently prayed to whoever was listening before he reached out to his chakra and began channeling it. "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu," he said beneath all the sounds of the firefight.

He did not fall down to the ground screaming. He did not fall down at all. Instead he heard the sounds of twin POOFS! When he looked to his sides, he saw him on each. They all shared the same grin and if they could've laughed, they would've. "You know the drill," he told the clones as he pulled out the War Hawks. They nodded and pulled out their own versions of the guns.

They stood up and rejoined the fight, the clones going to the end of either side to take out the fringe vorcha. To their credit, neither Ruko nor Miranda batted an eye at the sight of the clones. They just kept shooting and throwing their biotics, sometimes even doing both.

The vorcha were surprised at what they saw. Not only did they have to deal with two biotics and a man with bullets that pierced their toughest armor but now there two more of the man? That was uncalled for! "Kill! Kill!" one of their leaders screeched.

Ruko silenced him with a biotic throw that took his head clean off. "Take that, you fucker!" she crowed in victory as the body fell to the ground.

"Krogan, 12 o'clock high!" shouted out Miranda in warning.

The blondes saw the krogan come stomping down the stairs on the other end of the room. "I got him," the woman of the four shouted.

"You're too far away," the clone closest to her said in warning.

"Then I'll get in closer!"

"Ruko, wait!" But she was already moving forward, shooting at any vorcha in her way.

"Follow her!" the original Naruto told him. He nodded and went after her, taking out any vorcha that was trying to shoot her. "Everyone else, we mop up."

"You got it, Commander," Miranda said, still shooting the vorcha.

"Come here, you fucker!" they heard Ruko shout in challenge to the krogan, still fighting her way to him. When she had a clear line of sight, her biotics flared and she charged at the krogan, disappearing one second and reappearing as she slammed into him. The clone quickened his pace and his shooting.

They were gaining ground but there were still a lot more vorcha. "Hey, boss," the other clone called out as he fired his guns.

"What?"

"Shall we herd?"

"…To you," he said. He ducked down into cover and switched out the charka clips from Fūton to Raiton. He had five clips inside his robe, one for each of the elements. "Miranda, force them to go to him."

Someone else might've asked why but she charged her biotics and threw it just off the side of the vorcha flank. They weren't in any danger in being hit but they weren't dumb enough to stay right there. They started moving leftwards. When Naruto opened fire and sent the farthest vorcha down in a state of shock, they moved even faster. With every shot fired and every biotic thrown, they moved to the left, trying to get away from the danger. They weren't huddled or terrified as they moved. Rather, they hissed and screeched as they shot back as they were herded into the corner.

But they didn't realize what had happened until Naruto shouted out, "Knock them down!"

"Fūton: Daitoppa!" the clone roared as the jutsu roared out of his mouth. It hurtled down the length of the room and hit the cluster of vorcha. It didn't make them scatter like the first shot of a pool game. Rather they were sent as a group into the wall, the combined weight of them all crushing them to death. When the force was gone, they slumped to the ground, a pile of dead vorcha.

The original Naruto stared at the pile. "Thank Kami that worked," he silently gave thanks.

"Be glad that it did," Gyūki said to him. "What would've happened if it didn't?"

"He would've been on the ground screaming and we would be screaming along with him," Kurama answered.

"Just be careful, Naruto," Son told the Jinchūriki. "Don't push your luck until you know what exactly you can do now."

"How am I supposed to know if I don't try?"

"Gah, fuck!" roared Ruko, getting his attention. He turned his attention from the pile to the stairs and saw his sister clutching her side as she backed a step off of the krogan. A growl escaped his lips and he charged towards them, his guns barking fire at the krogan. The bullets hit him and lightening danced across the armor, making him roar in pain. Two shots from the clone sent the krogan down to his knees. Ruko clenched her teeth and swung her left arm upwards in a punch, the fist covered in biotics. It struck the krogan right under the chin, making the head snap up with a sickening CRUNCH!

The krogan fell backwards onto the steps, clearly dead. Ruko turned to look at them, her hand going back to her side and clearly angry. "Hey, I had him!"

"Of course you did," Miranda remarked dryly as she joined Naruto at the base of the staircase.

"Ruko, don't go charging in like that," he told his sister. "You could've gotten yourself killed."

"Hey, I know what I was doing and I know how to handle myself," she snapped at him. "Let's just move it." She started up the steps. Her brother dispelled the jutsu, making his clones disappear in plumes of smoke, and he went up the steps, following and then overtaking her. Miranda followed behind him.

