Short and sweet:
-Large crossover harem centered around Naruto
-Marked Lemon/sex scenes present
-Naruto stuff mostly same as canon. Any other series I will change as I see fit, don't "correct" my purposeful changes
-Reviews, especially constructive ones, are appreciated
"I can't write like our master...
So the sequel must come from the life I live."
The descending starships launched another salvo of missiles and energy blasts at the crimson barrier encasing the Leaf, producing a giant firestorm atop it. As before, Naruto's enormous shield stood unphased.
Frustrated at the nearly twenty minute delay in counter attacking, Naruto said, "Shikamaru, when are we taking the fight to them? I can down all those ships in a flash."
"Tono, any visual from our scouts? What are we dealing with?" Shikamaru asked with greater urgency, ignoring Naruto's impatience. He missed the days of not being in command, at least then he could smoke to ease his nerves.
The bespectacled scientist Shikamaru addressed was still assessing the telemetry of the monitoring equipment they'd sent out, flitting between various program windows as he communicated with teams around the world assisting them via teleconference screens. After a few moments, he nodded in satisfaction.
"The miniature recording equipment attached to the Aburame insects and the Koukage's paper butterflies finally managed a transmission," replied Katasuke Tono, more gleeful than usual. "The ship's shielding blocked normal comms, but switching to the Lightning chakra backups worked like charm!"
As if to emphasize his point, the projector screen at the front of the monitoring room lit up with a live feed inside the otherworldly vessel. The feed had a slight jitter from the scurry of the Aburame insect as it stealthily plumbed the giant ship's innards. It was beyond anything they'd seen.
There were signs of familiar engineering techniques and design — walkways, stairs, ventilation, even high-tech holograms seemingly used as whiteboards for meetings — the bewildering — few doors were present, there were mostly areas blocked off by octagonal barriers — and the inhumane. The large central room the bug was sneaking across the ceiling of had a lowered, pit-like area lined with large glass pods. Their contents were blurred by a blue, gelatinous liquid, but the vaguely humanoid shapes floating within were a sight they knew all too well.
"I'm getting Orochimaru vibes," Naruto said queasily. Though the body swapping, gender hopping ninja was vaporized in a spaceflight accident a few years prior, their penchant for grotesque experimentation and storage was not easily forgotten.
After watching the bug fly around the room inspecting various oddities more closely, one of the barrier doors opened and their whole world changed.
Aliens. Bona fide extraterrestrial aliens stormed into the room by the dozen. They were more grotesque than even aliens in horror films. To Naruto, most of them seemed like a cross between a bipedal insect and a crab, having bulky, shelled upper bodies and pincers for hands. Others seemed more like humanoid reptiles with bulky upper bodies. Combined with the wires connecting to firearms built into their limbs, they had a distinctly unnatural appearance. Even Kakashi's newer batch of Summoning animals were less off-putting.
While Naruto felt uncharacteristically apprehensive about their looks, Tono barely contained his awe. "This is simply incredible!" he exclaimed. "Genetics isn't my area, but these morphologies are simply too… alien! Exposed muscle tissue would be detrimental to survival. Surely this resulted from genetic modification. A side-effect of amplifying their musculature, perhaps? Then there's the technology grafted into their very..."
A quick cough from Shikamaru interrupted him for more productive conversation. "Since they're bringing out armed brutes, I think it's safe to say they're not just here to blow everything up."
Squinting, Naruto said, "I pointed that out five minutes ago, I've felt their malice since they shot at us. Luckily," he gestured at the tri-pronged kunai in his hand, "I've gotten good with this baby."
"It was my idea to mark a probe and have it orbit near the Sun. Madara dropping meteors out of the sky left a sour taste in everyone's mouth. But more importantly..." he gestured at the screen, showing the aliens boarding smaller crafts as a large bay door above the the Leaf Village began to open, "You've got free reign now. Each of you. We wanted to check if there were any hidden ships in the upper atmosphere, but we don't have time for the Sensor divisions to adjust. These guys don't have chakra to detect, so they're trying to sense their body's physical energy instead. Just make sure not to obliterate everything, R is drooling at all that tech. Just look at Tono."
Punching his left hand with his right, Naruto said, "Hell yeah! It's been too long since I got to cut loos-"
"Dad, dad, dad!" squealed a young girl.
Naruto turned towards the opened sliding doors, only for a small figure to have already leapt and grabbed him around the torso.
"Dad, are you going to fight the aliens? Is it gonna be like Ninja of the Lost Galaxy? Can I come with you?"
"Um. Yes. I slept through that movie. And, uh, you'll have to ask your mom, kiddo," he numbered off to his daughter.
Shikamaru spoke to the second figure entering the room, familiar red eyes glaring at the kid. "Mirai, you were supposed to keep her occupied. This guy can't tell her no."
"I tried, but she can feel how restless Lord Naruto is from his chakra. She shoved me across the room and bolted in here!" Mirai replied, massaging a bruised spot on her back. "Can I get back to my squad now? Word is the Hokage is about to send patrol ships to scout higher in the atmosphere for any hidden ships."
"Yeah yeah, head back," Shikamaru said easily. As Mirai quickly bowed to Naruto and slipped out of the room, he muttered a follow-up, "Not that Kakashi is sending kids to deal with this."
"Thanks for the help, Mirai!" Naruto shouted after her. He felt his torso being squeezed, and saw his daughter's pleading, big-eyed look. "Okay okay, you can come with me. Put the eyes away, sheesh."
Dropping off her dad, Adora saluted and said, "You won't regret this, Captain Dad! Mom taught me this cool jutsu..."
"There's a condition though," he interrupted. "You've gotta wear Kurama's chakra or the deal's off."
"Tch. Daaaaad, come on, not Kurama. He'll make the cloak to all the work for me. He treats me like a baby!" Adora whined.
Chuckling as he picked the small blonde girl by the back of her shirt, Naruto said, "You're only eight, you are my baby. Besides, if I don't do it your Mom will let me have it… And I really don't want it."
"Naruto, get out there now!" Shikamaru suddenly said sharply.
"What happened?"
"I don't know how, but they've bypassed your Crimson Ray barrier, the breach is near the north-east entrance of the village. Small groups of their forces suddenly appeared and opened fire. Chunin have engaged but..."
"On it," he interrupted, disappearing in a flash, his child in tow.
Thanks to the discovery of advanced technology in Kaguya's castle and Kakashi's control of Black Zetsu with genjutsu, the ninja world's technology had rapidly advanced since the Fourth Great War's end twelve years prior. Normal firearms were much too slow to hit ninja beyond Genin and so were relegated to civilian weaponry. But energy weapons - plasma guns - had become commonplace among ninja forces within two years of their development due to their high speed. It was the first time kunai and shuriken – whose speed depended on the ninja throwing them – had been superseded as basic weapons in the centuries since their introduction. Spaceflight for resource gathering became the norm within four years of the war, having used the Otsutski's warp technology to quickly visit the various planets and moons in their solar system; all devoid of life, as expected. They were still in the process of mapping potential routes to distant star systems.
