Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Marvel. If I did, Naruto wouldn't have chased around Sakura's flat ass for years, and Spider-Man would get a break for once.
Holy fuck, you guys are insane! This story received 160 follows, over 100 favorites, and nearly 20 reviews within two days! Are yall crazy right now? Fuck man, that amount of support just blew me away. I want to thank all of you for reviewing, favoriting, and following. It means the world to me, and I say that with complete honesty. I don't care how corny it sounds—thank you all. Your support means a lot.
By the way, I was wondering if you guys were interested in seeing Naruto obtain an EMS/Rinnegan, and Six Paths Sage Mode? I have an idea how I could make it happen, but I'd like to see if you, the audience, would like to see that happen? I have a poll on my profile, so go ahead and vote, or just give me your answer in the review box. That's great too. I really appreciate it!
Father demanded him to spar with his sister. Naruto never met the woman, or girl, as he would come to see. She was a few years older than him. Perhaps by half a decade. Little more, little less, maybe. He could see the lithe muscle outlining her arms and legs in her training gear.
She was an opposing height, comfortably resting at least five inches above him. Naruto had yet to hit any growth spurt since his eighth birthday. Not that he concerned himself about such trivial things. All that mattered was getting stronger and pleasing Father.
It was the only way to stay alive.
"The strongest will find a way to survive in the weaklings shall perish. It is the law of the universe," Father had said once after he failed to perform up to his standards.
There was only one problem with his order. Naruto had never fought his sister before. Nor had he even met her. That's how gargantuan the Sanctuary was. You could live there for over a decade and still never see half of it. More than five miles long in length and a mile and a half in height, set with thousands of rooms, dozens of winding hallways, it was practically a never-ending labyrinth. It could house billions upon billions of soldiers.
Thanos had given him the courtesy of teaching him about his siblings. He wanted him to be well prepared, he said. Naruto understood, now, as he stood across from her, that he had planned for this match for a while.
Nevertheless, he never shied away from a fight. Any challenger, any warrior, he'd fight them with a smile. Not just out of the exhilaration he got while crossing blades with a worthy foe but also eagerness to test his improved skill from his many hours of tireless training. Even fighting others was valuable training, he found. Instead of dreading fights, use them like training. Learn from them.
Father regularly made him drill his killing techniques on some of his soldiers. The rabid humanoid creatures. These animals were incapable of thought or speech. The only thing they felt was fear. Father made sure they were well acquitted with feeling. It wasn't uncommon for Father to pit him against hordes of them. At first, he despised fighting for this singular reason. Constantly having to fight for his life, always having to fight for anything. His life, weapons, food, and even a safe place to lay his head when it was all over. No matter how minor, everything he owned was earned.
As the years started clambering, Naruto started to understand. Father was cruel, yes, but he also was practical. He wouldn't torture him unless there was a reason. The training, tests, and the many trials (both of the mind and the body), were all for a purpose. Naruto was better for it, as much as he loathed to admit it. The suffering made him stronger.
Gamora was a teenage girl with light green skin, piercing eyes, flowing forest-green hair, and a budding, muscular figure. She wore a skintight training outfit. Shorts cropped at her thighs, a formfitting shirt.
Her getup ensured nothing would get in the way of her fight. Tailored for activities such as these.
Naruto wore a similar outfit, shorts and all. Thanos deemed the assembled clothes appropriate.
Gamora held a traditional short sword in her hand. It benefited nicely from her long arms. A single thrust and she could kill a man faster, even if he held a standard broadsword. Her impressive height, long arms, and lithe body were practically made for battle. Naruto could tell she had no difficulties carrying that heavy blade.
She was chemically enhanced, he presumed. Naruto would be a fool not to heed the pattern of his father. He demanded only perfection and beyond.
They were his siblings. He couldn't imagine that his standards were much different than his.
If only he knew...
If perfection was unobtainable, he would enhance their bodies until it wasn't. He was fortunate that it wasn't for him.
Gamora bore a steely gaze, body alert and ready to attack at a moment's notice.
"Aren't you going to use a sword?" she spoke first. It was the first time he had ever heard her speak. Naruto liked the sound of her voice. It was silky, unlike the jaggedness of Maxima's, or Father's deepness. Her's was almost comforting. However, he did not make the mistake of ignoring the severity in her voice either.
