Authors Note: Here is the second part of the chapter. Enjoy. As always, read and review-what did you like, what didn't you like? Speculation? I use your reviews to help me hone what works and what doesn't. Thanks guys! Oh and special shout-out to those of you who reviewed the last chapter-you inspired me to post this in answer to some of your questions; Travis, Friaku, etc. You guys know who you are!

Thanks again.

Arte

PS. The reference was not just to Halo (though the 117 is homage to them), but it was to Akira when Naruto yells, "KATSURA!" He yells it similarly to how Kaneda yells, "TETSUO!" Just a small slip in there to one of my favorites!

CHAPTER 4: REASONS

CE 2171: Systems Alliance Farming Colony Mindoir, in the Attican Traverse

The Shepard's Farm

Emily found she had a very hard time falling asleep that night.

She could hear the snores of her brother in the next room, but mostly, it was the nightmares.

All the people from her earlier dream were there: her 'crew', a curvy woman named Miranda; the funny guy, Joker, that grim Turian Garrus, the brilliant Liara, and all the others; Ashley, James, EDI, Jack...there were so many faces.

So many names. So many people she had made up in her head-and they all died.

The lot them were fighting through an alien ship that looked like a human stomach-all organic and dark and squishy and it smelled. Emily watched some of them go, die-one by one. Some in little ways, caught like mice in a trap-or others in big conflagrations, blowing themselves up to deny their corpses to the machine-reapers or the insect-people.

It was horrible.

Emily felt tears gathering at the corner of her eyes, even while she was sleeping. Why was she crying for people she'd never met? It wasn't like they mattered.

Why her?

Why these dreams?

What did they mean?

Her mind sought reassurance, looking for any subject to take her mind off those awful dreams. For some reason, her thoughts turned to the excitement of the day-and the boy they found in the crater. Something in her heart eased when she saw him, saw the outrageous mane of bright straw-colored hair and his sky-blue eyes. They were oddly reflective, like there were secrets hidden behind them, a second layer of red and black. It made the hue of blue startling and prismatic-the color of the tropical sea near Catrral, near the coast of District 3. Her parents had taken her and Robert there occasionally when planting season was over.

Even the scar across his right eye didn't warp his face, only give him a roguish cast. It was...cute. Rugged even. She could even get past the tattoos on his palms; a sun and a moon in black ink. Add in the fact he was dressed as he was in martial and exotic clothing and armor... well, she could freely admit it, if only to herself, that she thought he might be the cutest boy she'd ever seen. Granted, that wasn't saying much given the trolls that populated her high school. She made a face, lying there in her bed.

God forbid she ever let those assholes paw her up...

She sighed, turning over on her side in her bed and staring at her closet, door askew and clothes spilling out, across from her. It was proving very difficult to go to sleep now, that is, after she woke up yelling. Her mom had come in and spent some time there reassuring her and, though she was old enough, there was nothing quite like having your mom tuck you back in bed after witnessing death like she'd had. (Since when had she accepted there was something so real about it all?) She kept telling herself that she didn't need the comfort...but a mature voice in her head seemed to say: treasure what time you have with your parents...you might not have as much as you think.

And she thought that sounded like pretty good advice...and a good excuse to let herself be babied.

The walls were thin here, sometimes a bad thing in her opinion for various unnamed horrifying reasons, but it allowed her to hear her parents talking in the hallway. The light was shining from under the door. It was only around nine-thirty, but her parents were usually asleep by now. It was odd to say the least.

Emily strained to hear what they were saying.

"...I just got a call from the hospital Hannah. The boy's escaped. Killed an orderly while doing it too." She heard her mother's intake of breath-shock and horror?-from here. She had a hard time believing that that scrawny kid could do something like that-it must've been a mistake...right?

"Squeezed his neck so hard that he popped the poor kid's head right off his shoulders. Apparently he was having nightmares or something, went into shock." There was silence in the hallway. She strained her ears, her nightshirt falling and baring one tan shoulder. Finally, it was her father that spoke, sounding more baffled than anything else, "What kind of insane biotic could do something like that? In his sleep no less! I tell ya, I had a bad feeling about that boy. Didn't I say that?"

"I know Frank, but we couldn't leave the boy there-could we?"