Not all was copied from interdimensional deities, however. The Hidden Cloud had independently developed chakra cannons that could send even giant asteroids to a dimensional void. Unfortunately their chakra consumption was enormous, making the cannons impractical at present.
But if the consensus of the collaborative R teams were right, the dropships assaulting them were easily 40 or 50 years more advanced than anything they could accomplish without chakra.
Less than an hour before, a large, strange meteor suddenly appeared from a portal in the sky. Minutes after being warped into the Sun, huge three-legged ships touched down outside of the Leaf, Stone, Rain, Cloud and Mist villages.
All locations Naruto was present at…
"That makes thirty!" said a small girl, her punch sending a crablike alien crashing into the wall, leaving broken bones and dented steel. Another pair attempted to retreat while firing menacing blue blasts of energy at her. Having already faced them, she knew without Kurama's chakra those could seriously hurt her.
She sidestepped them while weaving a few hand signs. Immediately, a great forest sprouted from her left arm. Thick, leafen wood rapidly stretched up the ship's hall towards her foes, completely obscuring Adora from their line of sight.
Her dad told her not to beat the aliens up too badly, so she directed her jutsu to wrap up the ones ahead of her, leaving them helpless. Exhilarated nonetheless, she shouted, "Who's next?!"
Adora was having the time of her life. Her dad once told her he'd met a couple of aliens years back during the Great War. Even fought another one on the Moon. Ninja of the Lost Galaxy was based on that, though her dad never told her the real story. That was two years before she was born, and there hadn't been any reason to fight since then. Things were boring now.
This was her chance to show her dad she could be a real ninja and enter the Academy when the summer ended. Studying with her mom and Lady Sakura just wasn't the same, most of her friends had started the year before.
"Alright Adora, what next?" Naruto asked, standing behind her.
Her dad was smiling encouragingly, so she went with her gut. "Knock down these walls and kick their butts!"
"Hah! You've got the heart, but let's think it through first. How are you going to fight 'em if you can't find 'em?"
"Tch, I can just sense 'em, Dad, I-". Or so she thought. Bemused, she expanded her range as far as she could, but the only chakra she felt were her dad's extreme chakra and that of the Jonin team who cut a hole into a lower level of the ship. She hadn't noticed before, the invading aliens didn't emit any chakra… Weird.
Adora folded her arms and sat on the ground thinking. She could send out Wood Clones, but they weren't very strong and she could only make a few at a time. She was fast for her age, but checking every room in the massive ship would be time consuming. She suspected her dad knew where the rest of them were, but she didn't think that was the answer he wanted. If she had longer, she might've been able to puzzle out the answer he wanted, but she could only see one way.
"I can't do it alone," she admitted begrudgingly, in a way only one unused to failing could. "But maybe someone else has the Ninjutsu to find them, like Sarada's mom or someone from the Hyuga clan or Mister Kiba and his nose."
She expected him to be disappointed that she had missed something obvious or didn't have a super special sensing ability. Instead, surprise was followed by a look of satisfaction. "Didn't even need the bells to figure it out. Sensei was right, your generation is already finding ways to surpass ours."
"Huh?" was all Adora could manage in her confusion.
"Just a little test, and I know you didn't get this from me, cause ya passed with flying colors," he said, grinning ear-to-ear. "And somehow you avoided getting me or your mother's stubbornness too."
"D'you mean..." she said, excitement growing.
Naruto held his fist out to her, which she promptly met with her own. "You can go to Ninja Academy if you're really set on it."
Jumping nearly high enough to hit the high ceiling with her head, she chanted "Ninja, ninja, I'm gonna be a ninja!"
"Easy there champ, let's focus on the mission at hand. We should wrap this up quickly, so how 'bout you watch your old man work?"
Naruto closed his eyes. 'Busy, Kurama?' Soon thereafter, Naruto heard the deep, grumbling voice of his formerly imprisoned demonic friend in his mind.
'Not really. I happened to be nearby, so the Mizukage asked me to watch this alien crap while another You put up a barrier around the Mist Village. By the way, that priestess was visiting when this all started. Even from way over here I can see she's waddling around now, she's so far along. You really did a number on her you fiend, hah!'
'Man whatever. Lend me a bit more chakra, would you?'
His presence in Naruto's mind allowed the Fox to see his thoughts. 'Wow, she really is picking this up quickly. Feels like yesterday she was asking me what chakra was. Shouldn't be surprised. The scamp takes after me and Tsunade.'
'She's my daughter, bucko. You're just the dopey uncle we let babysit when we need Adult Time,' he replied.
'Pfft, maybe she got that tough skull of yours, but she's no late-blooming brawler. Anyway, the chakra's incoming, I gotta smoosh some stragglers that got out of the ship.' The Fox's voice left, and Naruto glowed golden.
Scarcely a moment had passed in the real world, but Adora stared at him with an awed expression as his basic Chakra Mode took hold. Unlike the chakra around her which circle her like an indistinct golden blob, his molded itself around his body like a skintight suit with the chakra at the ends flickering like flame.
Naruto bent down, plucked Adora by the scruff of her neck and placed her on his shoulders. As he did, the chakra cloak around her melded with his, encompassing both of them.
"If you want to be a ninja, you have to learn the basics. First ninja lesson: You've gotta have guts! How will you get better if you don't believe in yourself first?"
Adora nodded emphatically. She heard him practicing this 'speech' a few days earlier.
"Second ninja lesson: Use everything and everyone around you to improve! You'll never do it all alone, you're just making things harder for no reason." Naruto formed an arm out of the golden chakra and pointed at it with his hand. "It'd be way more annoying to find these guys if I didn't have Kurama. He can sense every bad thought in the book, which is why I know about these sneaky guys!"
The chakra arm suddenly stretched to the top of the main deck they were on and enlarged. Despite seeming to grab nothing at all, strained shrieks and bellowing were heard when the hand closed. Their targets quickly came into view. These aliens seemed like beefed up versions of the ones Adora fought, but with a strange, translucent armored plating covering them. Probably the source of their invisibility.
The four creatures all began emitting the strange blue tendrils and fired large blue beams at the chakra arm to try and escape, but to no avail as the arm remained unaffected.
"And your third and final ninja lesson, for now: The people you care about are more important than anything else, even than being a good ninja and finishing a mission." The chakra arm slammed the four armored aliens through the metal floor. And several more after that, if the numerous squelching sounds were any indication.
Adora didn't have to look to know those guys were toast.