The first staircase soon led to another and at the top of that were two doors, one on the left and on the right. The door on the left was opened and they could hear talking coming from it. There were many voices and one of them sounded human. "Please…I'm telling you the truth," the human voice begged. "I work for Mordin at the clinic. I came here to help you."

"We have found our missing person," Chōmei said in a great dramatic voice.

Naruto's team quickly walked to the door to see what lay beyond. They saw a small gang of batarians surrounding the human in a medical uniform. One of the batarians was holding the front of his medical uniform and was shoving his face in his. "We know you're spreading the plague virus," he growled. "We saw the vials in your bag."

"No! Those vials contain the cure. Please…you have to believe me," he repeated himself.

They didn't. "Maybe we should cut off your fingers. That should loosen your—"

"Okay, what's going on here?" Naruto asked loudly as he walked into the room. All eyes in there turned to him at the sound of his voice and saw the guns in his hands.

The lead batarian released his grip on Daniel only to pull out a gun on him while the others drew their guns on the enemy. "Don't move!" he ordered the hooded blonde. "One more step and we kill your friend!"

"He's not my friend," he replied blandly. "And if he was carrying the plague, why did he come into vorcha territory. They haven't been affected, have they?"

"He's right," another of the batarians said in agreement. "It doesn't make any sense."

The doubt seeped into the other batarians' eyes. "If we release the prisoner, can we go?" the first one asked.

"Of course," Naruto answered.

"…Let him go." All the guns were lowered but not put away.

He stepped out of the way of the door. The batarians took the silent hint and walked out of the room. "Human nobility," the leader remarked as they left. "I didn't know such a thing existed."

"You know, if I didn't my doubts somedays, I think would've been offended," Naruto thought to himself as they vanished from sight.

"Thank you," Daniel said to him. "I thought they were going to…to kill me." He shuddered at that thought.

"Jeez, what a wimp," Saiken muttered.

"Not everyone can be cool under pressure," Isobu replied.

"They can try."

"Did Mordin send you to find me?" Daniel asked Naruto.

"Yes, he did. You're needed back at the clinic. Too many people wanting help. Not enough people giving help," he answered.

"Why are you sounding like the salarian?" Kurama asked him.

"It just came out of my mouth."

"Well don't do it again. It was weird enough when he was doing it."

"Yes, Mom," he silently replied.

"Watch it."

"Uh-huh." He wasn't afraid of the fox and what he could dish out at him. There were more important things to worry about.

"Yeah, okay. I'll go right away," Daniel told him. "Thanks again. I owe…well…everything."

"Just get going, kid." He vanished quickly enough, taking his equipment with him.

"Pussy," Ruko said as his retreating backside vanished from sight. "He could've at least tried to fight."

"No, he's a doctor. He was trying to help them, foolish as that was," Miranda corrected her.

She started to snarl something back when Naruto spoke. "Why was it foolish, Miranda?"

"He was a human trying to help batarians. It would've been better if he had let them died."

He stared at her for a long moment. "Is the general hate for batarians talking or is it the fact that you are a part of the Akatsuki?" he finally asked. The two things weren't separate but he made it sound like they were.

"Does it matter?"

"Humor me."

"We don't have time for that, Commander. We must get to the environmental center." She turned around and started heading for the door.

"Prissy much?" asked Ruko as she passed.

She paused and looked at the blonde woman. "I suppose you don't hate batarians?"

"No, I hate the fuckers. But at least I'm honest about it. You couldn't give a straight answer even if your life depended on it."

"Commander, could we please get moving?" she asked Naruto, ignoring his sister again.

She was right, they had to get going. But once they were out the door and through the next one, they ran into vorcha again, two to be precise. "Yes," Ruko said with a bloodthirsty grin.

"Kill!" one of the vorcha screeched. "Kil—!" He got a bullet to the face that killed him instantly.

"Wish granted," she told him. The other vorcha raised his gun but wasn't fast enough. He died from a bullet fired by Naruto.

The two vorcha had been guarding a set of stairs going down. It was the only way out. At the bottom there was another door that led out into an open-aired area. To the left was another flight of stairs that led down and to the right was a balcony overlooking the area. Across from that balcony was another balcony with vorcha on it.

"Sniper!" shouted Miranda when she saw one of the vorcha on the balcony was packing a rifle with a scope. The three of them dove for cover just as the first shot echoed into the air.

"Move up to the balcony! Go!" Naruto told the other two. They moved around to the right, staying under cover as they went hurriedly for the balcony's side. Two more shots were fired as they moved up, forcing them to stay low.

They reached the balcony's rail when they heard a whooshing sound and the floor behind them exploded. "Shit, rockets!" Ruko swore. "They've got fucking rockets!"

