Naruto X
AN: Well that was my longest chapter yet. I was so caught up in the rhythm I didn't even notice how far along I was getting. Kinda like what happened in one of my other fanfics, the first chapter spanned over 100 pages. While I myself love long chapters, I know some people despise them so I've been trying to keep a neutral ground ever since then.
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"Naruto?" Sakura whispered, afraid that she was dreaming right now. "You can relax. I'll deal with him." The blonde replied before the one in black armor fired a charged shot at him instantly, which was met with a red barrier that absorbed the attack, making the one in black stare in shock.
"I see. Your buster is more powerful and you have a stronger Giga attack, but your armor is weaker." he then gestured to the stomach of the one in front of him which had an almost gaping hole in it. "Much weaker." he said.
The maverick grit his teeth before firing multiple charged shots at Naruto who just stood there and let them hit his shield over and over. "It's useless. You don't stand a chance against me." Naruto said before he rushed his dark side.
The one in black suddenly covered himself in the energy as the wings appeared and he flew right at Naruto who jumped clear over the attack. When the one in black stopped, he turned back and glared at Naruto who just looked back at him with annoyance. "While my armor can also use Giga attack, it doesn't have the wings. I know all your tricks and you just showed me your trump." he said as he began to charge up.
"You weren't nearly this stupid when I was in charge." He said which made the maverick Naruto scowl before firing more charged shots at him which the blonde just rolled around and dodged, slowly making his way closer, but his charge attack was still going, why wasn't he firing?
Once he got closer, the maverick pulled out his yellow z-saber and swung at Naruto, who grabbed his own purple z-saber and suddenly swung it as it let out a much higher pitched buzzing noise as it went through maverick Naruto's arm and across his body.
The shock on the mavericks face was evident as he watched his arm fall to the ground and Naruto just smirked. "By the way, I figured it would be hard to fight you, since you pretty much knew every trick I do so I had to learn something new to counter you. How do you like a charged saber?" he asked as the maverick raised his buster, only for Naruto to smack the buster aside before he pulled his sword back and thrust it into the mavericks stomach, managing to bust inside thanks to the damage done to the armor before Naruto began to charge again while his saber was still inside.
The eyes of the maverick widened once he began to realize his predicament and was trying to pull away, but Naruto was holding his buster arm away with his other hand. Once he was done charging, he pulled his saber straight up and then slashed across the mavericks waist. He stood there in shock for a moment until his upper half split apart and fell off the legs before it began to explode in a glorious light show.
Naruto suddenly absorbed energy that had flown off of the maverick and suddenly they heard applauding. They turned towards the source and Naruto growled in anger. "Sigma!" he said which got everyone's attention. "That's Sigma?!" Sakura said in shock as the man began to laugh. "I see my reputation precedes me."
He then turned towards Naruto and laughed. "Well imagine my shock to find out that the maverick you just killed was never really you in the first place, but actually a mere copy that you were remotely controlling." He said as Naruto just growled in anger.
"Too easy to turn maverick, you however, you're the real deal aren't you? Oh you'll be immune to the virus but that's fine." he said with got Tayuya's attention. "Wait you fuck, I thought you said the virus would work on him?" she said and the man just laughed.
"It only worked because he was fully robotic. This one before me is part human, so the virus won't work on him." He said and the redhead was grinding her teeth. "So it won't work on humans…then why did you tell me it would?!" she hollered which made him laugh.
"I only said I would inject you with the virus if you ever betrayed me. It won't do anything other than cancel out your cybernetics, making you weaker than before. I then explained what the virus would do if I got another reploid with it. I never once specifically said it would work on humans or what effect it would have on you. I might want to destroy humanity but I'm not a liar." Sigma stated in an amused tone.
"Enough!" Naruto shouted as he fired a shot at Sigma, who just sidestepped the small attack. "You're going to pay for that day and everything you've ever done!" Naruto yelled as he began to charge up his buster and Sigma chuckled before pulling out his own saber and charged at Naruto, who countered by pulling out his own sword and blocking the attack.
The two exchanged sword strikes for some time until Naruto finally fired a charged shot at Sigma who took the attack head on but didn't look damaged at all. Naruto blinked in shock as Sigma flew in and attacked again and he barely stopped it with his sword, what the hell? Was Sigma getting stronger?
The man laughed and began to attack faster and in a style Naruto had never seen before. He did his best to parry but the skill difference was too huge. Sigma eventually sliced off Naruto's hand holding the sword and he laughed.
"Just like old times." He said which made the blonde growl before he fired his buster again, but Sigma slashed away the attack before charging in and kicking Naruto in the chest.
In a flash he was on the boy and with another slice, took off the boys other hand. Sigma let out a cold laugh before he stabbed his sword into the boys chest. "You were a fool. X is the one I'm destined to fight, not some second place knock off who barely has a tenth of his power." He said which made the blondes eyes widen in shock.
"A tenth?" He asked which made Sigma laugh. "Please, do you really think a cyborgs power could compare to the real thing?" he asked as he moved the sword a bit in the boys chest, getting a groan from him.
