Hey guys, so this is a story I once published on an older account which is now deleted. I have a few others that I'm working on editing and rewriting to post.
Also, this story won't be fully cannon compliant. Changes will become evident throughout the story.
Hope you guys enjoy this one.
Miranda sobbed quietly on her knees before the cryostasis chamber that held the well preserved corpse of her beloved husband. She was unsure of just how long she was out after those people had stolen her daughter and murdered Nathan, but even know, as she mourned her loss, she realized she had to move forward and find her.
For both of their sake.
She wiped away her tears on the terse blue sleeve of her vault suit and stood, with some trouble as her legs felt both sore and stung with pinpricks from being static. Once on her feet she moved forward and pressed her hand to the frigid glass separating her from her husband and her ache intensified.
But she did not cry because she no longer could. Miranda realized she also wouldn't be able to move him. She simply wasn't strong enough at the moment but she could at the very least take a reminder of him before she left. Once she found her daughter, and she would find her daughter, she would come back to give him a proper burial.
That much she promised herself.
Miranda pressed the round red button on the small terminal next to his chamber but nothing happened. She slammed her hand on the button a few more times out of desperation before realizing her efforts were getting her no closer to what she needed to do.
She took a quick look around the room, trying her best not to focus on the people she once considered neighbors, acquaintances, and some even friends. Their vital signs were displayed on the terminal closest to their pods, much in the way it was for her husband.
They were all gone.
The soft green hue of a computer caught Miranda's eye. It seemed important as it was the only one in the room and in the lieu of any other solution, she decided to investigate it.
A sharp pain in her lower back had Miranda taking a seat at the terminal. That minor setback aside, she was relieved to discover it did not require a password to access as it was already logged in by an administrator.
Displayed on the black and green screen were a list of prompts. The reports for the stasis pods drew her attention first, leading her to the individual status and information of each person. Her morbid curiosity ultimately got the better of her and she decided to check on the status of Jane Peters, the first name among the list which first caught her attention. She was a woman Miranda remembered from church and not much else. Her basic physical attributes aside, the computer revealed she died of asphyxiation.
As did the two other's who's profile she looked through. Evidently all the pods had all gone offline two hours due to a power failure, leading to the asphyxiation of those within the pods.
Miranda tried hard not to question why she had lived when everyone else hadn't, or to ponder on what could have been if only she'd woken up a couple of hours sooner.
She could not bring herself to look over the status of her husband.
Having digressed long enough, she decided to return to the initial directory in hopes of finding a way to open the pod. However, just before she did so, something else caught her attention; a pod with the word 'unknown' as the name of the occupant.
In the end she didn't investigate the matter any further. Whomever was in the pod was dead and she didn't need to be told that. After some searching and even more dead-ends, Miranda found what she was looking for and overrode all of the locks.
Miranda found her eyes burning anew in the presence of the wound that ended her husband's life. It was beginning to bleed now that the temperature within the pod began to rise. She wouldn't be able to contain her already fragile composure if she witnessed him bleed any further so she moved as quickly and as gently as she could.
She removed the silver wedding band from off his finger and gave him a final, lingering kiss on the cheek. It was hard to ignore the cold of his skin.
"I'll find her, love, I promise. For the both of us."
She couldn't bring herself to look at him again after that. She wanted their kiss to be their final and most treasured memory together.
Miranda walked past the pods on her way out, feeling numb and moving with no real direction in mind. She paused when her eyes fell upon the still body of a man, his hair color catching the light and her attention.
He was so young, almost a man but not quite so.
Despite her better judgment, Miranda approached the pod and looked in to confirm what she thought to have seen. The blond young man had two sets of three whisker like marks lined up perfectly parallel to one another and on each cheek.
His heart rate monitor was not flat-lined like the others. In fact, the monitor belonging to him was completely shut off. Despite this Miranda didn't hold any illusions. He was dead, like the others.
Something told her to investigate; a lingering feeling of curiosity which ultimately brought her back to the computer. All the while Miranda knew she had to get moving as soon as possible but she was always a curious girl before she was a woman and there was something telling her to investigate.