"I'm worried about Shino and the others, their chakra is plummeting. There's something gnarlier down there than what we saw just now, hang on tight!"
Adora was glad she did. Had the Fox's chakra not been amping her power, she might not have realized just how fast they were going. The whole world stood still around them as they flashed down the many levels of the ship like a renegade light beam. Even with Kurama's defense around her, the sheer force of the acceleration was intense and dizzying, pressing on her from all sides. Along the way, her dad made imperceptible moves towards the dozens of aliens they passed, all of them taking debilitating injuries with the slightest effort. He seemed to have trouble holding back his strength, as entire rooms and hallways were shattered with each attack.
An instant later they rapidly slowed down, and her dad palm striked some a dark, armored figure away from the ninja they were holding. Said figure careened backwards with a resounding crack in the air, crashing through the ship's outer wall without slowing down.
Her dad caught the stunned, bleeding man. He wore a cracked optical visor and a heavy coat on top of a black, form fitting armor. He was vaguely familiar to Adora.
A red aura surrounded the man briefly, before he began to rouse and heal. Adora hopped off her dad and helped prop up the unsteady ninja.
"Easy there, Shino. That thing did a number on you," Naruto said, letting the man steady himself. "Where's your team?" The Aburame clan Jonin gestured to a room behind Naruto, then two clones appeared and moved to patch them up.
"L-lord Naruto! Forgive me, that ghoulish creature was unexpectedly formidable. How so? It could absorb our chakra and teleport at will. We could not keep up with its firepower, even with the upgraded chakra armor," he explained, methodical as ever.
"Teleport?!" Naruto said, stunned. Incredible how a single word could bring a peculiar fear to even him. "Adora, stay with Shino!"
He sped out the hole he knocked the armored creature through. He saw it's form fading to nothing as it began transporting away. Fast as he was, the creature had already begun warping away before he could get the chance to stop it. His hand passed right through it's wispy form like a ghost, and it was gone.
Gritting his teeth, a few choice curses slipped out. This was bad. He felt a newly formed chakra network spreading throughout its body before it vanished. Chakra was not a power to be given without caution or trust, certainly not to a creature like that. It had no negative emotions per se, he sensed only a single minded desire to feed at all costs. It reminded him of the Ten-Tails, in that respect.
The added fact it emitted the strange, vicious form of natural energy, the same the other aliens were using to bulk up their attacks, made the comparison all the more worrisome. Like Jugo's version of Sage Mode on a bad day.
Sighing, he said, "I should've set a seal when I struck it… Nothing I can do about it now."
A sudden burst of malice descended from the sky above.
Glancing upwards revealed nothing, but Naruto recognized it as identical to when the handful of ships appeared earlier and fired on the Leaf Village. But this time, there must've been at least twenty such ships, maybe even larger as Naruto felt numerous sources of rage descending in groups. He had the sneaking suspicion the dark, armored thing that got away was leading this invasion. Clearly it wanted more chakra. Whether for itself or its underlings, Naruto didn't know.
Not that it would get the chance.
LEMON
"Gods above, Naruto. I'm so close," Mei moaned on their bed. It had been over a month since they'd had any sex. The various Kage and dignitaries of smaller nations had taken ages to decide how to handle space travel now that it was cheap and thus economical enough to become available to the general population. She knew her husband was nearly as pent up as she, even if his other selves were getting laid more often.
Having been together five years, she recognized where in the cycle he was. Some months he'd prefer more sensual and slow going tactics in their lovemaking. A brief flirtation and hooded eyes after a glass of wine. He'd tilt her chin and exchange a passionate kiss, expose and tease her breasts, then slowly bring her to climax with his hands. He'd then let her take the lead and guide him to his own satisfaction.
But in that early morning, it was immediately clear he was taking an even more feral and commanding approach than she'd seen when he was in his dominant phase. He'd all but torn off her clothes before his tongue was pushed into her mouth and he got to work.
That was more than an hour previous, musk and sweat now dominated the room. He was bearing down on her, thrusting into her pussy with rare ferocity for many minutes. He was gripping her battered hips - one leg propped up on his shoulder - and switched to slower, deeper strokes into her vulnerable core. She heard the bed's headboard crack again.
"Fu-fuck, keep that coming." She was stammering now, with what words she could manage through the pounding. If she had been tightening before, she must've been constricting him powerfully now. "Just like th-that, right there."
Naruto grunted and focused his efforts and his deep groans were her gift.
Mei saw that odd expression was still present on his face as he fucked her. Deeply furrowed brows and canines extended as if using his demonic chakra. His blue eyes focused on her intensely as she took in all of his girth. Before she knew it he was kissing her neck, leading up to her ear, which he promptly nibbled.
Mei had never felt so possessed by him before as he leaned over and drank a deep kiss from her, without letting up on his vaginal assault. He began to shudder repeatedly as they made out, and Mei knew he was becoming as undone as she was. They stopped kissing and Naruto moved his hands to her shoulders and increased his tempo again, rapidly approaching the mutual peak they sought.
"N-Naruto~" she let out, wrapping her legs around him securely.
Mei's auburn hair was splayed outward even more wildly and her ample breasts were bouncing merrily in tandem with each entry to her depths. Her husband was always entranced by this motion and palmed one, teasing her hard nipple briefly before he reached his own limit.
"So good," was all Naruto was able to say as he thrust as deeply as possible into her and held her still. She was gripping him intensely, as he burst within her again, and the sweet, euphoric high hit them nearly at once. Her husband was still emptying himself within her for a few moments before she felt his straining penis finally peter out.
Naruto laid beside her as she was gasping for air. Sex with him was always great, but he'd outdone himself this time. Looking at their bedside clock, it had been nearly two hours since they started. True to the rumors, his stamina was impressive given how many orgasms he'd gone through in that time with scarcely a break. Had she not been a de-aged and hardened shinobi, she'd surely have been fucked raw and bruised long before this point.
Rolling into his arms, Mei said, "You seem dead set on knocking me up, Na-Ru-To~." She rubbed her stomach absentmindedly, his hand atop hers. "I figured you'd work fast when I announced Chojuro would be my successor in the coming months, but it hasn't even been a day. Is the thought of impregnating me too that entrancing~?"
He recognized her teasing and couldn't help blushing in the darkness. He couldn't yet formulate a verbal response and so settled for holding her more tightly to him. After a pleasant silence, Naruto said, "It just feels like this is the right time, ya know? You gave up a lot to be Mizukage for so long, sometimes you get to have what you want too."
Mei turned towards him. The heat radiating from him now was something she could never quantify. The world's strongest man was completely open to and into her. She thought perhaps being 'late' to marriage had been worth it after all.
"You didn't quite answer my question though," she said, eyes twinkling. "You've… sired several kids already, and have looked at me like a prized slab of meat for hours. You've got a thing for putting buns in the oven, don't you?"