"No, no, you're right. We did the right thing...but still. It frightens me, I'm not ashamed to say. What if he had woken up right there on our couch? Killed Emily? Or Robert?" Emily had never known her father to admit his fear like that.

At least, not in front of her.

For some inexplicable reason, Emily couldn't imagine the boy hurting her-maybe it was the flicker of his eyes on her while she watched over him when he was on their couch? She swore he opened his eyes and-was that a gleam of purple? Or was it red? Strange.

He looked lost...lonely. And very surprised to see her.

Emily wondered what that meant.

"It frightens me as well. Do you think we should lock the house extra-tight tonight? Set Alice to Defensive tonight? I know it would help me sleep a bit better." She assumed her father was nodding. The next part made her sit up in shock.

"I would feel better as well, supposedly they haven't captured him and he's out there, in the forest, roaming around and we're on alert for Batarians-so nobody is going to go looking for him..."

The door shut and her father's voice became too muffled for her to hear the rest of his words.

So, the kid escaped and was now roaming the wilderness all alone after killing a nurse. But it had to have been accident right? It sounded to Emily like the boy an extraordinarily powerful biotic and just... lost control...after having a traumatic nightmare.

She knew all about that...didn't she?

Already she felt herself melting, feeling for his situation. It was very much like her own. Lying there on her bed, she couldn't help it as she flashed back to events that happened a year ago, events that her parents still didn't like talking about.

It was the reason her family had stopped going into town much anymore and the reason she had no friends to speak of.

She was a freak, a pariah.

Emily could still see the look of fear plastered on his face.

Tony Malliori was a huge cunt.

Pardon her French, but of his status as the biggest cunt in the school, Emily Shepard was very certain.

"Piss off Shepard, you stupid freak-all your good for is being a wet hole for somebody better than you! I bet you'll be stuck on this planet just farming like the rest of these idiots. Or on all fours for a dirty rotten farmhand." Tony Malliori sneered and sniffed like he was some disapproving older Aunt while he said this to her.

He actually said all that to her-in front of everyone!

Emily had turned and walked quickly away because she didn't want him to see the tears gathering around her eyes. Subtle blue static crackled at her fingertips, unnoticed by everyone-including her.

Thoughts swirled in her head. She knew farming wasn't the most glamorous of jobs, but...but her mom and dad loved it...and wasn't that what counted? Doing what you loved? Something about not working a day in your life? But Emily simply buried his words and continued about her boring, unexciting high school life. She threw the incident from her mind and a few months passed like this, coldly ignoring the problem brewing in her life.

And then...today.

Fifth period of the day (her Lunch period actually) and she was watching him demonstrate to the world why he was a waste of space. Currently, he was taking his anger out on a poor freshman girl-a blonde, waifish girl named Nancy who did absolutely nothing other than exist, well, exist and happened to be very much smaller than the hulking, dark-haired neanderthal Tony.

See, Emily had watched him, observed him and had it figured out. Tony was all set to attend Mindoirs premiere University on an athletics scholarship. It was one of the only ways to get out of being a farmer on Mindoir, actually. His family had been notoriously poor, but the Malliori boys had one thing going for them: all of them were big.

Like huge, like a baby Krogan huge.

On top of that, his brother-Allan Malliori-just started playing for the Mindorian Minotaurs-a team who was already in the Pick Six Draft for the Galaxy League. The money from endorsements and such were rolling in and it was already obvious that he spoiled his little brother as Tony sported the newest custom omni-tool and drove a really nice car to school-as, she kept getting reminded by her friends, was his right as a senior.

So it-he-was kind of a big deal.

And Tony let everyone know it.

Repeatedly and loudly.

Why the teachers let him get away with it she never knew.

So it was no surprise to her that he picked on those weaker than himself-him and his goon squad, a large number of whom were big players on the local wrestling teams or other athletic teams. It was a story as old as time-or so her father had said to her when she complained to him about Tony.

Frank Shepard had fixed her with a stare outside in the Barn while they were fixing some of the Farm Drones and said to her, soot staining one side of his nose, "Don't ever give them an inch baby girl, you stand up to him and you show him that you aren't to be messed with-do that, be assertive, and he'll never bother you again."

Of course, Hannah Shepard took a dim view of what she considered to be, 'assertiveness.' She could hear her mother's voice, "Use your words Em! W.O.R.D.S. Got it? Don't you dare punch that boy's teeth in!"