"You're NOTHING. Just a little boy scout in power armor. Tell me, did X put you trough training simulations of his old adventures?" and Naruto just grunted as he tried to ignore the pain.
"Well obviously, your armor is an indicator of that." Sigma continued before he pulled the saber out of the boys chest, disarmed and put it back on his belt and began to walk away which confused the boy. "Did you know that they can control how tough the training simulator is? Next time you're there, try the simulation on its true difficulty and tell X the next time you see him that I'm still waiting for him and I'll be ready once he decides to stop sending kids to do his dirty work." He said before vanishing in a flash of light.
For a long while there was silence throughout the field until Shino reappeared with Hinata and they began to help everyone up. When Neji looked at Hinata, he wondered where she had gone during that fight, but she said that Shino was right, she wasn't on par with anyone else and would have been useless in that fight.
The older Hyuuga just grunted and felt slight shame at his previous actions. Sure he was mean to Hinata and didn't help her at all with her complex, but on the flip side she was right that the clan style did nothing and she may have just gotten herself killed. Everyone except Naruto was up and he just remained there with a neutral expression on his face. "Naruto?" Sakura asked, as she knelt next to the boy.
"I let my rage consume me and didn't even think rationally. I knew I couldn't take him and I knew I was weaker, Axl had let it slip awhile ago but still…my anger clouded my judgment. It wasn't a matter of revenge, it was knowing everything he had ever done and I wanted to put an end to it." At this Naruto began to laugh. "But he's right. X is the one who needs to stop Sigma." With a sigh, he sat up and got to his feet, being supported by Sasuke while Sakura picked up his hands and saber.
It was late when everyone had returned to Konoha and upon returning, Sarutobi had immediately embraced the boy once he was in the office, catching everyone off guard, especially Tsunade.
"Hey calm down old man, I'm fine." He said and Sarutobi backed off after that. "You gave me quite the scare Naruto. I want a report on everything that's happened." he said, his tone not giving any room for argument.
It was two hours later once everyone had left. Tsunade and Shizune were doing first aid on everyone while the report was being given. Lee and Naruto would need to go to the command center and when they (along with Sasuke and Sakura) did, well X wasn't happy.
His priority was concern for everyone and then shock that Sigma hadn't just killed all of them. Once Naruto explained everything that had transpired the blue hunter was almost beside himself in anger.
"I can't believe Sigma's up to these kinds of tricks." he grumbled. "Using humans and reanimating the dead." Zero put a hand on X's shoulder and whispered something to him.
X glanced back at Naruto then back at Zero and whispered back. The two got into a rather heated debate until finally X walked up to team 7 and Lee. "Rock Lee, we're going to repair your arms and make them stronger, Sasuke and Sakura, we're going to do something for you two and Naruto…I am heavily against this but go see Lifesaver. Tell him to go with project ZX." He said before walking away, leaving the four ninja standing there in confusion.
When they went to see Lifesaver, Naruto told him about this project and his eyes nearly flew right out of his head. With a reluctant sigh, he walked over to the desk and hit a button to call all his medical staff to the office, which got more confused looks from the ninja.
They later found out why once the four of them realized they were on operating tables and had been strapped down. They were trying to protest and figure out what was going on, but Lifesaver assured them that they had nothing to fear and he was going to give all of them enhancements, which caught them all off guard.
-Several hours later-
The kids all awoke and were quite shocked once they noticed the differences. Sasuke had metal arms, apparently strength enhancers according to the chart on his list. Lee not only has his arms repaired, but he was given a digital eye of his own that could track enemies and kept track of his own vitals. The arms had apparently been redone with a new material that would allow him to use his gate opening techniques.
Sakura had a huge change. Her body was now wearing a movement enhancing suit and her eye patch had been upgraded to interact well with her body that could help her entire body move better and more accurately and even respond to incoming threats by reflex faster, along with having full vision around her body, the eye patch also gave her a radar that kept track of her immediate area up to 100 yards around her.
Naruto however had the biggest chance yet. When he woke he was shocked at what had happened. No longer was he in the dark silver bulky armor of before, now he was in a black and dark blue form fitting outfit that looked like it contained less armor and was much more mobile.
But what surprised him the most was he no longer had a bulky looking buster on his hand and on the tray next to him was his saber. He stood up, feeling much lighter than before and he quickly grabbed his saber and looked at a mirror. He had a helmet on that covered most of his head, only revealing his face, the helmet went out to the side similar to Zero's, but the wing part looked smaller and much closer in to the face.
He held his hand out and much faster than his old body, his hand had immediately converted into a buster gun, but what caught him was that this worked on both of his hands.
He turned on his z-saber and was shocked when it came out not as a single line of energy like he was expecting, but it looked like an actual transparent sword as the energy curved and spiked downwards and then went back up to form a sword tip. That was way cooler than last time, but he was looking at his body and was wondering how less armor was beneficial.
That was when Zero walked in and nodded. "I'm sure you have tons of questions." He said which made the blonde look up. "First of all, project ZX is an experimental process. We don't know how this will pan out but let me go over some of the details. First of all, it's an actual combined effort to eliminate overspecialization.
