Naruto paused.

He'd been bathing and washing his clothes in the mountain pond by the sandstone formation that had become his makeshift home the past few days, his attire consisting of a pair of frog-themed boxers, a white T-shirt that had a fire symbol on the front, a pair of shorts, shinobi sandals, and a pair of green goggles that he wore on his forehead.

He sniffed, inhaling air deeply as if he could smell the scent of events on the wind. What was this feeling?

Putting on his sun-dried clothes, the boy when up to his cave at the top. What was bothering him? It was almost like a storm...

Irene stopped as she stepped into a valley surrounded by mountains on all sides with a mountain pond. The place looked peaceful, but as soon as she sniffed the air, she froze.

The scent of blood?!

Something around here reeked of it.

Following it was more than likely a bad idea, probably a trap, after all, other than the scent of blood, this area seemed utterly void of any yoma at all.

Wait...This area was void of any yoma at all...that didn't just happen...

Recalling that the "Seraph" was in this region if her information was right. If that was the case, then it would make sense! Surely a holy being would lack the ability to tolerate yoma!

She was close! Had to be! Running now, following the scent, she skid to a stop at a broad sandstone formation that curved out of the ground like a great hill and was pocked with caves of varying sizes...all in all, a good place to hide if you didn't want to be found.

This could be it.

Drawing her sword, she looked into one of the caves...only to promptly and unceremoniously drop it. Irene froze, eyes wide with shock "What?!"

She was awed. She was repulsed. But more than anything, she was intrigued.

Checking the rest of the caves, she found more of the same. Dozens of them! Maybe a hundred in all!

Bones!

Every one of them was nibbled clean—she could see the bite marks—and most had been cracked open for the marrow...and judging from the dark purple sheen of the walls and floors of the caves, they weren't from humans either.

'Wha...What is this?! Yoma bones?! Inconceivable! What creature hunts and feeds off yoma?!'

Something had been taking advantage of the fact that the yoma were now pack-hunting and had been turning the hunters into the hunted.

Was her target doing this?! Just who or what was this "Seraph" anyway?! Picking up her blade and sheathing it, she wondered if her target was here before she started to climb the sandstone and noticed one more cave that she had missed.

Irene raised an eyebrow, this place...somewhere that couldn't be seen from the ground and the ones people could see were filled with the remains of dead creatures, and whether intentionally or not, the physiological effect would keep anyone away. Especially yoma.

So that was why they were doing things like hunting in pacts...safety in numbers, they felt the need for security.

Irene would have found it amusing, and as a warrior who hunted yoma, even admiral one being had caused the creatures that, if it were to be believed, existed from long ago and preyed on humans as the ultimate predators had been shifted to taking action in the name of having a sense of security and the need for self-preservation by their simply arriving and only reinforcing it with their actions...if what she had found weren't so disturbing.

Pulling herself up and into the topmost cave, she got another surprise.

She stared, shocked. As if this couldn't get any stranger, a young boy was there, curled up and sleeping!

"Mmm...?" he rubbed his eyes and blinked the sleep from them, then looked at her in confusion.

"Anata ga daredearu?" he said, and Irene raised her eyebrows. Huh?

Whatever language he was speaking, this one was absolutely foreign to her in all respects.

"Who are you? I don't understand what you are saying to me..." she said, only to get an look that was as confused as she felt. He didn't understand her either.

The two stared at one another at first and she got an idea and pointed to herself and spoke a single word that he managed to understand, being sure to speak slowly, clearly, and deliberately so there was no mistake.

"Irene."

He looked confused for a second and he then realized that since she was pointing to herself when she said the word, that must mean that what she said was actually her name and he was able to understand that word at least. He nodded, showing to her that he understood.

"Ir...ene. Irene." he repeated it slowly, as if trying the word out on his tongue then smiled at her to show that he understood something at the moment. And since it would be rude not introduce himself in turn, he decided to point to himself and say his name.

