A/N: Despite Naruto's lynchings (as per the one-shot "Ramen Uber Alles" which describes one such event…) Hiruzen is still sure that Iwa and Kumo are more dangerous than even the worst of the Konoha villagers. In other news, with time and plot progression, the Coalition vacationers will see why it's not a good idea to lend help to an obsessed lunatic (Hinata).
I made a grave mistake: I put guns as existing in the Naruto world (it is NOT a complex concept to put an object in front of an explosion, and to use a sealed metal tube to channel the blast and direct the object). In actuality guns would render the entire Ninja world obsolete in about a second. However, I will put some big, BIG limitations on this (Kaguya "suppressed" the re-invention of firearms, to say the least… and also note, say, China, where firearms didn't gain primacy until late Ming at best, and then got rolled back greatly by the Manchus). Another mistake of mine may be making Hiashi not in fact an asshole for plot purposes.
Curses over looking up Japanese school year end date instead of checking canon Naruto… oh well, I can't imagine Naruto taking 7 months to ask for a mission over D-rank, so I'll compress that part of the timeline a bit… and change Kakashi's reasoning for continuing the mission.
Chapter 6: We Come In Peace
Roanoke Abyss, early hours of November 1, 3849 AD
Equivalent to March 26, 12 Years A9, 75 PWC (Post-Warring Clans)
The Byakugan Princess had spent most of the afternoon playing (read: studying) the commercial ACU piloting simulator games, feeling her way around and checking the various uses of units. They weren't as good as the actual ACU trainer systems, but were "pretty damned close"… now that she thought about it, Hannah was a bit Anko-like in bluntness, but she had straight hair almost as long as Kurenai-sensei's mane. Speaking of Kurenai-sensei… hopefully Hinata would be assigned to her Genin team…
Though she was tired from a day of touring gigantic war machines capable of what, to the Ninja world, might qualify as nearly unimaginable destruction and learning about the general deployment patterns of ACU warfare, Hinata lost all sense of fatigue once she stepped out onto the balcony of the suite that had been lent to her. She'd come out to look at the unfamiliar stars, and found herself staring across the gap between two apartment blocks to where one Hannah Shepard was leaning against the wall, with her brunette husband between her legs and their bodies pressed tightly to one another. Were these Coalition people as shameless as to… she couldn't even say it… where anyone could see them? Her Byakugan activated without even meaning to, for some reason… oh…
With how the woman had long, dark hair, and the man had lighter hair (though brown and not blonde), she could fantasize that Naruto might share such an embrace with herself at some point, though she doubted she'd grow to be taller than him. But… they weren't having sex as she'd thought they might be… which was nice, because she'd probably have fainted thinking of Naruto-kun and herself having… Wait… that was a problem, a big problem. Unless Naruto was into fucking sleeping girls then Hinata really needed to get over her fainting if she wanted to have a real chance with him.
Mm… being sleep-fucked by Naruto-kun sounds interesting…Eep! She stuffed that traitorous and shameless part of her mind away, but she still couldn't pull her eyes away from the two who were enjoying their private time with each other off-duty in the cool night breeze, talking to each other, holding each other close. It was a little odd to see the male be the shorter one, with his mouth at the right level to nestle into his wife's collarbone or neck, but the scene was still adorable in Hinata's opinion. The couple shared a laugh over something, and then separated far enough for Fran to run his hands over Hannah's belly in what seemed to Hinata like a tender caress… was she pregnant?
…Blink, blink…
Oh… um… OH!
Reading Icha-Icha in secret had nothing on watching first-hand…
Wow, that looked good…
…
…Wait, the guy's mostly in an Aeon Illuminate colour scheme…
"Is our little guest watching?" Fran asked his wife, whose facial circuits glowed momentarily in a pattern that looked like a Y, for yes.
"She's too shy as a ninja, if those tools she had on her were any indication of what profession she has in that imitation Japan she came from. Giving her a show would help her, I think, and also make us seem less like gods compared to their tech and genetic level." Hannah whispered back. "Besides, she can't complain since she isn't supposed to be peeping anyhow, or using those eyes to peep, I suspect."