So much for a mothers faith in her daughter...regardless of the fact she was right about Emily's intentions. So naturally, her father's advice was the reason she was here, in the cafeteria, walking towards Tony. Each step on the rubbery floor echoed in her head. Each step was a step closer to embedding her fist in his fucking face.

Never mind that she'd have to get a running jump to reach it.

The cafeteria was packed at this period as this was the first-and therefore most popular-Lunch period pick for the day. The food was at its hottest. Emily had push and shove to make her way through the crowds, away from the table her friends sat at, to get to the open space-a bubble created by his notoriety no doubt-where she could confront him.

She literally couldn't help the words that came out of her mouth when she cleared the safe zone of people and stepped into the figurative arena with him.

"Hey you fucking dick, leave Nancy alone!"

Hannah Shepard would be so proud. She used seven words.

Emily Shepard truly had no idea just how big Tony Malliori really was until he straightened, incredulous, from where he hunched over Nancy, who at this point was trying to tug her skirt down. It was a very cute skirt too, plaid-which just pissed Emily off even more.

Her anger was somewhat tempered by the fact that the guy had to be at least six foot six inches tall and over-topped her by almost a foot. On top of that was the fact that the guy had muscles on top of his muscles and little muscles that helped out the other ones.

The guy was a mountain.

"What did you say to me bitch? Wanna say that again?"

He stepped forward, shoving Nancy to the ground where she tripped, palms slamming into the ground as she tried to stop her face-first dive into the cafeteria floor. Her skirt flared up a bit, revealing a bit of underwear, causing the guys around her to snicker and for her face to go beat red. Emily didn't miss the tears leaving tracks down the younger girls face.

It enraged her.

These fucking...pigs.

Blue static, same as before, charged her hands and made her hair flutter. She felt a weird energy gathering around her and it smelled like ozone. No one noticed-not even Tony. He simply glared at her, striding over the four feet of rapidly shrinking space to hulk over her too, like he did to Nancy.

But unlike Nancy, this asshole didn't scare her one bit.

Okay, maybe one bit...but that was it.

Emily enunciated her words clearly this time, to make sure he understood her-she felt it was considerate as he wasn't attending University on an academic scholarship after all, "I said, 'Hey you fucking dick, leave Nancy alone. What part of that was unclear?" He smirked nastily at her.

Hannah would be proud, she used fifteen words that time.

"Oh, don't worry Shepard, I was just double-checking you were as stupid as I always thought you were. You're dead." Emily barely had time to react as one massive meaty fist was flying towards her face and she was controlling her fall backwards, doing a backroll over her right shoulder. Unfortunately, the boy was showing his athletic potential as he didn't let up.

His booted foot was rising up towards her as her face came up from the roll.

The boot impacted her face with a crunch and spurt of blood that spread in an arc on the floor.

But Emily didn't let that stop her.

Fuck this kid.

She took the hit and threw herself roughly to the side, recovering with one hand planted on the ground and swinging her legs back up as she launched herself and her fist right into the big seniors crotch. He let out a strangled yell like a stepped on cat and collapsed sideways, like a tree falling in a forest. Victory seemed assured over Tony, the big douche, but she had forgotten one very important point: he had a cadre of flying monkeys to back him up.

Emily bled from her nose profusely as she was grabbed forcefully and strung up between the two larger goons. Mike maybe? Or David? She couldn't remember. They were extremely forgettable bookends, just existing to fluff Tony's ego she was sure.

She watched, helplessly, as the kid got up from the ground gingerly.

He was furious.

This happened to be the first moment that Emily felt some kind of real fear. Here she was very much helpless. She tugged fruitlessly at the hands gripping her upper arms. No give. The eldest daughter of Hannah and Frank Shepard looked around frantically for a teacher-failing that, she started scanning the faces of the students watching this confrontation. She met their eyes-most looked away.

Cowards.

Tony lumbered towards her.

"To be honest Shepard, it baffles me why you don't see what I do-I mean, you're totally worthless, you know?" He'd hitched his pants up higher, a sinister glint in his eye. "There was always something that bothered me about you...I never knew what it was until now. You see, you think you're better than us don't you? Your parents got to choose to be stuck here working a farm while the rest of us are stuck in it, trying to get away."

