Chapter 35

In Amerigo, there was a certain level of silence that just pervaded the very environment. While it was true that there were nonsentient animals that made noise, and the noise of eagles hunting for food, and other winged singing their songs, there was little to truly break that white-noise. It was much unlike a great deal of human society, which almost relied on the white-noise of its population centers to function, giving birth to the human phrase 'too quiet'. Even when the winged summons flew, they made little noise save for their calls. Their chakra created the wind-shield that allowed them to defy gravity and cancel wind resistance, but it was wholly silent, and even the movement of their wings didn't break the silence of the environment around them.

So, when the sound of a demon banshee's guttural roar suddenly invaded the ears of all of the winged, followed by the nearly hysterical laughter of a distinctly non-avian voice, a great many eagles were appropriately terrified. Ever since their summoner had provided the facts needed to cripple the hawks, they hadn't lived under the fear of attack - they hadn't had to look up. With this sudden break in the peaceful silence of their lands, many assumed they were being attacked, and the populations of many a caste took to the sky, with the males taking an aggressive stance and summoning their steel plumage, and their females joining them after hiding the children.

It took not but a few seconds for the source of the disturbance to be located. Even without the noise, it was somewhat impossible not to notice it, what with the bright blue geysers blasting out of his hands and creating the deep roar.

"By the air - it is Lord Hibiki!" One eagle, a scout with better vision than even other eagles, said after he narrowed his eyes. "Lord Hibiki has joined us in the air!" He cawed, joined by the distant cheers and laughter of the human in question as he threw his hands and feet forward and halted his forward momentum, before he blasted straight up into the air in the blink of an eye and the clap of thunder.

"Do you see?" A deep-voiced Combat Caste called out, pointing with one wing while his chakra and his other kept him aloft, "it is our summoner!" His voice carried through the sky, reaching many but falling flat on others due to the copious amounts of noise. "A human can fly!" He cried out with pride; the human he indicated bent his back and started hurtling downwards in large, showy spirals, an enormous, toothy grin plastered over his face, his bright red eyes wide and glowing.

Slowly, word began to spread through word of mouth, and soon enough everyone was airborne, watching as the human played in the domain of the winged. The human was enjoying the experience as much as he was testing out what he could do, performing maneuvers, blasting forward and slowing to a crawl, even once cutting power to his flight technique and diving towards the ground, terrifying many eagles before he threw out both hands and feet and avoided a splat before it was too late.

After a while, the sky grew dark, as the massive shape of Washita took flight. Whoever didn't have their eyes locked onto their summoner, looked to their Boss, who hovered in the air and watched the human with pride in his eyes. The enormous bald eagle tracked Hibiki's flight, and the less notable flight of the scout tailing him, only partially unable to believe what he was seeing. Hibiki had said he could do it, and Washita had believed him if only because he had no other reason to not believe his summoner.

Soon, the summoner noticed the massive eagle watching him, and blasted over towards him, coming to a halt several meters from the boss.

He uses his hands as we would wings... This human will do great things, for us and for his people. The big boss smiled an eagle smile. "Hibiki Senju... Welcome to the sky!" With a great flourish, Washita beat his wings and took off upwards, soon joined by several other eagles, who began a domino effect which ended with the lone human hovering in the center of an enormous spherical mass of flying creatures, watching it all with a massive smile on his proud face.

The smile turned to a deep grin, and Hibiki blasted upwards, breaking the sphere in a veritable explosion of eagles as they made way for him, and soon everyone - even the boss - fell in behind him, allowing him to take the lead.

Hours later, after what equated to a flying party, Hibiki remembered rather vividly thinking once that flying sucked.

As he soared through the air far faster than any human being had any right to, he decided he'd take the time to amend that thought: Flying rocked.

Flying voluntarily rocked.

Using old, arguably corrupted, memories of Hollywood to solve his problems rocked.

Flying, voluntarily, because he used old, arguably corrupted, memories of Hollywood to solve his problems was just plain awesome.