"Are you sure? Because thinking about it is making me awfully excited…" The brunette man's hand slipped between them as he pulled back slightly, tickling down and across his wife's belly, before finally making its way lower.
Given his reputation and being on thin ice with his superiors for most of his career due to having a stupidly low kill to encountered civilian ratio… Hannah shrugged and smiled at him. "Why not? I doubt you had the chance to try exhibitionism before… and that girl's genetics make me feel inadequate." She grinned suggestively.
Fran was confused and looked into his wife's eyes with a frown "I thought you dealt with the breast envy problem after that first time Ariel took her armour off in your vicinity?" Hannah had what, in his opinion, were the best breasts (no, not "ones you're allowed to touch", why would you ever think that…) among women he knew, enough to play with but not enough to risk suffocation. Ariel's hugs were dangerous to one's health sometimes…
"The girl's going to end up with chest melons comparably to Ariel's, if her genetic readings are correct and she's fed properly. She's already close to my size, ugh…" Hannah grumbled.
To shut her up from her current bout of stupidity, Fran pulled her panties aside and his pants down far enough, followed by one deft movement that formally made Hinata officially experienced in voyeurism. This act was done specifically where structural fields didn't block her eye ability, and had the aim of making her less shy by repeated exposure, followed by self-acceptance as a voyeur. Having a wallflower as a liaison was good in some ways in that they were less likely to become a parasite that had to be disposed of, but also very bad in others where there would be pressure on her. Given how timid the girl had acted during the tours and subsequent crash course in the general workings of ACU armies… that needed fixing.
Then again, having sex on the floor while Hinata was unconscious on the bed Fran had lent her, slumped against the headboard to reduce choking risk, was a bit over the top ("Really, Xav? It took you over 300 years to figure out that you have an exhibitionism fetish? Well… okay…mm… she could stand to lose a lot of that timidity anyhow, if she happens to wake up on us… ugh… push a bit harder… no, a little less than that… perfect… mm…"). This was after they made sure the timid girl wasn't going to drown in her nosebleed while slumped on Fran's balcony, having passed out just after Hannah's first orgasm of the night. The two Coalition commanders had hastily pulled their clothes back together and rushed over to make sure that the girl wouldn't inhale any blood. As a side note, Xavier Fran ("please don't call me by my full name, it makes me feel sick at the sound") only half-pretended to be offended when Hannah joked with him that his skill was one of the things that made her propose to him. Of course, they aired out the room so as to not have the unconscious girl awake to the overwhelming smell of sex.
Unfortunately for all involved, Hinata had her Byakugan active the moment she woke up, and spotted some of the less than wholesome toys in the drawers of the suite that "Xav" had lent to her for the duration of her stay. Due to the lack of a structural field on the drawers, they had not been Byakugan-proof. He'd forgotten to have the toys discarded before she showed up, to be written off in nanolathe credit cost as official expenses accommodating a foreign diplomat. In a post-scarcity society, the one thing that really had value was people's time, which meant a monetary system still existed, almost purely for luxury or unique goods, or entertainment services… though anyone who didn't want to eat processed nutrient sludge also needed money for groceries since food couldn't be nanolathed well.
They moved her to a different room before waking her again, with Fran's green Aeon armour very conspicuously absent. This succeeded, because it wasn't seeing the sex that had knocked Hinata out last night, though thinking of herself entwined with Naruto like that had caused the nosebleed for some biologically odd reason unique to her planet. The unconsciousness was a sanity preserver from noticing that Fran's outfit was mostly green, and imagining a certain Green Beast of Konoha turning out to be an exhibitionist. She was lucky that she hadn't puked, choked stomach acid into her lungs, and died (however briefly) from that… not to mention needed lung repair/replacement surgery.
…
…The narrator would like to remind the audience that historical veracity comes before any manner of disgust, so we have Coalition Historicity Protection laws restricting political correctness complaints. The narrator also notes that Kakashi Hatake should never be allowed to read the above paragraph for personal health reasons. On the other hand Might Guy (Maito Gai in the language of their world, in Romaji) should never be allowed to read the above for public health reasons.