He grinned savagely, thick flat teeth shining a dull grey. "An uppity bitch like you needs to learn her place-kneeling in front of me." His open palm impacted her face with a loud painful sound. A cut opened on his hand where he struck her high cheekbones. The weight of his hand and arm pressing down on her shoulder forced her down to her knees. Emily struggled, managing to get one foot underneath herself and kneel in a better position for her next move. She glared up at him.

Emily was forced to watch while the cafeteria cleared out. Nancy was crying and struggling to keep her skirt down as Tony's toadies were pawing at her. The sight lit a fire deep inside the red-head that refused to be quenched.

There was enough fire to burn the whole world.

Tony kept on speaking like nothing was out of the ordinary, totally oblivious to the danger brewing in front of him in the form of young Emily Shepard.

"Women like you-who don't know their place-need to be shown the light...and I'm only too happy to..." His fist descended in slow motion towards her face and Emily realized she never hated anyone more in her life. "...make the lesson sink in real good!"

A cerulean blue criss-crossing latice of energy arced between her hands and suffused her body, wreathing her in a kind of will-o-wisp flame that saw her two captors leaping back, shocked and suffering from electrical burns.

Everything that happened next, happened slowly-so slowly she could still picture it perfectly in her minds eye.

She wanted to hurt Tony-not only hurt him, but crush him. Like a bug with a rolled up newspaper. A snarl appeared on her face as she lashed out intuitively, electrical impulses firing at lightspeed to manipulate and change the mass effect fields in the area. Power surged and she both lightened his weight and increased it at the point of impact as she threw him with all the force of hurricane winds into the cafeteria wall. Duracrete walls do not crack easily but his shoulder took the blunt force for the rest of his body.

It probably saved his life.

Tony Malliori, six foot six and closer to three hundred than to two hundred, hit the wall at close to one hundred and fifty miles an hour and it utterly crushed his shoulder and arm. Bone fragments were sticking out as she watched him writhe in pain, screaming. It happened so fast...

One moment he was attempting to punch her and the next moment he was hurtling towards the wall. His arm shattered and his head whiplashed sideways concussing him. Tony Malliori was out cold on the ground and the cafeteria was utterly silent except for the crinkling of broken glass.

He'd shattered the two window panes on either side of the wall.

Emily Shepard stared at the destruction she wrought and couldn't figure out what she was feeling...until she saw the rest of the student body watching her. They'd apparently stopped their mass exodus to watch the end of the confrontation and the horror etched on their faces-like she was some eldritch horror rising up from the deep-was far too much for her to bear.

The eldest Shepard child closed up like a clam, adopting a stony look as she helped the still-sobbing Nancy up off the ground. Stoically, she ignored the two frantic minions as they attempted to help their leader who was obviously in bad shape. It was also when the panic started. Someone started screaming that Tony was dead...and Emily quickened her pace, trying to leave the cafeteria and bring Nancy to the nurse quickly.

Emily knew he wasn't dead, if that was what she wanted, that was what would've happened, but this was going to cause problems...yet, didn't everyone know how big a bully the Malliori boys were? Right?

They wouldn't expel her or anything, right?

Nancy snuggled in closer as they walked, still crying and shaken up. It reminded her of why she did what she did in the first place. Her resolve solidified.

Nobody had the right to get away with things like that. No one.

"It'll be okay Nancy, I promise. He won't be hurting anyone ever again-definitely not you." Sniffles met her pronouncement.

Emily sighed. She needed to call her parents.

Lying there, in her bed, remembering that horrible scene...it made her think that perhaps something similar had happened to the boy.

After all, the worst part of her situation wasn't even getting suspended.

It was the way everyone looked at her afterwards.

Scorn and fear followed her everywhere. See, you had to understand what was happening back on Earth-and around the colonies for that matter-to really get why people were behaving the way they were. Pre-2150, there were only a few scattered reports of gene-tampering and gene-therapy...people turning up looking like science-projects. For most, they were relatively harmless genetic modifications, but then a guy-colored all green like a plant-turned up near death at a Hospital in the remote provinces of the Chinese Federation. He had been infused with plant-genetics to live entirely off of sunlight.

He died shortly after arriving from something unknown. They simply didn't know enough to treat the poor man.

Humanity had...a bad reaction.