"If I need one, I'll take one," the blond told her.
Gamora's expression wavered into an infuriated mask. She yelled, thrusting her blade. Naruto pivoted quickly before dipping under an overhead swipe. Her fist came half a second later. He pushed her hand off-line, then leaped back to gain distance.
Gamora yelled with the fury of a warrior and the petulance of a child. She charged back at him, angrily swiping her sword, intending to remove his head from his body.
Her temper was as wild as her swings.
She was obviously well-trained and bearing a warrior's tenacity, but to Naruto… she was moving painfully slow. He grew up fighting Father's Black Order. They were all fearsome warriors, all bringing their unique traits into battle.
Compared to them, Gamora was sluggish.
Several swipes pitched, fighting even harder; Gamora grew frustrated over her failings. Why couldn't she hit him?! The girl raged.
Naruto could see the exasperation weigh down on her. It was painfully evident in her ever-so-increasing temper and the wildness of her attacks.
Finally, when she went in for a reckless thrust, Naruto caught the blade between his arm and side. Gamora gasped and made another mistake. She tried ripping the edge free instead of attacking him with her other three unoccupied limbs. He pounded her wrist, and her hand opened against her will. Now, Naruto released the blade as his hand clutched the wrapped handle.
Sweeping her feet, she hit the ground. Gamora gasped as Naruto stood over her, blade raised high in the hair. Frightened, she crossed her arms over her face, waiting for her inevitable demise... only for a metallic clang to startle her.
Hesitant, she distanced her hands from her face and stared in fright as the blade was sunk in the ship's hull. Centimeters from her face, she could smell the steel. In fact, a tiny cut opened up on her ear. He'd even cut her; he was so close.
"Impressive work, Naruto," said Father.
His name was Naruto, she noticed.
"Gamora, be that careless on a battlefield, you will find yourself dead on a nameless planet as a failure." His cutting words hurt more than the loss she had just received.
Gamora, Naruto wanted to mutter, to taste the name on his tongue. That was the name of his sister. The girl he was forced to fight—the girl he nearly ran through with her own sword. A cold pit opened up in his stomach.
Gamora looked into his eyes—those icy yet frightened eyes. She came to a realization that would change her life forever. Her brother was just as terrified as she was. For the first time since Thanos kidnapped her, she felt sympathy for someone else.
Twelve years later, looking back at all the beatings he took at the hands of his father, Naruto couldn't have expected he'd wind up here. Earth was a pretty blue pearl teeming with life. Perhaps, too much life if Father's beliefs were anything to go off of.
"Too many mouths, not enough to go around," he once said. Yes, it was a problem, but not one you solve with genocide.
He was probably one of the only siblings that saw his father for who he really was.
Thanos was not a prophet or a survivor. He was the Mad Titan. A battle-scarred hound that couldn't but slaughter everyone in his wake. It was his nature; it was who he was. A murdering, genocidal megalomaniac who was never satisfied. The latter of which went for everything.
That man... that monster was never satisfied with his power or his skills. No matter how sharp his dexterities developed, how much power he could summon, or even the people he killed at his command. Thanos was never satisfied. When he was younger, but a boy still, he sought his father's approval unremittingly.
He trained harder than any of his siblings, he was far more ruthless than either of his sisters, and his skills were honed to a level they could only dream of.
And to top it all off, Naruto had something they didn't: natural power. Abilities he was born with.
Gamora, Nebula—neither of them held such gifts. Yet, he still favored them over him. Naruto asked himself 'why' many times over the years. At first, he sought to grow stronger and train even harder, despite his body being in a near-constant state of deterioration due to the level of conditioning he was already undergoing.
Father saw this. No, he was not his father. The Mad Titan noted his weakness. When his sisters were young, he had them cybernetically and chemically enhanced.
Father saw their weakness too.
He never saw the need to do the same for Naruto, as he was naturally more robust than either of them before he even turned twelve. But he showed weakness in his overzealousness. Thanos ordered the same procedures done to him, only better.
Those very enhancements wouldn't do much for him unless they were finer than the ones his sisters received. However, Thanos never did anything in half-measures. If he wanted him to be enhanced, he would force him to get procedures done that would kill his sisters many times over. Thanos stated he was fortunate to have a degree of vitality few could match, coupled with a natural regeneration factor.
