Well I beat Metroid Dread and I got to thinking...what if... and then this happened. So I guess now here we are! I hope you guys enjoy
Naruto looked at the team that he had been given for his next mission. To say that it had been an eventful week for the Elemental Nations was to say the least. It had only been around a week since what appeared to be a ship fell from the sky and crashed into the far southern region of the Land of Wind.
At first the Kazekage Gaara had sent a small three man survey team to the crash site in order to quickly investigate and report back anything that they found.
The team never came back.
Following the disappearance of the first team, Gaara sent a larger team which included his own brother Kakuro to the site only to get the same result from the second team. From then, villages from the surrounding areas started to go quiet, all communication falling off completely. Kakuro's disappearance had hit his friend especially hard as so armed with a battalion of jonin, the Kazekage led the charge once again towards the crash site.
No one returned.
Within days Sunagakure had also gone dark. All attempts to communicate with them had resulted in nothing. It didn't matter who reached out, the result had been the same.
That led to today, where a group of shinobi from the five great nations had gathered in order to find out what was going on in Suna. The team so far consisted of Naruto himself representing Konoha, C from Kumo, Chojuro from Kiri, and Akatsuchi from Iwa. All in all it was a team of some of the best shinobi that each village could gather.
"S-so what do you think we'll find?" Chojuro asked as the group made their way towards Sunagakure, the bodyguard of the Mizukage, while skilled, was openly anxious about what they could run into. It wasn't every day that an entire shinobi village just suddenly went off the radar, let alone one of the five greatest.
"I don't know, in all honestly I'm dreading the answer to that very question," C responded as he had a gut feeling that whatever they were going to find wasn't going to be anything good. The whole situation was messy. An alien spacecraft, hundreds of thousands of people going missing including a Kage. He knew that they were in for a rough mission. In a way he felt a bit insulted by being the one picked for this team. B had been ruled out because the Raikage couldn't bear the thought of losing his brother, and Darui had been held back because A didn't want to risk the one he had chosen as his successor.
All in all he was the most expendable among the top tiers of the Kumo shinobi system.
"I'm sure everything will work out guys," Akatsuchi said as he smiled at the other four. Having been one of the strongest Iwa shinobi and the personal guard of the Sandaime Tsuchikage, he had been chosen to join the team.
People had called the group one of the strongest teams, as it covered nearly all bases. C was a superb support shinobi, being an expert in sensory jutsu, healing jutsu, and genjutsu. Akatsuchi had a wide array of defensive and offensive Earth Style jutsu that would help protect the group. Chujuro, being one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist had access to the Hiramekarei which he had used to great effect during the Fourth Shinobi War.
And lastly was Naruto, the hero of the war and currently the strongest shinobi alive.
"Akatsuchi is right, and worst case I'll be there as well to keep everyone safe," Naruto said confidently as he saw the desert in the distance as the treeline started to get thinner and thinner. After an hour or so of walking through the desert, the arrived at the gates of Suna, only to find it completely abandoned. Not a single shinobi was stationed at the entrance. There was nothing but the sound of sand and wind blowing.
"C and you sense anything?" Akatsuchi asked the blond besides him as the four walked through the fissure that led into the Hidden Sand Village.
Shaking his head, the Kumo native gave them a firm look that held no room for joking. "I can't sense a single person in there. There is chakra, but it's everywhere and it feels...off. Everyone be on your guard," He said as he pulled out a kunai and coated it with lightning chakra. The others got ready as well as they finally got past the pass and arrived at the actual village.
Like C had said, it seemed deserted. There wasn't anyone in the streets, no shinobi hidden in the shadows.
Just...nothing.
'Anything Kurama?' Naruto questioned the tailed beast within him as the silence was creeping him out.
"Nothing, I don't sense a damn thing," Kurama replied as he scowled. He had never seen anything like this. Even dead, humans had some chakra left inside them for a while. But he couldn't even sense any malice.