Only a year later, in 2151 and three years after that in 2154, were there highly publicized incidents involving Element Zero and the terrible effects it had on humanity, a people who-unlike the Asari-were not exposed to it at birth. It...changed us, some of us at least.

In 2161, after significant effort to track and record our new developing powers, the Sudham-Wolcott Genetic Heritage Act came in to being over concerns over the misuse of gene therapy-the arguments for and against used inflammatory rhetoric to spur mass fears.

Everyone's collective imagination went wild.

Biotics were shunned as freaks. Parents abandoned children who showed unusual powers. Some people even died as a direct result of emotional outbursts, or just plain accidents resulting from misunderstandings about what it was they were dealing with.

The fear escalated.

Here, on the out-world colonies, it was more like witch-hunts. You didn't want to be a person with 'unusual' powers as you were cut adrift from the collective, forced to live on your own. Ultimately, a biotic usually ended up in the military-one way or another. And it wasn't a bad life, by any means.

Or so she'd been told.

But the whole ordeal made her understand why her whole town suddenly wanted nothing to do with her or her family. They were pariahs, outliers, outcasts-her parents were harboring a freak with powers.

It made them...unwelcome.

It made her heart ache for the blonde boy who accidently (she was sure) killed the orderly while in the grip of a nightmare-she'd almost killed Tony herself after all...and she'd been awake. Nightmares though, well, Emily was half-surprised she hadn't wrecked her room in the middle of the night already.

With that thought in mind, that she-and apparently only she-could understand what he was going through, Emily threw off her bedcovers and started to get dressed. He needed to know he had a friend. Poor kid was probably frightened half-to-death, waking up like that in no doubt strange place.

A friendly face would probably be very welcome right now.

She would find him...and she'd make sure he knew he wasn't alone.

Naruto wasn't alone.

If the crackling leaves and branches in the distance weren't a dead giveaway, then the obnoxiously bright sweater definitely was. He'd been sitting here, minding his own business, when someone had come tramping through the woods. The ninja had listened to them for about twenty minutes, huffing and puffing, scampering around the woodlands like they were trying to find something-or someone.

They were probably looking for him.

Chances were fairly low that he was going to get caught because, unless he greatly missed his mark, they had absolutely no wilderness training whatsoever. Translation: not the military. Or that, 'Colonial Security,' whatever that was. So no, worrying was not something he was currently occupied with.

Amusement however? That was definitely in.

The quiet curses gave his tracker away as female and young at that. But it was obvious she was determined, she'd been going around in a bit of a loopy circle for a long time with no luck (obviously). Naruto was seriously debating scaring the ever-loving shit out her just for fun when she managed to stumble haphazardly into the clearing.

Of course he wasn't in it.

No. Naruto Namikaze, S-Rank Missing-nin of the Village Hidden in the Leaf, was hiding in a tree.

He preferred to think of it as strategically lounging, but that was just his take.

The sound of her frustrated and labored breathing-it was hard work tramping around in the chilly woods in the middle of the night he supposed-gave him time to look her over properly in the half-light of the moon. What he saw gave him pause as he remembered that face.

It was the girl from earlier, the one who was caressing his face...

He just didn't remember her being so pretty.

The girl was wearing baggy sweatpants and a tight sweater that did very little to hide her growing assets. She couldn't have been any older than he was...though he'd been told he looked mature for his age-but only when his mouth was closed, that is. Long red-hair, so much like Katsura's and his mothers, was tied up in sloppily-done side-ponytail, as if she'd been going somewhere in a hurry. It left her tanned skin and luminous forest green eyes open for inspection.

Naruto liked what he saw...but then again, he grew up around a lot perverts-so was that any surprise?

He knew perfection when he found it.

The blonde knew he'd been staring for a while and after realizing this, he opened his mouth finally, but what came out was pure snark.

"Excuse me miss, but you wouldn't happen to be looking for someone would you? A dashingly handsome rogue perhaps?"

Naruto would treasure this moment-and the look on her face-for a long time to come.

The girl yelped and tripped, trying to look up towards the sound. Instead of looking up, her feet continued passed their assigned spots and her arms pin-wheeled as she tried to regain her balance in the slippery grass. It didn't do much good as she ended up flat on her ass on the wet ground and had grass stuck in her now undone ponytail.

He almost fell out of the tree laughing.

