Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Borderlands.
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Blood and Bullets
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Chapter Two
"Thank god!" Maya exclaimed as soon as the modified Technical came to a stop and she scrambled to get out of the turret, stumbling as she landed on shaky legs. Suppressing the urge to Phaselock the blonde asshole and beat some sense into his head, Maya took a deep breath and calmed down, her Maliwan Venom digistructing into her hands as she retrieved it from the storage unit attached to her belt behind her waist. Making sure it was fully loaded, Maya turned around to watch as Spaz and Taz clambered out of the truck, both looking strangely frantic as well despite them being 'man-made mechanized monstrousities of mayhem'.
"Hey! My driving ain't that bad!" Naruto called out indignantly as he hefted the tailgate back into position. Maya swore he was pouting, but she couldn't really tell due to his head coverings. Groaning quietly with frustration and rolling her eyes, Maya found herself on the verge of regretting teaming up with the man and it hadn't even been fourty-eight hours. Glancing up at the far horizon, Maya sighed quietly.
'Yet another obscenely long day ahead of us...' Maya mused to herself with a slight grimace, cursing Pandora's wretched ninety hour day-cycles. It wasn't exactly a problem for her. It was more of a nuiscance; like her new partner. Not even two standard days and her trigger finger was already itching to put a bullet in his ass. A small, but cruel smirk formed on her lips at the thought.
"Better focus, Babe. Deploy." Naruto commented from beside her and then ordered of his two mechanical companions, the turrets digistructing into existence on the backs of the Hyena Brothers. Glancing over at Maya, Naruto gained an impish smirk on his masked face and a teasing tone to his voice. "So, how do you want to do this? Jump straight to the hot and heavy or should we start with some flirting and light petting?"
"Perv..." Maya grumbled quietly while rolling her eyes again as she started walking ahead of him, but she couldn't help blushing at the innuendo. Shrugging his shoulders, Naruto summoned up one of his favorite weapons. It was a bit of a relic compared to the newer guns, but it was very reliable and insanely powerful; the unique two-shot Jakobs shotgun had always been a favourite of his after filching it off that greedy asshole, Marcus Kincaid. Sledge's Shotgun; he despised the 'new' Bandit brand model, finding it insulting. Snapping the rifle in half and popping in a pair of fresh shells, Naruto snapped it back together and cradled the rifle in his hands as he followed after Maya. As they reached the entrance, Naruto glanced around, finding it to be rather spacious inside, but it also gave him one hell of a 'kill box'.
"Alright, boys. Let's get the ball rolling, shall we?" Naruto asked rhetorically of his two AI machines before they both took off, their turrets sounding off with volleys of bullets. He couldn't keep the smirk off his face; they were smart enough not to use their grenades and rockets while underground. The explosive devices had a chance of causing a cave in; incredibly rare to happen, but it was still possible. 'Seems there's some structural faults, but where? I might be able to exploit it somehow.'
"Pay attention, damn it!" Maya exclaimed as she tried to raise her submachine gun to mow down a nomad that had come running up behind the blonde, whose shotgun was resting on his right shoulder. Before Maya's gun could even move half-way up, she heard a sequential pair of echoing blasts just as the nomad was ripped apart by shotgun pellets and thrown back by the force, the shotgun resting on Naruto's shoulder flying forward and spinning in his hand for a moment before he snapped his hand tight around it, causing it to open up and the two empty shells to suddenly eject from the barrels from the force of the continuous movement.
"Relax, will you? I've got this under control." Naruto reassured as he casually loaded two more shells into his shotgun with a single experienced motion and snapped it closed. Spinning around on his left heel and swinging his rifle around, Naruto struck the side of a nomad's skull with a left backhand, knocking him to the ground long enough for the blonde to raise his right foot and stomp down on his throat while squeezing the trigger and completely blowing apart the heavily armored 'door-shield' of a Nomad Taskmaster and knock him back a few feet just as the man tried to exit a nearby hut. Snapping his rifle in half and reloading it, Naruto gained a deadly expression on his masked face, snapping his rifle back into place. "Guard the exit and make sure no one escapes."
