THE END WAR – THE TEST
The Laboratories, Okarin
Max and Jonas enter the laboratories side by side. The research staff have been waiting for their arrival and they form ranks either side of the entrance. As the two high-ranking officials walk forward the researchers all salute, but they are ignored by the emperor and the king. The two of them believe that they are here for a much more important reason. This is the first step on the road to ending the war, to ensuring lasting prosperity for this new empire they have constructed, to ensuring that the old Homeworld can never return.
Max takes Jonas to the end of a corridor. He looks back confirming that nobody is following him, the researchers often ask for his input on their work when they have hit a stumbling block. He is in charge of these laboratories because his scientific skills qualify him for that position. The position of Science Advisor was formerly held by Furst Jonas himself, the only one more accomplished in the discipline than Max. Asking them a question is a rare opportunity for a researcher, but now they must not be followed, the work Max has been doing is highly secret.
Jonas remembers this lab hidden in the corner of the building; it is where he used to work on projects he wanted to keep hidden from Akashi. He remembers designing the laboratories so that they could cope with all kinds of environmental conditions, so that they could withstand any energy created by his experiments. He is not here to see one of those experiments though, he is here to see one that he started long ago. Hannah, a fusion of Lara and Clyde's energies was Max's greatest creation. This is Jonas' greatest creation.
They enter the room and shut the door behind them quickly. Jonas sees a cylindrical object beneath the only light in the room. It has three separated rotating tiers with vertical ornaments around the outside. This is the exact design Jonas came up with years ago but this is the first time since he became emperor that he has seen it. So many years of work has gone into creating this device, a device that can help him to achieve his destiny.
"Making that was not easy," Max says.
"As my Science Advisor you should not be seeking easy work Weiss Max. It is your job to make things possible that were considered impossible. Knowledge should be the goal of every action you take and you should consider it a privilege that you have access to more resources than any royal in the history of this empire. If you consider the burdens of your job to be too great I am sure that I can find someone more enthusiastic to replace you."
"My apologies emperor, it has been a great honour to work on implementing one of your designs. I must admit that even I do not fully understand how it works, how it compresses and changes energy in the way it does. In time would you be willing to explain it to me?"
"I will consider it if you perform well in future conflicts."
"Future conflicts? I was under the impression that this device would end the war?"
"It will in a matter of time. Soon the outcome of the war will become an inevitability, I may allow you all to fight the rebellion anyway. It would be interesting for me to see which royals are worth keeping when this over and which of you I should be rid of."
"You're not going to use this device before then?"
"Do I detect a tone of disapproval?"
"No. Not at all. It's just that we work for you my lord; would it not further your grasp on this world if the royals survived the war?"
"I don't think you understand your situation Max. I have never needed the royals; you have just been a convenient way to maintain control over this world. As my student Petra has been valuable to me, but the rest of you are just utilities. Although it would have taken longer I could have finished this work without your input. She made life difficult for the rebels but Sabine is an incompetent queen who has often squandered Ewoa's immense resources. While Swen is good at gathering intelligence he is too lazy to rule Gavaria and his obsession with retrieving his son has achieved nothing. Nadia's mind is remarkable but her unwillingness to coordinate the Imperial's Guard's defence has made her useless. Lastly, Erik, he is a fool who couldn't protect the Foundry from a series of class 8 warriors.
"I could have controlled the empire without any of you. The councils of the seven nations would have obeyed me out of fear even when reassured by the rebels. Those rebels would also have had only one opponent to defeat, and that opponent would have been me. Even now the rebellion is too weak to defeat me, and this device will only increase the gap between us. Don't test me on this subject again Max, if I want you to fight to prove your worth, or even just to entertain me, you will do it. You have no choice but to do what I say."
"Of course my emperor."
Max hates people acting superior to him and in recent times the list of people who behave that way has been growing. Jonas, Sabine and Nadia have always behaved that way, but lately Swen has been treating him as a joke, Petra has been laughing at him openly, and even Erik is claiming to be stronger than him. He swears that if he fights in this final conflict his goal will be to recapture or improve upon his greatest experiment, Hannah, with that kind of power at his disposal the others will laugh at him no more.
"Are you intending to test the device now my emperor?"
"Of course."
"And where are you intending to target the device?"
"I am astonished that it is not obvious to you Max. We recently lost control of Homeworld's biggest city when it fell into the hands of Uzumaki Naruto. Dunstone is the only logical choice for where to aim this device."
"There are countless people living in Dunstone…"
"Max, I am not just an emperor, I am the foretold god. You don't avoid stepping on insects, this is the same. Humans are no longer worth my consideration."