"Aha, you-you were so funny. Have a nice trip-"

Naruto choked a bit on his laugh as he pointed. "See ya next fall!"

Too busy laughing, he didn't see the rock zooming at him before it smacked him right smack dab in the middle of his forehead, overbalancing his careful perch and sending him plummeting ten feet to a dignified face-plant in the grass. Great peels of feminine laughter had Naruto scrambling quickly to his feet and pointing at her, practically shouting, "What the hell was that huh? You could've killed me!"

The imp in female clothing just laughed in his face. Naruto flashed back to another girl who frustrated and challenged him so thoroughly.

Sarada-chan...I'm so sorry...and thanks again.

Without him knowing it, he'd covered his scarred right eye with a hand, caressing it gently. His momentary lapse and trip down memory-lane must've shown on his face because the girl gradually stopped laughing, her smile fading as well.

The red-head looked sheepish as she rubbed one hand on the back of her head. She spoke hesitantly, "Hey, sorry, I was just so mad that you startled me... I didn't even think..."

He cut her off, smiling slightly, hiding his trembling hand in the pocket of his cloak. "Don't mention it, it was really funny...even if my head hurts a bit." He continued to look at her, kneeling in the grass. "My name is Naruto, Naruto Namikaze, what's yours?" The blonde waited to see if she reacted to his name in any way.

She didn't. She just smiled-it chased away the shadows he saw in her eyes. She stood quickly, brushing off as best she could (it failed, dirt was all over her) and held her hand out. Her grip was surprisingly strong-and she had calluses. Surprise, surprise.

"Nice to meet you Naruto, I'm Emily. Emily Shepard."

After the introductions, the two of them had moved closer to the edge of the woods-apparently her house was just on the other side of the tree line. He filed that away for future reference. Naruto was in the middle of telling his made-up story about the hospital and what happened.

"...so I was in the middle of a horrible dream and I just lashed out, you know?"

She nodded sympathetically, "I...I'm a biotic. I found out in school when this bully was being a huge dick to this girl who couldn't have been older than fourteen. I...I put him in the hospital, he almost died from shock before they could stabilize him." Naruto noticed she clenched her fists, his eyes couldn't fail to detect the faint blue glow that she gave off when she talked about the bully. He put a friendly hand on her shoulder. He didn't know if a biotic was just their version of chakra or what, but it certainly didn't feel like it. Nothing like rising chakra levels registered on his acute senses.

Not chakra then...interesting.

"As long as you stand up for what you believe in, you'll never go wrong." He looked away, not meeting her eyes. "It honestly sounds like that guy deserved what was coming to him."

Emily did not look comforted by this thought. She simply nodded unhappily.

"Yeah, I know. But it wasn't what I did that bothered me, it was the way people looked at me-even my own brother was scared of me at one point." This tidbit hit far, far too close to home for Naruto. Another red-haired girl flashed through his minds eye-a wide, devilish smile on her young, pretty, and whiskered face. He cleared his throat, sinking down onto the ground and putting his back up against a tree. "I don't believe for a second that he ever could believe you'd hurt him. I think...I think it was more likely that he was scared for you, than of you."

She looked thoughtful as she collapsed next to him, her shoulder brushing his cloaked one.

The two of them stared out into the deepening evening. It was very late.

When she spoke, she was soft, considering. "Maybe..."

He cleared his throat, changing the subject. "So, since I remember nadda about my life or where I am. How about you fill me in? Before the military chases me down?"

Emily searched for where to begin. "Well, the planet you're on now is called Mindoir, we are right smack dab in the Attican Traverse-dunno if that rings a bell or not, but it's very quiet here. Just a simple farming colony." She shrugged, playing with some grass. "The biggest thing to happen here in ages is...well...you, actually."

Naruto was still trying to play catch up with the fact he was on another planet. He honestly wasn't aware that his planet had a name, or if it did, he couldn't remember it. His world was just the Elemental Nations and the distant Western Continent. And now he was in space? Out there? Where the moon and the sun were?

This was...hard to swallow. He did his best.

"So...you have never heard of the Elemental Nations before?" She just looked confused.

"No, do you remember something from...you know, before?" He nodded, trying to look as confused as she looked.

"I...guess? I mean, that name sounds familiar, like I lived there."

His last vain hope that he was somewhere recognizable fizzled out like a candle stuck in water.