"How many?" her brother asked.

Miranda stood up, took a few shots at them, and then knelt back down before she could be hit. "I see three rockets along with that sniper," she answered. "And there's vorcha down below. If the balcony keeps us pinned here, the ones below could swarm us."

"Then let's take them out already!" Ruko said.

"And how exactly do you plan on doing that?"

Fortunately, Naruto had an idea and he could make it happen. "Give me some cover!" he told them as he stepped back and made the handseal, saying, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" A clone appeared by his side.

"What are you planning on doing?" Miranda asked while she and Ruko fired at the other balcony. It would too long to charge up the biotics to throw, so what would be the point?

"Yes, what are you planning on doing?" Matatabi repeated.

"Something that I used a couple of time during the war," he answered.

"Oh no, please no, please for the love of the old man tell me you're not going to do what I think you're going to do," Kurama practically begged him.

"I'm doing it," he answered.

"It didn't work half the time!"

"Well, here's hoping that it'll work this time."

"What are you guys talking about?" Shukaku demanded.

"He's going to use the Human Cannonball."

"Really?" asked Gyūki.

"Yes."

There was a paused moment and then the Hachibi started laughing his tails. "AH HA HA HA HA HA HA! How long has it been since we've seen that? HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!"

"It's not funny," the Kyūbi said in embarrassment.

"What's this all about?" Matatabi asked.

"Yeah, I want to know too," Shukaku agreed.

"Just wait. You'll find out," Gyūki told them both before falling into laughter.

Both Naruto and his clone stood up. The original grabbed hold of the clone and with a great heave, threw him into the air and over to the other balcony. Both Miranda and Ruko saw the clone fly through the air and shared the same thought. "You have got to be kidding me!"

The seven Bijū who had never seen the move had a more varied reaction, at first. "…Did I just see that happen?" Isobu asked.

"Would you be referring to the fact that he just grabbed his clone and hurled him into the air?" Kokuō asked him.

"I believe that is what he's talking about," Son said.

"Yes, that's what I was talking about," the Sanbi agreed.

"I saw it too," Matatabi told them.

"Same here," Chōmei added.

"I saw it," Shukaku declared.

"I did too," Saiken said.

"So, we're in agreement that we all saw him grab his clone and throw him into air," Son asked for confirmation.

"Yes, we did," the other six answered.

"Good." And then they all started laughing their tails off. "HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!"

"Gaki, I hate you so much right now," Kurama told his host.

"Duly noted," Naruto silently replied as he got back down to cover.

"Okay, what exactly did that accomplish?" Ruko asked him.

"Wait for it."

"Wait for what?"

The answer came in the sound of metal cutting through fur, skin, and flesh. It was faint over the sounds of the battlefield but to him, it was audible enough. "For that," he told her.

"Huh? What the fuck are you talking about?"

Miranda swung her attention over to the blondes. "Nice move there." She had gotten what he had done once she was past the initial surprise of the move.

"What are you going on about now, cheerleader?"

She sighed. "He threw his clone that way to take care of the sniper and the rockets. Haven't you noticed that they stopped firing at us?" she asked with disdain in her voice.

She would've growled at that remarked and replied, if it wasn't for the fact that she did noticed it. She looked over the edge and saw the clone tearing through the vorcha there. "I'll be damned."

"Nice to see that it worked this time around," Naruto commented.

That got both of their attentions. "You mean it doesn't always?" she asked him.

"Not if they saw it coming and could respond."

"Which was half the time!" shouted Kurama at him before turning his attention to the other Bijū. "Stop laughing already!"

"In any case, we still need to worry about what's down below," Miranda told them both. "There are still vorcha down below."

"Here, let me try taking them out," he said, standing back up. He tried to channel chakra into his eyes to activate the Rinnegan. What he ended up doing was collapsing to the floor in pain. The next few minutes were blurry and fuzzy mixed together, although he was certain he was screaming.

When he finally stopped, he was flat on his back and panting. But inward, he was calm. "Okay, that didn't work."

"Yes, we noticed," the fox told him in annoyance. "But they stopped laughing, so that's a bonus."

"Shut up," the other eight of his tenants said.

He got back to a sitting position and saw that Miranda and Ruko were standing up with no fear of being shot at. "Are they all taken care of?"

"No, we just felt like standing for the fuck of it," Ruko said sarcastically.

"Commander, could you please not try to see if you can use jutsu in the middle of a mission from now?" Miranda asked him.

"I'll try." But he would make no promises. He leapt over the rail and landed squarely on his feet. Now that his attention was down here, he could see what the vorcha had been protecting: the entrance to where they needed to go. Someone landed next to him and when he looked, he saw Ruko. "Where's Miranda?"