The Royal Palace, Dunstone
Hinata walks to the balcony of the royal palace, she sees Naruto looking out over the city and the country he has vowed to protect. Medical care is now being organised in Dunstone on a scale never seen before, food and water is being taken to the struggling people of the city. Now that the council's suggestions are being taken once again the difference is tremendous. With Sabine as queen this city suffered her malicious decisions, with Naruto as king things are getting better fast. Still it is not enough for him, he always wants to do more for people, he works himself too hard sending clones all over the city.
Hinata walks to Naruto's side and joins him.
"Hello Pocket Emperor."
"Please call me Naruto."
Hinata laughs. "I know that progress feels slow but what you're doing here is amazing. Most people in Ewoa have lived with Sabine as the queen their entire lives, they've never known what it is to have a benevolent king. Thank you for everything you've done for them, it is amazing. The rebellion would never have reached this point without you."
"It's not over yet, the toughest opponent is still in front of us."
"I know. You saw what Furst did when he fought my uncle, I've never seen anyone that strong. You are the strongest warrior the rebellion has, stronger than me, Boruto, Himawari, stronger than Ashen, possibly even stronger than my father was. Do you have a plan for how to defeat someone that powerful? Is there any route left for you to become stronger?"
"I honestly don't know how to become any stronger. I suppose I could work on understanding a third double-transcendent element, but the chances of that are remote. You told me that understanding three basic elements made Himawari a world-defying genius."
"It does. Three double-transcendent elements, I don't believe it is possible in all honesty, even for you."
Naruto nods. If left long enough he would begin to understand all the elements when his progenitor understanding begins to kick in. From what Kasumi said that could be years away though. He doesn't have that much time available, Furst would surely attack him before he had the chance to become so strong. He wishes that Sora were still here to teach him, perhaps Homeworld's greatest teacher would have some unique insight to offer in this unprecedented situation.
"In that case there is only one way of winning against him, we fight together, just like we have done all this time. We need to defeat the royals and Imperial Guard, eliminate everyone who can stand in our way and fight united against Furst. I know that the difference between each class is greater than the last, but with all of us working together there is an outside chance we could defeat a class 10 warrior."
"Defeating the royals will not be so easy."
"I know, but we have a good starting position. We have our own team of class 9 warriors now, and while some of us may not be as strong as the royals we can put up a good fight. That needs to change between now and the end, we need to find the strength within ourselves to defeat those royals."
"Do you have any suggestions on how to do that?"
"We work on an intense training program for the strongest fighters in the rebellion. Right now we cannot speak with Boruto and Himawari, but I have faith that Ashen will make them strong. We could work with Hannah and Ming Dai to start with, preparing them for the battle against the royals. More strength training for Dai, sharpening Hannah's instincts even further. I am not a teacher so I don't know how we would do it, but I'm sure that it is possible."
"And for you and I?"
"I need to practice using the Sacred Sword's true power, and I'm sure you could use some training with the tailed-beasts' powers. You mentioned before that 'might' energy is hard to control with your divine oddity, perhaps if you polish that combination of powers you may find a way to become stronger, a way to defeat Furst."
Naruto nods. He doesn't think that strengthening his coordination with the tailed-beasts will help him to defeat Furst, but he remains optimistic. All this time he has been determined to never give up and so far it hasn't let him down. He has made it here, he is the King of Ewoa, the Pocket Emperor, the 7th Hokage; once upon a time people told him that he could become none of those things. He will find a way to defeat Furst, no matter what he needs to go through in order to do it.
"Are your souls continuing to fuse?" Naruto asks.
"Yes. Right now I think my Endou soul is in control but I can hear the Hyuuga thoughts loudly. I can see a lot of her memories too. I think I remember the village being attacked by someone with the same eye as Sasuke, I remember Neji sacrificing himself to save us, and I remember fighting with you in that shinobi war."
"It's not long now then."
"No it's not. Soon our souls will have merged completely and we will share a single consciousness. I thought it would be weeks before that happened, but that is no longer the case. I believe that we will be one soul in a matter of days."
"Are you both happy about that?"
"It may be hard to believe but we are. We each possess something that the other lacks, something that we can give to our other soul. As one being we are happier than we ever could have been apart. I look at Sasuke now and I don't see a pocket-worlder, I see the shinobi who I've always known, who you chased after when he left the village. He did make things difficult for you didn't he?"
Naruto grins. "Yes. Yes he did."
