To the Future

by cbehrills

Uchiha Sarada is the 9th Hokage. A legendary shinobi, the first Uchiha to have become a Hokage. However, her reign is not easy, the village is under attack from a threat greater than any that have come before. When even the Five Kage cannot stop the incoming threat there is only one person who could, Uzumaki Naruto. There is but one problem, he is dead.

176. Sora's Return

BACK TO SCHOOL – SORA'S RETURN

The Military Academy

Sora is greeted by Clyde calling his name triumphantly and the deafening cheer of thousands of his students. He is greeted also by the look of anguish on the faces of Nadia and Swen who realise that the situation has just changed completely for them. Although Nadia prefers to use her intellect, she could have easily gotten through this skirmish using brute force alone previously, now that the headmaster is here that won't be so easy. Muto Sora may well have been the only person in the world who could turn this situation around. He could only have been brought here by a combination of Naruto's brilliance and Juan's self-sacrifice, talk about bad luck.

Lara just about manages to steady herself without assistance and watches as Sora walks towards Nina and herself. She dismissed him not so long ago as a stupid old man who had given up on this world. She had told Mirai that it was not worth hoping that he would change his ways and help them. When she had been so far gone and so much effort was required to pull her back to the land of hope, she had doubted Headmaster Sora. Now she realises that he may never have given up, that he was always waiting for the right opportunity to stand up to the empire, that this opportunity has finally come.

Sora stops just before he reaches the spot of scorched ground where Juan had sacrificed himself. He bows, whispering just loud enough for Nina and Lara to hear.

"Juan, don't worry, I won't let your sacrifice go to waste."

Nina nods, "Where the hell have you been?"

"Sorry," Sora smiles, "I was busy elsewhere. I didn't think the royals would really be so bold as to attack the academy. I guess that Nadia considered the backup plan unlikely. She saw through by bluff, I should have seen that coming."

"Yeah, you should have."

"I guess I have some making up to do?"

"You better make this up to us old man," Nina says, poking Sora in the chest, "You make this up to me, to Juan, to all the students here, to Ming Dai and to Naruto, or I'll never let you hear the end of it."

"Understood."

Sora walks back to the centre stage. He takes about half a minute to reach the middle of the impromptu platform that Swen's telekinesis has created for them, standing between the many students of the academy and the royals who fought them.

Nadia takes a deep breath. "Alright Sora let's think this through rationally shall we, we have two hostages and we're not afraid to use them. Against two royals in this situation you are best of compromising and hoping that we won't tell the emperor what you've been doing. We're willing to let everyone else here live, and keep quiet about them, in exchange for us taking these two away."

Nobody believes this offer, even for a second.

"I told you that they were my students didn't I? I told you to take your hands off them, but it seems that you won't. Does Swen know Dai?"

"He knows," Ming Dai responds.

"Then the situation is obvious. Furst has told you to take Naruto alive, so you won't hurt him. King Swen, you won't harm your own son will you?"

Swen looks into Sora's mind and sees that he is certain of what he is saying, the headmaster isn't testing the waters or bluffing, he has read the situation perfectly. Nadia believed this to be the case from the moment Sora arrived. In other words, her bluff about being unafraid of using hostages was wasted. Sora knows that they won't hurt either of them. However, that doesn't mean that they won't at least try to escape with one of them.

This is still a situation Sora can't escape from.

"This isn't a negotiation, this is already a fight," Sora declares.

Nadia tightens her grip around Naruto's neck.
Swen flares up his 'psychic' energy, ready to throw Dai out of the academy building.

Nadia knows something that Swen doesn't though, she knows about Headmaster Sora's divine ability. A divine ability that hasn't been activated in many years but may be the single hardest to fight against. As Sora raises his right hand, he presses his thumb firmly into the tip of his middle finger, swirling 'enhancement' divine energy around the point of contact. This is a man who spearheaded the last war alongside Furst and Endou, he's not someone who just anyone can stand against.