"..." Maya found herself unable to answer verbally and just nodded, keeping the stock of her Maliwan Venom pressed into her shoulder. Glancing away from Naruto for just a moment, Maya's eyes easily located one of the Hyena Brothers; it was hard to tell which one was which since they were identical in everything. It was busy herding a group of nomads into a tight cluster with gunfire, only for the other one, which had perched itself upon a high-up platform amongst the catwalks, to suddenly open fire on the nomads with a single grenade that landed in the very center of them. In a series of explosions originating from the MIRV-based incendiary, the six nomads were blown apart into unrecognizable chunks of singed meat and shredded bits of charred leather clothing. Without pause, the hyena-machine on the cat-walk swung its turret around and locked onto a pair Nomad Torturers that were attempting to corner and defeat the weapon platform.
They underestimated its maneuverability, however. Spaz lunged off to the side to dodge a volley of gunfire, planting its four clawed feet against the wall before pushing off and sending itself up and back while twisting its body, essentially 'back-flipping' and landing on a higher platform behind the shielded nomads. Without hesitation, Spaz unloaded a volley of bullets into their backs before they could turn around, killing them swiftly and allowing it to start heading back down to the ground.
"Shit." Maya hissed under her breath as she was torn from watching the killing machines with wide, awe-struck eyes by some stray bullets that impacted the stone beside her. Kicking off the natural wall of rock, Maya dove behind a crudely made wall of rusted sheet metal and rotted wooden planks just as another spray of bullets peppered the general area she was in, a couple of them punching through the sheet metal. Gritting her teeth, Maya stood up and held out her left hand, her tattoos flaring to life with power as she Phaselocked a Shock-Nomadic, the sphere of elemental energy generating a Singularity effect and drawing in a pair of Nomad Pyros and three regular nomads. Eyes widening slightly upon catching sight of narrow flame-jets stabbing out from the fuel packs of the Pyros, Maya quickly ducked back down behind cover just a split second before both fuel packs exploded, ripping all six people apart in a fiery blast.
"Nice. I give it a 7." Naruto suddenly spoke up from behind her, smirking behind his mask. Glowering at him for his care-free attitude, Maya slowly stood up and saw that the explosion had resulted in the deaths of several other nomads due to the resulting shrapnel and additional explosions. That was when Maya took notice of something about Naruto; his left bicep was bleeding from being grazed by a bullet along with a hole being punched into it, and another bullet-grazing across the back of his left hand.
"You're hurt." Maya stated with a mix of calmness and concern. Taking notice of the wounds for the first time, Naruto frowned slightly and cocked an eye brow, idly wondering when he had been clipped. He had already known about the bullet hole in his arm, but that was a given since the slug was lodged against his humerus. Raising his shotgun and resting it on his right shoulder, Naruto glanced over the minor wounds he had suffered. "Don't you have a shield?"
"Yeah, but it only protects me from elemental weapons." Naruto muttered, finally starting to feel the pain from the injuries. Thankfully, the nomads had already been cleared out. Walking over to what appeared to be a deck-platform for one of the huts, Naruto took a seat in an old metal fold-out chair that was beside a fire pit built into the deck. It was just a simple hole carved into the deck with a metal drum set into it. "Go to my truck and look under the passenger seat; you'll find some medical supplies there."
"Alright. I'll be right back." Maya acknowledged before running off. Sighing once she was gone, Naruto undid the clasps to his body armor and pulled the metal bullet-proof vest off with a bit of difficulty, setting it down beside him as he took his gloves off and set them down as well. Taking his mask and goggles off first, Naruto struggled with his shirt for a minute before finally managing to get it off. With it removed, his torso was left bare and revealed what had once been hidden.