"Cheerleader decided to take the stairs," she said with a snort.

Miranda soon joined them and they went through the duel doors leading into the environmental center. A pair of vorcha were waiting on the other side with guns up and at the ready. A krogan stood behind them. When he saw the humans come in, he gave a hard shove on the vorcha. They responded eagerly and moved forward to attack.

Ruko crushed the head on one of them with her biotics and Miranda shot the other one dead. The krogan looked even more excited and was ready to charge. Naruto beat him to the punch, literally. He surged forward, knocked the enemy down with a hard right cross, and then promptly fired his guns into his face. It was a mess by the time he was done shooting.

"Let's move," he said when he was done, lowering his pistols.

"The environmental controls should be nearby," Miranda said as they took the left out of the corridor and headed for the nearby stairs. "We need to insert the cure, then reactivate the fans."

"Shouldn't be too hard," Ruko declared.

That sent the Bijū into a chorus of groans. "Why would she say that? Why?" Saiken asked.

"Maybe she didn't know," Son suggested.

"That doesn't excuse it."

"He's right," Shukaku agreed. "Naruto, do something about it."

"Ruko, do you not know one of the fundamental rules?" he asked his sister. "When you say stuff like that, you've just made it worse."

She gave him a look of disbelief as they kept going up. "You must be joking."

"No, I'm not. Every time I had been on a mission that seemed easy and someone said something like those words, it just got worse. Trust me; things are not going to be easy now."

They soon reached the top of the stairs and the door that was there. When it opened for them, a vorcha came running at them. But instead of trying to attack, it came to a stop in front of them. "You no come here," he said. "We shut down machines, break fans!"

"Why?" Naruto asked him as he stepped forward into the room.

"Everyone choke and die! Then they make us strong!"

They? Who were they? "Who are you talking about? The Tribe?" he asked.

But the vorcha didn't seem to hear him. "They want plague! You work for doctor, turn on machines, and put cure in air. We kill you first!" He reached for the gun at his side.

But what he was were Fūton bullets through his chest, carving out a hole that was see-through. "I really don't think so," the hooded blonde replied.

"Kill! Kill! Kill!" one of the other vorcha screeched.

"With pleasure," Ruko replied, throwing her red biotics at the vorcha in question. It sent him flying but left her wide open.

The vorcha were many things but unable to take care of an advantage was not one of them. The remaining vorcha turned their guns onto her. "Oh shit," she said before leaping behind one of the columns to her left.

"Are you simply incapable of thinking something through?" Miranda demanded as she and Naruto also went for cover.

"Well, what the fuck was going to be your brilliant plan?" she demanded. She didn't get an answer but she wasn't really looking for one. They just turned their attention back to the firefight that was going on.

"They really don't like each other," Isobu remarked.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Saiken said to him.

"But you do know what they say," Shukaku said with a grin. "Opposites attract."

Naruto ignored what the tanuki was saying, keeping his attention on the fight. There were only a few vorcha there. "Keep them pinned, I'll finish them off," he told his teammates.

"No way, I can handle this," Ruko told as she lowered her gun.

"Ruko," he started. But it was too late. She drew back her arm and readied her red biotics.

"Chew on this, fuckfaces!" she crowed as she threw the biotics at the vorcha on her side of the room. But that left her arm open for the other vorcha to take a shot and he did. "Gah, fuck!" she hissed as a bullet grazed her arm. She pulled back behind the column, her hand gripping the arm with blood already oozing in between.

"Ruko, you good?" asked her brother.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Stay there."

"Where the fuck else am I going to go?"

He turned his attention to the remaining vorcha hiding behind a column and not wanting to move. "Miranda, drag him out," he ordered.

"Aye-aye," she replied, charging up her biotics and throwing a black hole in the air, right next to where the vorcha had been hiding. It quickly came out of hiding but did not make it to orbiting the black hole alive.

"Commander, I've scanned the room," EDI said to Naruto through the comm. "The central control system is in an alcove in the center of the back wall. You can inject the cure and re-initialize the systems there."

"I see it." It was right where she said it was. It was kinda obvious too. "Miranda put some medi-gel on Ruko."

"Sir, we can't waste it," she said in slight protest.

"Do it."

"Yeah, do it, cheerleader," Ruko told her with a smug smirk. She glared at the tattooed blonde but moved towards her anyway.

While that was being taken care of, Naruto moved forward to the alcove EDI told him about. There were a lot of glowing orange holograms standing there in front of him, but there was an injection panel right near the bottom. He took out the cure and inserted it there. The lights started getting brighter and moving around when he did that. Then it all came to a stop, showing him images of red fans.