There was a scarce material—Nth Metal, they called it. So rare that it made Uru look like petty gold. While not as durable, Nth Metal still maintained fascinating and advantageous properties.
Thanos had scientists graft Nth Metal throughout his skeleton. He found, through experiments that Nth Metal bonded exceptionally well with bone. However, any lesser man who didn't boast such potent vitality or a regenerative healing factor would have perished. Naruto was fortunate to even survive, despite his qualities.
But the payoffs were significant.
His strength had been vastly increased, as had his bone density. The latter of which made them far more difficult to fracture. However, he also inherited the metal's gravity negation. Thanos wasn't sure he would, but he was delighted when he discovered that Naruto could lift approximately forty times the weight he could normally.
That number hadn't been litter before, either.
It was the first time he had ever seen the Mad Titan look at him with gratification. It felt hollow, though. Naruto knew the rapture wasn't for him but rather the procedure.
The victory of surviving tasted like bitter ash in his mouth.
He could fly like Father could with his energy manipulation. Or, as they called it. Naruto couldn't keep up with all the terms.
But that wasn't all.
No, with Nth Metal within him, he found that he could survive and flourish in all but genuinely inhospitable environments. He could sustain himself from the near limitless cold of the sunless side of a planetoid to the lifeless recess of deep space.
An ability that his father regularly found uses for. Finding a warrior capable of sustaining themselves in space without a bodysuit or a respirator was rare. Which boosted his usefulness in his eyes.
Naruto was silently relieved. The best method of survival was to be as valuable to Father as possible. He learned what would happen if he wasn't useful.
Covered by cloaking technology, he eyed Loki Laufeyson from afar.
Father knew not of his presence on Earth. He overheard him speaking with the former Son of Odin. Loki was to retrieve Space Stone (the humans never thought to take a glimpse of what was within the cube they called the Tesseract).
When he heard the mention of the Space Stone, amongst the references to the Infinity Stones, Naruto knew he could not allow his father to obtain it. He had already received the Mind Stone, which had been weaponized into a scepter. Clever thinking to not only disguise the stone but utilize it as a weapon.
As he observed the machinations of a spiteful, arrogant would-be god, he wasn't sure Loki knew what he was in possession of either.
Laufeyson believed the Scepter to be a mighty weapon. Nothing more, nothing less. Little did he know, it was harboring an Infinity Stone. Honestly, for a man who preached to be above humanity, he made the same mistake they had moments prior. Wielding power he knew nothing of its origin or even its nature.
Loki was so blinded by his vengeance that he failed to look at what was resting in his grasp.
The might of Earth surprised him. Yes, humanity was primitive. They were a young species, but they had champions. Powerful protectors united together to combat Loki.
They saw the threat for what it was.
A rouge Asgardian who bore a weapon capable of bending minds. With how… frenzied their actions became recently, it seems like they finally discerned Loki's endgame.
He wished to lead the Chitauri to Earth.
All for what?
To spite his not-brother?
Naruto shook his head at the childishness of it all. Loki Laufeyson was willing to kill billions and present himself to the Mad Titan himself, begging for his assistance to conquer Earth. That was both incredibly moronic and shortsighted on his part, as well as plain sad.
But, like everything else, Father used this to his advantage. The Frost Giant could not see the obvious ploy he was falling into. He always used everything to his advantage.
Thanos ordered Loki to retrieve the Space Stone, and in return, he would lend him the Chitauri and the Scepter. Father likely wanted to witness the Scepter in action to sample its abilities.
Father was fond of testing his weapons, Naruto remarked, remembering his childhood vividly.
The more he learned of Loki by studying him, the more he thought Loki had no idea of the power that rested in his palm. Naruto stared at the staff with repugnance.
Infinity Stones, he thought bitingly. The only thing that occupied his dreams more than Father was the Infinity Stones. Powerful artifacts born from a primordial universe with power untold. The dreams—more along the lines of terrors that haunted his slumber were these crystallized ingots of pure cosmic energy.
Each of the six represented a particular aspect of the universe.
In his dreams, he saw a being with a shining golden hand snapping his fingers—then nothing but darkness.
But he could feel it.
Trillions of lives... gone at an instant.
As if they never existed in the first place. These night terrors plagued him for many years.