"What happened here?" Naruto asked as the group made its way towards the center of the village. If there was anything that could tell them where they needed to know, it was the Kazekage's Tower.
Chojuro wanted to leave, he even thought about suggesting it to the others. But he knew that they couldn't until they found out what was going on unless they wanted to take the risk of the same happening to the other villages. That was something he couldn't do, he wouldn't endanger the Mizukage like that.
As they entered the tower, there was still no security. Nothing stops them from stealing all sorts of valuable secrets from Suna. Yet that was the last thing on their minds. They knew that this wouldn't be a one time thing, whatever happened here was likely to happen again and again. It had started with the ship, then the towns, then the village, what was next? The whole country? Surrounding countries? The world?
A sense of dread filled them as they reached the top.
"There is something on the other side," C warned as Naruto slowly opened the door.
Looking in, they saw a lone figure standing by the window. It was none other than the Kazekage's sister Temari, who typically filled in when her brother was gone. "Temari?" Naruto asked as the group entered the room, the woman making no sign of hearing him as they approached.
"Her chakra feels different...it's inhuman...," C stated as he tensed a little.
The woman quickly reached for the fan on her back and swung it at the four, Akatsuchi being the first to react by bringing up a wall of earth to block the wind, only for it to shatter from the impact. "What!?" he questioned as he didn't expect her to be this strong. The glass behind her shattered as dozens of people crawled into the office.
Each with completely white, glowing eyes.
"Run!" Akatsuchi yelled as the swarm of Suna Shinobi rushed towards them, Chojuro drawing his blade as he swung at the incoming group. The Hiramekarei extended it's chakra into a long blade that cleaved through multiple enemies, causing them to turn black and transform into strange glob-like creatures.
"I'll stay back and hold them off!" The Kiri shinobi yelled as he cut down wave after wave of the shinobi as they climbed into the room.
"You better make it back!" Naruto yelled as he followed C and Akatsuchi back down to the ground floor. As the Iwa shinobi rushed to the doors to rip it open, sand blasted them back through a wall opposite the door. Looking at the entrance, their eyes widened in horror as Gaara stepped through the door, a massive sandstorm forming behind him, wrapping around the entire building to trap them in.
"The Kazekage…" C muttered to himself as he saw the glowing white eyes and red hair. He couldn't help but feel the slightest bit of panic in his heart as he looked upon the man who could control sand to his will.
"C heal Akatsuchi! I'll hold him off," Naruto said as he formed two clones by his side as he stood between Gaara and his two allies. Looking back, he could see that Akatsuchi had been hit badly by Gaara's sand. Despite his bulk, he was sure Gaara had broken more than a few bones in him.
Before Naruto could say anything else, a massive tendril of sand lashed out at him, forcing the blond to jump into action. "Gaara what's gotten into you?" he questioned as one of the clones rushed at his friend with a rasengan in hand, the sand quickly moving to block the attack. Naruto quickly noticed that even compared to before, the sand was far faster and seemed to have an easier time defending against his attacks.
He was sure that his Rasengan would normally blast through Gaara's sand, and yet he had been able to block his attack. The sand coiled around the clone and crushed it back into smoke.
"Naruto, that isn't Gaara. I don't sense anything from him, he's no longer human," Kurama warned Naruto, knowing that his host wouldn't want to hurt his friend too badly. But he could feel it, this creature was no longer Gaara. He was certain of it, especially after seeing those shinobi get cleaved he knew that they were not human anymore.
Naruto clenched his fist at his partner's words, but knew that it was true. As he entered his Sage Mode, he could feel that Gaara seemed...alien. Like it was an existence that didn't belong to this world. His very chakra felt like Gaara's but corrupted beyond reason. "Yeah...I know…" Naruto muttered as he saw a massive wave of sand coming at him. Rushing forward, he formed a rasengan in hand and mixed it with wind chakra.