Sora clicks his fingers. In an instant, two concentrated beams of divine energy fly from the point of contact, hitting Nadia and Swen in the head.

The moment the two royals are struck, their whole world seems to spin. They lose their coordination completely and utterly and their muscles seem to react differently to their commands from one second to the next. Their nerves are temporarily rewired, with Nadia and Swen's method of self-control differing from one moment to the next. They become so totally debilitated that even with the power to read another's mind, even with the greatest strategical mind ever to have existed, they cannot overcome the confusion.

This is Sora's Stun Click divine ability.

This is the ability that confused entire armies during the last great war.

Sora uses this confusion, 'enhancing' his leg as he kicks the ground and flies forwards. His first target is Naruto, or more specifically Queen Nadia's grip on the 7th Hokage. The queen had cleverly positioned herself behind Naruto before the stun click occurred, but that's not enough to stop a warrior of Sora's calibre, nor is it enough to stop a fighter of Naruto's creativity.

Sora throws a right hook, curving his arm around Naruto's body to strike Nadia in the side of the head. Simultaneously, he raises his left hand and creates a small bubble of 'enhancement' energy, exactly as Naruto had predicted. The headmaster and hokage have minds in perfect sync with one another. As Sora's strike connects with Nadia's skull, Naruto throws a kunai towards Swen, the speed of the kunai increasing almost ten times over as it passes through the field of 'enhancement' energy that Sora cleverly placed to boost it.

In less than a second, both Nadia and Swen are struck powerfully by enhanced blows. Combining this with their debilitated state, they are forced to momentarily release their hostages. However, the two of them are powerful, the stun click is already beginning to wear off and they ready themselves to regain control of their bodies and their supposed hostages.

A fraction of a second is not long to let go of a hostage, but it's all the time in the world against these shinobi. During that fraction of a second, Minato and Tobirama teleport to Naruto and Dai respectively, grab hold of them and quickly teleport them out of the danger zone. Leaving just the three of them, Sora, Nadia and Swen.

Now there are no hostages to get in the way.

Sora grabs Nadia's head in her last moment of confusion and slams it down into the ground below, knocking a face shaped dent into the granite floor below. He then leaps over to Swen, unfortunately not making it to his royal adversary before the latter can recover.

Swen begins to lash out at Sora, striking quickly and accurately at his weak spots. The quick recovery of focus by the 'psychic' royal is impressive, and Sora has now doubt that it was boosted even further by his control over his own brain, but this is a straightforward fist-fight, not something that Swen is going to beat him in. The king's punches travel faster than any of the shinobi can track, even escaping Naruto's one true sense, but they're not faster than Sora's reaction time. Each punch is met with an 'enhanced' counterpunch which each time is slightly faster, more powerful and more accurate than the last.

After over one hundred exchanged punches, Sora makes the breakthrough, cleanly slipping through Swen's iron guard and landing a first blow to the king's head. This first strike causes Swen to flinch, sinking him into even deeper difficulties as twenty successive strikes hit him in the face. It is after that twentieth blow that Sora decides he has enough time to stop swinging, he grips Swen by the hair, flipping him over his head and slamming him down into the ground. Sora then picks Swen up, lets him go as if dropping a ball and kicks him as hard as he can, launching the man into Nadia.

Nadia by this time has regained her balance, she holds out her palm as if to catch a falling Swen. By the time the male royal reaches her, he has had enough time to fully mobilise his golden 'psychic' energy and bring himself to a halt. The moment he comes to that standstill, he creates another golden 'psychic' javelin, identical to the one he used previously and launches it at Sora.

Despite the speed with which the javelin flies, cutting through the air, Sora manages to sidestep it, even reaching his hand out to the side and catching it half way along it's length. With a squeeze of his hand, Sora converts the javelin from the gold-pink 'psychic' energy to gold-blue 'enhancement' energy before launching it back.

Nadia gives Swen a push, just about managing to get her fellow royal out of the way before the javelin hits the ground.

Nina sighs. 'Juan, I hope you're watching this. Your sacrifice wasn't for nothing. He's going to beat them both.'.

