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.

183. Fighting Above his Level

BACK TO SCHOOL – FIGHTING ABOVE HIS LEVEL

Mars' Home

Mars looks at the opening to the door, ignoring the fact that the dangerous pocket-worlder in front of him has just broken free. He runs the numbers in his head, makes estimations of the enemies strength and considers Naruto's boasts from just a moment before. The enemy is too strong? That can't be right, he is stronger than any of them isn't he? This has been the most important job of his entire career and he considered the many ways it could fail in advance, but this didn't even enter his mind.

Mars laughs. "This is pathetic, is this the best that you pocket-worlders can do? You are beyond saving now, why don't you give up? I have many servants who work for me, they will easily put down this little attack, and even if they don't you won't get far. You've made an enemy of the most powerful man in all the lands, you can't hope to survive for long."

Naruto doesn't even shift after hearing this, unsure just what to make of this extraordinary claim. Perhaps he is simply overconfident, perhaps he is overrating the skill of Dai and of Hinata, but he is sure that he isn't. While reading people has never been a particular skill of his, by using the one true sense he gains a reasonable level of certainty, Mars is bluffing. The mercenary doesn't even believe himself.

"It doesn't matter how many servants you have because I know for a fact that none of them are as strong as you," Naruto replies, "Let me tell you about them, the two powerful warriors leading the charge. One of them is my wife, infected by an unknown power that has been helping her fight opponents far stronger than herself. The other is my sibling disciple, the direct pupil of Headmaster Sora who has been waiting years for this opportunity."

"Should I be impressed?" Mars is still bluffing.

"Yes, you should."

Outside

Dai leads the charge, dashing into a large group of class 5 servants. Using his 'strength' energy, he runs to the middle and slaps the ground, generating a shockwave of enough power to knock the inferior fighters from their feet. He then turns on his feet and rushes to the first of these servants. He is only one class higher than these fighters, but his skill is vastly superior and his element grants him a striking power they couldn't hope to match even if they were to reach his class.

Dai strikes the first of the servants, holding back to not only preserve energy but to restrain himself from killing his opponent outright. The mercy not only a kindness that he has learnt to adopt when possible, but also a useful energy saving mechanism in what may become a battle of attrition against Mars.

Kushina watches the battle intently, waiting for the perfect moments before interfering. She watches as Himawari fights against the enemy, waiting for the moment she is about to be struck before protecting her. Adamantine chains quickly prove to be the bane of the weaker servants, not stopping them totally but preventing them from executing the most vital parts of their attacks. As Himawari and her grandmother work together to defeat them, they come to realise that despite their greater age and power, both Uzumakis have far more battle experience.

Minato uses his speed to dance through the enemy. Much like Dai's striking power is an anomaly, Minato's speed stands out amongst his class, aided not by his skill with divine energy but with chakra. He focuses initially not on the quality but the quantity of strikes, demoralising his opponents and wearing them down for the final blow that will inevitably be struck by one of his allies. However, as the seconds pass, Minato notices another part of the battlefield that needs his attention. The 4th Hokage syncs up with Ming Dai, using the flying thunder god jutsu to repeatedly put enemies in exactly the right position Dai's attacks. Together, there is nobody amongst their opposition who can stand up to their speed and strength.

Hinata is presented with more of a challenge though as Mars' chief servant picks her as his target.

As the servant strikes towards Hinata, he wonders how she will react to his power, the power of a man who has experienced many fights, who has power not far behind his master's. The strike doesn't connect as he expects though, Hinata dodges as if the attack were nothing, landing a powerful counterpunch to his head. While the servant reels, Hinata begins a 360 degree rotation, first using her left hand to obscure the servant's vision with a sheet of 'water', then her right to strike through that 'water', hitting the servant cleanly in his chest.

As the servant is forced back, his feet not touching the ground, Hinata is already in pursuit. The Hyuuga clanswoman uses her 'water' energy to create a wave and uses the momentum of her energy to propel her forward towards her opponent. When the servant eventually finds his feet, he prepares to strike Hinata once again, thinking that he will use her own momentum against her.

To the servant's surprise, Hinata doesn't ever leap at him. She simply steps from the wave, instead allowing the 'water' energy to hit him. The wave carries the servant back into the building he used to inhabit and when his head strikes against it he is inevitably weakened by the grogginess that follows.

Hinata dashes to the semi-conscious servant, grabbing him the neck and slamming his head back into the floor below, knocking him out.

'I've seen several class 6s. Naruto and Boruto, Sarada and Hashirama, even General Clyde,' Hinata recalls, 'Compared to them this guy has no skill at all.'