Slamming the rasengan into the sand, Naruto proved too powerful for it and drilled through, blasting the wave away until he reached his friend. Clenching his teeth, the blond slammed his attack into the redhead's chest, sand rushing to block it, but the senjutsu powered attack proved too much and broke through, blasting Gaara back out of the building with overwhelming power.
Letting out a breath he felt Chojuro's chakra coming down the stairs...but it too felt twisted now.
C looked back to see their comrade walking towards them, only for several blue spikes to pierce into his back from Chojuro's sword. Akatsuchi stared at the Mist Shinobi's white eyes with horror as C was killed. He still couldn't walk and he could see strange blobs flying behind Chojuro who was joined by more white eyed Suna Shinobi. One of those blobs flew and entered C's body, turning it completely black for a moment before becoming C again, only completely uninjured and with those haunting white eyes.
Another blob flew straight towards the Iwa shinobi who looked back at Naruto who was rushing towards them, "Survive Naruto!" He yelled as he slammed his hand on the ground, letting out a massive pulse of Earth Style Chakra that shattered the base of the building just before the blob entered his body.
Golden chakra came out of Naruto's body, forming into a protective orb as the entire Kazekage tower collapsed on top of him. The ground under him gave out as he fell down into the Suna sewage system.
Clawing his way out of the rubble, he saw that the ruined tower had blocked his way out...and even if he forced himself that way, all he would find was more of those creatures.
"Naruto...those strange goo like creatures seem to be the cause of all this. You saw how they turned C and then entered Akatsuchi. They're parasites," Kurama warned his host as he walked down the sewage canal.
Had Gaara been alive, he would have beat his friend for the sheer antiquity of the sewage. Suna was one of the poorer villages, and their infrastructure showed it. Overall the place reeked, but seemed to be empty. "Something is distracting them…" Naruto muttered as he could feel the twisted chakra rushing towards where the gates of Suna would be...then vanishing.
He wondered what could have appeared to cause all those creatures to focus completely on them instead of him.
He could feel Gaara's chakra growing as well. He hoped whoever was fighting, that they really knew what they were doing.
Not wanting to draw more attention to himself, he decided to walk towards the end of the sewer, and as he got closer and closer, he could hear explosions. More so he could feel Gaara's chakra was far bigger than before, and with it more corrupted. "Fuck I gotta help!" he yelled as he decided not to risk anything and entered his Six Paths Sage Mode.
What he found outside saddened and horrified him.
Gaara...the Kazekage...one of the few people who knew his pain...was truely gone.
Before him was a titanic tanuki-like creature that appeared to be twice the size of Shukaku, mutated flesh stretched thin and covered in spiked golden plates that were attached to him like armor. His lips were gone revealing black gums with two rows of sharp teeth. Six glowing white eyes looked down at their assailant.
The person seemed to be wearing strange orange, white and purple armor, be he could see that it had been badly damaged during the fight as the green visor was badly cracked and several cracks ran on some of the more solid parts.
The transformed Gaara, swung down it's massive claw, causing the sand to erupt in a flower of spikes, but the armored foe jumped at the last second and landed on the limp, running up it as it fired exploding projectile at Gaara's face. The creature roared in pain as the blasts exploded against it's weak spot. It tried to claw again at the one running up it's arm, but the armored person jumped up, spinning like a ball and landed on the side of Gaara's face, grabbing one of the spikes there to hold themselves up as they unloaded more blasts into one of the glowing eyes.
However it seemed that all things came to an end as a blast of sand knocked the person off to the ground.
Gaara began to suck up a massive amount of wind to fire off one final attack against the person who fought against him, only for a truly immense Sage Art: Lava Style Rasenshuriken to slam into its face, rapidly expanding to engulf half its body in seconds. The armored warrior watched on as the attack tore through the beast, leaving only half behind. Bringing their arm cannon up, they waited for the remaining half to return into it's original form, a massive green orb filled with parasites.