"Naruto."

Irene raised an eyebrow. His name was "Naruto"? Odd. She didn't know that word...odd parents, she supposed. After all, one couldn't choose their own name.

Well...she needed to find out if he knew anything, using a foreign language that no one else spoke as a code was simple, yet brilliant and if he was here, he might have seen her objective. And she couldn't leave him here anyways. A human child caught in the crossfire of a mission like this...wasn't going to happen.

Reaching down, she grabbed him by the arm and hauled him to his feet. He looked nervous as she did. While she (or any warrior of the Organization, for that matter) were admittedly horrible at social interactions, much less dealing with children, even without a language barrier to overcome, Irene gave Naruto the best reassuring smile she could muster.

He seemed to relax a bit at it, at least a little as she steered him outside. But as soon as they got to the ground, they found someone waiting to meet them: a young woman in her twenties. She had long hair which she wears in pigtail bunches on each side of her head. She wore a long dress with lots of ruffles.

"You're...!" Irene started to say, only to be cut off as power surged around her and the girl's body shifted and distorted until she had transformed into a large humanoid with feline hind legs, a cat-like head with two gaping jaws, one atop the other, gold cat-like eyes, jagged, bony plates on her back, thighs and elbows and two long, muscular tails.

"Luciela of the South!" the formerly-human being said with a laugh.

Irene tensed. This was bad! But what was she doing in Lautrec?!

"Too bad I found you when you were back south, Claymore. There's only one person I permit in my lands with immunity, and you're NOT Rafaela! With that mystery yoki still smothering everything with its presence, I can't sense yoki auras, so when I found a Claymore in my territory, I figured that we were looking for the same thing, and you'd lead me to it." the monstrous former warrior spared the blond boy with her a glance, "...I have to say, I'm disappointed."

Stepping in front of Naruto and drawing her sword, Irene's eyes turned gold and her pupils stretched into vertical slits "Naruto...stay behind me." she instructed.

While he didn't understand her words, he understood their meaning.

"Suicide? How cute...tell me, what's your rank? If you intend to kill yourself by trying to fight me, I need to know how much I should hold back to keep from wasting energy." the cat-like former warrior said.

"I'm Number Two."

"Two?!" The beast said, then she doubled over, laughing as though having suddenly lost her mind.

"...What's so funny?" Irene demanded, only for a breeze to suddenly pass her and her adversary to appear five feet behind her, and as Irene turned, she suddenly fell to her knees, clutching her stomach as a series of long, deep, jagged gashes appeared on it and she coughed up blood.

She hadn't even seen Luciela move!

"Hahaha! You're far too cocky, little Claymore! THAT'S why I was laughing! But then, this IS the problem with the numerical ranking system; most Claymores assume that since their number is an indication, they're stronger than they actually are! Rank and ability are two different things! Numbers and symbols don't matter out here in the real world!"

"Irene! Anata wa daijōbudesu ka?!"

Naruto looked horrified as, within his mind, he was suddenly at a different place...a different time...with a different woman and facing a different monster.

The compound of the Uchiha Clan with Mikoto and Itachi.

NO! Not that nightmare! Not again! With a raw-throated yell, the seven-year-old boy rushed the monster head on. Followed almost immediately by something cinching tightly around his throat lifting him off the ground. Hands coming up instinctively, he attempted vainly to pull the thick appendage from around his throat, only for a jolt of pain radiating from his stomach to disrupt his efforts.

"Brave brat...stupid, but credit for guts, I'll give you that much. A squirt like you attacking Abyssal One head-one, alone and unarmed...speaking of guts, I'll be feeling hungry later, so just go stay off to the side like a good boy while I kill this Claymore." she said, finally releasing the throat of the now implied boy and tossed him off her limb and he slammed against a tree, back-first, with enough force to topple it.

As she licked the blood off her hand, Luciela absently noticed the boy was still alive, hurt and clutching his wound as he tried not to black out, but alive nonetheless...and attempting to stand up without success. How amusing.