With the largest threat amongst the servants dealt with, Hinata considers her two options. To her left she could help Naruto in his inevitable fight against the mercenary who started all this. To her right she could help her family in their fight against the weaker servants of that mercenary. To make her decision, she thinks of only one thing, how much does she trust Naruto?

'I'll leave the mercenary to you, Naruto,' she smiles before turning right to help battle the others.

Hinata goes on to systematically cut through the other mercenaries like a sharp blade. She shows a knowledge and experience of battle far beyond theirs. Becoming the general of the area, she takes just a few moments to completely wipe out the weaker contingent of the adversarial force.

'Mars is a class 7, that makes him scary,' Dai admits to himself, 'But his servants don't seem scary at all.'

Mars' Home

Mars looks back to Naruto once again, sensing the total defeat of his followers. His senses are confirmed by the smug grin on the 7th Hokage's face. Now it will surely be three against one. There are three class 6 warriors among this group, if they work together against him they may well defeat him. Mars best chance now is to use his wit.

"The defeat of my servants proves nothing except that they are idiots Uzumaki, the fact remains you are in a situation you can't win," Mars declares, "I am a class 7 and if I wanted I could defeat you all."

"Then it's time to shut up and prove it," Naruto says.

The 7th Hokage leaps at Mars, delivering a well placed strike to his chest. The walls of the room, despite being made of the dimensional prison material, shatter under the pure weight of Mars body being driven back into them. The mercenary is thrown outside of the house to the opposite side from Naruto's allies, with the shinobi following quickly after him.

As Naruto chases down Mars, he is knocked from the air by a swift uppercut from the mercenary who brings this fight back to the basics. If he wants to win here he realises that he is going to have to execute all the fundamentals of fighting perfectly, because these shinobi have mastered movements far more complex than that.

Despite being knocked from the air with some power, Naruto manages to spin in an ultra-tight arc as he falls towards the ground. By the time he lands his feet have almost completed their rotation and despite his slight stumble, he manages to quickly regain his balance.

With Naruto back on his feet, the two warriors begin exchanging fists. Their fists fly with such speed and ferocity that Himawari can barely follow them even with her byakugan active. Hinata sees it all perfectly clearly though, each tiny movement, each piece of footwork. There are plenty of hits landed by both fighter, but Naruto is definitely landing more, evidently drawing on his higher taijutsu skill.

There is a problem with this exchange though as they all realise straight away, while Naruto is landing more hits each of Mars' hurts more. After each strike the mercenary lands the following lands quicker and as time moves forward their strike rate begins to level out. Eventually, Mars manages to slide his fist through, landing not only a strike but a clean strike to the side of Naruto's head.

Naruto falls to the ground, holding his injured head.

Hinata begins to run to Mars but is stopped by the firm grip of Ming Dai. When she looks back at him she sees a look of tremendous confidence, of belief born of his shock. Her concern may have overridden her confidence for a moment, but her friend reminds her of what she believes in. She comes to a halt once again, firmly believing that Naruto can win this fight.

"I knew you were unable to defeat me," Mars boasts foolishly, "You are after all a measly class 6, how could a pocket-worlder hope to defeat me."

Suddenly a translucent white energy flows to Naruto's head and the shinobi begins to smile. His 'life' energy is fixing his wound.

"I'm glad you are feeling so confident, because things are about to change," Naruto says, getting to his feet, "I've finally grasped your rhythm."

"My rhythm? What are you talking about?"

"You won't be so lucky again."

Naruto initiates another exchange of fists, using a similar technique to previously, something unusual for the unpredictable shinobi.

'The result will be the same,' Mars thinks as he enters the exchange.

Fists fly back and forward, most of them finding nothing but air, until Naruto's start to connect first, just as last time. However, it's only a matter of time before Mars will find a way through the Hokage's guard. Mars does just that, slipping his fist between Naruto's arms and towards his face. Just as the punch is about to connect, Naruto's palm slaps against Mars' elbow, pushing the punch just to the side of Naruto's head. Naruto strikes just as he forces Mars' attack aside, landing the perfect counterpunch in the moment when Mars guard is weakest, during the attack.

"Hinata, he's using the one true sense perfectly," Dai smiles, "He can feel every move Mars is making and he's fully categorised the patter of his attacks."

The strikes continue to be exchanged but it's nothing like before. Despite Naruto landing dozens of attacks in rapid succession Mars finds openings and is unable to capitalise on them. As if the counterpunches weren't frustrating enough, the 7th Hokage begins to act arrogantly, leaving deliberate openings to draw the mercenary into attacking, despite knowing that he will be able to counter it. Mars' superior strength, his superior speed, neither are enough to counter Naruto's senses and his combat genius.

