Author's Note: These are appearing more frequently now, aren't they? Anyway, I'd like to give credit and/or apologize to J.K. Rowling for…um, let's call it…"borrowing" one of her ideas/items/plot devices. It was simply too cool and fab not to use in this scenario. Sure I could have changed the name of it and tried to make it "original", but who am I kidding…this story isn't exactly original to begin with. Harry Potter fans, raise your eyebrows in anticipation of a ¼ degree turn crossover! Oh…and please read and review…thank you.

16: The Top Secret Invention Room

Soya Ikari, together with Hinata and Naruto, stepped out of the elevator into a small room with thick steel walls. Emergency lights adorned the walls, flashing in spots of orange and red. The wall in front of them held a massive, round steel door. It looked like a gigantic vault to Hinata. Wonka-san ran over to a corner of the room and returned with three black strips of cloth and said, "Put these on quick. I'm afraid you're not allowed to see me open the door. It requires a special method of unlocking that's just so unbelievably secret, no one in the world but myself knows it," he watched as the children hesitantly blindfolded themselves. "I intend to keep it that way, so please, just stay here a moment."

Hinata stood alongside Naruto in complete darkness, her eyes tightly blindfolded by the cloth. She wasn't sure what Wonka-san was about to do, but the fact that they had to be blindfolded to protect its secrecy created a large sense of importance. She felt Naruto's hand brush against hers as they stood. She wished she could muster the courage to hold it again.

Standing in darkness, the children heard Wonka-san step forward to the giant steel door. From there, they heard several noises: Several soft hollow clangs like someone tapping against the door, a loud scraping noise of metal against metal, a squeak like a mouse, the turning of clockwork; gears and cogs grinding together, an odd clapping noise Hinata recognized as, not the sound of clapping, but the sound of hand seals being performed. Finally, there was a loud and hollow cry of metal; the sound of the door opening.

"Okay dear children," Wonka-san said happily, "this is it! You may take off those blindfolds now and bask in the glory of wondrousness…ness!"

Hinata pulled the cloth off of hear head and felt her pupils change rapidly. Pouring out of the door was a dazzlingly bright and dazzlingly white light that nearly blinded them all. The screwed up their eyes and followed Wonka-san inside. Stumbling forward, Hinata could barely see a few feet in front of her because of the blinding light. She felt something tight grasp her. She squinted to her side to see that Naruto was holding her hand, trying to follow along. She'd have blushed if the light had not been so intense.

"Ah, here we go!" Wonka-san called out. There was suddenly a sound of power lowering, like an unplugged radio, echoing through the room. The bright light began to dim until it became a soft yellow. All of the children were relieved to have their normal vision back as their eyes began to adjust again. Hinata saw Wonka-san had his hand on a dimmer switch near the door.

"I'm kinda sorry kids," he said, "the invention in this room requires a very bright light in order to operate at full capacity. I do hope all of you can still see enough to see it"

"I'm seeing spots!" Naruto cried, blinking as he grasped at the air, as if to catch an unseen something.

"Oh, don't worry, that'll pass in a moment." Wonka-san said reassuringly. He marched forward and motioned for the children to look about the room.

Hinata saw that the room was quite large. The walls seemed to have containers of some sort stacked along them. Boxes, barrels, hundreds of containers lined the walls, all of them different colours. Hinata couldn't tell what they were made out of, but it looked as if most of them were either wooden or perhaps plastic; some of them reflecting the light in the room a bit. She looked up to see many large electric lights coming out from the ceiling; the source of the dazzling light from before.

"Sugoi…" Naruto gasped. Hinata turned to face the center of the room, which housed an enormous machine. It reminded Hinata slightly of the Great Gum Machine they had seen in the Inventing Room earlier, except this new object was far more ornate. It was made of a polished silver metal and flowed about as if it was liquid, forming cascading shapes. The center of it was a huge glass sphere with something small right in the center of it. A tiny tube dropped down from the top of it towards the small, central object.

Wonka-san beamed proudly at this new machine they saw. Hinata experienced a queer sort of sense of danger. There was something dangerous about this room. The locked steel door, the blinding light, and she noticed that there were no Oompa-Loompas in this room either. No chattering or song singing. Even the large machine, though it was beautiful, emitted an odd feeling of apprehension.

"This is where I'm concocting my most ingenious and awe inspiring invention to date!" Wonka-san cried, hopping up and down with excitement.

"What is it!" Souya Ikari asked impatiently.