"It looks like Juan's plan worked out," Naruto says.

"Don't be so sure yet Naruto."

Naruto turns his head to look at Shikamaru who has been voicing his doubts more and more lately.

"It's still two on one," Shikamaru explains, "I'm not confident that we're out of the woods yet."

"Maybe not, but at least now we've done everything we can."

"Yeah, now it's all up to that crazy old man."

Sora raises his hand over his head, above him hundreds of arrows of gold-blue appear, each of them spaced evenly apart until the final arrow is created and a square-outlined formation of weapons appears. Sora mercilessly throws his hand down, launching all of the arrows at his opponents. Together, Nadia and Swen just about manage to combine their divine energy and stop all of the projectiles.

While blocking the arrows, Nadia and Swen naturally turned their heads to the skies from where the arrows were coming, this was a mistake, both of them knew that yet they powerless to stop themselves. Humanity's natural habits are almost impossible to break with willpower alone, even for a royal. Using the arrows a distraction, Sora rushes the two royals striking each of them in the stomach and knocking them yet further away from the shinobi and military forces he wishes to defend.

Swen brings himself and Nadia to a halt using his 'psychic' powers.

"Alright, let's stop for a moment shall we?" Nadia snarls. "I know that we won't be able to defeat you before your divine ability recharges, so I may as well speak with you now."

Sora grins. Not many people can push Nadia and Swen into a tricky position like this. There may be one or two amongst the royals who are capable of it, perhaps one other hidden expert in the world and naturally the emperor himself. Still, Shikamaru's concerns were right, while he's started this fight well, facing two royals is not going to be an easy fight to win, even for someone like him. If he didn't use his divine ability at the start, he may never have been able to gain this advantage.

Sora gestures to Nadia, eager to hear what she has to say.

"Surely you can see how this is going to play out," Nadia says.

"We don't all use 'mind' as our element Nadia, why don't you tell me what's going to happen. Let's assume that I'll believe you for now."

"Let's for a moment assume that you manage to pull off this miracle old man. Let's say that you manage to defeat both of us."

CLICK!

Nadia and Swen feel their senses scrambled just as before.

A kick to Swen's head, a punch to Nadia's chest. The two of them are knocked to the floor, each reeling and in even worse state than before. The injuries are really starting to pile up now. Sora leaps back away from the two of them into what he considers a safe zone and chuckles away to himself as the two of them get to their feet.

"Sorry, I thought you were going to be talking for a while, so I decided I may as well use that time regaining the required energy to do that again."

What bothers Nadia the most as she gets back to her feet and massages her wounds, is that she didn't see that coming. Not foreseeing what Naruto was going to do was forgivable, it's been years since there has been a 'life' user in Homeworld, but Sora has been here for years. She should have been able to tell that he was going to do that, there is only one reason she wouldn't have been able to. Sora has been changed in a way that she couldn't predict. Only one person could do this, it must have been Uzumaki Naruto. There's nothing she hates more than an unpredictable opponent. The 7th Hokage is the last person she ever wanted the world to throw at her.

"You're not going to be able to kill both of us!" Nadia yells in frustration, "Even if you do get one of us, the other will get a message back to Furst. You can bet on it."

"He probably won't be able to kill either of us," Swen blandly admits.

"Exactly. You know what will happen if the emperor comes to the academy," Queen Nadia threatens, "You will be as good as dead. If you value your own life, you need to prove your loyalty to the emperor now! Hand over Uzumaki Naruto to us, we can negotiate what happens to Swen's son at a later date, the emperor won't interfere in that."

"Nadia!" Swen shouts at his friend.

"These are the best terms we can negotiate right now Swen, so just grin and bear it," Nadia demands. "If you agree to those terms Sora, the three of us can all come out of this happy. You even get to protect your pupil."

"Only one of them," Sora says.

"You know the road is closed for Uzumaki Naruto. When the emperor declared interest in him, he was already dead."