"Oh. Well, I don't know, maybe you can look it on a terminal when we get back to my house?" Before Naruto could ponder just what the hell a terminal was and what the hell happened to him when he activated his eye, Emily jumped to her feet as if scalded on the ass by hot coals.

"Oh shit! My parents are going to kill me."

The red head grabbed his gloved hand and pulled him to his feet, turning to sprint in the other direction. He dug his feet in, resisting.

"Hey, wait a second-can we please just hang here for a bit longer? Your parents aren't going to kill you any more if you wait another fifteen minutes...right?" Emily stopped trying to tug him, since it was like trying to uproot a tree (what the hell was with that anyway?), and reluctantly nodded.

"Fine, but not too much longer. They're probably going spare trying to figure out where I am-plus, you know, I think you're a fugitive or something." Naruto rubbed the back of his head. Oh, right. The dead orderly. Whoever said dead men tell no tales was a fucking liar.

Naruto decided to change the subject to something happier. He sat back down, patting the ground next to him. "It must be pretty boring here huh? What do you want to do when you grow up? Do you have a dream?" Quizzical, she gave him a look. He tried to explain, "You know, something you want to do or achieve when you get older. Something meaningful?"

He was right. It was boring here. Everyone knew everybody and you couldn't get away with anything without people knowing about it. As for a dream...Emily tried to think, really think...and couldn't come up with anything.

Except... Tony's words kept coming back to her like a horrible song that gets stuck in your head. The kind they kept playing on web-radio over and over again. Naruto watched despair threaten to overtake her vulnerable face. Vulnerable didn't seem to be a look she wore very often...he felt like he was almost privileged to see it.

While Naruto was watching her, Emily was in deep, listening to the cunts voice in her head.

"...all your good for is being a wet hole for somebody better than you! I bet you'll be stuck on this planet just farming like the rest of these idiots..."

"To be honest Shepard, it baffles me why you don't see what I do-I mean, you're totally worthless, you know?"

"I don't think I have a dream Naruto. Nothing concrete at least..." I don't think I ever will...Tony's right. All I'm probably going to end up doing is farming...boring, easy, predictable farming. Emily tried to remember that her parents loved it, loved having a full house to come home to and fresh food on the table every night...but it was hard.

Her life was far from exciting.

This talk of dreams reminded him so much of Shizune standing there that day, arms folded, giving him an inscrutable look-a look that he couldn't interpret until this moment. It was a much more intense version of the look he was giving Emily. He'd figured out later that Shizune had lied that day, about the chances of his dream coming true, but he hadn't realized why she did what she did until this very moment.

It was pity and sadness and the ache of innocence lost.

It was like watching someone walk into a fireball jutsu without seeing it coming and being unable to warn them, powerless to call out or help them.

Dreams, he'd found out, were for people who didn't understand the way the world worked.

"I'm sure you'll find out what your dreams are, someday, and when you do...don't ever stop pursuing them. Okay Emily? I have a feeling your life is going to be something far away from boring." It was true, he realized. He really did feel like she was destined for bigger things than just the acres of farmland on a backwater colony (like she'd said). He didn't know how he knew...but he knew.

She was something special. It was like meeting an old friend in a unexpected place.

Naruto grinned slyly, adopted a posh voice as he blew a piece of hair that escaped his goggles out of his eyes, "Though I've found that excitement is overrated in my old age...horrible for the joints dear girl."

Emily giggled, buoyed by his unexpectedly optimistic statement.

She wondered how this same boy could have killed somebody. He didn't look like he could hurt a fly or have a truly malicious bone in his body...but everytime she thought that, the light shifted a bit and she saw something lurking in his eyes. Like the fin of a massive underwater predator sticking up out of the water, circling-waiting. She shivered.

Light was starting to come up through the tree's, wreathing them in a weird semi-twilight. It made Naruto nostalgic for his home. The Forest of Death, where he trained a lot with all three of his sensei's, at different points in time of course, often looked like this in the early morning. After Kotachi and Sarada...well, he spent a lot of time, early in the morning, just sitting in his tent with the flap unzipped, staring off into the open canopy above wondering what he could've done differently. Ultimately, the only answer he had managed to come up with over the years was...nothing. He had simply not been strong enough, early enough. But he'd sworn, after too many senseless deaths, he would become so powerful he could save everyone.