"Good heavens, child, don't interrupt me!" said Wonka-san. "Like you asked for, this invention will revolutionize the world! Or, at least, I hope it does…it'll certainly make things more interesting!" he giggled.

Hinata watched as he stepped up to the machine and moved his hand across the glass sphere. He turned to face the children. "Now, a while ago, I began thinking that I've been extremely lucky in almost all of my endeavors. Sure, people all over the world love my candy because it's simply the best out there," he said extravagantly, waving his arms, "but luck has always been a key factor. I'm an exceptionally lucky person.

"But," he continued, "not everyone is as lucky as me. There must be thousands of people who have the crummiest luck in the world! So I thought to myself, 'Hey! Why can't I invent something that'll help these unfortunate people turn their crummy luck around?' and now, I think I have!"

Wonka-san pointed towards the small object in the middle of the sphere. "This," he said excitedly, "is Felix Felicis!"

Naruto gave the man a confused look. "Felix who?" he asked.

"Felix Felicis!" Wonka-san corrected him.

"How can this Felix person fit in such a tiny ball?" Naruto asked again. "He must be pretty tiny!"

Wonka-san's face fell a tad, "You know, you're acting really blonde at the moment; blonde and short. Felix Felicis is the name of my invention! It's collecting in a vial in that sphere!"

"Oh…" Naruto said, finally catching on.

"But, what is Felix Felicis?" Hinata asked.

"It's luck," Wonka-san said proudly, "It's pure, concentrated luck! It that very vial in there is a liquid made of pure luckiness! I named it after a man I once knew who had the greatest luck in the world. Ol' Felix would win about a dozen lotteries and contests every week without even trying! He was a small, shrimpy little man, but was incredible at sports and games! He'd win every time! I thought he'd be the perfect person to name my new invention after!"

"P-pure luck!" Naruto gasped, "T-that's incredible!"

"It's preposterous!" Souya Ikari said, "How can you bottle something like luck?"

"Well," Wonka-san began, "It's certainly not easy. There boxes around you are filled with the most lucky things in the world: four leaf clovers, rabbit's feet, horseshoes, those little paper fortunes you can get with "Best Luck" on them, red balloons, shooting stars, every lucky thing I could track down.

"I invented this machine to take all of those things, grind them up, mash them together, and compress them into a liquid. Pure, concentrated luck! It'll be fantastic!" he then opened a small transparent door in the sphere that Hinata would not have noticed unless he opened it. He reached into the sphere and extracted the little vial. He held it up for the children to see. The Felix Felicis was transparent, like water. "This vial here has taken almost six months to fill. Luck isn't an easy thing to extract out of things."

"Incredible!" Hinata cried out.

"I know!" Wonka-san replied. "It's pretty potent stuff as well. I've tested it on a few of my Oompa-Loompas. I estimate that about a drop of this stuff will grant a person above average luck for an entire day. Too much of it can have nasty side effects. Of the Oompa-Loompas I tested it on, only one of them was successfully lucky. The others, haven been given a higher dosage, were so lucky that it started to affect the people around them, making them unlucky. It's…kinda complicated" Wonka-san admitted as he fumbled to explain how the Felix worked.

"What are you going to use it with?" Naruto asked.

"I'd glad you asked that," Wonka-san replied. "I'm going to start selling 'Wonka's Creamy Chocolate Lucky Bars', each candy bar will have a drop of Felix in them, giving the eater a days worth of good luck! Just imagine! Kids will eat a Wonka Lucky bar before a big test in school or a sporting event, and they'll find themselves doing better and being luckier than before! I imagine it'll be especially popular with the youths of today. Who knows how many hopeless romantics it might help to become less hopeless!"

"Could it be used for other things?" Souya Ikari asked.

"Like what?" Wonka-san asked.

"Like shinobi tools! Soldier Pills for example!" he said impatiently.

"Now why would I want to do that?" Wonka-san asked. "Those don't taste any good. Do you know what soldier pills are made of? Fish oils and latex paint residues and all sorts of nasty stuff!" Wonka-san made a disgusted face, sticking his tongue out.

It became apparent to Hinata that Souya Ikari was becoming quite irritated. She could see his brow furrowing under his forehead protector. His mouth, a grim line just visible through the mask he was wearing. She saw his fists clench and his eyes flash.