Name: Unkown
Date of Birth: Unknown
Sex: Male
Height: 6'0
Weight: 203 Lbs
Hair Color: Blond
Eye Color: Blue
Current Status: Alive
Condition: Critical
Miranda ran to the pod containing the young man, unbelieving there was someone else alive. She slammed her fist on the opening button and anxiously awaited as the door lumbered open. Once it did, she realized she had no idea on how to proceed. He remained unmoving aside from the slow but consistent rise and fall of his chest.
Tentatively she reached to touch his forehead and was surprised at just how warm he felt despite the chill of his pod. It was almost as if he were running a fever but much worse than any she'd ever experienced.
Miranda was by no means knowledgable when it came to medicine beyond the typical home remedies instilled into her through the years by her mother. However, common sense dictated the heat he was radiating could not be good for his health.
Her husband, for as much as she loved him, was gone. Nothing she could ever hope to do could change that now. This young man was not and Miranda resolved to do what she could to save him.
Looping his arm around her shoulder, she tried to pull his weight onto her center of gravity. Soon though, she realized her mistake as the unmoving body of the two hundred pound man began to overpower her meek strength.
She cursed as she tried and failed to hold the man's larger body against her own. Unfortunately, a combination of his weight and height finally overtook her own, sending him toppling down onto the unforgiven ground beneath. Miranda fell close behind as she tried her best to hold him up until the very end.
She found herself falling atop the man and his his chest as a result of her efforts. Miranda was not given the opportunity to feel guilty as she was met with a pair of purple eyes.
Naruto looked down to the woman atop him in shock at the vast information his eyes revealed to him. His mind was flooded with information of a world vastly different than his own, yet so similar in so many harrowing ways.
War, like people, never seemed to change. From the memories of the woman, Miranda, he not only learned a new language, but of the end of the world.
Again.
His own came to an end after months of nonstop, grueling war. A war they had won, and ultimately lost.
It was a shallow victory.
All of his loved ones were gone. One by one they fell in varying stages of the war. Falling to both heroes and villains of the past. Figures of legend in both fame and infamy. The succeeding generations were not always meant to surpass the talent which preceded them.
Peace made them complacent and it was that complacency that led to loss.
It had taken the combined efforts of Team Seven to finally defeat Kaguya. As was the constant with war, their victory came at a great price.
He was the sole survivor of his team.
He was also the one to deliver the final technique which finally put a stop to Kaguya's attempted insurrection. Contradicting all he believed, Naruto had gone at the goddess with all of his hatred, pouring it into a Planetary Devastation, trapping her in a ball of overwhelming gravity.
As it turned out, even gods were capable of succumbing to death.
In any other situation, he would have found the irony vindication. To have been defeated by her own descendant.
But her defeat came far too late.
With all of his energy spent and the constant fighting having taken a toll on his body, Naruto was left on the verge of death. He had neither the will nor the strength to continue. And even if he did, Kaguya had taken them all into an alternate dimension.
A dimension which began crumbling around him under the destructive power of his runaway technique. Even after blinking away the Rennigan, the black sphere continued to grow in size, consuming everything around.
Naruto had resigned himself to his impending death. In fact, he welcomed it.
By that point in the war his belief in a higher power or an after life was nonexistent. After all no benevolent god would allow such death and destruction to reign over its creations.
With that, a heavy sorrow had befallen him in his dying breaths because even in death, he could not find peace knowing he would never see his loved ones again. There would be no afterlife for him in which all of his friends and family were waiting for him.
There would be only darkness. An infinite nothing. He would simply cease to exist.
No more suffering; that was his only solace.
But he was never so lucky.
Now, Naruto was reconsidering his notion of a deity because it was almost as if one had taken to spiting him. In place of an endless nothing, he found himself very much alive.
Naruto callously pushed the woman off him, feeling his body aching as a result of yet another in a growing list of failings.
If he were to lift his shirt and channel his secondary source of chakra, his status as Jinchuuriki would not appear. He lost Kurama much earlier before his final confrontation with Kaguya and he certainly felt it. He was somehow frozen for who knows how long, and his body reminded him of that fact.
As a result, he no longer healed in the way he used to and he had the scars to prove it.