The inhabitants of Konoha should note that there was already a classified edict in place for the unlikely event of that coming to pass. Anyone who converts Guy to the practice of exhibitionism was to be sentenced equally to anyone who teaches Naruto Sealing skills without authorization or sells him supplies to let him practice without supervision.
That had a story behind it too. The seals discovered to litter the Uchiha District after the Massacre were the result of the kid going nuts with a prank, and thus far no one had figured them out. There were whispers though that they had been what induced Itachi to go nuts, and Inoichi had to risk his life diving into Naruto's mind to check. He'd found the Nine-Tailed Fox cowering in the furthest corner of its cage whimpering about lunatic blondes, and proceeded to remove Naruto's memories of coming across a seals textbook. The kid only half-remembered what he had read, and had grossly misapplied it somehow—the memories there were unclear, almost as if he'd been drunk. As a side note the Uchiha District was still a ghost town… and a popular tourist attraction because of the spookiness.
The Hokage wouldn't remember that Toji Mizuki admitted that he was the one to take Naruto on bar crawls as Taijutsu training until later, much later. It seemed the blonde brat had been more curious about the drinks during Mizuki-sensei's frequent bathroom breaks—bringing several bottles of water to pretend to have drinks at bars while looking for practical training in brawling was a pain in several ways—than had been legal. One thing followed another after a particular training session ended…
Now, as to why the Aeon and Cybran married couple had separate suites, well, it was a matter of factional politics, since the Elite Four's standard squadron nowadays had five people, with two Aeon commanders and one from each of the other factions. If another Cybran was brought in then Hannah could shack up formally with her husband without making the Cybran Nation seem under-represented. There was also the fact that many Cybrans were very vocally concerned about one of their best prodigies being "compromised" by Aeon Psionics, which Xavier Fran was exceedingly good at. The foolish masses ignored the fact that all habitations and combat units projected Psi Suppression Fields by default… though admittedly they were deactivated right now
They also ignored the minor fact that despite his civilian kill count of ten billion, Xavier Fran was infamous as having among the lowest civilian kill to encounter ratios of any ACU pilot who had served for more than five years. He had fought for over three hundred years by now, and that should really have made the Cybran masses know better. The Cybran Nation was after all the faction of rationality and logic… or was supposed to be such at least, now if they could accept the first Cybran-Aeon couple to ever exist, that would be just great…
Later that morning…
"Well, they've finally completed the trace, it seems it wasn't inter-universal this time, not even intergalactic… we can gate to your world at any time now. Hinata, here's a globe of the survey data our probes sent to your system have sent back, please identify where on the planet your home continent is, and we can zoom in and you can identify the general area of your home village." Ariel informed the young girl, since she seemed to gain a full-body flush whenever she looked at Hannah or Fran for some reason. Most likely the two had been too adventurous where Hinata could see them to try to wear down her timidity… you'd think a man over age 300—making him one of the older surviving humans after the Seraphim War—would know better…
Hinata got the distinct feeling they might not know she understood planets were roughly spherical since they seemed to be waiting for a reaction… which she wasn't giving them as the Elemental Nations were aware that the world was round. "Um, the Elemental Nations are here…" This globe showed that the continents were all big islands, scattered over the planet. The Elemental Nations occupied the biggest continent, with the western mountains of the continent creating the very arid climate of most of the Land of Earth and Land of Wind by rain shadow. Hinata had not even heard of maps showing the other continents though… Probably at least a few of them were where the various summons came from, but she was still curious about the possibility that the contact with the Coalition brought…
Unbeknownst to her, there was contact between the human-inhabited continents, but they were all relatively insular and isolated from one another.
Ariel nodded and zoomed in "Alright, then… the identified population centers of the region are lighting up now, please narrow the area down a bit further so that we don't have to gate in and spend hours crossing territory after setting up a base."
Hinata did as she was instructed. "Okay, we've identified a good LZ, Hannah, Fran, Hackett and Seth are gating now. You and I will follow once a local Quantum Gate is established, as there isn't enough time to put up an Orbital Gate if we want to make contact today."