A series of dark imperial blue tattoos covered his entire left side, not unlike those of a Siren. They reached all the way from his left knee up to his left shoulder, covering the left half of his chiseled torso on the front as well as the back, all around his neck, and all the way down to his finger tips on his left arm. His left ear had a line of the sapphire coloration running along the ridge of his ear while a dot decorated the front and back of his left earlobe, the only visible sign of its presence that wasn't normally covered up by his mask and hood. Scattered all across his torso were nearly three dozen scars of varying sizes, shapes, and causes.
'I wonder how she'll react to them.' Naruto thought to himself as he gazed upon the markings he had been born with. Apart from Naruto, no one knew that his mother had been a powerful Siren nor that his father had been a technological genius and archeologist as well as a war hero in the past. No one knew that he had the blood of a Siren flowing through his veins, even though he never showed any sign of inheriting her power or anything. He remembered watching her literally tear apart a handful of bandits with her Phasechains that attempted to take over their town back when he was only a child.
"Hey, I couldn't find any Insta-health vials, but-" Maya called out loud as she approached, only to glance up at Naruto and audibly gasp, her eyes locked onto his tattoos. Glancing at her for a moment, Naruto rolled his eyes with a slight smirk before reaching out and taking the med-kit before opening it up. Pulling out an alcohol swab and a switch-blade knife from his right boot, Naruto cleaned the blade real quick and then cleaned the area around the wound on his bicep. Without a moment of hesitation, Naruto carefully slipped the blade into the narrow hole, gritting his teeth and wincing as he tried to dig out the slug buried in his arm.
"...Let me..." Maya whispered quietly and gently as she held her left hand over the wound, summoning up a fraction of her power to retrieve the mangled bullet with a minor Phaselock. Cocking an eye brow at her actions, Naruto merely nodded in thanks before focusing back on fixing himself up, only for Maya to suddenly take over the task. It not only confused him, but it also made him a bit cautious. Not to mention, a bit nervous, too. He wasn't used to people helping him for no apparent reason. Then again, Maya was probably only doing it out of kin-ship due to his Siren-esque tattoos. As she started to stitch him up, Maya glanced up at him for a moment before looking back at the entry wound she was sewing shut. "Where did you get these tattoos?"
"Born with them. I don't know much about Sirens, but I know that all known Sirens, up until now, were all female." He answered back calmly, pausing only to wince in mild pain. "My mother was a Siren. She used to tell me stories of all these adventures she used to have when she was younger. She wasn't particularly strong, but she made due."
"..." Maya stayed silent, letting him talk. She finally figured out what it was that had been making her feel so unnerved by him and now that she knew, Maya found herself wanting to know more about him. Naruto let out a brief, humorless laugh as he stared off at the opposite side of the large 'residential cave'.
"She always called me her little 'Warlock' back then, a reference to the fact we both had similar 'birth-mark' tattoos." Naruto muttered quietly with a bittersweet tone in his voice, his eyes narrowing slightly as Maya finished stitching the other two injuries on his arm and bandaged them up, doing the one on his hand last. Once she let go of his arm, Naruto looked his arm over and nodded with a grim, stoic expression on his face. "That's what I'll call myself. I'm not a Siren; I'm a Warlock."
"It suits you." Maya teased lightly, her smug smirk proving infectious and causing Naruto to smirk a little as well. Just as she finished packing everything back into the med-kit bag, Maya had a thought. "What are we going to do about your shirt? The sleeve is torn and bloody; the smell might attract unwanted attention."
"Hm..." Naruto hummed quietly in thought as he picked up his shirt, thinking for a moment. Coming to a decision, he suddenly threw it into the fire beside him, surprising Maya a little bit. He gave her another smirk as he pulled another one from one of his storage devices, surprising her yet again. Putting it on, Naruto started gearing himself back up, putting his mask back on while leaving his goggles to hang freely around his neck and left his hood down. "I've learned to keep spares on me at all times. You never know when you'll need a change of clothes."