Naruto grunted as he stood and looked around the room to see much he could not understand. A rusted sky above him with concrete flooring beneath.
He frowned in annoyance.
He didn't like taking the memories of other for many reasons, amongst the top being the confusion in understanding. Naruto understood most of what the objects surrounding where, and to some extent, what purpose they held, limited to the woman's own understanding.
The knowledge he extracted from the woman was of an entirely different existence than his own. Naruto knew he should feel concerned by this revelation and he was to some extent, but for some reason or another, his empathy was near non existent in that moment.
He felt empty. Numb.
Even if he could return to his world, or time, whatever the case, he didn't have a semblance of an idea on exactly how to do so. In Kaguya's dimension, reverse summoning had failed. It was worth the attempt but for the moment, he did not have the chakra for the technique.
Not that there was anything to return to, Naruto lamented. Konoha, along with the other hidden villages had been destroyed.
Everything he knew was gone.
Naruto glanced down at the woman and pondered on her final memories. Not of the death of her husband or even the disappearance of her daughter. It was horrible, certainly, but greatly overshadowed by the massive explosion in the distance before she was frozen.
The humans of the current time or world were limited in strength physically, but they more than made up for it in their weaponry. In his opinion, the atomic bomb was a truly amazing and horrifying weapon of mass devastation. If he were to make a comparison, the only technique to possibly match the atomic bomb in destructive power would be a fully powered Tailed Beast Bomb of about five tails in strength and above.
Impressive to say the least but trouble for its after affects.
Radiation it seemed, was as harmful as residue Tailed Beast chakra to everyone but the host themselves. Only nuclear fallout seemed to linger for far longer and with much worse aftereffects, including no prejudice. It affected everyone and everything.
Naruto didn't much like the idea of living the remainder of his life in a hole, miles underground. The concept itself was foreign to him and even then he realized the problems it presented. Finding food and water were currently his top priority, presenting him with a conundrum. Either die of dehydration below, or potentially of radiation on the surface above.
Neither seemed particularly ideal.
"What happened?" Miranda groaned as she held her head.
He was admittedly surprised she lived through the extraction considering what had befallen the previous victims of his nameless technique. Perhaps, Naruto wondered, it was a side effect of his extremely low reserves.
"You fainted."
Miranda jumped at the sudden voice, gruff and monotone. She didn't know whether to be happy or weary of her fellow survivor. She decided the latter was the most prudent option considering she could not remember what had caused her to lose consciousness. His emotionless visage, despite his youth, was also troubling.
"Who are you?" Miranda asked as she struggled to her feet.
"Naruto," he answered promptly.
"Na-roo-toe?" Miranda struggled with the name.
Naruto almost rolled his eyes. "Yes."
"Oh, well, I'm Miranda. Miranda Fawkes," she introduced herself and extending her hand.
Naruto glanced at the offering before reluctantly taking it.
Without further interaction, he began to walk away, only to realize the woman was following close behind, looking at him like a lost pup. He stopped and looked at her.
"What are you doing?" Naruto asked.
Miranda was momentarily confused by the question before she quickly became confrontational. "Listen, Naruto. I don't know what's going on here but we should stick together until we can figure a way out!" She paused, her courage suddenly failing her. "I — my daughter. They took her and killed my husband; I have to find her!"
"Outside?" Naruto questioned. "Do you think that'll be a good idea? The radiation might kill us before long."
"I," Miranda found herself at a loss at the possibility she had yet to consider. "But Samantha! They took her and I don't think they're still here!"
Naruto's eyebrows furrowed at the realization. He could recall the two people dressed from head to toe in what appeared to be protective clothing. A worrying sight but the bald man who killed the woman's husband was clothed in what could be considered normal, unprotected clothing.
Was it possible the radiation had since subsided to habitable levels?
"Your daughter," Naruto began slowly. "What're you gonna do about that?"
"I'm going to find her!" Miranda declared without any hesitation.
"And how exactly do you intend to do that?" Naruto pressed.
"I… I'm not sure," Miranda admitted reluctantly. "But I have to try! Those bastards are out there somewhere with my little girl and I can't just abandon her!"