Suddenly her husband was out of bed looking at her accusatorily. "You're making it weird, Mei."
Giggling, Mei seductively crawled across the bed towards him with pout on her face. Standing up, she ran a finger across his rippled chest muscles and said, "Don't be so embarrassed, Na-Ru-To~. This bakery is ready to operate at full capacity for its number one customer." That hungry look appeared in his eyes again, causing her legs to shudder. She was in trouble, doubly so for her eggs.
LEMON END
After a final hour of sex, the two had to leave their home to do actual work. Mei had just sent Chojuro on errands across the village when an ANBU Black Ops member informed her that another of Naruto's Fragments and the Priestess of the Land of Demons had arrived unannounced.
"Send them up," Mei said. A minute later, the visibly pregnant Shion and their mutual husband - though she loathed to think of their arrangement that way - entered briskly. "Shion, to what do we owe the sudden visit from the east?"
The blonde priestess seemed to war internally for a moment before replying. "I… had a bad dream." Mei raised an unimpressed eyebrow, leading to a quick follow-up. "I mean, it was like a dream, but I'm certain it was a vision of the future. The Mist Village is going to be attacked. Today."
That got Mei's attention, but she was even more bewildered now. The Five (now Six) Great Nations were united militarily and economically, war between them was financially infeasible, suicidal and even impossible with Naruto in each location. After the Great War they'd essentially overthrown their feudal lords, leaving them as more of a wealthy elite without political authority. And with but a handful exceptions, the world's minor nations had joined the Shinobi Union too in order to reap the benefits. No force worth worrying about should warrant her sudden venture across the Eastern Ocean.
"Who and how?" Mei asked, cutting to the point.
Shion looked back at the Naruto there and they nodded. Looking firmly at Mei, she answered, "Aliens. Actual ones. I don't know the full extent, but they're definitely attacking the Mist."
She was very tempted to laugh. Overwhelmingly so. And had she not seen the Moon briefly cut in half by a sort-of alien Otsutski over a decade ago, she may have let that laugh out. But much of the preparation the Union had gone through over the last several years was in case they needed to defend themselves against a space-based threat again. She'd never expected to need it so soon, however.
"How long do we have?"
Shion rubbed her chin in thought. "Very soon, it was midday in my vision."
It was already half past noon. Motioning to the hidden ANBU in the room, Mei ordered, "Tell Sky Corps to keep their wits about them. We may have invaders coming in hot shortly."
The Naruto that arrived with Shion sprang into action. He burst out the window of Mei's office, and two Shadow Clones poofed into being alongside him before scattering. An instant later a gigantic crimson barrier surrounded the entire Mist Village before a section of that barrier was hit by a series of deafening explosions.
Thankfully, the barrier kept the tremors of the blasts from reaching the village, standing unscratched from the assault. Mei leapt out her office window and approached the source of the attack. Two giant ships descended just outside her village. The wooded area there was scorched and cratered now. She shuddered to think how many would have perished from so sudden an attack had her husband not lived in the village. The Barrier Corps weren't prepared to defend from such a large and sudden attack outside of wartime, and they hadn't finished installing the new defense system the Sand Village had developed. With confirmation of aggressive extraterrestrials existing, that would be top priority.
Before she set about a counteroffensive, Mei directed her ninja to keep the peace among the spooked civilians and lead them to the underground bunker at the village's center. As the evac was underway, her comms indicated a call from the Leaf's Jonin Commander. Shikamaru Nara spoke quickly as she tapped her earpiece to answer.
"Lady Mizukage, I take it the Mist was attacked as well?"
"As well? The Leaf was targeted too, then," she surmised.
"Not just us, we received word from Cloud and Rain, they've…," the Nara started before quieting. Mei heard a muffled back and forth over her earpiece before the Leaf ninja spoke to her again. "Yes, Lady Tsuchikage confirmed Stone was fired upon as well."
Mei spotted a pattern by absence. "What about the Hidden Sand?"
"Negative. We called them before you, they were the only major power beside Iron that wasn't struck… I see where you're going. You think they're after Naruto. But the Land of Demons hasn't sent notice of any attack to the Union."
"That's because Shion and her husband just arrived here fifteen minutes ago. And as we have two spaceships present, it seems coincidental for the only places attacked to be places Naruto was at."
The line went silent again as the man thought it over. "I think you're right. But it does raise the question: How would off-worlders even know about Naruto or how to track him?"
"A question for another time. We need to clear out these ships ASAP," she urged. "They're not able to damage the barriers, but they may attack outlying towns to draw him out if he's their target."
"True. Not that you need our permission, but R is begging me to convince you of the wisdom of capturing the spare ship intact. Even if they're attacking us, these aliens must have invaluable tech we can learn from."
Mei was no sensor, but the surge of chakra was so massive and unrestrained as to force itself upon the awareness all near it. "I'll see what we can do," she said, ending the call and leaping away. A clone of Naruto let her outside the barrier, and there stood Kurama, the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox.
She'd never seen the beast in its full size, for he had never entered the Land of Water to her knowledge. The other Tailed Beasts were a few hundred meters tall and enormous enough already. Restored to his full size, Kurama was more than twice that, towering over the comparatively tiny spaceships. A great, big orange mountain with legs.
"Yo," he said. Despite the greeting, the Demon Fox continued looking at one of the ships with fascination. He attempted to lean in close to look through its windows, but the vessel's automated weapons began firing at him. Despite the explosions and energy beams alighting across his face, a deep, earth rumbling laughter could be felt.
Using chakra to stick to his side, Mei ran up the Fox's body onto his shoulder. "Lord Kurama, to what do we owe the visit?"
"Well I was on a peaceful tropical vacation until I felt these guys stinking up the place. Their malice is as bad as the Zetsu were, so I popped in." He shrugged his shoulders, nearly unbalancing Mei. "Didn't expect it to be spacemen. Are they probing humans yet? Hah!"
"Your sense of… humor is as droll as Naruto said," she answered wryly. "They attacked every place Naruto is at right now, so we think they're after him. But we aren't sure how they even know he exists."
He brought one of his humanlike hands to his chin in thought before answering. "Might've been that fight on the Moon. We had to expel a lot of chakra to stop him from dropping it out of orbit, they must've detected it eventually. Light made from chakra moves much faster, after all, and it's been twelve years since then."
Mei vividly recalled seeing the Moon briefly cut in half with a golden light before gravity pulled it back together. Naruto told her about Toneri Otsutski - who'd kidnapped Hinata and her sister at that time - losing control of his power, forcing them to counter with an enormous Beast Bomb. The explosion had been visible from the planet, as had the glow of Naruto's chakra covering it as he repositioned the celestial body into it's previous orbit.