Before Maya could say anything in return, however, Spaz and Taz finally returned, their turrets deactivated and bearing a couple scuff marks on their metal bodies from a few bullets ricocheting off their heavy armor after their shields were temporarily disabled from heavy gunfire. Noticing them as they came out from behind some of the crude huts off to the side, Naruto walked over to the Hyena Brothers as he pulled on a fresh pair of gloves after tossing his old ones into the fire as well.
"Hm. Nothing too bad. Just need a few touch-ups on the paint job." Naruto muttered to himself as he examined the damage, which turned out to be purely cosmetic. Turning around to face Maya, he continued talking. "Well, let's get started with looting this place. I don't know about you, but I don't want to be here when the Varkids start coming."
"Yeah, you have a point there." Maya muttered quietly with a grimace, idly recalling her past encounters with them. None of them were pleasant. Sighing with defeat, Maya cradled her Venom once more as she went off in one direction while Naruto went in another, both cautious of any possible enemies that may have hidden themselves away during the fighting so that they might ambush them...
xXx
"Alright, now that you've had your fun..." Maya started as she climbed into Naruto's Technical on the passenger side while the strange 'Warlock' started it up, the hyena-machines deactivated in the back of the truck to conserve their battery power. "Mind clueing me into your 'plans' or whatever?"
"Well, first on the 'To Do List' is to head out to Liar's Berg to see a friend of mine." Naruto answered non-chalantly, his right arm thrown across the back of the bench-seat lazily as he kept his eyes forward, moving his hand only to shift gears. Unlike other Technicals that had automatic transmissions and such, Naruto liked to have full control over his truck. Now that he thought about it, his truck was so different from a Technical, it shouldn't even be called a Technical. He'll brainstorm with Scooter some time over what to call it when he gets back to Sanctuary or something. "Apparently, someone's been looking for me."
"It's not like you're hiding or anything." Maya grumbled, referring to the nearly deafening roar of his truck's engine along with his reputation, which Lilith had informed her of prior to her meeting him in the Slug-Spitter. He had actually been making quite a bit of noise, both figuratively and literally, all across Pandora's north-west coast. He had even laid waste to almost a third of the Hyperion city, Opportunity, only three or four days after Jack's death. Since then, Hyperion's hold on Pandora had been slipping quite heavily. It was only a matter of time before another of the 'Mega-Corporations' came in and usurped Hyperion's reign.
"It's not just that, Maya." Naruto continued with a slightly more serious tone, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye, his goggles hanging around his neck while his hood was left down and his mask still placed over his mouth. "There's been strange activity all across the coast, especially out in Sawtooth Cauldron..."
"Wait. Bandit territory? Who would be crazy enough to mess with them?" Maya inquired, idly recalling a time when she and her three old comrades had done just that. Then again, it had been almost two years since then, so it was likely that the bandits had beefed up their security measures. To a certain degree, at least. None of them were all too bright.
"Apart from myself, not many. Not only that, but a lot of Hyperion facilities have been going dark, almost as if the Spirit of Death had swooped in and wiped them out without a sound or warning. I don't know who, or what, is stirring up so much trouble, but I don't like it." Naruto answered calmly, yet coldly as his eyes narrowed. Maya shivered slightly, swearing the temperature had just dropped another ten degrees for a few moments, causing her to mentally curse Pandora's 7-year winter season, which had just started not long before her first indirect encounter with Jack; she still didn't like trains because of that day. "I plan on checking it out and, if at all possible, stopping them. Your last chance to bail will be when we reach Liar's Berg. After that, there's no turning back."