Ever since he was a boy, even before he first met Thanos when all he knew was the Black Order. All he heard were whispers of Thanos from them. Teachings, if you would. Those visions never made any sense until he discovered Father's ambitions.
To claim each of the six Infinity Stones and wipe out half the universe. That was his only goal. Naruto hadn't known it then, but those six gems were the very same Infinity Stones that his father was obsessed over. He relentlessly searched the universe for them. Naruto had not seen anyone pursue anything so single-mindedly before.
Naruto did everything his father commanded of him. Both out of fear, self-preservation, and to ensure the safety of his sisters.
Gamora and Nebula were the only ones he ever cared for. They were hesitant to return his feelings, as they were several years older than he was. Unfortunately, that meant they were under his heel before he ever was. But the difference between his sisters and him? He was only a baby when he was taken in by the Mad Titan.
Gamora and Nebula both remembered their home—their parents.
He did not.
The only parent he knew was Thanos the Mad Titan.
Tony Stark streaked over New York City, moving as fast as he could given the damage the Iron Man suit had suffered in the turbines.
An amusing picture. Naruto recalled his trouble with the floating fortress.
He sure wasn't at a hundred percent, but it would have to be good enough. "Sir, I've turned off the Arc Reactor, but the device is already self-sustaining," Jarvis said as Tony returned to the Stark Tower.
Curious, Naruto murmured.
This was Loki's goal.
A snort escaped him. Of course. He was an attention-seeking, power-hungry Frost Giant. He wanted to be seen conquering this planet. Loki aimed to enrage the humans and his not-brother.
Now on the top floor stood a machine, perhaps eight feet tall. It was a rough cylinder with a focusing lens on the top and, below that, an enclosure confining the energies of the Tesseract. Dr. Erik Selvig stood scrutinizing it and tracking data on a computer screen.
"Shut it down, Dr. Selvig," Tony ordered. He drifted near the machine, hoping the astrophysicist wouldn't notice how his thrusters were hiccupping. He was having trouble maintaining consistent thrust.
"It's too late!" Selvig cried. "She can't be stopped now! She wants to show us something! A new universe."
"Okay," Tony mumbled. Clearly, Selvig was beyond reason.
Tony blasted the machine with his repulsors, but it was surrounded by a force field of some kind. The reflected energy knocked him back and sent Selvig and his computer flying across the rooftop.
The blond shook his head as he remained invisible from their gaze. These people had no idea what they were doing. A little bit of energy—a spec of water compared to an entire ocean—was not enough to perforate that shielding.
The 'Iron Man' would have an easier time moving a planet.
"The barrier is pure energy," Jarvis said. "It's imperishable."
"Yeah, I got that," Tony conveyed. "Plan B." He glimpsed Loki on the walkway that led from the landing pad into the penthouse.
"Sir, the Mark Seven is not ready for deployment," Jarvis stated.
"Then skip the bells and whistles. We're on the clock." He sure couldn't take on Loki and the Chitauri, whatever they were, in the suit he was wearing. It was barely hanging together.
He descended and walked down the curving pathway toward Loki as the automated disassembly machinery removed his suit. Loki turned and went inside to meet him. Tony entered on the balcony level of the penthouse. From below, just inside the balcony door, Loki welcomed him. "Please tell me you're going to appeal to my humanity."
Tony came down the stairs and lingered. "Uh, actually, I'm planning to threaten you."
"You should have left your armor on for that."
"Yeah, it's seen a bit of mileage, and you've got the Glow Stick of Destiny," Tony spoke with a shrug. He unfurled a decanter and held it up. "Would you like a drink?"
Naruto entered as well, trailing a healthy distance from Stark. His footsteps remained soundless, his presence so undetectable he may as well not have existed at all.
"Stalling me won't change anything," Loki said.
"No, no, no threatening!" Tony assured him. "No drink? Are you sure? I'm having one."
He poured himself a glass and swirled it before taking a small sip. Loki watched, cautious and intrigued, trying to see what the human was planning.
"The Chitauri are coming," he said as if speaking to a child. Considering the years Loki had lived for—over a thousand if Thanos' information was correct (which it always was), he was indeed a child compared to him. In age, at least. "Nothing will change that. So what have I to fear?"
"The Avengers," Tony declared. He kept his tone chatty, casual.
An interesting approach, Naruto observed.