"That makes sense," she mused. Mei spotted several familiar Jonin arrivinng, headed by her soon-to-be successor, Chojuro. "Kurama, would you mind watching this ship while we clear the other? If you're not planning on taking a nap."
"I don't sleep that often, jeez", he grumbled. "Yeah yeah, I'll watch the tin can. Just hurry it up, I'm a busy guy."
She jumped to the ground and was saluted by man who would succeed her, Chojuro. "We're ready, Lady Mizukage. Your orders?"
"Take no prisoners."
Chojuro and the rest raced into the second ship as its bay doors opened.
With the swing of his hand, three more battleships were blown to pieces. Pieces he accelerated with Wind chakra to decimate the dozens of smaller vessels attempting to ferry troops down to the planet. Spotting another giant ship, Naruto appeared before it in the blink of an eye and threw it into another a few kilometers away.
'Space battles are so fun,' he thought.
The state of battle left a wicked smile on his face. He was but a light streak to the enemy, they couldn't get past him. The shields around their ships were like paper before him, torn aside without notice. He effortlessly tossed around their imposing star ships as a child did building blocks. When they all focused their plasma blasts towards him, he used Lightning Style ninjutsu to collect them all into an orb and redirect it back at them as a pulsed wave, knocking out all their electronics. They must've thought him some kind of experimental weapon system, only to shock them by being but a single man.
A god, even. One not restricted to acting through brief mediums or incarnations, nor limited by the beliefs of worshipers to assist only in specific domains. He was a true supreme being, acting with complete authority over the physical world.
He barely registered his lack of need for oxygen as ripped apart the spacecraft with his bare hands in the near-vacuum around him.
Deciding to vary up his attacks, Naruto took a page out Madara's book and shot out a widespread Fire Style jutsu. The oncoming ships attempted to divert out of its path, but most were turned to molten metal or shattered by the kilometer-wide firestorm.
He surveyed the battlefield. Most of the opposition had been torn to bits in the few minutes since he'd flown up here, partway between the planet and Moon, with a few smaller vessels trying to limp away. Before he finished the stragglers, a new wave of starships suddenly arrived out of a spatial distortion; they again upped the ante by throwing a greater number of ships at him. It looked very similar to how the Otsutsuki tech they obtained worked, with the starships coming to a sudden stop as if stretched across the cosmos like an endless rubber band.
As more ships of different design also began appearing out of warp space further away from the previous batch, Naruto was beckoned into his mind.
'Oi, Naruto.'
Stopping, he entered his mental plane and saw the Four-Tails, or rather, Son Gokū. With the lack of restrictive seals, these planes were normally void-like. But, Son had 'remodeled' it to resemble his home at the Water Screen Cave, complete with an endless waterfall and a field of flowers stretching to the mountainous horizon. Atop a giant lily, Son sat with his head resting on his hand. He was looking at Naruto unimpressed.
"What's up, Son?"
"Tch, you could at least use my full, dignified title... Oh whatever. More importantly, why the blithering hell are you strutting about like a nitwit peacock? Scare them off with overwhelming aggression and terror."
"Man I was in the zone, and you interrupted me for this?!"
"An apex predator is no mere brute thrashing about, they project their commanding aura to dissuade attackers for they have none above them. Unless you enjoy being swarmed you should heed my advice, hoo-ook!"
Uncovering his ears, Naruto said, "Come on, I've been smacking these guys around like chumps. What more do I need to do? I'm winning."
"And that proves you lack the animal instinct to spook off these bugs for good." Son approached and squatted before Naruto, saying, "For starters, you could do with a better form. A supreme specimen of nobility and power like mine would do very nicely. For none have lived to see the Handsome Monkey King twice, ooh-ooh!"
"You want me to transform into you? Why?"
"You show too much favoritism to Kurama! It's not fair." His red fur bristled when a familiar, rumbling laughter echoed through the space. "What's that dozing slacker have that I don't? My chakra is more radiant, my red fur more luminous, my teeth are cleaner, my..."
Before he started shrieking unintelligibly, Naruto rolled his eyes and let the Fox's golden chakra vanish. "Fine, don't be such a baby about it. You could've just said you wanted to hang out instead of giving me a lecture." Naruto walked closer to the great ape and extended his fist.
Son was surprised that his request was so quickly accepted. He'd prepared to beg for much longer. He grinned widely and met Naruto's fist with his own. Despite being physically separated from him through use of the Summoning Jutsu, Son's chakra reached Naruto immediately through the seal and engulfed him in verdant-green chakra in the outside world.
"Tailed Beast Transformation!" they said in unison. A fiery-green explosion occurred where Naruto was, leaving in its place the giant Son Gokū, beating his chest in his excitement.
Noticing the lack of air to shriek into, Son thought, 'How am I supposed… So be it, mentally it is.'
Reaching into the minds of all those present in the battle, Son yelled, 'Bemoan the hand fate has dealt you, for you attack a world under the protection of Son Gokū, the Sage who is Heaven's Equal. Kii-kii!'
Having built up a ferocious chakra inside his chest, Son unleashed a torrent of green flame from his mouth upon the first battleships that arrived and the one-sided battle recommenced.
"Due to the instability of this region's hyperspace lane, five standard minutes remain until arrival, Samus."
Acknowledging the ship's notification, she ignored the vessel's occasional bumps and concentrated. Immediately, a light began to solidify around her blue, skintight undersuit. As the orange pauldrons and helmet appeared, Samus connected the arm cannon around her left hand to the refuel station. The microfactory in the ship could replenish everything her armor needed, from missile supply to beam ammo.
And given the deluge of Pirate craft the Republic Army detected racing deep into the galaxy's unknown regions, she was certain to need it. She was left the sole survivor of her home planet by an invasion not even half as extensive as this.
As the final two minutes before arrival approached, the G.F.S. battleship hailed the Republic Fleet that Samus rode alongside through hyperspace. The benefits of being the most respected bounty hunter across the Local Cluster of galaxies.
"Though we've lost quite a number of ships in the twists and turns of this uncharted hyperspace route, we're nearing the destination world with an ample combat force. Enemy comm chatter suggests the Pirates are raiding a primitive world for some new 'unlimited' energy source."
Samus recognized the voice as Admiral Dane's. His aged, deep voice still carried something like nobility and pride in it. A rarity among the upper ranks of the Grand Army these days.
"Crock of shit or not, these Pirates are using Phazon weaponry and will slaughter everyone in their way and enslave the unlucky ones. We've got people to save, so clear a path to the planet so we can establish a base of operations. Show that scum no quarter!"
The transmission went silent, and the various navigation systems started pulling the fleet out of hyperspace. As the flashing blues faded into the black of realspace, she came upon a most unexpected sight.