Charging up their energy, the unleashed a triple shot at the core, causing it to explode into multiple globs that flew towards the only other suitable host...Naruto.
The blond looked shocked as the swarm overlooked the armored person in favor of him, slamming and attempting to enter his body. He could feel them trying to assimilate his cells and possess him. Naruto roared as he felt the parasites inside of him as more and more converged on him.
"Crap! Kurama!" Naruto yelled as with a massive surge of red chakra. Naruto instantly entered his Version 2 jinchuriki form. The corrosive red chakra burned away the parasites, destroying the ones that had entered Naruto completely and forcing those that had yet to enter him to flee as they recognized that the blond was dangerous to them.
As the parasites fleed, Naruto returned back to his base form.
Dropping down to a knee, Naruto started to take deep breaths to calm himself. Despite getting rid of them, for a second Naruto felt true fear. As if he were about to lose everything he was and become one of them.
The sound of footsteps in the sand reached his ears as he looked up to see the armored person walking towards him with their arm cannon held up. "You...repelled the X Parasites?" they asked, by the sound of their voice, it was actually a woman inside the bulky armor.
"If you mean those creatures, then I guess I can thank Kurama for that," he said, patting his belly as he stood back up.. It was no secret that he was Kyuubi Jinchuriki. The entire world knew at this point.
"Kurama?" they questioned as they saw Naruto's eyes weren't pure white and lowered the blast.
"This person doesn't have chakra, Naruto, they feel strange as well…"
Naruto narrowed his eyes on the woman, first these creatures and now this person? What was going on?
"I guess you can say he's a friend who lives inside me," Naruto stated as he gazed up at the helmet. Whoever this was, she was tall, taller than him! But at the very least they didn't seem to be one of those creatures. Looking back at the Suna, he frowned as he saw hundreds of Xs flying out of the village. "I'm going to assume you know what's going on here?" Naruto questioned the woman.
Her suit of armor seemed to glow for a moment before vanishing, revealing a beautiful blond woman wearing a tight blue suit that hid nothing of her athletic yet curvaceous body. Her power armor had taken too much damage against the monstrous X, she was forced to revert to her Zero Suit state to let her armor regain power and naturally mend itself.
"Your planet has been infected by something called X parasites, it won't be long before every living creature is taken over," she answered, she had no idea what he meant by 'a friend who lives inside me', but frankly she didn't care too much. This was a job that she had been hired for due to her immunity to the parasites and to maintain the safety of the galaxy as a whole. After the events of ZDR she wanted to take some time to relax, but mere weeks afterwards she got word that the parasite had been found on some planet on the edge of the galaxy.
However what she found strange was that this planet along with several of the surrounding star systems were not in federation space. Even the Chozo from what she knew hadn't ventured out this far. And yet the parasites had found their way here?
"What do you mean!?" Naruto yelled at her.
The woman started to walk away as she needed to get back to her ship, "I mean that your planet is doomed, I've seen this twice before, once the X Parasite becomes established, it will spread without care for anyone or anything, turning everything into itself," she told him in a matter of fact tone.
Naruto's eyes widened as her words sunk in. "Well not all the villages are infected, my home village was alright when I left a few hours ago, if we can contain the-"
"Look around you, they're already spreading, it only takes one getting into your village for it to become infested. For what it's worth, I'm sorry, but your planet isn't going to be able to fight this forever," she told him, "If you want I can give you a ride off world since you seem to be resistant to them."
"But then so could others!" Naruto yelled while walking after her. "If I was able to do it, maybe if I share my chakra with everyone they'll become immune as well," he theorized but a sigh from inside him told him that his tenant wasn't exactly on board.
"We would never be able to sustain that Naruto, eventually I would run out of chakra and when that happens, any of those 'X Parasites' hiding will come out and spread again," Kurama told Naruto as he was trying to figure out what they could do at this point.