"...Kono yarou, bakeneko-teme!" he spat, glaring at her as best he could. What that meant, she had no idea, but she got the distinct impression he insulted her.

Naruto tried to get up, to stand...to fight. He could tell this cat-monster was strong just by looking, but he had to protect Irene! He wouldn't fail again! She wasn't going to die! As long as he could do something, she wasn't going to die! He gagged and coughed up blood, glaring at the thing that had once been a girl, hating both her...and himself for being so weak.

"Frustrating, isn't it...your weakness. Without strength, you cannot protect anything; let alone yourself or those within your sight. That's the only part of that bastard Indra's might-controls-everything mindset I acknowledge or even begin to consider. And even then, that's because Asura pointed out that you needed to have things you cared about and wanted to be strong in order to protect first to make you need that strength. Asura always did have more sense like that. Claimed power comes in response to a need, not a desire."

That voice again!

At any other time, Naruto would have been shocked by it, but that cat-thing was drawing closer to Irene, her claws extending inch by inch with each step.

NO!

Seeing what was about to happen, Naruto felt a terrible rage fill him. He shut his eyes and looked inside to a dark place that had always been there. 'If that's true, then give me power! Just enough to save her!' He cried out with his thoughts.

And there was an answer, something frightening stirred. He felt its power flow through him like fire "Done!" The voice boomed and began to laugh.

Luciela suddenly froze as he felt a new demonic aura fill the air "...This power!" The one the three of them had be searching for! Her jaw dropped as she turned and saw just where it was coming from and was utterly shocked. THE BOY?! "No...Way! A child?! One that's not even a Claymore?! Impossible!"

As his energy spiked, red chakra immediately turned to the bubbling complete fox outline version complete with two tails waving in the air behind him and he rushed forward, sinking his fangs into the demonic thing that stood before him.

Yowling as she felt the boy's power inject into her from his fangs as the aura began to scream in agony as she felt her body being burned by the raw power as she shook him off and hissed as she glared. Then she noticed something about him.

Judging by the way he was biting twitching every so often, and the way his eyes quivered, this power wasn't comfortable at all for him to use.

But no yoma or Awakened Being should be unable to cope with their own powers...and the way he was acting...

The feline Abyssal One scoffed as she stood, facing the two-tailed Naruto hatefully, "All that power and no control! It's pathetic! You're little more than a mindless, rabid beast. This is disappointing! To think the Three Great Awakened Ones of the Abyss joined together for a thing like you! I'll kill you for such an insult! At least this way, you can never be used against the Abyss Trinity...URAGH!...I can't believe I said that! Damn Riful and her childishness! Naming our alliance that!"

Irene groaned as she opened one eye, trying to focus through the pain. "...An alliance...?"

Turning to the downed woman, the cat frowned at her"I detest repeating myself, but this kid gave off so much power that all three Abyssal Ones joined forces to keep him out of the Organization's clutches."

Seeing Irene's sudden look of utter horror, the cat-like being laughed. "Wait...I take that back. I'll enjoy repeating it, just to see the expression on your face...such terror, such shock, such utterly denial in some stillborn-hope I'm lying...I like it!"

A roar and a shockwave threw her aside as it hit her, sending her flying and she splashed into the pond and she got up sputtering and hissing, she was a cat after all. She hated getting wet.

"Damn you, boy!" She screamed.

Irene watched as he rushed forward, a now-clawed hand dragging along the ground and slashed upwards at the Awakened Being, she dodged, but what she didn't expect was for the energy around his arm to flow after the blow and extend past it for a follow up attack that slammed into her and sent her flying.

"What?!" Irene said, then she recalled what Naruto had earned as an alias. She chuckled to herself as she figured it out and turned her attention to healing, while she was an offensive warrior, her regeneration was decent, and she had the time with the creature of the abyss occupied.