The Pirate invaders were in tatters. She saw not a single intact or working ship ahead of her. There was so much molten and fractured debris that her ship's energy shield began audibly hissing, causing the ship to jostle more than it had in the untested hyperlane. She diverted her orange ship behind the G.F.S. for refuge and gazed at the brilliant blue orb in the backdrop. As far habitable worlds went, it seemed a prototypical water covered planet, like her home world, K2L. Atypically, the landmass was dominated by a supercontinent that stretched nearly from the north pole to the to south.
Before nostalgia could kick in, her ship's A.I. announced, "Multiple Space Pirate frigates detected. Extreme caution is advised."
The nav system directed her rightward, and Samus saw the largest fleet she'd seen since the civil war between the Republic and Confederacy. Five battleships the size of the enormous G.F.S. were present, along with a veritable sea of shoddy Pirate starfighters. Her equipment indicated phazon radiation being vented by the entire fleet, just as the Admiral said.
Whatever was on that world, they were willing to risk a substantial amount of their forces on it. She only hoped the Leviathan had not taken root on it yet.
The Republic Fleet began firing at the overwhelming force with a barrage of plasma beams, but Samus quickly surveyed the remnants of the prior battle rather than join in.
'A pre-hyperspace planet shouldn't be capable of such a counterattack...'
Basic spaceflight wasn't enough. Modern militaries possessed high speed ships (even in-atmosphere), energy shields, portable plasma weapons, Bacta healing pods and more. Any planet that wanted to thrive economically picked a niche to excel at, and used those funds to bolster their armed forces. Being ten years out of date might as well put you fifty years behind the times. Military advancement led the cutting edge.
She suspected this power source the Pirates sought explained their resistance.
A suspicion her ship's A.I. validated. A massive green explosion was detected ten klicks ahead in the debris field, but even her armor's scan visor could not identify the underlying elements producing it.
"Anomalous compound detected. Unable to map molecular structure. Thorough atomic analysis advised."
As the blast subsided, the strangest sight even Samus had seen came into view. Something like a giant ape appeared - dwarfing even a Zillo Beast - with several tails and red fur was beating its chest furiously.
A headache assaulted her, and an unfamiliar voice spoke, "...for you attack a world under the protection of Son Gokū, the Sage who is Heaven's Equal. Kii-kii!"
Green fire burst from its mouth and blew apart two Pirate frigates at once, and ignited many smaller ships in the process. Though inaudible in space, the creature's chest beating and agape mouth gave the impression of a shrieking jungle beast.
Her first inclination was to fire at it, but the beast flew - flew, unaided somehow - at the Pirates and began biting and ripping through the remaining battleships. Though notorious for the safety-second nature of their spacecraft, seeing the Bendezium plating of their vessels literally chewed through by a flying skyscraper was shocking. It plowed through their relentless blaster fire and missiles unhindered, brutally smashing some ships flat between its hands and mutely roaring at the others. There was no stopping something like that.
Another message began relaying from the Admiral. "This might be our lucky day, somehow. We'll let that big fella handle them. Long range sensors picked up a spatial anomaly like that one over Norion. They're crashing a Leviathan into the planet. Our men will handle containment, Aran you will need to confront whatever creature that thing infects to guard it. Let's hope it's not another giant monkey."
Signaling acceptance of his orders, she followed the fleet down towards the planet's southern hemisphere, opposite the side of the Pirate slaughter. It seemed a pristine planet, hopefully not occupied by a species of giant flying apes.
The fleet passed near a large coastal city and would be visible to anyone on the ground. It was normally a heavy criminal offense to reveal the intergalactic community's existence to less advanced worlds, circumstances permitting. But through the quick use of her Scan Visor on a curious installation, it seemed they already had spaceflight technology similar to their own, though well out of date.
About twenty kilometers offshore, they reached the destination Dane indicated the Leviathan had impacted.
The fleet touched down on the edge of a tropical island large enough that it's mountain ranges extended past the horizon. After her ship confirmed the atmosphere was breathable, Samus exited and saw two armored marine platoons ordering themselves into formation near Dane's battleship. She noticed these marines possessed Phazon-Enhancement Devices attached to their chest plates, just as she did. A month prior, her doppelganger had infected her with the corrosive Phazon: a radioactive material that boosted the abilities of its host at the cost of heightened aggression and risk of grotesque mutations.
Without the Admiral having a PED installed on her armor, she and the other bounty hunters who defended the planet Norion would have been taken over by the substance and lost to its madness. There was no known cure.
The G.F.S. battleship's exit platform vertically descended to the ground, with Dane being flanked by a few more marines and technicians. Acknowledging his saluting soldiers, he made a beeline to Samus, followed by the platoon.
"It's good to have you onboard this mission, Aran. We might just avoid a total shit show if we act swiftly."
She acknowledged him with a nod, and waited for him to outline the plan.
"I swear you talk even less nowadays. Regardless, our techies spotted the Leviathan descend into these mountains here." He gestured at the impressive terrain behind the battleship, which looked small by comparison. "We couldn't safely land up there; visibility is down due to a strange fog, but our scans indicate the Leviathan Seed is not too deep in."
The technical assistant beside him made a few deft strokes on a datapad to transmit Samus the location data. Almost three klicks through dense woodland surrounded by huge mountains.
"I know better than to interfere with your methods, but if we don't hear back from you within the hour my platoon and I are coming in. Good luck," he saluted as she swiftly headed towards the Seed.
Thirty minutes later Samus was forced to admit she was truly puzzled. In the midst of the dense fog, she came across a tree she'd marked two times already. She knew she'd walked in a straight line towards the Seed, but she'd come to this same spot again.
She looked around for an explanation, but the fog stopped her seeing more than three feet ahead. Even her thermal visor gave her nothing but endless white, as if there was no animal or insect life in these woods at all. She'd never experienced something like this, besides in a dream.
"Wait, the fog. That has to be it," she realized. It had to be some kind of hallucinogen, that was the only explanation for her predicament. Her suit reported filtering out anything that wasn't breathable air, so it was still a mystery how she was being influenced. After having her brain chemistry scanned for a minute, her suit finally confirmed it.
"Neurological scans indicate a compromised nervous system. Presence of the previous mystery compound found. Subject is advised to temporarily hand this Chozo Armorsuit Unit control of mobility until mental integrity is regained."
"Ceding control to Armorsuit, proceed towards Leviathan Seed coordinates and return control to me," Samus affirmed. Her suit began moving on it's own. Her own confident and purposeful strides were replaced with a stiff, mechanical progress forward. She felt more like a hostage than a pilot, as the armor of her adopted people dragged her in the direction she couldn't move to on her own.
The fog began to disappear as she neared her destination. That bright spot, however, was replaced by great caution as the ground began to rumble and quake severely. A final scan found no more 'mystery compound' in her brain, making it safe to walk unassisted again.