She began to squirm beneath Naruto's piercing gaze. It was almost as if his bright blue eyes held her in place and it unnerved her. His stare wasn't lecherous as his eyes never once strayed from her own and yet, it somehow felt as though he was penetrating her very being with just a look.
Miranda soon felt she needed to say something, do something. However, before she could do anything, Naruto inclined his head slightly with a sigh.
"You're really set on finding your daughter, no matter what?" He asked.
"Of course!" Miranda affirmed.
"Then I'll help you."
Miranda was taken aback by the declaration and its suddenness. He had just agreed to undertake a very large task with so little ease. That was after having almost immediately dismissed her. Considering his expression had yet to change from its default, it was hard to believe he'd so abruptly change his mind.
It was almost as if he didn't truly care about her situation, but rather had nothing better to do. Miranda may have needed all the help in the world but it was his attitude, his calm. It didn't sit well with her. Not at all.
"Just like that?" She asked, doing nothing to hide her suspicion.
Naruto sighed again. "Do you want my help or not?"
"Of course I do but…" Miranda trailed, unsure of what exactly she wanted to say.
"Look, you said it yourself. Survival is better done in numbers. Until we can find your daughter, you watch my back and I'll watch yours. If nothing else, we're in this together; miles underground with no clue of just what the hell is going on," Naruto explained himself.
Miranda was still not entirely convinced the young man was being completely honest with her but she would take whatever help she could get. And did she ever need the help. She was, at the end of the day, a housewife with a degree in criminal law. Despite what insinuations the title could conjure, she didn't know how to fight or how to utilize firearms beyond a single lesson from her husband. Miranda wasn't sure what Naruto used to do before the war, but he certainly seemed the strong and silent type.
His mannerisms and rather impressive physique beneath the blue vault suit reassured her of that. His behavior reminded her faintly of her husband's behavior in the months after being honorably discharged from his service in the army. Miranda was not fond of the idea of relying on a man not her husband for survival. However, it was glaringly apparent she had little choice in the matter.
For the sake of her daughter, she would entrust her safety in the hands of a complete stranger.
"Wait," Miranda began cautiously. "Did you — did you have any family here?"
She realized the sensitive nature of her question but felt the need to know.
"No."
His simple answer, devoid of any emotion, eluded to an effort to hide his sorrows. They must have perished in the bombing, Miranda theorized.
"I'm sorry, and thank you."
Naruto nodded.
As the saying went, old habits were the hardest to kill. The more he listened to the woman speak, the more he began to sympathize with her. Naruto would offer his help until he had the strength to perform a reverse summons. If it succeeded then all he could do was wish her the best.
If not, he want't sure what he would do.
"So, what do we do now?" Miranda asked.
"Food and water will be a priority but first I need to make sure we're the only ones down here," Naruto explained.
"Makes sense, but I checked and everyone… well, they're all gone," Miranda lamented.
"No, I mean I need to make sure there are no threats to us," Naruto clarified.
She had never once considered the possibility her husband's murder was still lingering around. With that, Miranda wondered how long she had been out since coming face to face with the vile man.
"What if they're still here?" Miranda asked nervously. "He had a gun."
"I'll just have to kill him," Naruto stated.
All he lacked was an accompanying shrug of his shoulders with how casual he said it. Miranda was unsure of exactly how he was supposed to take that.
"W-What, uh, what should I do?" Miranda asked. "Should I maybe wait here?"
"Can't risk them finding you alone. Follow me and stay close but be ready to listen to any instruction I give you," Naruto said. While he felt utterly exhausted and his reserves were bordering on being dangerously low, he was sure he could handle himself. He didn't have enough chakra to perform any speed based techniques to get back to her should she be attacked.
Despite his seeming callous nature Miranda was now beginning to feel better about her agreement with Naruto. Not fully comfortable for his vague reasons, but he seemed to know what he was doing. If nothing else he certainly appeared sure of himself and took her safety into consideration. Until he proved distrustful, or until she learned how to take care of herself, she would work with the mysterious young man.
She didn't have much of a choice otherwise.
"I understand. Lead the way," Miranda said.
With that said, they began the exploration of the vault.