Several people subconsciously position themselves between Nadia and Naruto. Naruto doesn't feel the least bit comforted though. He admits to himself that he is afraid. He thought he had become strong during his training here, but that was never his educator's intentions. What he learnt here was how to become strong, and by watching these few brief clashes between Sora and the royals, he has realised just how far away he is from being strong. Nadia and Swen are tremendously powerful, more so than anyone he ever encountered in his pocket-world. They are stronger, faster and smarter than he is many times over, it's not even close, and they are evidently much weaker in turn than Furst Jonas. Nadia's threat isn't empty, the emperor may not truly be a god of this world, but compared to the citizens of the pocket worlds, he has already achieved that god-like status.

"You seem to be forgetting something Nadia," Sora smiles, "If I defeat the two of you here, there will be plenty of time for him to escape. If I pull of this 'miracle' as you refer to it, then my student will be ready to start his rebellion."

"You're going to run away and start a rebellion?" Nadia asks incredulously, "Don't be stupid, you don't need 'mind' energy to tell what's going to happen. The emperor controls all of homeworld, with six royals each wielding tremendous power, he strikes fear into the hearts of all. There is no rebellion against Furst Jonas, there is no hope, he can find you anywhere, can defeat anyone, control anyone, kill anyone. I thought this was why you had remained loyal to him all this time."

"You are wrong Nadia, he can't control anyone."

"Oh?"

"He has controlled me all these years, I admit that. I worked for him, for evil, but he was never able to control his predecessor. He never controlled the true emperor, Endou Akashi."

"There is an exception to every rule," Nadia admits.

"Now there are dozens to this rule, all inspired by one man," Sora explains happily, "Uzumaki Naruto arrived in this world and he gave me the courage to stand up for what I believe in once again. A young man wielding 'life' energy leading a hopeless rebellion against a much stronger enemy."

Nadia rolls her eyes. "Don't say it."

"He is the reincarnation of my brother-in-law," Sora says, ignoring Nadia's sarcastic pleas, "He is the next great saviour of homeworld, that's why I will fight for him."

Nadia cradles her head in her right hand. Her supreme logical skills allow her to predict things with superhuman accuracy. Most people give up opposing her just a few sentences into a conversation, they don't even need to feel her divine energy to know how powerful she is. However, there are some people so pig-headed that they decide to discard logic from their thought process totally, usually inspired by the likes of Akashi or Naruto. That's just so grating for her.

"He's deluded Nadia," Swen says, "He doesn't have any sort of plan to make this happen."

"He's been deceived Swen," she sighs, "He's been blinded by the light of false hope. It takes something special to do that to a man like him, but Uzumaki Naruto is highly skilled. He's a false prophet, a man with enough charisma to talk around even the academy's headmaster."

Sora takes a single step forward, offering his hand in friendship.

"Nadia, Swen, if you joined us that hope would look a little more real. We could take the fight to the emperor, we could be free. You wouldn't have to live in fear anymore, you wouldn't have to bow to the emperor."

"I prefer to use my brain," Nadia says, "The logic is easy to follow here. Uzumaki Naruto can't possibly defeat Furst, it's a mathematical impossibility."

"I will stand by Nadia," Swen adds, "No matter what she decides."

Sora nods, checking his own divine energy reserves. He's brought just enough time in this conversation to recharge the reserves he needs to activate his divine ability. He can click his fingers again at any moment he chooses and stun the king and queen. He also knows that Nadia will have counted the interval between his last two attacks, and that she will know that he is ready to use that power again. This time they are composed for a fight, the duo who can predict everything that he will do.

He may not need a miracle as Nadia put it, but he is certainly going to need fate on his side.

"If neither of you are backing down Nadia, then I'm going to try and pull off this miracle, shall I attack again?"

Nadia nods, "Do your worst, Headmaster Sora."

The tension in the air reaches it's climax, as the three strongest people in this quarter of the world fix their eyes on one another. All other distractions are flushed from their mind as they refocus on one single purpose, defeating their opponent.