And not a moment too soon. She took a supersonic leap to her left side as a massive orb of water gouged out a crater where she had been standing. The spot she landed became consumed in shadow. With no time to confirm, she sped away and was knocked over when the ground lurched again with the impact of something hitting the ground.
Looking behind her, she saw another giant creature. An orange toad with sickly blue spots covering much of its face. She barely registered that it was wearing a vest and a blade the size of a hill, as it was bearing down on her angrily, and croaking so loud her suit was barely able to filter it out.
Samus pointed her arm cannon at the creature, but it seemed fruitless. The size difference made any damage she could inflict too minor. Not unless she could get a clear shot at weak points. Scaling a creature over a hundred meters in height would be difficult under good circumstances.
Though taxing, she had her suit speed her up, which created sizable sonic booms as she encircled the toad rapidly. She peppered it with missiles that coated it's body in ice upon impact. It snarled at her and began swatting at her with a speed that belied its size. Its ferocity nearly sent her flying away. Mercifully, all the dirt and debris it kicked up allowed her to hide and target her Grapple Beam at its neck. Her foe was wildly turning its head back and forth trying to find her in the plumes of dust.
After being pulled up behind its head by the electrical beam, she quickly moved around into position and took aim. She silently noticed the blue splotches she saw before were signs of Phazon infection. This was the Leviathan's guardian.
She readied a powerful blast to pierce the toad's right eye, straight through to the brain. It must have seen the light from her oncoming attack as it immediately performed a gesture of some kind. Samus felt herself lock up, and her every thought was consumed by the excruciating pain coursing through her entire body.
Somewhere in her mind she realized she was suffering from a huge electrical shock, enough to cause visible arcs of electricity to emit from her body like lightning. Her visor's display was glitching out and her muscles painfully contracted. It was a miracle her brain hadn't shut down yet. When the shock finally ended she couldn't stop herself from pitching sideways and falling off the amphibian. She was already so hurt she barely felt the impact from falling such a height. She'd be lucky if she didn't undergo cardiac arrest, much less walked again.
The creature began laughing cruelly, and what sounded like words spilled from its mouth. Her suit's translator module recognized the speech as a variant of a known language from some far flung world, and aptly translated for her.
"Bad luck, metal man. You were a slippery fella, but I've had my fair share of fighting pipsqueaks sneakin' around my big frame. Even an idiot would learn to counter that eventually. You won't stop me from protecting my nest. Goodbye."
It raised it's webbed hands above her, and Samus prepared to meet her end. She never thought she'd be taken out on some backwoods planet in the unexplored region of the galaxy.
"Gwah!" and the sound of a distant splash greeted her instead of oblivion. Samus struggled to move even an inch, but was able to angle her head slightly to see her savior.
It was the flying ape.
"Hmph," Son said. He'd tossed that pipe smoking toad out to sea. "If he comes back I'll clobber him."
'Oi watch it. Chief Toad is under some kind of spell, I could tell,' Naruto said from inside the seal. 'Looks like the Genjutsu fog the toads keep around Mt. Myoboku is down, we need to figure out what happened here.'
The great ape looked around at the damaged landscape and spotted a figure clothed in multi-colored metal. Despite being all but incapacitated, they shakily aimed their barrel-shaped arm at Son.
"I like your grit, small fry," he said, guffawing at the pointless gesture. "I hope you appreciated my wisdom in guarding your territory, Naruto. However, I know my limits, I'm not cut out for this kind of diplomacy. Don't be a stranger, and tell Kurama to suck it!"
The transformation became undone, Son's form phasing into an insubstantial mist as Naruto appeared, and landed on the ruined ground.
"You'd think almost a thousand years of bickering would be enough, oh well…"
The sound of a metal thud made him focus. The alien Son saved was fully collapsed and unconscious from injury. Naruto quickly approached the fallen and did a double take, noticing their resemblance to the dark, malicious alien wearing similar armor he'd seen not a half-hour earlier. They even boasted a cannon around their right hand, and he could see part of a human-like face through the visor. Was this a common style of battle armor in outer space or was there a connection between the two?
"You're in no shape to give me the answer, and I have to know what I'm working with before I act drastically," Naruto muttered. He kneeled and touched his fist to theirs, invoking the ability he learned from Killer Bee upon passing the Falls of Truth.
He found himself in an unfamiliar, dark gray space. What seemed like shipping containers filled the area and bore unfamiliar writing upon them. It gave Naruto the impression of being in a warehouse.
A few feet in front of him were a pair of blondes, one around Naruto's age and another who was at most five-years old. A mother and daughter, perhaps.
"Samus, I need you to stay here. Promise me you'll stay," the older one pleaded.
"But I'm scared, mommy. Daddy's gone too, I don't wanna be alone."
"Oh honey, I'm sure Daddy's okay." After sweeping her daughter into a strong hug, she said, "We-we'll make it a game. I'll go count while you hide here. Don't don't come out til I find you, alright?"
The sounds of explosions and firearms could be heard in the distance of the memory. It was obvious to Naruto what the mother was attempting. After some convincing, the child hid in one of the large metal containers after the mother made for one of the doors exiting the warehouse. As the memory was still centered on the daughter's perspective, he concluded this 'Samus' was the tall figure in armor.
And he had a sinking feeling why this memory was so present in her mind. Not even a minute after the mother left did her daughter leave her hiding spot to follow, pulling Naruto along.
The girl cracked open the door, finding her mother towered over by a large, dark purple lizard creature a moderate distance away from the warehouse. It's beak-like mouth expressed a vicious glee rarely seen before it bit the top half of the mother's body off and sliced the rest to bits with it's jagged talons. The gore and chunks left behind were then smeared across the ground, and the creature roared in apparent delight.
Reflexively, Naruto had covered the daughter's eyes in vain. Yet he was but a phantom in a memory, and the child watched on with bare comprehension and unmistakable terror. She managed the wherewithal to quietly close the door and race back to her hiding spot.
Though empathetic, Naruto closed his eyes and focused on drawing out further significant memories. Extreme childhood trauma wasn't enough to give someone his chakra. Sasuke proved one could completely misuse their background to 'justify' heinous acts and end up in prison. Though Naruto knew he came and went at his leisure.
Memories flew by in a blurred panorama of colors. Flashes of faces from people of vastly different species and times passed by before settling on a strong memory in a snap. He appeared inside the command center of a spacecraft filled with a military regiment and technical crew, all very active. A loud klaxon sound signaled an ongoing emergency. On a large screen he could see an armored person in a vessel with fire spreading rapidly through it.
"Ian!"
The person shouting was a young blonde girl. He almost didn't recognize her from her hardened expression, but this was definitely the Samus girl. She couldn't have been older than twenty at this point, if not younger. She was looking swiftly between the screen and what was certainly the commander, dressed more officially than the others present. His stoic visage reminded him of many old or retired jonin.