Hibiki was mentally smacking himself for how long it had taken him to figure out how to solve his stabilizing problem. The answer had already been there, locked away in that bit of his mind that he thought about not nearly as often as he liked. Was there no fucking end to the amount of problems that fiction from Back Home could solve?

Need to figure out how to make a one-shot super-punch? Draw from Smash Bros..

Need to figure out how to escape from a couple gun-wielding thugs, while tied to a tree? Hollywood has it covered.

Need to figure out how to control explosive chakra? Draw from Dragonball.

Need to figure out how to recreate one of the most powerful chakra-based attacks in the entire world? Dragonball again.

Need to figure out how to fucking fly? Draw from Hollywood, which itself drew from comic books.

What did they all have in common?

Don't try this at home. Thought a victorious displaced man, reveling in his newfound skill.

If he had to pick his absolute favorite moment of his new life, he'd choose this one - even figuring out the kamehameha paled in comparison to this. He had two days before he had to return to Konoha and then blast off in time for Kiri, so he felt it was time to check in on one of his clones. Hands at his sides, blasting out chakra in a constant, roaring stream, he soared through the air with a massive grin on his face, heading for the largest uninhabited lake he could find. Finding a body of water with no lake-side residents was surprisingly difficult in Amerigo, given that three quarters of the population were avian, and most preferred eating fish, most tended to live near or around lakes.

Hibiki oriented himself so his feet were toward the ground as the lake in question came into view, it was a massive one, almost as large as a city, and the best part was that it was several dozen kilometers from any trees big enough for the Eagles to live in, and the environment around, rocky as it was, wasn't conducive to most fish-eating species, meaning Hibiki's clones could run wild. As the Alpha Hibiki came in for a landing, he saw a blinding white orb of chakra fly outwards and detonate in an enormous explosion, sending a massive shockwave flying through the air and disturbing the already raging lake.

"So, no luck?" The Alpha inquired, as he came in to land; he'd left this clone to mull about alone specifically because he didn't want two conflicting sets of memories from two separate training sessions mucking about with his flight training.

The clone shook his head, "can't blow shit up with the kamehameha, can't tone down the BBA." He said with a light sigh, before he turned to the Alpha, as the glow from the distant explosion died down. "I'd say I see you got your experiment down, but it's kind of hard to ignore constant bursts of memory from a thousand of us." He said.

"This... Is very weird." Chuckled Hibiki, shaking his head.

"I'm talking to myself."

"And I'm responding." The Alpha sighed, "so, no real updates?"

"No."

"Then I'm going to go, Big Boss wants to see how fast I can get going, and Geoff volunteered."

"Good luck, Mister Stark."

"Yeah yeah, asshole." Hibiki launched himself into the air, where a human-sized eagle was hovering there, waiting for him.

"So, what was that, Hibiki-san?" Geoff asked, as he looked around, eyes narrowed and a shiver running down his back.

"Absolutely nothing, unfortunately." Said Hibiki, who noticed Geoff's look, "what's wrong?"

Geoff shook his head, "nothing, we just try not to fly near the Arid Lake is all." He said.

Hibiki inclined his head and narrowed his eyes briefly, unable to shrug. "Alright, so what're the rules of this little race?" He asked, pumping just enough chakra through his hands and feet to keep him aloft, this stream much more muted and less roaring than the earlier one.

Geoff blinked, turning his head to Hibiki and ceasing his worried looks around, "what rules? Just don't freeze to death." Hibiki had learned the hard way that flying fast was a quick way to freeze, and flying through the clouds had nearly given him hypothermia.

Hibiki raised his eyebrow, staring at the scarred scout with an amused expression, "did I hear that right? No rules?"

"Can't see what you're capable of if we restrict you." Said Geoff, as he started a mental countdown.

"Hm. We going anywhere specific, or just flying?"

"Pick a direction." Three... Two... One. On one, Hibiki hurtled off to the southwest.