The Laboratories, Okarin
Jonas approaches the device Max built to his design. He inspects it for a moment before placing his hand on top of the cylinder. The three independent tiers begin to rotate, the central tier clockwise, the top and bottom tier anticlockwise. Then Jonas closes his eyes and he sees everything, it is difficult to control a device with such potential, even for one as strong as him. He pictures Dunstone in his mind and the device responds to his thoughts just as he designed it to. With the city as clear as it can be in his head he pushes his golden 'destruction' energy into the device. The three tiers spin very quickly for ten seconds. The device shines bright red and gold before there is a loud explosion and the energy suddenly disappears.
Jonas sighs, that wasn't as successful as he would have liked, but it was only his first attempt and this is only a prototype. It will get better.
Dunstone, Ewoa
Naruto looks around and sees a huge wave of daunting red energy descending on the city. He recalls seeing terrifying energy like this once before. It is the energy of Emperor Furst Jonas. He looks around for Jonas but he can seen no sign of him. He can only see the massive wave of terrifying energy falling to the north-east quadrant of the city. There is no time to think, he must act immediately if he is going to save anyone.
Naruto activates both of his golden cloaks, power-transfers to his legs and leaps towards the north-east quadrant. He realises immediately that he isn't going to make it in time. The clones he has in that quadrant begin to duplicate, making as many copies as they can. Those copies focus on protecting the civilians. He projects a 'sand' wall between the city and the golden 'destruction' energy, solidifying it with 'water' energy and enhancing it with 'might' energy. He has no time to do anything else but prays that the people in this quadrant will survive.
As the golden 'destruction' collides with Naruto's barrier it causes a huge explosion. Golden 'destruction' energy flies in all directions and the barrier is completely obliterated. The houses and other buildings below the collision shatter as they are hit by particles of the red and gold energy, exploding into smaller pieces which themselves scatter. Naruto feels the horrifying information being fed back by his clones as they are destroyed, people are being hit by the attack, there is nothing that he can do to save them.
The shockwave approaches Naruto and Hinata. Naruto holds his hands out wide projecting another 'sand' barrier to protect everyone behind him. His power holds up well against the shockwave but even then he feels a strong gust after they collide, one that knocks down a few houses and will have broken some civilians' bones. He collapses the 'sand' barrier and looks at the still exploding north-east quadrant. He has never seen destruction on such a scale before, not even when Sora detonated his core, the reactions keep on happening and within twenty seconds the entire quadrant is reduced to rubble.
The North-East Quadrant
A few council members are trapped in one of the centres they have been using to provide emergency aid to the civilians. Fortunately the rubble seems to have fallen in such a way that they have all avoided harm, that is nothing short of a miracle as far as they are concerned. They are warriors themselves, but if they had been hit by any of that energy they would have been done for.
"What was that?" one of them asks.
"It was some kind of divine energy attack."
"It can't have been, nobody is that strong."
"It could have been the emperor; rumour says he is a class 10 warrior."
"Most of that energy missed the city," another council member protests. "If that had been a direct hit all of Dunstone would have been reduced to ash! The emperor may be a class 10 warrior, but there is no way he can throw attacks that strong. That was even more powerful than the fake Naruto's core detonation."
They hear a cry of pain from under the rubble. They all rush over and begin to dig furiously at it, destroying what they can to speed the process. It is fortunate they are so strong otherwise the rescue process would take longer. After digging for thirty seconds they clear the rubble away from the face of former prince Wakamoto Jun.
"Jun, are you OK?"
"No, my leg is… I think it's broken…"
One of them realises what happened, they thought they saw someone moving very quickly as debris was falling around them. "Jun, did you save us?"
"I did what I could."
"We'll get medical help for you right away," the councillors say, now filled with gratitude.
"No!"
"No? If your leg is broken then…"
"Idiots," Jun shouts. "Didn't you see what just happened? I wouldn't be surprised if that attack flattened the entire quadrant. Not everyone had a warrior with them to protect them."
"Do you think they're dead?"
"We only have one hope," Jun says as he struggles with his leg. "The Pocket-Emperor uses 'life' energy and he is stronger than any of us. Get us out of this building, then start taking the wounded to him as quickly as possible. I don't know how many people survived the first attack, but if we don't move quickly I guarantee that fewer will survive the aftermath!"
In Response to Snaketh
Who asks about the Dark Dimension
The Empress didn't directly unleash the Hive Mind, she ordered it's creation.
Thanks for reading.
In Response to secret love writer
Who asks if Naruto aged in the space-time trap
Yes he would have done, looking back perhaps it should have been noticeable.
I don't think I ever said in-story how long he was in there, I think I guessed in an author note.
I might make a few minor edits when the story is done to iron out issues like that for future readers.
Thanks for reading.