From the corner of the room, a man shouted, "Unit meltdown imminent. It's going to explode, Commander Malkovitch!"
The man paused for the barest of moments, and with his clear resignation masked, he ordered, "Disengage the drive unit, immediately."
The shock at the order was clear, from the dark skinned man beside the commander to the technical crew estimating the time they had left to react. But none more so than the young girl.
"Adam, you can't. That's Ian, that's your little brother!" she shouted, pointing at the flickering screen showing a frantic figure searching for escape. "Just give the order, I can make it. You have to trust me, Adam. Give me a chance!"
When the commander didn't reply, Samus made as if to leave the room without authorization. A single hand gesture and the girl was quickly detained by two others much larger than herself. She threw them off her without effort and looked back pleadingly.
Adam clenched his hands and pretended not to see that plea. "Seal the blast doors and commence disposal of the drive unit now. That's an order."
Thirty seconds after detachment, the burning craft exploded with a blinding light above the planet they were orbiting. The man was surely dead now.
The commanding officer inhaled deeply before making his way to Samus. He looked at her pitiably.
"I'll see you court-martialed if you ever disobey orders like that again. I loved my brother, but we were here to save hundreds of stranded civilians, he knew the risks. You would have died and taken all of us down with your foolishness." He patted her shoulder sympathetically, and lowered his cap to hide his eyes as he strode out of the room.
The memory suddenly progressed. Samus was handing in some sort of paperwork, though Naruto couldn't read it. Her face was somber, but resolute. As she exited the enormous building, Naruto saw an impossibly large city outside. It stretched from high in the sky down to levels beyond seeing, and a sea of flying cars darting between the literal skyscrapers at regular intervals. He hadn't even conceived of the possibility of so big a city, yet here it was.
Ahead of them stood the commander again, arms held behind his back.
Samus walked ahead determinedly. She stopped beside him, and without looking him in the face, said, "Congrats on your promotion, General." They walked away without looking back, clearly set on their paths.
The memory finally transitioned closer to the present day. Present was presumably Samus, now in predominantly orange armor. She was conversing with some kind of alien insect, which was more than double her own large height. This one seemed far friendlier than the ones who invaded his planet, and an entirely different species to boot.
However, the memory distorted wildly before Naruto found himself shunted into a white void he recognized. This was the entrance to one's mind; he was being kicked out.
"You don't trespass in people's minds," a harsh, feminine voice said.
There she was, again in the striking orange battle armor. Her cannon was pointed at him and an angry expression could be seen through her visor.
Smirking, though apologetic, Naruto replied, "Sorry about that, it looked like you passed out from your injuries."
"That doesn't explain why you're traipsing around my brain like you own the place. Get out."
His smile fell. "I'm trying to help you. I don't think you're going to last long, but I have to be sure about your character before I help you recover."
Samus tentatively lowered her weapon. She recognized him as the one who appeared from inside that giant ape. He'd have little trouble harming her if he'd intended to.
"So, what, you only help people you like?", she scoffed. "I guess empathy works differently on your planet."
He shook his head quickly. "It's not like that. But… the way I help people is different. You're not from here, helping you as quickly as you need would require giving you a special power." He crossed his arms and sighed, before continuing, "And I've already failed to stop that power from being put in the wrong hands today. I can't be too careful."
Though not sure what this power was, Samus inferred it was related to her scans of the strange energy that ape was releasing in space and the hallucinogen in her brain. It certainly sounded dangerous to take that into herself.
"With the time you spent violating my most private thoughts, my people could have had me healing in a Bacta tank by now," she countered. "You've wasted so much time!"
"Eh, not really. Time passes differently in here." He gestured at the white void surrounding them. "Barely a second has passed in real time. That was supposed to give me all the time in the world to make sure you were trustworthy. I never thought your mind would be strong enough to interrupt me. You're not like other people, are you?"
She quieted for a moment and thought over the proposal. More power was not likely to harm her, the Phazon infection notwithstanding. Though the prospect of turning into a giant animal did not please her. There was also the likelihood her nerves were too fried for even a long term bath in Bacta fluid to fix. And she didn't plan to rest, not with her many foes and dark doppelganger out there. Whatever it took.
"How would this work? What do I have to do?"
Naruto smiled again, and approached her. "I won't lie, it's going to be hard and painful. You'll be a whole new kind of being. Your horizon will expand to as far as you want it to be." He held out his fist to her and raised his eyebrows expectantly.
"Will I still be me?" Samus asked seriously.
"In mind, sure. But your body will be forced to adapt to make room for the new energy; you'll have a whole new organ system, even!" he said excitedly, before sobering up. "But be warned, you'll be under our surveillance until we decide you've proven yourself. If you fail, you'll be detained until we figure out how to suppress it, and we'll send you on your way. Is that an acceptable deal?"
Letting the armor disappear from her mental and physical self, she answered, "Not that I have much choice if I want to function the same, but the terms still work out in my favor. Deal."
Samus awoke as if from a daze, and saw the man before her. She couldn't have been sure in her mind if his appearance was as handsome as he'd seemed, but there he was, tall, blonde, and with a broad, whiskered smile.
And then the pain hit. It felt as if a bonfire was being forced into her left arm, and rapidly spreading everywhere at once. Once it reached her heart, she thought she was dying as it began to rapidly pump. It was simply too much in her state.
"You're going to pass out, but I'll see when you when you awake... Sammy? Mrs. Samus? What do I call you?"
Before the darkness stole her sight and mind, she sputtered out, "Aran. M-my name is Samus Aran. T-thank yo-"
A horned man walked through a long marble hall. A procession of hourglasses lined this grand room entirely; they were emptied to different degrees and didn't empty at the rate a normal such timepiece would. The man stopped at a particularly large hourglass, which was nearly emptied, and stared intently.
"Soon, my dear. Your Millennium Trial will end and we will at last reunite in marriage."
(A/N): Cross-posted to Ao3: works/33847927/chapters/84153097
I had fun writing that, even if I deleted a whole section with Konan because it added nothing. Lemme know what you thought in the comments, and if you think something could be improved please be specific. I want to improve over time and "it sucked" sucks as criticism.
While I have the story mapped out, let me know what characters/series you'd like to see. Particularly what women you'd like to see join Naruto's harem. No promises they'll be added if I can't think of a way that seems natural. They may already be planned (keep an eye out for terms from specific series!), but nothing ventured, nothing gained!
(ignore, just to catch those googling for fanfic relationships)
Current Harem:
Naruto x Tsunade
Naruto x Sakura
Naruto x Ino
Naruto x Mei Terumi
Naruto x Konan
Naruto x Shion (priestess)
Naruto x Kurotsuchi
Naruto x Samui