Okay... Give him a few seconds. Thought the eagle, as he turned mid-air and watched Hibiki turn into a small dot. Hibiki might not be a sore loser, but Geoff could tell it wasn't his favorite thing to lose. What Geoff was watching for was less any problems in Hibiki's form, and more for problems with the way Hibiki flew. It was a very strange way to fly - only thrust, no true guidance outside of more thrust. Hibiki had replaced wings with more power, and if ever he had to turn, he just thrust his hands out and made his mid-air brakes; however, being a winged creature, Geoff was therefor native to the sky, and if anything, he could help make Hibiki's flight more efficient. Hibiki had tried bundling up in extra clothes after they'd found what Hibiki was calling 'the icing problem', but Geoff and Ami had shot that one down - adding wind resistance would make Hibiki slower and more sluggish mid-air, and to make up for that speed loss he would have to burn more chakra, which would give him less air-time. He'd also told Hibiki that he should start dressing in less baggy clothing if he wanted to decrease wind-resistance, but Hibiki had drawn the line at switching out his pants, and had nearly started fighting Geoff when the Eagle had insisted he do so. Geoff had never, in his life, heard anyone shout so loud about their legwear.

Wait a second... Geoff narrowed his eyes. Hibiki was flying southwest, and they were at the Arid Lake. His eyes widened, as he realized where Hibiki was headed. "Oh Kami..." Caution almost literally thrown to the wind, Geoff took of with single flap of his great wings, pushing himself as hard as he could to catch up with the Senju heir.

The ground was flying beneath him, slowly turning from the rocky expanse to grassy plains, but Geoff could not say he was familiar with these plains - he was specifically not familiar with these ones except for their description, and direction and proximity relevant to the Arid Lake. The green blurry ground below was not what he focused on, nor did he focus on the slowly graying sky above him, he was focused completely on the Senju heir with the blue fire blasting out of his hands and feet.

"HIBIKI-SAN!" Cawed the scout, once he knew he was within earshot, even with the roaring winds doing their best to deafen them both.

The Senju heir turned his head to the scout, who was trying to calculate how soon they would arrive at their speed, and not liking what he was coming up with. However, his response was the exact opposite of what he wanted to hear, "oh come on, Geoffrey! You said it yourself - no rules in this race, asshoooooooooole!" He called out before he accelerated with a thunderclap.

The scout cursed, and flapped his powerful wings harder as he poured more chakra outwards, effectively cancelling air resistance and allowing him to fly faster than the human could ever hope to. It was difficult, if not impossible, to explain to anyone outside of the Winged Domain, but the Avian Summons' particular method of defying gravity allowed them to reach speeds impossible for the non-sentient birds, meaning he caught up with the Summoner in a matter of seconds, and when the human noticed, he flipped himself around, back facing the ground, to give the Eagle his dues.

"Damn, son, I didn't know you could -"

"Hibiki-san, we need to turn around! Right! NOW!"

Hibiki scrunched up his face in playful disbelief, "what happened to 'figuring out what I can really do?" The human called out over the roaring winds, "worried I'll embarrass you when we get home?" The human was grinning, he had no idea where they were headed to.

Geoff shook his head, "you don't under-" He cut himself off when he saw it, just on the horizon, a place that no Eagle had ever dared visit in centuries. "Hibiki, TURN AROUND!"

With a tilted Head, Hibiki flipped himself back so his belly faced the ground, and his head faced the horizon. "What're you afraid of, Geoff?" He asked, squinting his eyes as they slowly turned blood-red, "I don't see -" No sooner had he tempted fate than had fate responded with the thunderous sound of a distant explosion. Before either of them could blink, the place in the distance lit up as a small plume of smoke suddenly shot out. Without thinking, or slowing down, Hibiki uttered, "what the fu-" But was cut off by the realization of the scope of his fuck up. His eyes allowed him to see it as it approached, unlike Geoff's, his increased his rate of perception, meaning he saw it all happening in slow motion. The object flying through the air was shaped conically, with a fine point; it spun rapidly, and it flew at speeds far beyond Hibiki and Geoff were, but unfortunately for them, they were heading straight towards it, meaning that their window to dodge it came and went before they even knew what was happening. Despite the fact that Hibiki could clearly see it with his Sharingan, despite his great reflexes, this thing was approaching them too quickly - so quickly, in fact, that even to the Sharingan it was moving fast.