"Don't you realize what you've done!" he yelled at Wonka-san, who only stared blankly back at the boy as he held onto the vial of Felix tightly. "You've invented the perfect tool for soldiers! It could be used to win a war, and you want to use it on chocolate for children!"

Wonka-san looked as if he was about to say something, but Souya Ikari cut him off before he could speak. "People think you're a genius, but you're an idiot! Throwing away something as valuable as that on kids! You're a total fool…" he yelled, "…but I'm not."

Suddenly Souya Ikari thrust his arms outward to his sides, the next moment Hinata saw that he had a kunai knife in each hand, one of them pointed at Wonka-san. "Give me the vial, old man!" the boy said coldly as thrust the kunai in Wonka-san's direction. "Something this precious shouldn't be wasted on stupid children like the others!"

"Hmmm," Wonka-san said as he rubbed his chin, "Did I list a rule on the tickets that forbids the having of bladed weapons? I really can't remember…now it seems like it would have been a good idea." He gripped the vial tightly in his rubber-gloved hand.

"Hand it over or I'll kill you!" Souya Ikari shouted, his eyes were like two cold stones, staring out at the chocolateer.

Hinata stood aghast at to what was happening. She brought her hands to her lips and felt her knees tremble. She felt powerless to do anything, she just couldn't get over the present situation. Her eyes darted to the side to see that Naruto was no longer beside her.

"You just went and did the dumbest thing ever, kid." Naruto said angrily. Hinata turned to see that he was right behind Souya with a kunai at the back of the boy's head. Hinata hadn't even seen him move!

Time seemed to move at a snail's pace. The two shinobi stood close to each other, one with a blade to his head. Hinata felt a drop of cold sweat trickle down her back. I should be doing something! She thought.

"Now, now," Wonka-san said, looking a bit worried, "you're both guests in my factory, and I must tell you that I'm just a smidgen of a tad uncomfortable with you two drawing weapons and such. Now, c'mon, violence is not the answer…"

"Feh," Hinata heard Souya Ikari say as he took a step backward, right into Naruto's kunai! Hinata gasped as she heard the awful sound of the blade piercing the back of his skull. Naruto's hand shook and he almost dropped his knife. Then, without warning, the boy exploded into a cloud of smoke! It dissipated to reveal a plastic barrel in place of Souya.

"Kawarimi no jutsu, eh?" Naruto said as he turned around, searching the area for where Souya had disappeared. "Hinata, Wonka-san! Be on your guard! He could be anywhere!"

Hinata snapped to attention. She knew that Naruto was right. Souya Ikari had become a threat to Wonka-san as well as the two of them. She had to do all she could to help out. She ran in front of Wonka-san and assumed a defensive stance. "D-daijoubu Wonka-san, we'll protect you!" she said to him. Wonka-san simply stared blankly at her as she ran in front of him.

"Hinata," Naruto called, "I can't find him!"

"L-leave it to me…" Hinata said. She brought her hands together in a seal and focused the chakra within her. She felt blood begin to pump through her temples, the veins rising from under the skin. The blood vessels within her eyes grew as she felt her vision change. "Byakugan!" she yelled.

Suddenly her surroundings changed, becoming a translucent field of bluish green. She could clearly see the chakra flowing through Naruto, but focused her vision beyond him, encompassing all three hundred and sixty degrees around her in search of Souya Ikari.

Boxes…boxes…far right corner…highest box…there! She saw him, his chakra glowing brilliantly as it coursed through his body. "Naruto-kun! Two O'clock high!" she shouted as she pointed across the room. She watched as Naruto flung several shurikens in that general direction.

There was a flash of movement. She watched as Souya dashed away and stopped as he stood in plain view of all three of them. His mask had been pulled down, revealing his face, which was contorted in a nasty smile.

"Useless…" he said to them all. "All of you are as H'coro-sama predicted…weak!" he shouted, his evil grin growing. He looked down to stare at Hinata alone. "Hyuuga, He expected better of you. You could have gained so much if you would have only realized that formula's potential! You could have been rich!"

Naruto turned to face Hinata. "W-what is he talking about! Who's this H'coro guy!"

Hinata looked up at Souya. So she'd guessed right. He does know Urami H'coro! She thought. She raised her hands up in an attacking pose, bent over with one arm forward and one arm back; the signature pose of the Hyuuga clan.

"I'd never betray Wonka-san!" she screamed, "Not for all the money in the world!"

Souya Ikari's grin faltered a bit. "No matter," he scowled, "I'll be done with you three soon enough!"

And then he struck…