"That's what we call ourselves; we're sort of like a team. 'Earth's Mightiest Heroes' type of thing."
While he stoppered the decanter, he slipped a bracelet over his wrist. Naruto watched, now floating up into the air, observing from a bird's eye view. He was stalling, he mused. How would Loki handle this? Would his arrogance stab him in the back just as his treacherous nature demanded him to do to others?
"The Avengers," Loki said, despising the word as it rolled off his tongue. "Yes, I've met them." His tone of voice left no doubt that he was unimpressed.
"Yeah, takes us a while to get any traction. I'll give you that one," the human admitted as if he hadn't heard him. "But let's do a headcount here. Your brother the demigod, a super-soldier—a living legend who kind of lives up to the legend, a man with breathtaking anger-management issues, a couple of master assassins… and you, big fella, you've managed to piss off every single one of them."
"That was the plan," Loki enunciated with a grin.
"Not a great plan," Tony commented. "When they come, and they will—"
Loki interrupted him. "I have an army."
"We have a Hulk," Tony said unflinchingly.
"I thought the beast had wandered off," Loki stated mockingly.
"You're missing the point!" he stabbed right back, tone sharper. "There's no throne. There is no version of this where you come out on top. Maybe your army comes, and maybe it's too much for us… but it's all on you. Because if we can't protect the Earth, you can damn sure we'll avenge it."
Rousing speech, Naruto admitted to himself. Yes, real enthralling. Too bad it was all a bunch of rubbish. Loki had a third of the Chitauri at his command. Human weaponry would be hilariously ineffective. On a small scale, to combat them in their streets, that is. Naruto noted that they did have bombs—explosives that harnessed nuclear energy. A relatively… primitive power. One that many advanced civilizations abandoned thousands of years ago due to its volatility. If they wanted to have a chance against the Chitauri, they would have to launch nuke after nuke.
Sure, they might win. But Earth would be in ruins by then. The battle would be won, not by the humans but by Thanos.
Thanos always won.
Loki thought he was the master here.
He wasn't.
Loki couldn't be more wrong if he tried. That was the brilliance of Father. He manipulated this poor, tortured soul in to doing his bidding without ever lifting the Scepter.
He strolled up to Loki, and now the god closed the distance between them a little more. He had listened to Tony with a smile on his face, humoring him.
"How will your friends have time for me when they're so busy fighting you?"
With those last words, he tapped Tony on the chest with his Scepter, just as he had with the human they called 'Hawkeye' and Dr. Selvig and dozens of others. Nothing ensued. The Arc Reactor in Tony's chest countered the scepter's effect, the invisible blond noted.
Loki tried it again. "This usually works..."
"Well, performance issues. They're not uncommon. One in four, actually. Even if I don't have that particular problem—"
Suddenly angry, Loki flung Tony to the floor. "Jarvis," Tony murmured. "Anytime now."
Loki wrapped a hand around Tony's throat and lifted him to his feet. "You will all fall before me," he hissed hatefully.
"Deploy," Tony choked. "Deploy!"
Lifting Tony into the air, Loki threw him through the window and the balcony railing. Tony plunged, watching the street rush up at him with incredible speed. If Jarvis was right and the Mark Seven wasn't ready, his part in the fight would be over soon.
But you could never count Tony Stark out. The bracelet on his wrist chirped, and the Mark Seven armor burst out of a closet, rocketing down after Tony.
Naruto boredly strolled out of the way as the armor jetted out of the tower.
Keyed to the bracelet's homing signal, it reached him in midair. The armor flared up and built itself around his body while its creator descended. He engaged its thrusters less than fifty feet above the ground, and with a big grin on his face, Tony rocketed back up.
He reached the balcony and saw a very surprised Loki. "There's one other person I forgot to mention," Tony expressed. "His name is Phil."
And he blew Loki across the room with a repulsor blast.
Oh yes, riveting, Naruto cheered. Quite the comeback. He acknowledged the remarkable timing of that. He managed to outsmart and deceive the God of Lies and Trickery. Naruto didn't know if this was a sign of Tony Stark's cunning or Loki's ineptitude.
As he considered it, this interaction only furthered his belief that Loki was a figurehead. It was pathetic, honestly. To have the power of an Infinity Stone at your grasp and a force so advanced that it made humans look like apes again in comparison, yet you still struggle?