Though, to Hibiki, it was happening all in slow motion, to Geoff, it was happening blisteringly fast. No sooner had the horizon lit up in a brief, almost imperceptible flash, than did the air right next to Hibiki explode, sending him careening downwards, spinning out of control, his clothes smoldering and droplets and small streams of blood following his trail, as his forward momentum dictated he keep moving towards the cursed place.

With a shout of panic, Geoff dived for the ground, praying that the tall grass could shield him from the ever-watchful eyes of the Wraiths. He felt fear clench his heart as he realized his mistake: He'd taken his eyes off of Hibiki. He'd lost him.

Oh Kami... Oh Kami, oh Kami, oh Kami... Prayed Geoff, as something else whizzed by above him, soon followed by another distant explosion. What have I done? Why didn't he tell me, tell anyone he was training near the ARID LAKE?! Why didn't WE tell him NOT TO DO THAT?! The Eagle slowed himself down, unable to reliably fly at such great speeds so close to the ground, and in such thick grass. Why didn't the Boss tell me that he didn't know?!

He swallowed thickly through a dry throat as he realized that he literally had no other choice: He had to breach the forbidden place to find his summoner. He had to defeat, or sneak by, the Wraiths - something no other eagle had done in history - and find Hibiki.

Damn it... Damn it, damn it! Why didn't I go Combat Caste?! Thought the terrified Eagle as he soared closer to the Wraith. Okay... Speed, if I move fast, I can dodge it, right? It can't hit what it can't track! With those thoughts, the eagle burst forth from the grass and soared straight into the air.

Immediately he regretted his decision.

There were tales of the Wraiths, they were usually used to scare chicks to staying close to the forests and their mothers, and away from any predators. It had been a long time since Geoff had heard these tales - having stopped believing them since his second year as a Scout - but the more time he spent here, the more his mother's hushed tales came to mind. There were the Wraiths that could destroy you before you even saw them, like the one that had blown Hibiki out of the sky, and then there were the Wraiths who could hit you even if you flew faster than a Scout. Before Geoff could even blink, the sound of constant, never-ending thunder exploded from in front of him, and a line of bright white fire burst forth, trailing behind him by mere inches, following his every movement. Barely a second later, another Wraith added its fire, and then another, and another, and soon the air was filled with the staccato of Wraithfire, and it was everything Geoff could to to outpace the multiple crisscrossing lines of fire.

He got the briefest of glimpses of what lay behind the wraiths, and in that brief instant, all he had time to focus on was where Hibiki had landed - far behind their defensive line, he hit the ground hard, bounced, and left a crater as he dragged to a halt.

Shit! Thought the Eagle, as he hairpin-dived straight for the ground again, which got torn apart by the Wraith's technique for a few seconds, before all was silent again, save for the sound of him flying through the grass. I can't do that again! They didn't even need to know where he was going, there were so many of them that he couldn't dodge them forever, and he didn't want to risk flying along the ground to try and get underneath them - Kami only knew what the Wraiths had defending their land.

Okay... New plan! Desperately thought the eagle, they... I... It took them a second or two to find me and then start attacking, so maybe I can hit them with a wind bullet and then dive back into the grass. No other plans available, Geoff thrust his wings powerfully and flew straight into the air.

For just a brief second, he looked down and around. He saw one of them - the horrifying, rustic red pill-shaped back, the multiple, spinning beaks. It took not even an instant to start turning to him, and that act alone scared Geoff so badly that he almost dived for the ground again, but he narrowed his eyes in determination, built up his chakra within him, and blasted it with a wind bullet, full-force.

The impact did absolutely nothing, save for denting its back. Its beaks started spinning rapidly, with a horrendous grinding noise, Geoff dived for the ground just as they spat hot fire and screamed thunder - he felt the heat of their techniques pass by his tail, and a sharp stinging pain told him he'd been hit, but he prayed it wasn't bad, because he couldn't afford to stop moving and check himself for injuries.