The three of them rush one another, arriving in at their midpoint and throwing a combination of strikes which collide against one another. The shockwave that emanates from the point of contact is the single greatest such wave of energy that Naruto and the others have ever felt, knocking most of them from their feet and leaving the elderly Shikamaru gripping the 7th Hokage's shoulder for balance.

The rapid strike exchange begins, with Nadia and Swen relying on their ability to foresee where Sora is going to strike next and with Sora relying on his 'enhancement' abilities to move just that tiny bit quicker than his opponents. As their strikes land on one another, they tense all the muscles in their body, forcing the vibration down into the ground through their feet, raising the dust around them in clouding themselves in an almost opaque gathering of dirt.

After many strikes have been exchanged, Swen sees an opportunity and seizes it, taking hold of both of Sora's arms and refusing him the chance to strike at them again. This leaves Nadia an opening which she uses to land a clean kick to Sora's forehead. Swen releases the headmaster's arms, expecting the kick to launch him backwards, but by 'enhancing' his grip on the ground below, Sora manages to hold himself in position.

CLICK!

Sora snaps his fingers and stuns the royals again.

Sora throws an upward punch, catching Swen on the underside of the jaw, throwing him up a long way into the air, uniting him with the birds. Next he turns his attention to Nadia, he spins once on the spot to generate rotary momentum and throws his elbow towards the side of her head, determined to slow down her recovery of her mental faculties. However, much to Sora's amazement, Nadia manages to work out exactly which of her senses have been rerouted and blocks his attack.

Sora follows this up with another, simpler strike to Nadia's torso to drive her backwards. The strike is nowhere near as powerful as he hoped it would be, but the faster attack denies Nadia the crucial time which even she would need to block an attack following one of his stun clicks.

Swen uses his 'psychic' powers to twist himself around in the air and fires himself back down towards the ground like a missile. As he crashes down, sending yet more tremors through the already unstable foundations of the academy, he tries to throw a punch at Sora but fails, as the headmaster even manages to hold this back with his tremendous power.

Swen plants his feet in the ground and enters into a contest of strength. Normally, it would be impossible to win such a contest against Sora, but to the surprise of many, Swen actually manages to force him back a few steps. His tremendous strength as one of the royals combined with his 'psychic' telekinetic powers aid him in this contest as he continues to push forward, giving Nadia vital time to recover.

Nadia rushes past the tussling duo and aims a kick at Sora from behind.

Sora's manoeuvrability suddenly increases, despite the tussle he finds himself in with Swen. He was faking the struggle. He ducks beneath the incoming attack, waiting just long enough for Nadia's kick to connect with Swen's head before grabbing her leg and slamming her down into the king like a bat.

Swen gets up as quickly as he can, leaping upwards and thrusting his knee towards Sora's head. The headmaster raises both hands to block but gasps as he catches Swen's purple eyes, realising that his mind is being read, and that the knee strike was a decoy. Swen's fist finds the side of Sora's head, stunning him and setting him stumbling from one foot to the other.

Swen tries to strike again, but this time it his turn to be surprised. Sora counters Swen's punch by headbutting his fist. Swen read Sora's mind, he saw that this was Sora's intention, but doesn't know what he was supposed to do about it. If an opponent's intentions are so stupid, it's totally unnatural for him to oppose them.

'He actually hurt Swen with that stupid attack?' Nadia scoffs internally.

The queen leaps up and wraps herself around Sora's limbs from behind, holding him in place with a strength that even the headmaster would likely find hard to resist.

'Try blocking this with your head!' Swen thinks as he kicks Sora in the chest.

Sora is no fool though, he may not have the incredible foresight powers of his opponents, but he could see that the kick was coming. He cleverly redistributes his weight, allowing the kick to lift him off his feet and allows himself to fall back, scraping along the ground. However, he keeps hold of Nadia, refusing to let her untangle herself from her limbs and forcing her to take the force of Swen's attack.

Nadia groans and shuts her eyes. 'Use it as a decoy Nadia, a decoy.'

