Hey everyone, I know it took a lot of time, but here is the next Chapter, which I finally found the time to finish. To answer the question where my inspiration for the enemy robots came from: I took them directly from the game "Metal Arms Glitch in the System". The ones I described in the previous Chapter are the Sentinel and the Titan. However they'll have a different origin story than in the game (obviously xD). Thanks a lot for you patience and please enjoy this new Chapter that will hopefully explain at least a few things that might have caused confusion :)

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„You do realize how ridiculous that sounds, right?" Tsunade asked the three in front of her in disbelief. "Warriors completely composed of metal, that attacked you and sliced up a strange means of transportation you found?"

"I wouldn't believe it either if I hadn't been there, granny. But every word he said is true!" Naruto answered, pointing to the Master Chief.

John could understand the Hokage's disbelief. Like Cortana had said, in this world people couldn't have figured out such advanced technology yet and the Covenant usually didn't send robots into battle. And even if they did, they would probably be designed in the same way everything was in the Covenant: round and smooth and mostly in a shade of purple or blue. However none of these aspects applied to the robots they had encountered in the forest.

"We do have proof though." The SPARTAN interrupted the Hokage and the blonde Shinobi, who were fighting over the fact that the latter called the former 'granny'. "I took some of the robots' equipment with me." He added dropping the bladed blaster-staff on the Hokage's desk.

Tsunade eyed the construct carefully. "Interesting… I've never seen any weapon like this before. Shizune? Any thoughts about this souvenir?"

"I don't think it's chakra-powered. Thus it's probably not crafted by anyone from our world." The dark haired woman said, analyzing the weapon before her. "Could this be from your world, Master Chief?" She asked the SPARTAN, who towered above her like a Biju.

"It could be. I've never seen this particular kind of weapon before, but the technology where I come from is advanced enough to build such a weapon." John answered truthfully. "However I've been kind of… out for quite a while before I landed here, so I could have just missed its invention." He added in a calm tone. He could see the woman before him shiver lightly, but dismissed it as 'unimportant' and 'beside the point' and waited for a response.

"Well… That's unsettling. To think somebody controls this kind of power." Tsunade said with a troubled look on her face. "At least the villagers are safe. You are dismissed until further notice. Hinata, you should go to the Hospital and get yourself checked by a medical-ninja. Naruto and John, you're free to take some time off."

John nodded, but Naruto had a worried expression looking at his dark-haired friend. "Are you gonna be alright Hinata? Do you want us to accompany you to the hospital?"

The girl instantly blushed and responded in a quiet voice: "It's okay Naruto. You don't need to worry about me."

"If you say so…" Naruto said and left the office like that.

"HE DID NOT JUST DO THAT!" Cortana shouted into John's ear. "Go get him and let me have word with him!" John was dumbfounded by this outbreak and did the only thing that came to his mind: comply. He quickly went into the corridor after Naruto, grabbed his wrist and pulled him aside.

"Hey what are you doing?" Naruto asked surprised. Instead of answering, John opened his palm to have Cortana's hologram show up in it.

"Naruto, please don't take this the wrong way, but has anybody ever told you that you have NO IDEA about women?" the A.I. asked.

"What? Why? What is this all about?" Naruto asked in panic, but then realization seemed to strike him. "Wait. Do you mean because of Hinata just now?"

"Well what do you know; you at least have a brain it seems." Cortana said in a pissed tone. "Why are you not taking her to the hospital?"

Naruto became flustered, but quickly replied: "She said she was fine and that I wouldn't need to worry…"

"Bullshit!" Cortana interrupted him "Yes she said that and it's probably the truth, but that doesn't mean that she wouldn't like to be accompanied."

John wanted to side with Naruto on this one, but didn't dare to speak up against a furious Cortana, who seemed to be calming down, at least to a certain degree.

"Why do women always have to be so complicated?" Naruto groaned and said the exact words that John had thought this exact same moment.

"If women are in fact so complicated, how come there are always men who understand us?" Cortana asked. "Although I have to admit that those are usually the minority." She added cockily, glancing at John from the corner of her holographic eyes.

"Alright I get it." Naruto said, feeling defeated. "Thanks for telling me though." He gave a slight smile before taking off back towards the office. "Hey Hinata!"

Cortana was obviously pleased with her work and turned to smile at the SPARTAN before deactivating her hologram. Meanwhile John was processing what had just happened. It quickly dawned on him.

"Cortana, are you playing matchmaker for those two?" John asked his virtual companion amused.

"So what if I were to do so? Would you have a problem with it?" Cortana retorted in an amused tone of her own.

"It's just that I can't think of a reason why you would act so rashly…"John answered anxiously.

"Oh." And like that Cortana's happiness had vanished and been replaced by sorrow. "We both know the reason, don't we?" Cortana said. "I've been created eight years ago, John. Eight! A.I.s degenerate after seven years."