Hurtling through the tall grass, Geoff was desperately flying for his life and for time to make a plan. If his only good long-range attack barely even hurt these monsters, what hope did he have of fighting through them to get to Hibiki? He didn't want to test the Steel Wing technique on these things - he feared they would just rip straight through them. He considered just flying straight up, so high that they couldn't see him, but he and Hibiki had been just below the clouds earlier, and so far that even Geoff's eyes couldn't make out all of the Wraiths' details, and they'd still seen them both, so how could he even hope to fly so high he could evade their sight, dodge their attacks, and dive back behind their lines without them noticing? What if there was something even worse behind them?!

No, NO! I NEED to find a way past them! My summoner - my friend - is dying, and I'm the only one who can help him! Twice now he'd burst up from the grass and it had taken the Wraiths a couple moments to find him - that meant they couldn't move or see as fast as he or Hibiki could. If he could build up his speed, he could burst straight past them and make it to Hibiki! It was his only shot! I can't use the Steel Wing, it'll weigh me down and make me fly slower... I have to put everything into the air technique - I have to fly straight past them! I can do this! Thought the determined eagle as he channeled all of his natural chakra into the air bubble surrounding him, saturating the air so much that it looked like an orb of green light was hurtling through the grass, twisting and turning and avoiding phantom attacks.

NOW! Geoff burst up into the sky and hurtled for the Wraiths, flying so fast that things were blurring together even to him. In what seemed to take an eternity, he flew straight for a gap between two Wraiths as they turned to meet him and started spinning their beaks. Just as he crossed between them, they started firing - but they couldn't track him when he made it behind them, they couldn't turn any further than they had, their attacks flew into the sky, harmlessly hitting nothing but air.

Ha ha! Yes! Geoff turned to look back at his victory, but when he turned back, he almost dropped white. NO! He crashed through a half tree-trunk shaped building, it tearing at his feathers and skin as he smashed through its wall, collided with several other objects inside, and hit the ground a few moments later, a large gust of wind following him as the air caught up with the formerly speeding eagle.

"Ow... Oh, ow..." Groaned the scout, as he dug himself out of a reddish pile of metal and clothe. He was bleeding from several wounds, but he was alive - and he didn't hear any Wraiths cawing in anger, or trying to find and kill him "Okay... Find Hibiki..." He looked around, it was dark where he was, the only light coming from holes in the ceiling, foggy, opaque objects, and the hole he'd made on entry. He leapt into the air and flew through one of the larger holes, but kept as low as possible on exit - he didn't trust anything in this kami-forsaken place.

Quick as he could, the eagle landed and took cover behind one of the dark orange walls, he risked a peek over where he saw the Wraiths; they were slowly, laboriously, scanning the areas they could see, but for whatever reason they weren't turning around, which only made Geoff's hear-rate climb higher: If they were hard to escape, and they kept people out, what would force him out now that he'd gotten past them?

The scout swallowed thickly, okay... Where's Hibiki? He gazed around his surroundings, looking for the craters and debris he'd seen earlier. He was surrounded mostly by overgrown vegetation, thick grass and large, entangling vines, just a few feet in front of him was a massive expanse of stone, flattened and running long in both directions. There were buildings in the distance, all a deep rustic red, with tinges of dark gray, and there were the shattered ruins of buildings as well, they looked like tree-trunks without roots or branches. It reminded Geoff of human architecture, but he'd never really seen anything like this during his work with Hibiki. He saw a tower in the distance, though it looked as if a chunk had been ripped from its top.

Geoff ripped his eyes from the horizon - he wasn't here to learn the secrets of the Wraithland, he had to find Hibiki, and it took him only a moment more to do so - several large stones and a great deal of debris strewn about. With another dry swallow, and a peek over to the Wraiths to make sure they hadn't finally turned around, Geoff leapt forward and glided along the ground for a few meters before he made it to Hibiki. There was a large slab of stone covering Hibiki - who was on his back, one arm bent at an unnatural angle, and the other splayed out in another direction.

Okay... Just move the stone. Heavy lifting wasn't his forte, but he could pull his weight - and this stone, while heavy, was nowhere near as heavy as he was on any given day, or Ami was any given night, it relented to his strength with little resistance, and Geoff nearly dropped it, retching, when it was revealed to him Hibiki's sorry state.