"Did it happen?" he asked aloud, unsure if it did.

"Yes, it did," Miranda answered as she and Ruko joined him. The bleeding on Ruko's arm had stopped and she was able to move it normally. "Now we just need to reactivate the fans."

"Well, how hard is that—Umpilfk!?" she started to say, only to get her mouth covered by Naruto.

"We already had this conversation," he told her.

"I think it might be too late," Miranda said conversationally even as she raised her gun. Both blondes turned to see what she saw and saw more vorcha coming at them.

If it had been some other time, Naruto might've said, "For the love of Kami," and started asking how many vorcha were there. But instead he took his hand of Ruko's mouth and started shooting the vorcha.

Ruko was much more vocal, though. "Come here you fuckers!" she shouted at the vorcha.

"Ruko, control yourself," Miranda told her.

"Shove it!" she shouted back. She was enjoying herself and she would be damned if some cheerleader was going to restrict her fun!

"EDI, where are the fans?" Naruto asked as he shot a hole through one the vorcha's head.

"It is not the fans you should be concerned about, but their controls. I've located those," she told him through the comm. "I've located two, one on either side of the room you are in now."

"Of course it is," Gyūki remarked drily. "Nice to see things haven't changed in the years we've been away."

"Are you talking about the two thousand year nap or the two?" Isobu asked.

"Does it matter?"

"…Good point," he conceded.

"We got two places to be in," Naruto told Miranda and Ruko as the last vorcha fell. "We'll take of one."

"Who will take care of the other?" Miranda asked.

"Do you have to ask? Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" he cried out.

She stared at the clones. "Right, forget I asked."

"You three, take the left. We'll take the right," he ordered the clones. They nodded and left without another word. His team took the stairs leading downward to the fan controls. They saw the door just before it opened.

Vorcha came out with one packing a flamethrower leading the charge. "Burn! Kill! Burn!" it screeched at them.

Naruto changed one of the clips into a Suiton clip and fired one bullet from that into the flamethrower, extinguishing the tongue of fire. With the other gun, he fired that into the canister holding the fuel. It went through and caused the whole thing to explode, taking the vorcha carrying it and the ones alongside him.

"Nice shot," Shukaku said to him.

"Thank you." He moved forward to the door, stepping over the burnt carcasses.

Things were much easier after that. Once through the door, they saw the controls for the fan. Miranda took it from there and activated the fans. Three of the six red fan holograms turned green once she was done. "This fan is powering up," she declared. "But the other one still needs to activate."

"How we doing?" asked Naruto of his clones through the comm.

"We're inside the room and looking at the controls," one of them answered. "Why can't there just be a simple on/off button?"

"Where would the fun be in that?"

"Just listen to what I have to tell you guys," the original told them, having watched Miranda turn on the first fan. He quickly relayed what he had seen to them.

"Got it," the clone replied. A couple of seconds before it spoke again. "Okay, the fan is up and running."

"Get rid of yourselves." He turned his attention away from the comm. "The other fan is up and running."

"Mordin should be pleased," Miranda remarked. They could already the fans going outside the room.

"Let's head back." As he turned for the door, he went back to the comm, calling the other team. "Jacob, we're coming back. Was there any trouble?"

"None on this end, Commander," he replied through the comm. "How about you?"

"Plenty of trouble, but we got the cure in and distributed. The people infected with the plague are going to get better now. Tell the doctor that we're coming in."

"You got it."

"Environmental systems engaged," Mordin said as Naruto, Miranda, and Ruko walked into the clinic. Airborne viral levels dropping. Patients improving. Vorcha retreating." He turned to look at them. "Well done, Commander. Thank you."

"And thank you from me, as well," Daniel said from where he stood. "Those batarians would've killed me." He gave an awkward laugh as he rubbed his forehead. "For a second there, I thought you were going to shoot them even after they let me go."

"Only if they had drawn first," the hooded blonde told him.

"Merciful of you," Mordin remarked. "Risky. Would have killed them myself."

"Same here," Shukaku agreed.

"You're bloodthirsty," Matatabi told the tanuki.

"So?"

Meanwhile, the assistant looked at the salarian with horrified eyes. "Professor? How can you say that?" he asked. "You're a doctor. You believe in helping people."

"Lots of ways to help people. Sometimes heal patients. Sometimes execute dangerous people. Either way helps."

"You forgot one," Naruto said quietly.

"Did I?"

"Yeah, putting too heavily injured people out of their misery," he answered. He had seen that happened a lot. Sakura had always cried afterwards.