"No." John said, not wanting to accept what that meant. "Halsey can fix you! If we manage to get back to our world we can find Halsey and have her fix you."

"The rampancy is a point of no return John. We should cherish the time we have left together, instead of hoping for the impossible." Cortana sounded sad saying that, but before John could retort she corrected herself "Or maybe not impossible, but beyond highly unlikely."

"Cortana…" John felt something he hadn't felt since the fall of Reach: genuine sadness. During the Covenant war that had followed, he had started to just accept any losses and move on. Many SPARTANs died without him feeling anything, but simple regret. This however was different. For several years Cortana had never left his side and always been there for him, even after she had been lost in an infected High Charity.

"Having something to focus myself on… something new. It helps slowing down the progress of the rampancy." Cortana explained. "That's why I started to pay more attention to human emotions. Also we can't really change it at the moment, so like I said we should just try to make the best of our time here."

Thinking carefully about it, that explanation made a lot of sense. And even though John would've wished things were different, he had to agree with her that there was nothing they could do at the moment. So he decided to keep it in his mind, but mainly ignore it for now.

While leaving the building John thought about what to do with his spare time. He could go back to his room in Naruto's mansion, he could grab something to eat or he could just walk around the village to get to know the surroundings.

He decided on the latter and headed into the streets. Anywhere the Master Chief went though, he could feel all the strange looks he was getting. Nothing to be surprised about. Almost all of these people had never seen a SPARTAN before, so a walking tank in green armor that was a lot taller than everyone else, was easily spotted and eyed curiously.

After having roamed the streets for a while, John took a turn to the left and stood before a huge building that happened to be the village's hospital. He thought about entering to visit the people he had injured shortly after his arrival, but just as he was about to decide that a familiar face exited the hospital.

A familiar face and a familiar green jumpsuit to be exact. The Master Chief remembered that man, his name was Rock Lee and he also remembered how incredibly fast this guy had been during their fight. Then Lee noticed the SPARTAN.

"Oh hey it's you!" he greeted John with a smile. "Naruto told me what happened since our first 'encounter'."

"Are you feeling any better?" John asked the Shinobi. "I wanted to make sure I didn't cause any staying injuries." Lee's smile widened.

"Don't you worry; our medical Ninja's are extremely well trained. In fact I am fully recovered already. After all you didn't injure me as badly as the Anbu team." Lee explained. "Sakura is the only one that went back to work already, but only because all the other medics initially focused on her since she is the best medic we have. Sasuke is a different story. He may be tough, but you've broken almost half of all the bones in his body."

"I'm sorry about that; I'm guessing Sasuke was the leader of the Anbu team." John asked and Lee nodded. "But who exactly is that Sakura you were talking about?"

"What?" Lee looked dumbfounded for a second. "Oh right you didn't know her when you first met her. She is the medical Ninja with the pink hair."

"Oh, yes I remember who you mean." John replied in sudden clarity. Something like pink hair wasn't too common, even in this world as far as he could tell.

"Hey would you like to train with me?" Lee suddenly asked.

John gave it a little thought and came to the conclusion that he could still visit the others later, now that he knew where the hospital was. "Sure. Lead the way." John nodded to Lee, whose smile had now widened even further.

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Sometime earlier Naruto and Hinata had arrived at the hospital. Naruto had noticed Hinata smiling a bit since the moment he had returned to accompany her. Tsunade had asked where the sudden change in mind came from and being too embarrassed to tell the truth he instead said that he was going to visit Sasuke and Sakura in the hospital anyways, so going there with Hinata would not be any trouble.

As they were going down the hallway to have Sakura check out Hinata's injury, two very familiar bushy eye-brows attached to none other than Rock Lee came towards them.

"Hi Naruto. How was your mission?" He asked. Then he noticed Hinata's thigh, which was wrapped in some blood-soaked cloth. "Hinata what happened to you?"

"That's why we're here." Naruto answered. "She got hit by a projectile, but I'll tell you the whole story later. Are you feeling better?"

"Sure do!" Lee said giving a thumb up. "I'm heading for the training field. Care to join me later?"

"Of course. Our last sparring session was quite some time ago." Naruto grinned. The two men high-fived before continuing their way in opposite directions.

Naruto brought Hinata into Sakura's operating room, where they met both Sakura and her boyfriend Sasuke. The latter one sleeping in his bed, while the former was going through some documents.

"How is he doing Sakura?" Naruto asked his friend. Only then the medical Ninja looked up from her papers and noticed her two friends entering her room.

"Oh hi you two." She gave a warm smile. "He's slowly recovering. We all know he is as tough as they get, but his body had almost been broken in two. No worries though, I'm doing my very best to make him get well faster." Then she noticed Hinata's thigh. "I guess that's why you're here. Have a seat Hinata; I'll fix you up in no time."