Loki's incompetence stunned him.
What stunned him more was a sudden explosion of cosmic energy. Ever since he learned of his father's dream, Naruto decided to learn everything about them. But, of course, that meant knowing what cosmic energy felt like.
Sensing it was complicated. Feeling it, however, was far more straightforward. The instant you feel it for the first time, that sensation stands engraved into your soul.
There were only two words that could detail the sensation: euphoria and dread. They were opposites. Combine them, and that's a feeling that won't ever omit itself from memory.
Naruto knew he wouldn't forget. Not ever.
The roof, the blond realized. Exiting the tower, he cracked into the air until he settled on the roof.
An unconscious human lay sporting a cut above his temple. The gravel bayed beneath his stained brown boots.
A pillar of pure energy rose into the sky. Naruto watched, a deep fown setting on his lips.
It tore the heavens asunder. A dreadfully beautiful rupture slit across the sky. The blackness of space suddenly appeared much closer. Stars that were not of this solar system formed, their glimmering light radiating a chilling omen.
Then, they came.
The Chitauri poured through. Vile, askew humanoid aliens wearing thin armor tooled their flying chariots.
Naruto was no stranger to the Chitauri. They were disgusting, base creatures that were controlled by a hive mind. The Chitauri were as vicious as they were barbarous.
These humans had no chance.
Even with the assistance of Thor, a mighty warrior that even Father knew not to underestimate, they were caught in the worst possible ways. Naruto hadn't spotted a single member of their military yet. They were caught by surprise and attacked in a densely urban populated area. Loki was driving for maximum casualties within the first twenty-four hours. He didn't care about strategy; this was rage.
Loki wanted the humans to suffer gruesome deaths and rule over their ashes.
Naruto watched, breath bated before Stark shot up passed the tower. He curved, eying the cubic form of the Space Stone hesitantly.
These humans bore no chance of defeating the Chitauri. Even if they eliminated the threat of Loki, the army would still rain down. If Loki personally failed to retrieve the Tesseract for him, Thanos would merely have the Chitauri do it instead.
A chill ran down his spine.
If Thanos won here and now… he would possess two Infinity Stones.
Space and Mind. That would make him one of the most powerful beings in the universe.
Finding the other four would be effortless. As would stripping the jewel off the corpse of whoever was guarding them.
Thanos would win. He would wipe out half the universe, and there wouldn't be a damn thing that he could do to stop him.
Naruto dipped his head ponderously.
Flashes of nightmares wounded him. The sounds of battle reached him soon enough, but they fell on deaf ears.
Thanos would know of his treachery, he thought in response to his formulated plan. If the humans failed to repel the Chitauri and stop Loki, he would obtain the Space Stone. It didn't matter what happened after that. Victory was all but assured—for Thanos.
Him owning the Mind Stone had been troubling enough. Without it, Thanos was already a frightfully strong warrior with the largest army in two galaxies. With the Mind Stone? Now, he was possibly up there as the most powerful in all of the galaxy. Include the Space Stone as well… and Naruto's chances of preventing Thanos from acquiring all six were impossible.
No amount of training, enhancements, or time would ever bridge the gap between their power, should he hold two of the gems.
Finally, as a river of flames tore through the horizon, he made his decision.
Discarding his invisibility, he felt himself become weightless as he took to the skies. The Nth Metal smoldering within, his surroundings blurred as he slipped into flight.
Tony Stark raced up to meet them. Somewhere—he hoped not too far away—the rest of the team was coming. It sure would be a long day if he had to take on the entire Chitauri invading force by himself, in a suit that had never even been tested in the field.
As quickly as he could, Tony blasted the Chitauri out of the air with repulsors and shoulder-mounted mini-missiles. Unfortunately, there were too many of them.
They got past him and washed low over the streets of New York, firing wildly and destroying anything in their path. Including hundreds of civilians.
Naruto deliberately approached the energy barrier safeguarding the portal generator. The Tesseract hovered in that dome of swirling energy.
Holding a hand up, his nails sharpened into claws. Naruto dug his hand into the barrier and pulled.
An immediate grimace found his face. He disregarded the pain, withdrawing some of the portal back. Only for it to snap shut. Naruto's back slammed into a generator with a pulse of cosmic power.