'This isn't possible, he's only a class 6, how could he make a fool of me like this. I am the mercenary Mars. Nobody makes a fool of me!'.

As Mars is thinking about this, his focus just drifts ever so slightly, something that happens hundreds of times a day to almost everyone. Nobody normal would notice such a lapse, but Naruto notices it instantly. The second this laps occurs, the 'life' user leaps into the air, using his full might to kick Mars in the head.

Mars arms and legs suddenly fail him, presenting Naruto with an even bigger chance.

By the time Naruto lands, he has already formed a mini tailed beast bomb in his hand. By the time he starts to move forward, 'life' energy has been sent into the ball of chakra, mingling with and enhancing Naruto's native energy source.

As the ball of energy is about to hit him, Mars is forced to swallow his pride. He leaps backwards, activating his divine ability to turn invisible, the same technique he used to grab Hinata.

Naruto looks left and right, but he cannot see Mars.

"He doesn't realise that invisibility won't work against Naruto," Dai comments, "Naruto abandoned his dependence on sight long ago."

Naruto dissipates the mini tailed beast bomb, deciding to go even bigger. He summons 'life' energy and chakra to his hand, not just from within but from the surroundings as well. There is plenty of ambient life energy here in this moorland environment, perfect for this attack. He prepares himself to deliver the life-gathering rasengan.

Mars sneaks up behind Naruto, creating a blade from 'fire' energy and striking quickly towards the Hokage's neck.

Naruto dodges to the side of the incoming blade, shocking Mars who believed such a thing to be impossible. As Naruto moves to the side, he begins to spin on his left foot, driving with his stronger right foot. Having made one full rotation, he drives the life-gathering rasengan into the torso of Mars, maximising the surface area of contact.

Mars' invisibility dissipates as the rasengan is driven into him.

The mercenary mobilises all his energy to try and protect himself, but Naruto is using more than his own energy, he is using the power of 'life' from his surroundings to move forward. Naruto begins to overpower Mars, using the rasengan to push his opponent down onto his back.

Mars desperately tries to protect himself, but it's too late.

With a loud battle cry, Naruto pushes the rasengan one final time, detonating it and unleashing all of the force into the body of his opponent.

The blast from the explosion is tremendous and Hinata instinctively creates a barrier of class 6 'water' energy to protect her family from harm. She and Dai watch unprotected though as the light from the explosion dies down. Once it's safe she drops the barrier and they all see the most welcoming sight they have seen all day.

Naruto is still standing.

Mars is down.

"Naruto won!" Hinata says happily.

His allies immediately begin to run towards their champion. He has defeated someone of a higher class, an incredible feat rarely achieved by groups. It was considered remarkable by the likes of Sora when Naruto, Sarada, Clyde and Lara worked together do defeat Carmen, for Naruto to do it alone is simply incredible.

Before the five of them reach Naruto, he collapses, landing right next to the unmoving Mars.

Mars is stunned, not that Naruto collapsed but by everything else. Now that he thinks about it, Naruto's body has already been put through hell, even before they fought. To stand up after all that and defeated a warrior of a higher class may never have been done before.

'He fainted from exhaustion before I could defeat him,' Mars laments, 'This man, just who is he?'

Dai runs to Naruto's side, "Naruto, are you OK, Naruto can you hear me?"

It's no good, the 7th Hokage is unresponsive.

Hinata kicks the immobile Mars, cruelly rolling him ten meters over the ground despite his inability to defend himself. His energy is still recovering but it will be a while yet before he is ready to fight a class 6. Right now all he can do is remain silent and hope that he doesn't die.

"He's out cold," Dai tells Hinata, "His condition is better than Mars. Hinata, he won that fight, we need to go."

As Dai picks Naruto up, Hinata doesn't even look back. She is consumed by an emotion that seldom strikes her, rage. She has felt anger before, she has even lashed out on rare occasion, but this emotion is so much stronger than that. She has been unable to feel this way her entire life and yet suddenly things begin to awake from deep within her that she has never experienced before.

Hinata raises her hand, firing a high-intensity beam of 'water' energy at Mars' leg. She moves into auto-pilot. Even as she hears his cries of pain she doesn't stop. Whatever is emerging in this moment is not the real Hinata, this is something else entirely. She listens to Mars' cries but the rage within her doesn't lessen, she just keeps going.

"Mom stop!" Himawari says, grabbing her mother's wrist.

As the beam of energy stops, Mars groans in pain despite doing his best to remain quiet.

'She can't be that talented with pocket-worlder skills alone. She's only got a basic understanding of water!' Mars yells internally, 'I could swear…'

Then the reality hits Mars!