The dark haired Kunoichi did as she was told and sat down on one of the comfortable office chairs in the room. Sakura knelt down and removed the cloth from her leg. Closely inspecting the injury, she noticed a small piece of metal that stuck in the other woman's leg. Releasing a seal on her belt Sakura suddenly held a long pair of tweezers in her hand, while initiating a numbing Jutsu in the other hand.

The metal was removed in a matter of seconds. It was the same kind of metal-piece that she had pulled out of her Anbu teammates limbs. She thought about the possibility of that green armored man having shot Hinata, but quickly dismissed it as something she would find out when reading the field report.

Sakura finished the treatment with a healing technique that sealed the wound and allowed for quick recovery.

"That's all I can do for you Hinata." The pink-haired woman said. "You should take it easy for the next couple of days and I'd like to have a talk with you…" She looked at Naruto from the corner of her eye, smirking. "… In private. Is there anything else you need Naruto?"

"Alright I get it." Naruto gave an exasperated sigh. "I'll be at the training grounds if you need me." And with that he left the room and headed towards his mentioned destination.

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With a grunt Lee finished his performance, by thrusting a kick into the dummy that caused it to burst into pieces. John was impressed. This man could've easily been a SPARTAN in his world and one of the strongest at that.

"May I see your form now?" Lee interrupted the Chief's thoughts. John nodded and got into the first basic stance he had learned from Chief Mendez. It was a simple boxing stance, which would also allow kicks, but mainly focused on solid strikes and a good defense.

The Master Chief took a small step forward and gave a straight punch to his training dummy. An Elite or another SPARTAN would have shrugged such a straight off, but for this wooden dummy a Spartan-straight was too much and it broke down upon impact.

"Wow…" Lee gasped. "You're freaky strong. Maybe you should show me without a dummy, they can't take your attacks." John agreed.

He imagined facing an opponent of equal size and showed his form. The SPARTAN started with a right uppercut to the jaw, closely followed by a left hook to the cheek and finally a right straight to the face. That was a simple, yet effective attack pattern, which all SPARTANs had learned during their training. But seeing as it was too simple compared to what Lee had shown him, John followed it up with a roundhouse kick, then an axe-handle and finally a kick to the head from above.

"Nice form." Someone whistled and it wasn't Lee. John looked back to see Naruto standing beside the black-haired Shinobi. "I came here for a sparring match with Lee, but if you're up for it I'd like to fight you as well."

The Master Chief straightened his posture and went towards them. "A sparring match?" He asked. "That means no weapons and special techniques?"

"Exactly." Naruto grinned. John couldn't help but think this was a bad idea, since there was little chance that Naruto was tough enough to shrug off a SPARTAN-punch and he told him so.

"Alright how about this, I'll have my sparring match with Lee first and then you decide whether it's a good idea for me to face you or not." Naruto proposed. "Is that okay with you?"

John nodded in agreement and gave the two Shinobi some room.

"This is gonna be interesting." Cortana said. John was surprised she would say something so suddenly after keeping quiet for so long. But she was definitely right: this was going to be interesting.

He took a comfortable posture about thirty meters away from the sparring partners and watched them backing off from each other and assuming their fighting stances. Three seconds passed with nothing happening. Then the two of them dashed towards each other at the same time.

Naruto tried a punch, but Lee easily blocked it and countered with a leg-sweeping kick, which in turn Naruto evaded by simply jumping over Lee and quickly turning around to block the fist that was headed for his jaw.

What at first had seemed like an even match to the Master Chief quickly turned out to be way in Lee's favor, as he was simply a lot faster than his opponent. And even though John notice several possibilities for Lee to land clean hits on Naruto, the man in the green jumpsuit refrained from using these opportunities. Not because he himself didn't notice them, but much more because he didn't need to. At least that was the vibe John was getting, by looking at the smirk on Lee's face.

A few minutes later Lee finally decided to exploit one of Naruto's openings and landed a kick right between the blond Ninja's shoulders. The latter flew a couple of meters before landing on his hands and gracefully flipping into a standing position.

"That was a good hit." Naruto smirked. "But why didn't you land one sooner? I know I couldn't keep up with your speed. At least without Kurama's help."

"Then how about you ask him for help?" Rock Lee showed a smirk of his own. "I never sparred against the two of you together, that might prove interesting."

"As you wish!" Naruto said and performed a turning motion with his hand over his belly. The moment the motion stopped Naruto erupted in a yellow light and had an incredibly powerful aura, that neither John nor Cortana could believe. Looking back at Lee John could see him dropping some weights he had been carrying around his wrists and ankles. The two got back into their fighting stances and then dashed towards one another once again. Only this time they were both a whole lot faster.

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Not my best cliffhanger, but I'll leave it at that. Thanks a bunch again for reading and (hopefully) reviewing :D