The sound of his skin singing brought his glance to his charred palm. Slightly angling it, translucent vapor leaked off his skin before it began repairing itself.
Removing the Tesseract from the barrier was impossible.
Peering off the roof, he spotted a curious interaction.
Thor dropped out of the sky to land on Tony's balcony.
"Loki!" he roared. "Turn off the Tesseract, or I'll destroy it!"
"You can't!" Loki cried out, riding a wave of exhilaration at seeing his army finally tearing his brother's precious Earth to shreds. It brought him a high unlike any other. "There is no stopping it. There is only… the war!"
"So be it," Thor boomed.
Loki vaulted down from the rooftop and slashed at Thor with the Scepter. Thor blocked it and struck back with Mjolnir. They battled with the fury that only brothers at war could feel, their combat tearing pieces away from the top of Stark Tower to fall onto the roofs of shorter buildings nearby.
Naruto cocked his head, inquisitive gaze peering down at their… squabble. These men boasted power few could ever imagine. One chose to protect a planet as unimportant as Earth, and the other wanted to destroy it. Thor wasn't protecting Earth because he saw the necessity of it. No, this was emotion. Weak need to clutch onto something he believed to matter.
And they claimed to be gods.
All he saw were two children petulantly fighting over who could have the last piece of cake, all while the Chitauri troops mauled through the streets.
The very planet Thor claimed to love.
The city they called New York rapidly fell into chaos. Naruto glanced into the streets as Riders scattered human limbs throughout the avenues as their blades tore their bodies.
Nothing would be gained by battling Loki. He was unimportant.
Loki knew not of the Mind Stone. He was a nonfactor in this battle. If Thor was indeed a 'God of Thunder,' he should have no issue combating a Jotun with jumped-up sorcery.
Even if Thor was slain here and now, and Loki stood victorious over him, he was still insignificant. His role in the invasion had already passed. If the God of Lies somehow managed to get past his once-brother, then Naruto would strip the Mind Stone from his corpse.
Until then, he focused on the invasion. For there to be a universe left standing, Earth needed to live. Father could not get his hands on the Infinity Stones, he proclaimed.
A Chitauri rider entered his peripheral vision. Turning, he watched as it zoomed close. No wind up at all, Naruto leaped up, hand latching on the undercarriage.
Whipping his bodyweight, he flipped in front of the driver. The soldier behind him aimed a laser staff. Naruto evaded the blast that came before tearing the driver from his seat. His body was yanked away by the wind. If he chose to watch where he went, he would have seen him shoot into a building.
Naruto sank off the front and caught the bow. He used his momentum and threw the chariot.
The outburst of fire resonated deeply within him as it crashed into a car.
He arrived at a numbing realization as that fire danced before his blue eyes. In those flames, he witnessed an image of his father sitting on his throne, a golden gauntlet tightly secured on his left hand.
A rainbow of colors lit along those gilded knuckles.
Then, another vision, and in that, Naruto just betrayed his father. The vengeance of the Mad Titan would be upon him soon enough. But from his actions, the universe stood a slightly better chance of survival.
As Naruto dismounted on the burning, bloody streets, he had no regrets.
All right! That's the end of that.
I just wanna address something right here and now.
Nth Metal.
I know, I know. It's a DC Comics metal, and it doesn't exist in Marvel. It's not abundant, and as I said in the story, it's incredibly scarce, even compared to Uru. You know, the same material Mjolnir and Gungnir are made out of. The procedure that Naruto underwent is inspired by Wolverine's, but it's better. It actually gives him a multitude of abilities because Nth Metal actually uses except its durability and sharpness. It's mythical. The audience—you probably won't even see Nth Metal used again in this story it's so rare.
Frankly, without Jutsu (how would he learn Jutsu if he never spent a second in the Narutoverse? He'll have more creative ways to use Chakra, however) I needed a way to buff Naruto. I figured giving him Nth Metal would help him. Make him physically stronger, and allow him the ability to fly, and self-sustenance in space. However, these are not the only abilities Naruto will be getting from Nth Metal. They are just the only ones that have presented themselves as of yet.
So, with that outta the way, what'd yall think? Good? Decent? Bad? Go fuck myself? Let me know in the review section. Or, well, don't. I can't control yall.
Thanks for reading and I'll see you all next chapter!