"...I see...now I understand. That red yoki aura...it moves in tandem with his own actions...if he really did seem to drop from the heavens, then the ears, the two tails, and the aura forming the arms and claws could easily be mistaken for wings as they trailed off of and behind him like that. And how it seems to blaze around him like fire...putting all the factors together and that's why he was called a Seraph when he was using this power before."

As Luciela trudged out of the water and shook herself dry, she froze at the sudden touch of metal to her neck stopped her from stalking over to Naruto again to see just how much abuse the young man's body could take before it gave out. Her eyes turned to the blade planted against the side of her neck at her jugular vein, noticing the elf-resembling Number Two of the current generation of warriors as the source of the attack. Scowling at the annoying fly, the feline creature had a mouth appear on the side of her neck and grip the blade between it's teeth and slashed at her vertically from the waist up and was mildly impressed when the Claymore held onto her blade.

Stupid, she'd focused so much on the abnormality the child presented, she had allowed the Claymore time to regenerate.

"Do you think you can really hurt me with something like that Claymore? You know better than that."

"Shut up!" Irene snapped, then regretted it instantly as she let out a cough,sending up blood, and still she glared at the Awakened Being, "I don't listen to monsters!"

The ex-warrior sneered and wheeled around so her tails knocked Irene away and then slammed her to the ground before stomping brutally on the Number Two's rib cage, feeling rewarded at the sound and feel of breaking bones. The claws of her foot extending and sinking deep into the woman's body.

She let out a pained cry and writhed on the ground accordingly, her eyes fading from gold to silver and her pupils became rounded, the pain was so intense that she couldn't even focus her yoki powers.

" Don't listen to monsters...that's funny considering what the Organization's like and the fact that being like me EXIST because of them. If I'm a monster then what does that make you?" Luciela pressed a clawed hand to her own chest for emphasis, "I was a warrior of the Organization myself once. Same as you. We're both monsters. Difference is...I'm no longer one of the Organization's lapdogs. Where I go, what I do...its for ME to decide. I wonder...can you say the same without it being just the empty words a ventriloquist makes come from the mouth of a puppet because doing whatever others tell you is all you know? Really...where's your sense of self? When was the last time you decided something for yourself? Used your own eyes and brains to come to your own conclusions by your own will? Monster I may be, but at least I'm no mindless drone."

As she continued torturing the woman, grinding her foot into her, there was another abrupt spike in power that caused Luciela's eyes to light up at the boy's aura. Turning her attention to him, she was fascinated to see even more red chakra start to pour out of Naruto. The red was so deep that it started to take on shades of black and brown. It swarmed in the ground and and air like a dense fog before swirling towards Naruto encasing him in an orb of almost black chakra.

And suddenly, without warning, the orb burst with such force that the release of the power tore and strew everything around him like leaves in a hurricane. When Irene opened her eyes, she surveyed the area with something similar to awe, where the dust obscured Naruto from sight looked to be the depths of some long dried out lake. The landscape would never be the same again.

As the dust settled Naruto stood on all fours and four tails of crimson chakra danced menacingly behind him while chakra rolled off of them like flames and the energy like a blood red skin over his own, his eyes were pure white and he had a fanged glasgow mouth like a jack o'lantern and long, rabbit-like ears.

"So there are levels…he can get even stronger. Not that it's enough though, with him being reduced to nothing but an ignorant beast. But it's still very intriguing." Luciela purred, stepping off Irene and punting her in the side to get her out of the way.

Naruto's chakra cloak began bubbling more intensely and began to get so intense that the ground started melting beneath his feet, "So much power...And yet you have even more you haven't shown me?" Her grin turned positively malicious as her own body exploded with waves and waves of yoki, "Heh! As much as I hate Isely, it seems this alliance he proposed between us Creatures of the Abyss was well-warranted! We can't let this child gain control of yoki power this great!" she couldn't help it but to be worked up, the level of sheer power he was putting out was getting her excited, rousing some primal, brutish part of herself that felt as though it had been sleeping since after she'd first awakened.