"Oh no..." Geoff's nasally voice shook, as his wings slumped and he took in his summoner's health, or lack thereof.

Much of Hibiki's front side had either been blasted, burned, or ripped off on impact. A bone was sticking out of his left ankle, the skin on his right leg had been rubbed raw, with some muscle and bone exposed to the open air, his face was outright missing some skin - though thankfully his distinguishing features and his eyes were still present - but what was most horrifying was his chest. Either the Wraith's attack had exploded much closer than Geoff had thought, or Hibiki had hit the ground entirely too hard, because the skin and muscle from his chest had been blasted off and was scorched black, and his rib-cage was gone. Literally gone - all that was left were broken, jagged edges, covered in bright and dark red blood, and revealing his internal organs. The pale, fleshy sacks with large dark burn-spots, the odd, reddish-purple organ, the - Geoff's wing went up to his beak to hold back in vomit, as the pale white fleshy sacks slowly started inflating, with a rasping, tortured sound.

Oh dear Kami, those are his lungs! A second look revealed to him that the reddish purple organ beat in sync with the blood leaking from his puncture wounds, meaning that was his heart! This tortured soul was still alive!

Geoff backed up a few steps, not believing his wide-open eyes. There was no possible way that Hibiki could still be alive, but here it was, right in front of his eyes - his charred lungs were expanding and contracting in time with Hibiki's weak rasps. Geoff felt his own heart start beating faster, and his breaths came quicker and quicker - what on earth was he supposed to do? He wasn't a medic, and even if he was, Hibiki was human, he wasn't an eagle! This was literally outside of his realm of expertise, and he couldn't go to Konoha and retrieve Hibiki's mother - without Hibiki there to summon him, Konoha was entirely too far to travel the conventional way. There were no humans around to help him. He was slowly becoming so frantic that he failed to notice the jet black, scorched parts of Hibiki's lungs were slowly receding, he was too busy trying to find any kind of solution. He couldn't just leave Hibiki here, but he couldn't move him either, he didn't know what would happen if he tried such a thing, he could make the damage worse, he could even kill the poor thing!

Oh man... What do I do? What do I do, what do I do, what do i do? I never should have suggested this, we should have told him about the Arid Lake, why were we so - Geoff blinked, and burst into the sky with a powerful thrust of his wings. The lake! There was a Hibiki clone there, he would know what to do - it was Hibiki, after all!

Geoff could hardly recount a time when he'd flown so fast in his life, even just mere minutes ago in breaking the Wraiths' line paled in comparison to the speed he was generating at this moment. He'd flown past the Wraiths so fast that they'd barely even been able to register him in that brief pause they needed, and when they did, he was already far away, speeding towards the Arid Lake.

It took him sixty seconds to make it to the lake, he didn't know nor did he care how far he'd travelled, he flayed his wings out and broke mid-air. He inhaled deeply and called out, "HIBIKI-SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!" So loud that it echoed far and wide in the silent land, there was no way the clone didn't hear it.

Save for his distant echoes, there was silence.

Oh Kami, no... Geoff came down to land, "HIBIKI-SAN!" He cawed, "HIBIKI-SAN, CLONE-SAN, PLEASE ANSWER ME!" He searched around desperately, looking under anything, even diving under the lake's surface, he found nothing. How did Hibiki's clone technique work? He thought Hibiki had told him that these clones were supposed to take big hits and stay alive - SO WHERE WAS HE?!

"Oh no... Oh Kami, oh no... I have to go to the Boss, there's nothing else I can do - he'll know what to do." It didn't fucking matter if he got expelled from the caste, if he didn't save Hibiki he would never live it down.

Geoff took off with enough force to send out a shockwave in the nearby lake, and blasted off towards his homeland, praying to every deity he had ever heard of - and even a few he made up on the spot - for his flight to be swift and his arrival to be timely. It didn't matter that his tail was bleeding, or that it would take hours to get home, or that he'd even been attacked by Wraiths, all that mattered was that he was the stupid scout that had left his summoner in the cursed Wraithland and that his summoner was dying.