He understands everything!

'That's it, that's where her power comes from,' he realises with a massive grin, 'Oh wow, who would have thought that was really possible. I really can't believe it!'

As Mars begins to calculate how Hinata's power grew to be so mighty the velocity of his thought process is so distracting the pain in his leg dulls. He questions himself, doubts himself, the coincidence is just far too great but it would have to be a coincidence. For this to happen in Homeworld the odds would be in in a trillion, in a pocket-world he can't even imagine how unlikely this is.

"Mom, you zoned out for a second there," Himawari says, waving a hand in front of Hinata's face. "You need to calm down, we need your help to get dad to safety."

"Yes," Hinata says, her eyes refocusing, "I'm sorry, I will try to focus."

Himawari nods, "Dai, what should we do with Mars?"

"In the long run we will all become stronger than him, he can't do us any harm so there is no need to kill him," Dai suggests, "Assuming that is OK with you Hinata?"

"Yes," Hinata says after a pause.

Dai worries for a moment, he has heard about Hinata losing control in vital situations before but this is his first time seeing it. An ominous feeling overwhelms him as he wonders just what is going on. He quickly moves past this, realising that Hinata is his ally and that this is not the time to be questioning why she is so strong.

"Alright, let's go."

Dai lifts Naruto onto his shoulder and together begin to depart. The student of Sora realises that he should be happy right now, Naruto has just done something incredible, but that last outburst from Hinata has soured the mood. He has not known her long but he feels he knows her well enough to realise what is normal. Hinata would normally never do that, it's not in her nature.

"Wait!" Mars calls after them, "Hey, wait! I'm not going to let you get away with my bounty. This is, this is the catch of a lifetime."

Naruto's five allies watch, pity in their eyes as they watch the formerly proud mercenary struggle desperately to his feet.

"What do you think you're talking about Mars," Dai asks, "I don't want to take an unnecessary chance, but if we fight you are most likely going to die. You're injured, you can't stop us running, so why do you even want us to come back?"

"He's delirious," Minato says urgently, "We don't have time to worry about him, this is about Naruto, so let's go."

"I can still, I can still, I can still fight," Mars stutters as he gets back to his feet.

The mercenary holds his hands out before him and with a great struggle summons some golden 'fire' energy to his hands.

"I can still use divine energy, I can still fight, I won't let you get away," Mars says through his gasps for air. "I can use the regulation battle principle, I can keep going for years so let's keep fighting. Come on, it's five on one, are you afraid?"

"Dai?" Himawari looks towards him.

Dai shakes his head. "He can't use regulation, he's bluffing. Come on, we have to keep going, don't fall for this."

The five of them begin to run away once again but now Dai is even more uneasy than before. Why would Mars want to keep them there? Does he think that Furst is going to arrive in time to save him, that he would still be rewarded if that were the case? Does he think that they would be more merciful than Furst, is he delusional enough to think they wouldn't kill him if it was necessary? Dai decides that delusion and stupidity are the most likely reasons given the circumstances, but he is missing something that Mars is not. Mars is still holding on with a strategy in mind.

"He suffered!" Mars yells after them.

Obviously a lie, they can all tell, it's just a desperate attempt to keep them there, they have all heard similar things in the past. However, while four of them keep running, Hinata stops. The Hyuuga clenches her fists tightly, her previous rage returning to her once again.

Dai stops and turns back to Hinata.

"Don't fall for this Hinata, he's tricking you, he can't hurt us anymore so calm down and-"

"It was constant anguish for him in that room, I've never known someone so upset," Mars shouts maniacally, "He called out 'why haven't they come for me yet, do they hate me'"

Hinata turns around and Himawari quickly walks after her.

"Mom, this is obviously not true. You know dad better than any of us and you know he has endured far worse than an unpleasant-"

"I thought it was true," Mars continues. "I thought you must have hated him since you waited so long. Especially considering his pain was all your fault for being captured in the first place."

Dai looks on in horror, this bluff is so obvious that a child could see through it. Is Hinata falling for it, it's unlikely. However, a rage seems to be overcoming the Hyuuga not unlike the one she showed moments ago. Hinata is spiralling out of control, her personality wildly different from one moment to the next, as if Naruto was the only person who could prevent that from happening.

Despite pleas from Dai and Himawari, Hinata turns and says parting words.

"You guys go on, I promise I won't be long," she says, "I'm going to stay here and finish him."

Mars watches the situation unfold and is delighted by what he sees.

'That's right Mars, slowly and calmly, all you have to do is survive,' he tells himself, 'You can still come out of this situation the winner.'