He reared back and roared as a large amount red and blue orbs began to break free from his body as they floated around him. Naruto brought his tails forward over his head and the orbs began to form together into one large purple sphere the size of a mountain, then it suddenly compressed into the size of a ping-pong ball that was so heavy that the ground around him sunk beneath his weight after he swallowed it.

Her battle-lust abruptly ending, Luciela felt the blood drain from her face. That was WAY TOO MUCH yoki! And from what she could sense, it was barely 1/1000th of his power in that orb! She couldn't sense anything higher or her detection ability might overload and self-destruct!

"WHA...WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU?!" she screamed as his upper body convulsed forward and the ball of raw energy he'd swallowed shot out of his mouth and zoomed at her like a cannonball.

The roar of the energy being released deafened both the Warrior and Awakened Being, and the flash blinded them. Their skin prickled painfully, as the heat from the energy burned their flesh. The concussive shock knocking them to their knees.

The beam of energy consumed the land in front of it, and the attack struck the Awakened Being with devastating force that completely enveloped her,in a massive flash of white and a large explosion.

Naruto stood on all fours as he waited for the smoke to clear, but out of the haze someone stumbled out.

A human-formed and very hurt Luciela. "D-da-damnit! I was forced...to revert...back? So...this is...the boy's...power...his energy...its in my...wounds...too caustic...burns as if it were...holy power...I...I can't...maintain...my Awakened form with...it inside me...! Got...too confident...to think...an Abyssal...losing to such...a beast...Damnit!"

Pushing and crawling her way free of the debris, Irene gasped and tried to steady herself from the force of the vibrating through her, then she looked up and saw the weakened creature in human form. "I'm surprised you survived that, but I suppose you're not a Creature of the Abyss without justifiable reason."

Luciela glared and spat at Naruto loathingly before sneering at Irene. "Pity...I Awakened...love seeing...him in pieces...once the Organization's...got him on...an operating table...after you hand him to them...and to think...a mere child...will be repaid as such...after he...fought so hard...to save a thing...like you!"

With that, she stumbled away, cursing the blond and muttering about how if she and her sister Rafaela were both Awakened and fighting as a team, they would've beaten him into a smear in second all the while.

Stabbing her sword into the ground, Irene pulled herself up and looked as Naruto roared in triumph then started shaking as his aura completely vanished. His form was steaming as bits of his skin slowly regrew over exposed flesh. Once his body was fully human, Irene noticed Naruto was drenched in blood-his blood-and blinked blearily before stumbling towards her a step before he pitched forward.

Flaring her yoki just enough to give her energy to move, Irene made a short dash forward, catching the child. Sighing, she half-carried, half-dragged him to the pond and gently lowered him into the lake then gently ran her wet hands along his body, wiping away the blood from his body.

He shuddered at the touch of the water and her hands, doubtlessly he was quite sensitive at the moment, considering he'd just regrown his skin.

As she washed the blood off him, her gaze was soon drawn to a strange tattoo of a spiral framed by some kind of runes as it faded into existence on his abdomen. This was something she couldn't wrap her mind around, no matter how much she tried. How, and why, did a tattoo suddenly appear when there'd been nothing there before? Hesitantly she brought her fingers to it, greatly surprised to feel an unnatural warmth originating from it that seemed to spread to the rest of the body.

Her eyes widened as she felt a spark of yoki come from the marking before she watched, fascinated, as the marking faded away as though it had never been there.

Who, or what, was Naruto?

Naruto let out a slight whimper as he slowly felt himself regain consciousness. Feeling the water, he forced an eye open and saw that Irene woman was cleaning blood off him. Huh? How had he ended up covered in blood? And where was that monster that had bee out to hurt them? He couldn't remember anything.

