Hey, sorry for the unbelievably long pause. I came down with the worst case of writer's block imaginable and have been pretty busy anyways over the last couple of months. However I never forgot about this story and here it shall continue!
Lee struck first, but Naruto easily countered the blow by shoving Lee's fist slightly upwards and went in for a punch of his own. Before it could land though, Lee had disappeared and reappeared behind him, immediately executing a roundhouse kick to the back. John was amazed. Without the adrenalin rush, that would activate "SPARTAN time", he actually had a hard time following their movements with his eyes. Similar to Lee before, Naruto now seemed to disappear, but looking at his motion tracker, John understood: The Shinobi simply moved too fast to see, even with his enhanced senses.
That knowledge was both impressive and frightening. Back in his own world John had never encountered or even heard of a living being that could move too fast for a SPARTAN to see. Thankfully the cameras of his suit were run by Cortana and she would provide him with an instant replay of every important hit. This lead to several windows being opened on John's visor at the same time, since the two Shinobi didn't show any signs of slowing down.
But that all changed with the last instant replay John got to see, two seconds after Lee crashed back-first into the ground. In the replay John could see Lee trying a double front-flip, followed by a heel kick from above. To his misfortune Naruto seemed to have anticipated this move and had dashed upwards towards Lee, his arm extended for a Lariat that would rival that of Chief Mendez.
The black-haired Ninja was caught completely off guard by Naruto's counterattack and thus couldn't react in time. The Lariat hit him with enough force to cut down a tree and sent him crashing into the ground where he was still lying beyond the visor. The blond Shinobi landed next to his friend and had a worried look on his face.
"Hey Lee! Are you alright?" He asked his friend, who had his eyes closed, seemingly unconscious. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hit you that hard." The golden glow around him stopped.
Naruto kneeled down to check Lee's pulse, but jumped back with a scream of surprise and pain, when the bushy-browed man suddenly spun around and kicked his adversary in the face.
"Hey no fair!" Naruto shouted. "I was trying to help you up!"
"You should know me better than this." Lee smirked. "You can't knock me out with a simple hit like that one."
This remark led John to wonder at his own strength. He had just witnessed an incredible display of power. Yet he was apparently supposed to believe that he was stronger than Naruto, since he had managed to knock Lee out back in the forest. For the first time in his life John was actually scared of his own strength. How easy would it have been to accidentally kill or at least severely hurt someone. A pat on the back, a sparring match… even just a high-five could leave the other person with a few broken bones, if nothing worse. So he made a decision concerning his deal with Naruto.
"I won't spar against you, I'm sorry." He said. Naruto and Lee both looked at him in confusion.
"Why not?" Naruto asked the SPARTAN
"Because I don't seem to have my strength under control." The soldier answered. "I almost killed your comrades back in the forest and accidentally destroyed a training dummy with my first punch. I don't want the same to happen to you."
Naruto's jaw dropped at the story with the dummy. He slowly looked over to Lee who only nodded with a stern expression.
"But I'm sure I can take that!" Naruto exclaimed, a frustrated frown on his face "Especially if Kurama helps me out…"
"Drop it Naruto." It was Lee who interrupted his friend "As much as I would love to see that match, heck as much as I would love to participate in such a match, you can't just go ahead and most likely sacrifice the training grounds for that. If you two went all out, one of you would certainly die and the scenery would be utterly destroyed."
Seeing that his black-haired friend had made a valid point, Naruto refrained from further challenges. It was getting late anyways so the three of them made their way back to the village to grab something to eat.
Since John didn't know his ways around in this strange town, he left it to Naruto to choose a place to eat. For anybody who had known the orange-clad Shinobi long enough it wouldn't be a surprise to see the group heading directly towards Ichiraku's Ramen-stall.
They were greeted by the old man himself with a warm smile. He tensed up a little upon seeing the SPARTAN enter after his favorite customer, but relaxed immediately after realizing how comfortable Lee and Naruto were with his presence.
Still the reaction didn't slip by John's attention, though he didn't think much of it. He was a pretty intimidating sight for these people after all.
The two Ninjas placed their orders without even looking at the menu. Not really surprising considering the fact that they probably knew it by heart, especially Naruto.
John on the other hand had to unravel the mysteries of the foreign signs on what he supposed to be the menu before him on his own. That is until Cortana stepped in, telling him that what he was trying to read was Japanese Kanji.
Having never learned Japanese, or any language beside English in his life, John gave a sigh, letting Cortana pop up a translation on his visor. Apparently Ramen was simply soup with noodles and some other more extravagant ingredients.
The Master Chief had his virtual friend scanned the menu and decided which meal would give the best nutrition and overall variety of healthy ingredients. Luckily all of the ingredients were also common back on Earth, thus Cortana didn't take more than three seconds to decide on a large bowl of Miso Ramen with extra beef and a special kind of star-shaped noodles.
It wasn't long until they were served their food, all at the same time.
Naruto and Lee clapped their hands together and gave a quick "Itadakimasu!", before starting to devour the huge amounts of food in front of them.