Truthfully, Naruto was hoping to avoid conflict all together until he was at least partially recovered and potentially even armed. He would rather not have explain how he was capable of doing what the people of Miranda's world considered impossible. Of course, he didn't owe the woman any explanations but he highly doubted she would respect his privacy and that was a headache he could go without for the time being.
Something scurried along the wall as they rounded a bend. Naruto startled at the sudden screech so close to his ear.
"What the hell is that thing?" Miranda asked as she did her best to hide behind Naruto without directly touching him.
"A giant roach?" Naruto too was taken by surprise at the presence of the oversized vermin. It did not appear to have noticed them as it remained in place on the wall, its large antennae twitching every so often.
"Kill it!" Miranda shrieked when it turned in their direction. "Step on it!"
"Somehow I don't think I can just step on that thing," Naruto commented.
That was untrue. Even in his weakened state he doubted the oversized insect could pose any real threat to him. However, despite having lived in poverty for half of his life and coexisting with such insects, Naruto hated bugs and was admittedly unnerved by the size of its pincers.
Unfortunately he was given no choice in the matter as it, along with a few other arrivals, seemed to have set their sights on them.
"There's more of them! They're coming!" Miranda cried.
"Just stay behind me," Naruto sighed as he readied himself.
As the first of the oversized cockroaches scurried towards them, Naruto scanned the narrow hall for anything to aid him. Behind him Miranda had taken some steps back but reluctantly stayed near him.
Just as the first insect neared them, Naruto jumped up and grabbed onto a rusted pipe hanging loosely from the amongst others. It snapped easily as a result of his weight, crushing the insect on his descent. He swung the pipe hard to the right, killing the other approaching on the wall before kicking another away.
It was a sickening task but Naruto eventually killed off the final roach, leaving eight large insects twitching about on the floor now stained in a viscous brown substance.
"Well, that was gross," Naruto said as he inspected the now ruined pipe in his hands, bent and cracked in several places, it would be of no further use. He tossed it aside with a resounding clank and turned to Miranda, who held her nose in disgust.
"Why were they so big? It shouldn't be possible, right?" She questioned in a nasally voice.
"No, no it shouldn't but somehow it is. Now, let's go before more come along," Naruto said.
"Okay," Miranda sighed in worry at the possibility. "After you, I guess."
They continued on, encountering their first closed door. Miranda observed Naruto's mannerisms and wondered why he chose to slam his fist on the release in stead of simply pressing it. Though ever cautious, he seemed to step into the unknown with no visible hesitation despite just having encountered monster mutations.
Miranda once more found reason to wonder just who Naruto really was.
The door opened with a groan to reveal a living quarters. The small room was lined with cots, accompanied by rusted footlockers. Naruto immediately set to searching while Miranda was occupied staring at a set of remains on two of the beds, lying next to one another.
"Miranda." Naruto's firm voice helped break her morbid fascination. "Check the boxes for anything useful like water or a weapon,"
Miranda only nodded and did as she was told. Meanwhile Naruto himself approached the remains himself and reached for the baton in its skeletal hands. He noticed signs of damage on the bones, indicating they must have been eaten by the large insects.
"That'll be useful against the cockroaches, right?" Miranda asked.
"Should be," Naruto said as he extended the baton to its full length before retracting it again. He placed it in one of the pockets of his vault suit and continued searching the room. "Let's just hope the cockroaches are the only thing that've mutated."
Naruto did not like the thought of facing giant spiders roaming about.
Miranda made a frightened noise.
"Did you find anything?" He asked in an attempt to distract her from horrifying machinations.
"Not yet but there's a few I still have to check," Miranda called back.
All together they found a single bottle of water and nothing else of use. Naruto called for a short reprieve before continuing their search as he himself was still reeling from using his eyes and his encounter with the creatures.
That worried him.
"I don't know about you but I sure am thirsty," Miranda commented as she seated herself at his side on one of the cots.
"Just drink slowly," Naruto advised as he handed her the bottle.
"Why?" Miranda asked as she struggled to open the plastic bottle.
"Because," Naruto accepted the bottle from a sheepish Miranda, opening, it before continuing. "You haven't had any fluids in your stomach for who knows how long. You could get sick if you try and drink too fast."