30 km South of Konoha, Morning of March 26, 12 Years A9, 75 PWC (Post-Warring Clans)
There were no inhabitants of the lush forested area for several kilometers. This was good, because about half a kilometer radius of forest was flattened and caught fire around where the four Quantum Gate arrivals had shown up. They'd taken no damage from buffeting one another with their arrival wakes, but such was the wonder of Structural Integrity Fields.
Konoha, same time
Tenzo (As he told Kakashi: "What do you mean having one's codename in ANBU being the same as one's own chosen first name was stupid? No one would ever think of it!") blinked in the middle of his breakfast, then looked to the south. "I sense a great disturbance, as if a thousand trees cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced…" He shrugged, it was probably just another missing-ninja being apprehended and some wide-area Ninjutsu being thrown around… though he'd still tell the Hokage later, after breakfast.
Where the Coalition squad was…
There was currently still no system where ACU pilots could link resource pools due to the complexities of the secure battle network system. Therefore one of them—Hannah by rock-paper-scissors before the mission—initiated buildings and the other pilots completed the outer structural elements—the parts that were not sensitive, classified technology, the parts that weren't incinerated in a self-destruct—with their ACUs' resources. This allowed a faster build order than would otherwise be possible, as about 90% of every unit or building was mass that would be left over after destruction, with 10% being slag from destroyed secret technologies pointing to 80% being unclassified materials. This meant Hannah only had to finish 20% of each building with Cybran engineering units, including her ACU. However, the others had to put up a few power generators of their own to empty out their resource pools evenly instead of having a lot of leftover mass.
Hannah set her first two Tier 1 engineers to work on putting up a hydrocarbon power plant. Hydrocarbon deposits were still a viable energy source even in the 3800s if used in sufficient quantity. This use did not affect the environment very much as they usually deactivated by default once a commander had Tier 3 generators up and running, which typically took less than an hour, and most planets had long carbon cycles that removed carbon dioxide from their atmospheres over time. The exception to the shutdown was on snowball worlds which could really use some warming, and in emergencies where a power deficit was run. The next couple of engineers would simply roll their way through the forest to outlying mass deposits further away from the main base she was erecting. After sending more engineers to reclaim the felled trees for mass, she sent out Moles (Cybran Tier 1 Land Scout) in every direction, despite even the distant villages of locals being completely visible, with every person in them detectable, already. Then she churned out a small platoon of Mantis Assault Bots and Sky Slammers from her Land Factory just in case as a patrol squad.
The four ACUs all poured their resource generation and engineering suites into bringing the Land Factory up to Tier 2. Then she scrambled up the tiers in land and air units. After upgrading to a Tier 3 base and an adequate Tier 3 perimeter force, Hannah tasked her forces to aid the others in building their own bases nearby. Her legions of engineers funnelled her resources into helping the other ACUs upgrade their engineering suites. This very quickly set up their Tier 3 economies by finishing the economy buildings the other pilots and their engineers laid down or, often, finished off due to the number of assisting Cybran engineers. Then they assisted the others' factories in upgrading to Tier 3 and pumping out Engineers. In the meantime, Hannah's Loyalists and Bangers patrolled around the several kilometers of perimeter on the ground and her Geminis and Corsairs covered the growing group of bases from the air.
While they were each working on building expansion bases around nearby mass deposits, Ariel was showing Hinata four different sets of armour "These are the infantry armour styles the Coalition has devised to date, for commando strike teams. They consume far more power than they produce to keep the structural field at full strength or power the shields, so the fuel capacity as we call it is limited when it isn't drawing power from an ACU battle network, but they should be immune to most things your world could throw at you. Would you like to wear a set? The offer to you, the girl we hope will be our representative in your world, will always be open, and the other armour sets will also remain available depending on preferences."
"Um, I'd really like to earn my way through my world on my own merits…"
"I understand, that's what every youngster who isn't a spoilt brat wants… to carve their own path through the world…" Ariel chuckled and shook her head to clear it of wistfulness "We'll lend you help in other ways though, when you need it. Recognizing when one needs help is part of adulthood after all. I suppose that instead of wearing our armour, we'll have to send you in with an Honor Guard…"
Hinata had a sudden vision of two Fatboys crushing their way through Konoha following her to the Hokage Tower. "Uh, is there a mixed style armour that combines aesthetics from all four factions, to represent Coalition unity?"