Looking at the woman, he wouldn't deny she was very pretty. He noticed the long, pale, almost colorless silver hair, and the silver eyes, how they had changed to gold with slits he had no idea, but he liked the silver more, and her pointed ears like an elf's, her aquiline nose, and her pale, fair skin. She was dressed in a kind of uniform, a light gray two-piece suit, with a mock-neck dickie marked with the some kind of symbol near the base of the throat. Over top of this, she wore several pieces of armor that he'd never seen before: shin-high, slightly heeled metal boots, large wrist-guards, shoulder pieces and a partial skirt. Finally, she wore a short gray cape. How could she move with so much metal?

Since her shirt was damaged, it revealed the entirety of her upper torso and then he noticed something that made him cringe.

His eyes traced the contour of what appeared to be a hand sized vicious stretch of dark, bumpy flesh and a large vertical incision extending from the base of her neck all the way down and continued until her intact clothing covered it. It was like a wound only now beginning to scab over, its edges fused to the smooth flesh of her sternum as if they had been melted together, held closed by sutures that ran its length-and strangest of all, it appeared that it breathed in a rhythm counter to Irene's own. Naruto fought the urge to reach out and poke it, but he could not look away, filled with a strange kind of fascination.

"Irene...anata wa daijōbudesu ka?" He repeated what he'd said earlier, looking at where her injuries had been, as if not sure he was seeing things right and was looking for something that should have been there but wasn't.

Irene wondered what he was saying and why he was looking at her like that...then, noticing he was staring at where her wounds from the battle had been as well as the stigma scar that was proof that she was half yoma, the sign that something abhorrent was living within her body, and with a shock, she seemed to figure it out.

He was asking if she was ok.

Giving him a small smile, she nodded to him and he gave her a huge, toothy smile before he fainted. The Number Two wasn't shocked to see he was out cold. Generating that much yoki power and fighting a former Number One that had turned into an Awakened Being...only natural he'd be exhausted.

He'd certainly earned his rest, that was undeniable.

So this child was the Seraph she had been looking for? How absurd. If she hadn't seen his power for herself just now, she'd had never believed it.

Either way, mission complete. As she was about to lift him up and begin her trek back to Staff to deliver him, as per her orders, Luciela's words rang in her mind, almost mocking her:

I was a warrior of the Organization too myself once. Same as you. We're both monsters. Difference is...I'm no longer one of the Organization's lapdogs. Where I go, what I do...its for ME to decide. I wonder...can you say the same without it being just the empty words a ventriloquist makes come from the mouth of a puppet because doing whatever others tell you is all you know? Really...where's your sense of self? When was the last time you decided something for yourself? Used your own eyes and brains to come to your own conclusions by your own will? Monster I may be, but at least I'm no mindless drone.

Pity...I Awakened...love seeing...him in pieces...once the Organization's...got him on...an operating table...after you hand him to them...and to think...a mere child...will be repaid as such...after he...fought so hard...to save a thing...like you!

That made her freeze. The Organization would really just turn this child into a live guinea pig for human experimentation until there was absolutely nothing left of him?

The part of her that was loyal to the Organization denied that. But...

He'd fought so hard, turned himself into that thing...all for the sake of protecting her. Luciela could have killed her in less than the blink of an eye. The whole reason she was still alive now was thanks to him and his willingness to go so far as to forsake his own humanity if need be to ensure her well-being.

Then there was the news that Isley, Riful, and Luciela had all formed an alliance to get their hands on him, yet couldn't sense him yet and were keeping tabs on Warriors to have them track him down for them on account of Naruto's own massive yoki drenching just about the enter continent and masking all other yoki aura sign...especially with how he released more of it in the fight.

They'd be expecting him to be turned over and would try snatching him the moment she neared the eastern region. And if they were waiting for someone to be turned over to the Organization to lean who the being they were targeting that had forced them to ally with each other was, even after Luciela's report...

Even if it was an order from the Organization...even though the target was right in front of her...

She made up her mind. Be it the Creatures of the Abyss or the Organization, they would not get this boy.