Sora uses Nadia as a platform, breaking free of her grip, he presses his hands onto her torso and uses her body as a springboard to flip himself up into the air. This was exactly what Nadia foresaw him doing, preserving the motion from Swen's kick. She creates a golden 'mind' knife while she is still in motion and throws it up towards the airborne Sora, knowing that he can't dodge in mid-air.

Sora doesn't intend to dodge. He catches the blade, cutting his hands painfully but very much intentionally. As he falls back towards the ground, he slams the handle of the knife down into Nadia's head, cutting his hands slightly more as the blade slips through them.

As Sora and Nadia come to a halt on the ground, the queen reels from Sora's strike. Nadia is unable to react as Sora kicks her from her prone position towards Swen.

The 'psychic' user brings Nadia to a halt using a combination of his telekinetic powers and his tremendous strength. He shakes her back into focus and together the two of them manage to dispel the energy from Sora's last attack.

With Nadia fully refocused, she realises what Sora is trying to do, how he is trying to defeat them. Striking Swen's fist with his head, catching a knife by the blade, using the handle to strike at Nadia. It's a deliberately harmful way to go on the offensive. However, since Sora's tactics are harming himself, when they foresee that he is going to do it, they feel naturally inclined to let him. The maniac Sora is attacking in such a stupid way it's impossible to know what they should react to and what they shouldn't.

Sora leaps at the two royals, collecting divine energy on his fist as he does so. Almost everyone is quick to conclude that this is going to be a concentrated attack, Sora intends to finish it with this blow.

'He can't use his hands, he'll attack with his feet, his hands are too injured,' Nadia tells herself logically.

'He's attacking with his hands!?' Swen plucks from Sora's mind, 'That idiot is going to…'

This is the moment that Swen realises it's all going wrong, as he hears a stray thought from Nadia's mind. He looks across in horror to see that she has started reacting to something. She is lowering her hands from her head downwards, this is her way to block a generic kick if she won't be able to react later, he is sure of it. She thinks Sora is going to kick, but he can hear that Sora is going to punch. Nadia is reacting to a kick even though she knows that Sora is crazy and is going to punch.

Sarada grins, this is exactly what Nina and Juan told her that she used to do. Nadia is trapped by logic. She is reacting to what Sora should do, not what he is going to do.

Sora bursts past the royals, positioning himself so that Nadia is between he and Swen. They both know what is coming but they cannot react to it. Sora throws his concentrated attack towards Nadia, expecting this to be the end.

Nadia's hands raise blocking the worst of the concentrated attack, shocking Sora. He looks at Nadia's face, then past her shoulder at Swen's face and witnesses the absolute trust between them. Swen used telekinesis to force his partner into blocking the attack.

Having successfully blocked the attack using Nadia as a proxy, Swen dashes to the side, ready to use his own attack to counter. There is no way Sora will be able to avoid this. They have won. In front of his son, he has demonstrated his unwavering bond with Nadia, with his friend, a bond that they will use to defeat Headmaster Sora.

Everyone thinks Nadia and Swen have won, even Sora.

Except for the person who is counting in the back of her mind.
Nadia realises, that they were just a bit too slow.

Sora feels something tick in his head, he has enough divine energy to activate his divine ability.

CLICK!

Swen's concentrated attack misses as his senses are scrambled completely.

Sora punches Swen as hard as he can in the chest, crying out in pain as he is reminded of the cuts in his fists from previously. Swen falls down to his knees as he desperately uses his 'psychic' energy to stay routed in position. Right now, he and Nadia can only hope to win by sticking together, by fighting as the undefeatable team that they are.

"What you didn't account for, is that I've learned a trick or two from our shinobi friends," Sora declares, "They can make an attack unpredictable, even to the likes of you, Nadia."

Sora punches Nadia this time, but again, no royal flies, because Swen uses his 'psychic' energy to keep her in position. This has bought them enough time, their eyes are steadying, the divine ability is wearing off. It looked like Sora had grasped victory from the jaws of defeat but perhaps it is not to be.

Nadia's eyes are finally focused straight ahead again. The first thing she sees is dust.