Ariel grimaced "Sorry, but there isn't enough trust yet to share technologies like that. There are preliminary designs of a Civilian Armour with basic tech from all four sides working together, to improve survivability of civilians fleeing an ACU battlefield as much as we can, but the cutting-edge stuff… no. It will have to be in the style of the faction you identify closest with, because mixing and matching doesn't work."
An hour later…
Iruka was having a chat with Naruto while he was being treated for his injuries. He was instructing the blonde on how the basic Clone was useful as a distraction when interspersed with other Clone types, or on a smoky or dusty battlefield when one couldn't check for the Clone's shadow easily. In addition to conserving overall chakra use, which Naruto didn't need to be too worried about, it could force opponents to unbalance themselves when attacking an illusion and finding no resistance, making them vulnerable.
Team assignments had been put off until the next day, if Hinata Hyuuga could not be found by then. If she was found, well, that would be great… Iruka discreetly wiped a little bit of blood from his nose as he thought of the fantastic body that Hinata had shown off the previous day before spamming the Replacement technique to take herself to who knows where. I really shouldn't be thinking of students of mine like that…
His thought was interrupted by a yell of "Oh hey, Hinata's back!"
Goddamn it Naruto, pay attention for more than a minute at a time for once… Hinata's back? Wow, the painkillers must really be doing a number on my reaction time to not register his words for so long.
"Nice armour, Hinata!" Naruto yelled as he noticed someone walking by outside the window.
…What?
The more amazing part was that, due to her expression of determination, Hinata did not react as Iruka would have expected, and instead merely yelled back "Thank you, Naruto-kun!"
…That's even weirder than the angular, black armour!
Hokage Tower (technically part of the Academy, but due to expansion, a separate building within the Academy grounds), a few minutes later
"Hitomi, are you alright? Any injuries? Are you hungry…?" Hinata stared, apparently her abrupt disappearance had injured her father more than she'd thought. To be specific, he must have some type of brain damage as he was fussing over her like Hanabi would when she was smaller and much clingier. Why the hell was he calling her by her mother's name anyhow?
The man finally seemed to realize he was actually awake and not in fact talking to his dead wife fused with his missing daughter in a dream… and flushed deep crimson because it had been along the lines of one of their role-plays in the gist of "a bath, dinner, or me"… "Ah… AHEM…" He schooled his face into his usual impassivity with remarkable speed "it is good to see you have returned, Hinata, but what is that armour you are wearing?"
"A gift from the people I encountered when a space-time technique was cast on me by somebody I surprised."
"Did you get a good look at that person?" Sarutobi Hiruzen asked as he appeared to meet the returned Academy Student. Hinata shook her head. "Well that's too bad, since space-time techniques are very restricted, it could be an infiltrator… did you go to a Summon Homeland?" The Third Hokage looked closely at the angular black armour. It was a Shadow Clone of him, as Hinata's collar display would have told her if she'd paid attention, just in case she'd been turned into a walking bomb.
"No, Hokage-sama, I was transported to another world altogether, at a place that was weak to space-time techniques. I was fortunate that there were already people there researching the phenomena, and that they rescued me before I could drown in the sea I fell into after being teleported there." Hinata stated, feeling oddly calm instead of her usual bundle of nerves. She did not know that it was due to Sarutobi having used an area calming technique to help Hiashi realize he was not in fact still asleep. Her armour had not blocked the Psi influence, as she wasn't wearing the helmet. "I woke up in a medical room and they decided that they would like me to serve as their liaison to the Elemental Nations. They led me on a tour of the various military machines they could field, which led me to understand that they had no ill intentions toward me or our world. One of these machines dropped me off a short distance outside the gates before departing. They arrived on this planet and constructed a base as of about an hour and a half ago, about thirty kilometers south of Konoha."
Sarutobi hummed in acknowledgement of this information, eyes flickering to instruct the ANBU on standby to do the obvious, which was to send scouts. They would likely take about half an hour to return from recon, if they used the Body Flicker as much as they could as a mission of this urgency required. Free Running through the forest canopy would typically be about forty kilometers an hour, but the Body Flicker was much, much faster.