He gladly accepted the remaining half of the water after she had her fill. Though he suspected he would have liked to drink more. He was certainly still feeling dehydration ail him.
"Ugh, my whole body's sore," Miranda complained as she laid back on the bed with her hands on her own hips, she tried stretching her back.
Naruto said nothing as he occupied himself with their next course of action.
"So," she drawled out, feeling the silence becoming too heavy for her liking. "What did you do before the war? That is if you don't mind my asking?"
"I'd rather not talk about it," Naruto replied quickly, the empty plastic bottle in his hand crinkling audibly in his clenched fist.
Miranda noticed this in an otherwise quiet room and quickly decided the subject was better left alone for the time being. Although his lack of answer, while understandable, did nothing to quell the unease the stranger sitting beside her wrought.
"Here," Naruto offered her a pair of black shin guards that he found while rummaging through the footlockers. "So the roaches don't bite your shins. I'm assuming that's where they're likely to bite first."
"Thanks," Miranda muttered, feeling once more he opinion of him sway, if ever so slightly.
The other rooms within the vault were similar in design and function as the ones they cleared before. Some even contained more cryostats pods, though unfortunately they found no one else with life.
The rad-roaches, as Miranda had taken to calling them, were scattered throughout the vault. Though certainly not a life threatening creature, they did prove to be nimble and frustratingly persistent, as Naruto discovered.
They eventually stumbled upon a kitchen they very little in terms of food; boxes of uncooked pastas and cans which contained little more than rust. They had managed to find a couple of bottles of water within a hidden compartment inside one of the cupboards.
As thirsty as they were, both downed the water with ease.
After the mess room they came upon the Overseer's office located right near the exit of the vault. As Miranda rushed to the bottom in an effort to open the vault, Naruto took that moment to inspect the gun he found beneath the remains of the man who must have been the overseer himself, if the flaking silver plaque on his desk was to be believed.
Noticing a hole in the top of his skull, Naruto crouched down beside the overseer and looked to the rusted ceiling above, finding a small bullet indent above. He used to be of the belief suicide was a coward's escape. At least that was until the war began, then it was just as much a constant as being murdered by Kaguya and her forces.
Naruto had come to learn that very few people ever found comfort in the possibility of death. It was merely a desperate means to an end. Like being caught in a burning forest with no escape but into a ravine. There is no escaping the blaze and the fall would mean certain death. In such a situation, many chose brevity over a slow torturous end.
The flames at his own back pushed Naruto forward, finding Miranda tinkering with the vault terminal, frustration quickly mounting judging by her increased use of words safely synonymous with curses.
"Darn it! It's not opening!" Miranda cried as she tapped away at the keys harder than necessary. A voice warbled something indiscernible in response to every attempt but nothing else occurred.
"What does it say?" Naruto asked calmly as he looked down to the remains of a pair of scientists, one of which had an odd looking device attached to his arm.
"It's asking for administrative access requiring a Pip-Boy. Where are we supposed to get a Pip-Boy of all things?" Miranda grumbled.
"Is this a Pip-Boy?" Naruto asked, shaking free the radius that remained attached to a piece of cloth. He had a vague idea it was but he couldn't be sure.
Miranda quickly confirmed he was holding a Pip-Boy and quietly questioned their luck and just as wordlessly hoped it would stay. "Well, what're you waiting for? Put that thing on and get us out of here!"
"I'd rather you put it on," Naruto said as he presented her the Pip-Boy again, practically dumping it into her hands. "I don't need it slowing me down."
That answered her question before she could voice it. In the end, Miranda readily accepted the device. She recalled always wanting to own her own personal computer. However, being a housewife she had no real use for a device normally reserved for those in positions that required task management such as doctors, scientists, and even the occasional business man.
They cost a high sum only a career in the aforementioned could afford. Miranda could never bring herself to ask her husband to indulge in such an unnecessary purchase.
"Alrighty then, how do you work this thing?" Miranda asked herself so as to ignore the sinking in her belly.
Naruto situated himself on the nearest railing and busied himself with inspecting the foreign weapon in his hands, idly listening as the woman fumbled with the device. He almost found it amusing hearing her mounting frustration reflected by the level in which the vulgarity of her curses increased.