"Hmm. Yes. Good point."

"Professor!" said a horrified Daniel.

Mordin turned to him. "Go check on paitents. Lots of work to do. Think about what I said," he instructed him. He left, but he wasn't happy about it. "Good kid. Bit naïve. He'll learn. Letting him take over clinic. Should be able to handle it now that vorcha are gone."

"It wasn't just the vorcha," Naruto told him. "There were Blood Pack krogan and an Einherjar with them."

"Blood Pack? Makes sense. Would want more territory. Possible conclusion: vorcha found solution and senior members allowed it."

"So could that what they meant by 'They?'" Kokuō asked.

"That's one of the many questions we've got going on here," Chōmei replied.

"So, Dr. Mordin, now that the cure is taking care of the plague, are you still interested in our offer?" Miranda asked him.

"Yes," he answered. "Said before, dream come true. Unexpected to be working with Akatsuki. Many surprises. Just need to finish up here at the clinic. Won't take long. Meet you at your ship. Looking forward to it."

"Say that after you've worked with me," Naruto told him. "We'll see you on the ship."

(Location: the Normandy)

Naruto was out of his armor and into his hoodie once he was on board. He waited for Mordin in the meeting room. He would've had Ruko in there with him but she had disappeared into the bowls of the ship again.

The door to the room opened, letting Jacob and Mordin walk in. "Welcome to the Normandy, Professor," Jacob told the salarian. "It's an honor to have you on board."

"Yes. Very exciting. Akatsuki working with aliens. Unexpected. Illusive Man branching out, maybe? Not so human-centric?" he asked as he went up to the table.

"I doubt it," Naruto replied.

"Hmm. Understandable. As you said, couldn't go to Alliance. Must ask, though. Why not reveal yourself to galaxy again?"

"You want the truth?"

"Always preferable."

"The Illusive Man blackmailed me into helping fight the Tribe in this war of theirs. He thinks that they are somehow helping human colonies in the Terminus System just vanish."

Jacob added onto that. "There's virtually no evidence that anything unusual happened at all…except that every man, woman, and child is gone."

"Gas, maybe?" Mordin suggested. "No. Spreads too slow. Airborne virus? No. Slower then—"

"That's not why we brought you on board, Doctor," Naruto told him before he could get going.

"Yes. Of course. Was brought onboard to study your chakra and help you get it back. Blocked how exactly?"

"The Tribe placed a series of inhibitors on all of my Tenketsu." He paused. "You know what that means, right?"

"Yes. Focal point in map of chakra network. About 361 of them."

"That's right. When my chakra is not being used, they do nothing. But if I try to use it, they send me an overload of pain. It's enough to make me collapse to the ground screaming."

"Blocking use by pain. Tries to make the user not use chakra anymore in fear of. Classic, if not a bit simple," he commented. "So, will need to figure out a way to get inhibitors out. Take it that surgery isn't an option?"

"I already asked that question. They told me that the prospects of me living weren't good. But there's also been a development. You remember Ruko?"

"Yes. Your clone. Very hard to forget." Mordin saw the look of surprise on Jacob's face and the one of question on Naruto's. "Wasn't hard. Facial structure, eyes, and hair color are exactly the same. No historical records tell of you having any full-blooded siblings. Meant that she was created in this era. Had to guess that she was created to replace you."

"Not…exactly."

He placed his hand under his chin, beginning to think about what that meant for what he had to do. "Hm. Could be useful in work. If clone should have same chakra network. Would help in figuring out how to break inhibitors."

"She's doesn't have chakra, she's a biotic. But before we came to Omega, she was able to break 81 of the inhibitors with a single biotic punch."

That got his attention. "Outcome?"

"I've gotten some control of my chakra back, some jutsus too. How much, I don't really know."

"Interesting. Very interesting." He looked at Naruto. "Will need samples from you and clone."

"Sister," he said back. "She's my sister."

"Very well, will need samples from you and your sister. Will also need to map you for study. Going to need a lab."

"There is a fully equipped lab on the combat deck, Professor Solus," EDI announced, making her presences known. "If you find anything lacking, please place a requisition order."

He looked around, trying to find the voice. "Who's that? Pilot? No. Synthesized voice. Simulated emotional inflections. Could it be…no. Maybe." He looked at Jacob and Naruto. "Have to ask. Is that an AI?"

"We call her EDI," Naruto said in way of answer.

"An AI on board? Non-human crew members? Akatsuki must be more desperate then I thought."

"They brought me on board, in spite of our past history."