"How can you be sure that they have no ill intentions?" Hiashi prodded, though he had a good inkling if the glance he gave Sarutobi was any indication.
"They have enough technology to burn our world to ash within a week, and then rebuild it to habitability within a few years. If they wanted to hurt us they wouldn't need to have bothered with giving me this armour, or even making contact with me. They could have traced the space-time technique's energy signature to find this world, and attacked from out of nowhere." Hinata felt weird, since she never normally spoke with nearly this much force near her father. Then again, being almost forced into the position of representing such a power, and preventing her world from doing anything dumb enough to provoke them into hostilities, was a big job. There was no way she'd let her sister die just because a few terrified old men couldn't adapt to a new reality glaring them in the face… just as there was no way Hanabi would get the Caged Bird Seal… that might be a problem she had to consult with the Coalition for "One moment, I'm getting a message… they would like to address you directly."
A handsome young man popped up as a hologram broadcast from the Cybran symbol on the front of the matte black armour "Hello, I am Steven Hackett, one of five members on this expedition representing the Coalition, we would like to make peaceful contact with the local civilization. We expect it to take many years of intermittent, distant contact before we can begin cultural tourism and trading for cultural products from this planet, hence the choice of requesting a local act as our liaison. She wanted to come in her original clothes, but, well, to prove that she's actually affiliated with us and not just having had a fever dream, we would have had to send an honor guard of units, and she thought that was a bad idea. We had no wish to alarm anyone by sending some of our heavier units to ask what happened to our representative if she was thrown in interrogation. With me are three other representatives, one for each faction of the Coalition. We come in peace. Hinata, please give us a call when your side is ready to discuss further, and don't forget that we said we would aid you, Hinata, personally if it is reasonable. Call us whenever you wish to speak." The hologram disappeared, and Hinata suddenly felt very small as everyone stared at her and Sarutobi released his calming technique.
"What counts as reasonable?" Hiruzen asked.
"Uh… sorry, Hokage-sama, I'm not supposed to disclose the specifics, in the hopes of a fairly slow exposure over time to their might, and for them to observe how a typical life on this planet might work, despite me being a clan heiress and thus not all that typical… They don't want to make anyone make panicked, stupid decisions. It has to be morally reasonable by their judgement, and at my sole request…" She looked her father in the eye thinking about moral issues "Father, we need to uncage the bird, as soon as possible, because the Cybran Nation, one of the four Coalition factions, would probably go nuts if we consciously let it drag on too long. We need to do it while keeping this secret from the Clan Elders in case they are dumb enough to go after Hanabi before the Coalition units get here." Then Hinata began to tell them of some of the history of the Coalition… and both Hiruzen and Hiashi had to sit down at the mention of twelve hundred years of ceaseless war over thousands of worlds, and five trillion deaths.
A/N: Review replies (for some reason I can only see the first 2 reviews so this reply section for the third and fourth guy lacks the third guy's name)!
The guy who talked about chapter 4 being a massive info dump: You do realize telling someone from the Naruto universe that a machine several floors tall shooting shells that are at least 20 centimeters (about 8 inches) across is the weakest combat vehicle the Coalition has is pretty damned important, right? Also, the connection between the Residual Energy Signature Othuy and Tailed Beasts? What does that say about the Experimental Phason Pulse Generator which shoots… a ball of energy (e.g. analogous to the Tailed Beast Ball)?
Uzukage-of-the-Storm: Thank you for reviewing! I think this is going to be a learning experience for both sides, the Coalition will learn new methods of using Psi energy (having suppressors built almost everywhere doesn't help development in the UEF and Cybran Nation), and the Naruto world will start appreciating technological progress more and trying to figure out why their own guns never improved. They will also have the whole show turned from serious mode Sasuke-blowjobs to hilarious easy-mode stuff (just wait until Wave…) For example, the first strategic bomber strike might accidentally level several square kilometers of forest because "Ah crap I turned containment field projection off!"
REVIEW PLEASE!