"It's asking for a year now," Miranda said aloud. "Hey Naruto, what year do you think it is?"
"No clue," Naruto said, knowing his words had more meaning than she could know. "Does that matter?"
"Well, it's asking me for a date so…" Miranda said.
"So just put anything. I'm sure we'll figure it out eventually," Naruto said.
"Never mind, I think the computer has the date," Miranda gasped. "No, no that can't possibly be right! It can't be two thousand two hundred eighty seven!"
"That a bad thing?" Naruto asked and judging by her outburst, it was.
Some of her memories were beginning to grow hazy within his mind at the influx of new information. Mostly the already vague, unimportant bits of information such as dates, names, and other such irrelevant thoughts.
"It was the year twenty seventy seven when I entered the vault!" Miranda shouted, mostly to herself and in continued disbelief.
"Oh shit," Naruto was also surprised. Over two hundred years frozen was a very long time to be unconscious. He wondered how long he was frozen, or how he even came to be at the vault in the first place.
He refocused his attention and stood to his feet. There were far more immediate concerns to contend with.
"So much time," Miranda muttered sadly. She didn't have high hopes for any of her extended family or friends to have survived the nuclear war, but knowing so much time had passed was greatly disheartening.
Miranda startled slightly feeling a hand on her shoulder.
"I think we should get going. Your daughter's out there somewhere, waiting for you, remember?" Naruto said.
His tone was even and seemed to lack any audible compassion, but the gesture itself was enough for her. Miranda blinked away the tears that had accumulated and smiled at the thought of reuniting with her daughter.
"You're right, thanks, Naruto."
Naruto wanted to comment t about how awkwardly she continued to pronounce his name but decided such details were currently irrelevant. Instead he only nodded his head and gave Miranda room to continue with her task.
Eventually she was able to get the Pip-Boy working and was ready to raise the lift.
"Do you think we should wait a while or do we go now?" Miranda asked.
It was clearly apparent she was afraid to see what lay beyond. Naruto himself could not help the feeling of uncertainty churning away in his belly. They very well could be rising to their deaths and yet, death was all that awaited them if they stayed.
But Naruto was very much used to facing the unknown.
"The only way to know what's out there's to actually go," Naruto voiced. "Besides, there's nothing else we can do here. We have some water but we'll die if we can't find food. And then there's your daughter. The longer we're here, the more time we waste looking for her out there."
"But my husband," Miranda hated her current thought process but it was one she had to face. "I want to bury him properly."
"And we will, just not right now. We need to really establish ourselves, ya'know, find food and more water, maybe even a shelter. Then we can move him. He's in the chamber so he shouldn't…" Naruto paused and remembered causing the woman anymore grief would only prove to be counterproductive. "Your husband's body should stay well preserved until we can come back."
"But the chambers are offline," Miranda said, tearing up again.
Naruto only barely restrained himself from sighing. He hadn't considered that but hey really didn't have the time to waste. "We'll be back real soon, if not tomorrow. Again, we need to focus on staying alive ourselves," he reiterated.
"But we will come back for him, right?" Miranda asked.
"Yes."
She needed more than that.
"Promise me," Miranda demanded.
He was reluctant to give her more.
But Naruto was mature enough to realize his life meant more than his word. He would keep his promise so long as it didn't endanger him.
"Thank you, Naruto," Miranda said as she activated the lift.
Red lights began to flash and a siren blared as a metallic grinding filled the room. Both watched in wonder as the cog shaped door rolled to the side and the bridge lowered, connecting the platform to the elevator. The process was rather slow but eventually their way out was clear.
"I set it to auto lift so we should hurry," Miranda said.
They boarded the cog shaped platform and looked up to catch glimpse of the sky for the first time in at least two hundred years.
Now to set a few things straight. Naruto will still be extremely powerful in this one, but I'm going to reel in his abilities from pretty much god level, to superhuman. Because let's be real; if he had his cannon strength, nothing in Fallout short of a nuke would really hurt him.
As for the pairings, I'm not really sure. I was thinking Miranda and maybe Piper. Any suggestions?
Until next time.