Naruto looked down as even Kurama seemed to turn his option down, "And you seemed to be immune as well, maybe-"
"No." the blond woman said firmly as she looked back at Naruto. She assumed that he would suggest using her immunity to help immunize the rest of his planet. But she knew better now, she was a metroid in everything but appearance. On ZDR she had in essence completely become one, it was only by the grace of Quiet Robe maintaining his mind after becoming consumed that she managed to return to normal.
She could already tell that this man was strong, stronger than her even. She had struggled against that beast and yet he destroyed half with some sort of magma bomb he...created? This place was still surreal to her. That creature controlled sand like it was nothing, she had never seen something quite like that before. And the blond following her had for a moment transformed into a black and red beast with four tails before reverting back.
If people like him became metroids and lost control...the galaxy would be in more danger than ever.
Sighing, Naruto and the woman arrived at her ship only to find it destroyed. A massive blast seemed to have destroyed half of it. "Fuck," she muttered as she realized that she was stuck here as well now. Without her ship, she couldn't get off the world…
Naruto saw the woman scowl at the fact that her ship had been wrecked, from the looks of it, a stray air bullet had slammed into it during her fight with Gaara.
"I'm Naruto by the way, Naruto Uzumaki…" he said, realizing that they never really introduced themselves.
The woman looked back at the shinobi before signing, "Samus Aran," she stated before attempting to fix the communication component of what remained from her ship to reach out to the Galactic Federation, but it was completely busted beyond her ability to repair it. "Well, it seems that I'm stuck here." she admitted as she walked out to face Naruto.
"So what are you going to do?" Naruto asked her as she seemed to grab a strange weapon and place it on her hip.
"I'm going to do what I always do, survive until I can get off this planet," she said in a tone that told Naruto that this wasn't the first time that she seemed to have been stranded without a clear way out.
At the moment, she had three objectives,
1-Find a way off world
2-Find a way to destroy all Xs
3-Figure out where they came from to begin with.
Of course three was just optionable, in the end it didn't matter as long as they were wiped out completely and couldn't spread to other planets.
"Well maybe the ship that fell last week may be able to help you then," Naruto said recalling that the ship had been where this all started. If he wanted answers, he would likely have to go there anyway.
"What ship?" Samus asked, as far as she knew no ship had come near this planet before her.
"Um…"Naruto started as he scratched the back of his head, "I guess you can say this all started when a ship crashed from the sky last week, and that's when people started to go missing."
Samus looked up at the sky for a moment, seemingly deep in thought as her eyes narrowed before she looked back at her fellow blond. "I'm going to need to get to that ship, but I need some time for my armor to fix itself…" pausing, she didn't know if she wanted to ask this native for help. She tended to work on her own, but if she ran into another X like that sand beast...she knew that she might not make it.
"I hate to ask this of you, but if you really believe that your village is safe, do you think that I can stay there until I'm ready to explore the crashed ship?" she asked, knowing that her options were limited and she didn't want to recklessly absorb Xs and use her Metroid abilities and run the risk of transforming even more than before.
Naruto smiled and nodded his head, "Of course! I'll show you that this planet isn't lost either!" Naruto told her as he entered his Six Paths Sage Mode. It was strange to her to see someone transform like that, yet she figured it was likely the same to those who saw her put her armor on and off.
"Here, hop on and I'll fly you there," Naruto said as he turned around and waited for him to get on his back. Maybe being around Guy and Lee had corrupted him…
"You can...fly?" she asked as she knew that with her powers she could jump infinitely, but to flat out fly was beyond her. "And you just trust me?"
Naruto looked back at her, "Yeah, I don't sense any evil from you, you feel weird...but not in a bad way," he told her honestly.
"I...see" she said but sighed, "regardless, I'm not letting you carry me to your village, just lead the way and I'll follow," Samus told him, not feeling like being carried by a stranger somewhere she didn't know.
So what did you guys think!
If there is a pairing, it'd likely be Naruto/Samus lol duh