This new body will allow you to combine saber and buster combat effortlessly without any drawbacks. Such as the fact, had you used the charged saber attack again, your old saber would have exploded from the stress." He explained and Naruto gulped.
"Now I know this body is much thinner than you're used to, but it's an experiment for a reason. This is a new material that we've discovered on a mission. It's lighter than our current armor but twice as strong. The new saber you have is from a different energy source. In fact, we've only found one thing it can't cut through and that's your armor." Zero explained as he pulled out his own saber and tapped Naruto with it, he was amazed that the sword didn't cut into him.
"The biggest chance of project ZX is actually the overspecialization I mentioned before. Follow me." He said and they went to the training simulator. A target suddenly appeared and he gestured to it. "Shoot that with Shotgun ice." He said, Naruto noticed that his armor hadn't changed color when he did swap weapons and he fired the attack without problem.
"Now use that with your sword." Zero said, and Naruto gave him a skeptical look before he tried using the skill while swinging his sword, the effect was instant. Instead of a single chunk of ice that flew out, the spread from the attack was what fired when Naruto used the sword.
"And that's what I was talking about. It's a hybridized combat style. But like I said, we're testing it and you get to use it because I felt that if anyone could handle it, you could. Not to mention since Sigma seems to have a thing about causing you trouble, I figured you could use this boost since we won't always be able to come help." He said before suddenly Chill Penguin appeared in the room.
Naruto blinked before looking at Zero and the red hunter gave a thumbs up before he heard a noise and saw numbers over Chill Penguins head. It was at 12% and suddenly the percentage began to grow until it hit 100%.
Naruto blinked in shock before the maverick went on the attack. Naruto was shocked when he attempted to jump over the slide when he went much higher than he was used to. When he landed, he fired at Chill Penguin and to his immense surprise, the hologram lost over half of its energy in a single hit.
That didn't seem right, he was so shocked that he didn't dodge the attack coming at hit and he expected pain, but instead the ice just broke apart once it hit him and he stared down in shock.
Zero's voice suddenly came in over the intercom. "I wasn't joking when I said this stuff was much stronger. You have full power equipment now and I can honestly say that you stand a better chance of defeating Sigma than I do right now." Then the red hunter smirked. "Not that Sigma even stands a chance against me, but still." He bragged which made Naruto laugh.
Sakura was in another training room with Axl and the entire situation almost felt surreal to her. She was moving much faster, her coordination was much more precise and Axl was using his actual weapons against her, but when she felt her adrenaline kick in, the attacks were moving in slow motion and she was able to move her sword fast enough to intercept the attacks and block them.
Sasuke meanwhile was ecstatic. He was punching through metal, he was crushing weapons with his fingers and best of all these new enhancers didn't weigh him down in the slightest.
He was immediately brought back down to earth when X spawned that robot with the hard hat and despite Sasuke's best efforts he STILL wasn't able to kill that annoying little robot!
When he looked at the blue hunter, he just shrugged. "Don't get a big head. Just because you have that power doesn't mean you're invincible." X said and Sasuke just sighed and nodded.
When all of them were back in the main hall, X walked up and cleared his throat. "As you know, Naruto has no choice but to remain in his armor because of what happened and Lee's arms are still healing." He said and everyone nodded. "However, Sakura and Sasuke, your upgrades are not mandatory and can be removed or put on at will." He said and the two concentrated before a flash of light happened to both of them and they were back to their regular selves.
"It's called flash armor. Have you ever noticed that Naruto was able to change armors immediately or that I'm in my default most of the time?" He asked and they nodded. "Same concept. You can stay out of your upgrades until you're ready to use them." He explained which made them nod in understanding.
With a quick wave, they all departed from the command center but to his surprise, Sasuke and Sakura had both announced they were staying at his place to keep an eye on him. When he asked as to why, Sasuke stated that someone tried to kidnap him once, what was to stop them again and Sakura said she wanted to make sure the new armor didn't do anything to him.
And that was team 7 the next morning when Naruto popped out of sleep mode, it was a new feature for his system that made him act like he was sleeping but the truth was it was more of an ability that enabled his consciousness to lapse while still remaining aware so that it didn't get bogged down with boredom or the need to do anything while he waited.
He could 'wake up' manually if he desired and while he was in what he dubbed 'sleep' he could still watch his radar, keep track of time and go over various information that he had.
There were other things available but he never bothered with them since he was new to this sleep mode and didn't want to get into something he didn't already know how to use. When Naruto gained realization, he noted that he was in the center of the mattress he had drug off the bed and turned sideways for all of them to sleep on and his feet were still on the couch cushions he had put down to compensate for them using the mattress sideways.
Sasuke had his arms folded behind his head and was snoring. Sakura was curled up in a ball next to Naruto and he had just laid flat on his back the entire time. When he tried to move, Sakura and Sasuke's arms moved and grabbed hold of him, but both were clearly still asleep.
He sighed inwardly, looks like he wasn't getting up anytime soon.