Sora kicked dust towards their eyes.

Swen puts his hand in front of his face, having read Sora's mind, he knew to expect the dust.

'Only Swen can see right now,' Nadia realises, 'That means he's going for Swen'.

Nadia predicts exactly the path that Sora was intending to take to Swen, firing several golden 'mind' attacks on that path to try and hinder him. Sora is forced to power through these attacks which have been fired with disturbing accuracy. He even tried changing his path to be more like that of a shinobi, but Nadia saw through it. She is recalibrating her predictions disturbingly quickly, picking up on the intricacies of shinobi techniques far quicker than he did.

Nevertheless, Sora does power through the attacks and throws an 'enhanced' punch at Swen. If this doesn't work, there will be no more chances.

Swen blocks the attack, but Sora keeps pushing his fist forward. He loops 'enhancement' energy around his body and the surroundings, increasing the pressure on Swen's arm with every ounce of power he has to give. He keeps going harder and harder, doing everything in his power and knowing that there is no future for any of them if this fails.

The struggle between Sora's fist and Swen's arm lasts longer than is comfortable for the headmaster, but then he feels something give. Something cracked, either Swen's arm or some other chink formed in his armor. Regardless, as Swen slightly retracts, all the energy built up at their point of contact dispels in an explosion, all of it's power being unleashed upon Swen, overpowering him completely.

The force that hits Swen is so great, he is driven out of the academy through one of the nearby walls.

Nadia still can't see, but she can feel from what just happened that she must now be alone against Sora. That is not where she wants to be. Luckily, because of the clash between Sora and Swen, she can pinpoint exactly the position where Sora must be standing. This attack is do or die for her.

Nadia points her hand and throws golden 'mind' energy at Sora.

Sora dodges.

There is nothing between him and the blind Nadia, so he attacks.

Nadia is dragged out of the way, Sora hits nothing but air and smiles as he realises what happened. Swen must have just used his telekinesis to help her evade the attack. This is immensely impressive at such a long distance, even for a royal of Swen's power. It's a pity that he refused Sora's offer of an alliance, he would have been a powerful ally.

As Nadia is pulled from the military academy, she comes to a halt at Swen's side and wipes the dust from her eyes. She looks to Swen and exchanges a look with him, they don't even need to exchange words to know each other's mind. They won't give up from something like this.

However, as the royals take their first step back towards the academy, they are overwhelmed with pain. The backlash from their injuries in the fight comes crashing down all at once. Sora's attacks were all 'enhanced', it's not beyond the realms of possibility that he spent some of that energy on enhancing this pain as well.

Nadia grimaces, realising that she has been totally overcome. Sora's attacks are too unpredictable, and while she's starting to get the hang of them, if they go back into the academy now, the chances are that he will kill them. The odds have been turned completely. The headmaster alone isn't her biggest problem, it's the attention that he is probably receiving right now.

Every second they are out here, Sora is probably being healed by Uzumaki Naruto. There is no longer a way for them to win this fight. Even if their powers of prediction became omniscient, Sora's raw power is greater than theirs, and he has an enormous vitality boost with Naruto at hand. They have lost, completely.

"There's no way we can win, is there?" Swen asks.

"If we went back right now, assuming Naruto hasn't had a chance to heal him yet, our odds would be about half," Nadia says, "He's changed his style to match that of a shinobi, but he may be able to change it again. If he can do that, it would be impossible for us to defeat him."

"Then what do we do?"

Nadia shakes her head, "He's brought this on himself."

"You mean-"

"Yeah," Nadia interrupts, "Sora has decided to make this as painful as possible, now there is only one way this can go."

Swen looks back at the academy, pitying those who are likely celebrating within it's walls. This is the first time in years that a royal has been defeated, it may be the first time ever that two have been defeated at once. However, this victory is going to come at a greater cost than any of those inside the walls could ever imagine.

There is only one choice for Nadia and Swen.

They have to tell the emperor.

Furst Jonas is coming to the academy!