It was only then that John realized that his helmet would be in the way. Instead of completely taking it off though, he settled on shoving it up far enough to be able to eat, without showing much of his face though. When he grabbed the chopsticks and thus his first bite, he could have sworn to hear his companions give disappointed sighs and see them quickly return their gazes to the task at hand.
He was surprised when he tasted the noodles. They were absolutely delicious. It had been an enormously long time since the Chief's last proper meal, but even to a renowned Chef, John was sure of that, this exact meal would taste like one cooked for gods.
Only now the SPARTAN realized how hungry he had been and quickly devoured his bowl of Ramen with beef. Having been paid quite well (apparently) for his first mission he went ahead and ordered a second bowl, which he proceeded to eat a little slower, not because he wasn't hungry anymore, but rather to be able to savor every last bit of taste that he could.
John ended up eating three large bowls of Ramen, still being outmatched by the thirteen that Naruto managed to munch down though. It seriously left the Master Chief and his A.I. to wonder where all that food was going. Surely there was no stomach big enough to manage that much, was there?
In any case John gave his thanks and big compliment to Ichiraku for his food and gave a little tip to the actual price, which was gratefully accepted by the young woman working in the stall next to the old man.
It was already dark when they left, so the three of them decided to head home. Since Lee lived in the opposite direction he gave his goodbyes and the two remaining warriors soon were on their way to what once had been the Uchiha district.
An awkward silence spread between the two, so John decided to say something.
"Sorry that I had to decline your challenge." He said.
"Huh?" Naruto replied, then realizing what the green-armored soldier had said "Oh no worries. I guess Lee was right anyway. And you can't imagine the beating Sakura and granny Tsunade would have in store for me if I happened to die during a sparring match." He gave an awkward grin.
Already having killed opponents during a sparring match by accident, John could not laugh or even chuckle about that remark. Instead he was reminded of that time when ha had been fourteen years old and had been forced into a sparring match with five ODSTs. It hadn't been his choice back then, but still he had killed allied soldiers in what was supposed to be training.
Back then it was legitimate self-defense, but in this case he had the choice to decline the challenge, so in order to prevent history from repeating itself John had made up his mind: He would only fight against actual enemies and that was final.
When they reached Naruto's house they split up as soon as they entered, Naruto claiming he was heading straight to bed. John went to his room and contemplated heading out for the night once again.
"No way!" Cortana interrupted his thoughts "Your body clearly demands rest. That little bit of rest you had during the mission can hardly be called sleep!"
"But I don't feel that tired." John replied truthfully. He didn't see a point in lying down if his body gave no signals of such necessity.
"That's because your body has grown used to the constant strain you're putting it under. Seriously, take it easy and just rest for the night. You deserved it." Cortana said in a warm tone.
Knowing better than trying to argue with a near-rampant A.I. the SPARTAN decided on humoring her and finally took off his armor for the very first time in several years. And this time he wasn't interrupted.
He carefully lay down on the huge bed and could immediately feel a wave of drowsiness wash over him. Cortana seemed to have been right after all. Soon he could feel himself drifting into a deep slumber.
An Explosion. Then a second one. The Master Chief shot right up, only to find himself on board of a UNSC ship. Many Marines were running past him, guns at the ready for whatever awaited behind the huge steel doors of the Pillar of Autumn.
Suddenly the doors blasted open with another explosion and a dozen Elites stormed the room each taking on a couple of Marines at once. Instinctively John reached for his weapon, only to find himself completely unarmed. The Elites were already finished killing off the Marines and now were turning their attention towards him.
He readied himself to take all of them on with his fists if it had to be. But instead of charging at him the Elites withdrew forming a path from the blasted steel doors towards him. Looking down the corridor he only saw darkness.
Then suddenly a spark lit up the shadows. A spark in form of an Energy Sword that is. An exceptionally tall Elite stepped forward from the corridor sword in hand. He grabbed another energy sword from his side and threw it over to the Master Chief.
"Defend yourself, Demon!" the Elite roared. Now that the Chief had a better view on this foe, he was shocked to realize that he knew his adversary. It was none other than the Arbiter himself who was challenging him.
Being left with no choice and not being a man of many words John activated the energy sword his former friend had given him and with a strange pain inside his chest he charged at the Sangheili.
The blades clashed, sparks flying everywhere. John withdrew, only to attack again from a slightly different angle, but the Elite parried with little effort. Now it was the Arbiter's turn to attack. He swung his sword with a precision, John could not even comprehend.
Suddenly John felt a burning pain in his chest. Looking down he saw that his adversary had bypassed his defenses and pierced his body with their blade. Everything went blurry around the SPARTAN as he fell down on his knees, only to topple over and fall forward on his face.
This was it. The Master Chief knew that these were his final thoughts in life, as he felt his consciousness slowly drifting away.
"Joooohhn!" Cortana screamed, but he was too weak to respond. The cold hands of death grabbed him and slowly tore him out of this world.
"John!" Cortana shouted, clearly audible this time. John shot up and found himself in a huge bedroom.
And that's as far as I'm going today. I really hope I'll have the time to concentrate on writing in the next weeks, I seriously don't want such a long break to happen again. Anyways, thanks for reading and please consider leaving a review :)