"Technically speaking, different Akatsuki. Not same as one you fought against. But not here to discuss fine points. Here to study blocking of chakra. Will need samples. Have to map out network. Which way to lab?"

"Jacob."

"Follow me, Professor," Jacob said as he walked out of the room. The salarian followed him out.

He found himself on the ship again but now there was a landmass coming into sight. "Land ho!" a faint voice echoed in the air.

Shadow people began moving around rapidly on the deck. Headbands shined brightly in the dream, letting him know where they were from. The armor of samurai had turned dark and menacing, making them seem more like monsters then people. They were all gathering on the deck, waiting for the battle that was to come.

Sakura was standing where he had seen her. She wore no armor but Naruto knew that she was ready for battle. Shikamaru walked up beside her with a spyglass in hand. "They were expecting us," he remarked as he looked through the glass.

"What does it look like?" Sakura asked him.

"They've reinforced the beach and the city. If we want to take the city to secure the area, it's going to be a fight."

"It won't be."

He looked at her, lowering the spyglass. "Sakura," he began,

"Don't, Shikamaru, just don't. They are going to pay."

Things fell into silence as the land grew closer and closer to them all. It was a steady action that Naruto had a suspicion was happening a lot faster than it would have in real life. But what was he going to do about? It wasn't like he could tell the shadow people what he was seeing. They could even see him.

But as the coast got closer and closer, he could see the beach. He could see how heavily reinforced it was. The number of Einherjars seemed to be endless from where he stood and the rest were Hlíf warriors, armed to the teeth and ready for a fight. There were several lines of defense on that beach. The most recent was just a simple line of sharpened wooden spikes. That by itself didn't give Naruto cause to worry. It was the lines after it, as they simple became more and more wall-like with the farthest one back actually being a wall made of wood. The beach and the way to the city were on a slope that rose steadily as it went up, which would give the defenders a better advantage, against the samurai at least.

When they were close enough to the beach, Sakura leapt over the side and landed on the waves. There were some shouts of surprise but they became distant and distort as Naruto followed her without actually moving. It was like he was still and everything else was moving. She walked up from the sea onto the beach and towards the first line. She came to a stop and looked at the army there.

"I am Sakura Haruno," she said a loud clear voice. "I have only one demand: give me the people who were a part of the murder of the Sannin and I will accept your surrender."

"And what if we don't give them to you?" Someone shouted down to her. The army that stood before her was just a horde of shadows that barely had shadows. Naruto had to concentrate to make out where one ended and the next began.

"Then I will kill all of you until you give me what I want."

Laughter rang out through the defenses. "Go back to where you came from, woman! You won't get what you've come for and you won't kill us!"

"You shinobi are weak! Pathetic! We all heard the stories! Killing them was a mercy so they would not see how weak they were!"

The ship reached the shore and the small army aboard began to disembark. "You were warned," Sakura said to the defenders. She lifted up a leg and then slammed it down. The earth rumbled and then split open right at the first line. The entire row of stake plus the Hlíf warriors and the Einherjar fell into it without another word said. The laughter died quickly then.

She took a giant leap into the air and landed right in the second line, causing a crater as she landed. While the rest of the invasion force made their way towards her, she started slaughtering everyone in her way. When she was done, she would go to the next line of defense.

Naruto could only watch as Sakura continued her rampage through the enemy lines while the rest of the invasion cleaned up. Screams and shouts of pain and horror mixed the air with cries of "Kill her! Kill her!" But there was no killing her. It seemed like no one could even touch her. She dealt no mercy to her enemy, only savagery and death.

He watched all of this, heard all of this, and could only think to himself, "That's why he was praying to her."

"Commander," Joker called out through the intercom, waking him up instantly.

He sat up on the bed, taking a deep breath from that nightmare he had just seen (and it was a nightmare. The Sakura he knew would never have done something like that). "What is it, Joker?"

"There's a guy standing out on the dock. He's says that he's here to talk you."

"Anyone familiar?" he asked as he got out of the bed.

"Nope," his pilot answered. "But he's armored and he's packing. You might want to do the same."

As the intercom closed, he fished out the armor from the closet. "I try and take one nap and already we've got more problems," he grumbled to himself.

"Welcome to life, gaki," Kurama told him.

"Shut up," he said back as he got the armor on and went for the elevator.

Codex Entry (Humanity and the Systems Alliance): MASSACRE OF UNRAIKYŌ

Easily one of the most atrocious acts to have occurred in the history of the galaxy, the Unraikyō Massacre occurred when fifty Hlíf warriors, of which half were Einherjar, butchered the third generation Sannin. Not stopping at killing them, they also desecrated the bodies by tearing them apart and scattering them throughout the area.