And he'd tried...oh yes, he came so close.

But ultimately, all power comes with a price. A steep one, as it turned out.

Sonic booms disturbed his disquieted contemplations. It came from above, sounding like the roaring of a great beast. He glanced quickly at Emily, she was startled and seemed to somewhat recognize the sounds. The ships looked like big floating boxes of some strange grey metal. To him they hardly looked threatening. If anything they looked clumsy and slow and super-stupid, wobbling through the sky like a drunkard.

"That can't be the Alliance..."

Emily clearly did not share his amusement. She scrambled to her feet and looked up, squinting in the hazy half-way point between sunrise and darkness. "Those are..."

She began to walk faster. Naruto was baffled. What was she so frightened about?

Emily's mind was awhirl.

She'd seen the vid, she'd seen MNN reports about their activity...she knew what their ships looked like. Her and Naruto needed to warn her parents now.

Before it was too late.

"Emily, what the hell's got you so freaked? Those stupid-looking floating boxes?"

She whirled around, panicked. "We don't have time for this Naruto, just come with me! I'll explain later."

Naruto was not used to being put off, he grabbed her arm, halting her instantly. The face of the Bloody Nine looked back at her.

"Tell me. Emily, I can help, but only if you tell me what we're up against. What is it about those flying things that has you worried?" Frankly, this reminded him of the invasion of Sky all those years ago. He'd been small when it happened, but his mom and dad told stories. They talked about miniature flyers though, not this...colossus. Stupid looking it may be, but if it had Emily-strong, brave, indignant, and stupidly honest Emily, then he would take notice.

She swallowed, looking frightened. Her green eyes were lit with a kind of fire. Fight or flight, he knew. He'd seen it often enough in civilians to place it.

"It's the Batarians." She said it like a curse-or like it was Uchiha Madara, a boogeyman, before they'd known he was really a thing that still existed.

"These guys are bad news?" She nodded fearfully.

"They hate us because we've been 'intruding' on their space. So they kill and capture humans on remote colonies before any Alliance Patrols can show up to stop them...we're outnumbered Naruto! We have to hide, we need to get to the Barn!" He let go of her, or she ripped herself out of his grip-he couldn't tell-and she ran. Her escape gave him an excellent vantage point to see bad news overhead. Naruto noticed a...ship? Vehicle? Boat? Up and over her shoulder as it flew in the general direction of her house, away from where he stood in the clearing.

She was heading right into them. Oh no, not good. He saw the ship, a smaller ship, detach and fly downward from the behemoth in the sky. Trees blew aside as it hovered two thousand feet ahead of him. Emily was in a dead sprint...

...heading right into them.

His hands trembled again, the tremors that always preceded the icy memories in his head flashing like a badly-cut movie.

His left hand grabbed his right and squeezed it so hard he heard his bones grind together.

He could do this...

...right?

The wrong things for the right reasons? Again?

Eyes cold and somewhere else very far away, Naruto disappeared in a swirl of wind and leaves.

...Right.

CE 2171: Alliance Patrol Frigate Flotilla Alpha-Charlie: Sigurd's Cradle, Terminus System

PRIORITY 4 COMMUNIQUE: CHECK-STOP REQUEST

From: Mindoiran Colonial Security, Capulet HQ

To: Colonial Check-Stop Request Administration, Broad-range Fleet, Attican

Summary: Colonial Security has encountered a U-5 in Farm District 12 (Unidentified Alien, Class 5). Hostile, dangerous, possibly meta-human, unknown intentions and origins. Demonstrates extreme biotic inclination.

One Casualty, pending.

Requesting a reroute, accelerated time-table for Alliance Patrol Check-Stop.

Authority Request: Field Commander Newell, Mindoiran Colonial Security

From: Colonial Check-Stop Request Administration, Broad-range Fleet, Attican

To: Mindoiran Colonial Security, Capulet HQ

BCC: (Admiral Hackett's Office) Systems Alliance Naval Intelligence, Arcturus Station

Summary:

REQUEST APPROVED.

ARRIVAL TIME ETA: 2 DAYS. Rerouting from Sigurd's Cradle.

See attached files for required intelligence forms.

Authorization: Office of Admiral Steven Hackett, Arcturus Fifth Fleet

Till next time!