In the years leading up to the War of Three Flags, when hostilities and tensions were rising between the Elemental Countries, the Frontier, and Midgard, the Shinobi Alliance reactivated the Sannin, giving the titles of Sage to Mikoto Uchiha, Yamato Karasuhebi, and Nagato Uzumaki. But when war finally broke out, they became a ceremonial team, much like the Chosen Men.

As the war went on, the theater was quickly established. Hlíf warriors were leading raids into the Frontier while fighting them out at sea. Meanwhile, the Frontier had blockaded the Elemental Countries and was trying to invade but kept getting pushed back. The coastline of the Elemental Countries had become dangerous due to the Frontier ships but inland was safe.

The Sannin wanted to be a part of the war and continually lobbied the Shinobi Alliance for such an order. It was eventually agreed that they would be able to join once they had trained to a level that they found satisfactory. Knowing that having them train in areas known to the public would likely have the tale spread to the enemy, it was decided that they would train in Unraikyō, deep in the Land of Lightning.

What happened next no one really knows how it happened. One theory speculates that Midgard pirates had attacked the northern blockade and kept the appearance so to spy on both enemies, letting their command know about the Sannin arriving at Unraikyō when they found out. Another speculates that a Midgard spy was able to get deep in country and found out about the Sannin. A third states that it was sheer coincidence of a wrecked Midgard crew that found them (this one isn't fully accepted as Einherjar were not part of Midgard crews at that time).

Regardless of how the information was discovered, Midgard acted on it. A team was able to sneak past the Frontier blockade (or was allowed past according to some theories), land in the Land of Lightning, and then proceeded to make their way to Unraikyō, reaching it on April 28th.

The Sannin had gone to Unraikyō with a senior shinobi to teach them and a guard of both shinobi and samurai. However, they were restless and wished to train against one another, having been forbidden to do so. They snuck out at night to train, out of sight of their guards. That was how the group from Midgard found them.

By the time their guard and teacher had heard the sounds of battle and reached the battlefield, it was too late. Yamato was already dead and the other two Sannin had been trapped in a Runic seal cage. They could only watch as the Midgardians attacked them. The Toad, Snake, and Slug Bosses had been summoned before Yamato's death but the ambushers had brought one of the Veðr clan with them (see: Bloodhand), so they were pinned by the Goat Boss, leaving their summoners to deal with Hlíf warriors while the Einherjar aided the Goat Boss.

Mikoto Uchiha and Nagato Uzumaki were killed and the Bosses that had been summoned on their side fell too. Their mission completed, the seal cage collapsed and then the Einherjar turned their weapons on the shinobi who stood there and watched, killing them too. When the reinforcements that had been requested from Kumogakure had reached Unraikyō, the only way they knew there had been a massacre was because the heads of the Sannin mounted on stakes. For fifteen years, those were the only parts they knew belonged to whom. The ambushers were nowhere in sight.

The Massacre was an act that was the catalyst for the end of the war. The Shinobi Alliance, having long been on the defensive during the war, changed their strategy seemingly overnight. Their first move was to attack the Frontier blockade, crippling them to an extent that they were forced to leave (see: Operation Thunder Wave). Then they planned dual invasions, one of the Frontier and one of Midgard.

While the shinobi invasion of the Frontier (more popularly known as Sasuke's March) is well known, the Midgard invasion, also known as Sakura's Rampage, was much more infamous. The reason for its infamy was because of Sakura Haruno, Mikoto's mother. Wherever she went during the invasion, she would demand the people responsible for the Massacre. Whether they refused or told her that they were not there, she would not spare them from her rage and vengeance.

While having been initially celebrated as heroes for their actions, the fifty members of the Massacre quickly became derided during the course of the invasion, being called cowards for refusing to go out and meet Sakura in combat and then murderers when it was revealed that the Sannin had not yet reached what was considered by Midgard as the age of maturity and therefore were children. When the war ended, they were cast out of Midgardian society. They would've gone north if they had not fled, becoming outcasts (see: the Disgraced).

End

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

As I promised, Naruto getting his chakra back wouldn't take long. But to give it all back to him at the same time would be too easy. So would having Ruko just throw punches at him all day. More inhibitors will be broken, but it's not going to be easy.

You should've probably guessed by now that this isn't going to be your usual love story with Naruto and Aria. There's not going to be declarations of love to one another and Aria not really going to change her ways. Even Naruto can see what they are to one another: not lovers but friends-with-benefits. Then again, she's the Pirate Queen of Omega and he doesn't exactly have a stellar track record when it comes to romance. They might figure something out.

I'll see you all next chapter!