"..." Maya stayed silent, feeling a bit conflicted at his last comment. Sure, he could possibly be the first-ever male Siren/Warlock, but there was something about him that...actually terrified her. Handsome Jack hadn't scared her. Not even The Warrior had scared her, really. The fact that he frightened her without any real reason was enough to make Maya extremely cautious around him. Then there were his combat skills. He had wiped out an entire nomad camp of roughly fifty to sixty men on his own, utilizing only his hyena-machines, but she had a feeling he would have still dominated them on his own. She also had a feeling that he hadn't been showing any of his true talents, either. She had yet to see him draw any of the weapons visibly holstered on him in combat, excluding that pathetic excuse of a bounty hunter trying to kill Naruto back in Sanctuary.
'Ironic. A 'bounty hunter' hunting another 'bounty hunter'. Then again, it's not like bounty hunters actually care for each other.' Maya thought to herself idly, peeking out between the gaps in the metal slats covering the normally open window of her door. That was when she noticed something. They weren't heading towards the nearest Fast Travel Network station. "Naruto, where are we going? I thought you said we had to go to Liar's Berg?"
"We are." Naruto responded casually. "We're just taking the scenic route."
"What do you mean?" Maya inquired, seriously confused and worried yet again. Although she couldn't actually see it, she swore Naruto was smirking.
"For one, I don't have a Fast Travel Pass, meaning I can't use the FT Network. Not only that, but my truck's a one-of-a-kind, meaning I can't just digistruct it like a Runner or anything. Second, there's the matter of my truck being unable to float and I don't go anywhere without my truck. Thus, we have to take the ferry to the Southern Shelf." Naruto answered while pulling his mask down and retrieving a cigarette from a slot-like compartment in his dashboard, lighting it a moment later. Maya, being one of many that found Naruto's driving skills to be rather insane and simply atroucious, paled at the thought.
"But that's at least a thirty-six hour drive! We're all the way out in the northern reaches of Tundra Express!" Maya suddenly spat, making Naruto stare at her blankly, merely blinking out of surprise by her sudden out burst. "There is no way I'm riding in this death trap you call a truck for that long!"
"Hey! I already told you that my driving ain't that bad!" Naruto snapped back with annoyance, glaring at her half-heartedly as he took another drag from his cigarette. Holding the butt of his cigarette between his right index and middle fingers, Naruto jabbed said fingers at the Siren while gnashing his teeth. "You got a problem with my driving?! Then you can get the fuck out and walk! Got that?!"
"You're such an ass!" Maya snarled at him before turning away from him as best as she could, her arms crossed over her chest as she glared out through the narrow spaces of the passenger door 'window'. Growling quietly in his throat, Naruto sucked in another lungful of smoke and held it in for a few seconds before finally exhaling, glaring angrily out in front of him as he drove. A very tense silence reigned supreme in the cab after that, the only sound heard being the unholy bellow of Naruto's 'Technically-Not-A-Technical' as he roared across the frozen snow-scape of the Tundra Express region.
Despite the incredibly powerful engine, the truck was actually slower than normal Technicals, but that was mostly due to the immense weight of the additional heavy armor-plating on the chassis, reinforced frame, the increased weight of the much larger engine, and a few other factors. Even though it was slower than Technicals, Naruto's truck more than made up for it in armor and firepower. He had used mostly Jakobs and Vladov parts for the twin pairs of double-barreled hood-mounted machine guns while using a great deal of Torgue parts for the triple-barrel rocket launcher mounted to the rotating turret opening. Not many things had been able to stand up to his truck after taking only a single minute of punishment from either set of his vehicle's weaponry...
Not even Rakk Hives...
'Asshole...' Maya mentally growled out at the blonde menace behind the wheel, still glaring out the window. If it weren't for the fact she was actually a bit low on ammunition because she had forgotten to restock while in Sanctuary and that Naruto probably wouldn't stop the truck to let her out, Maya would have gotten out and walked. Riding shotgun with Naruto was about as safe as playing 'Hot Potato' with a live grenade. She hated how he was so inconsiderate of others and his unwaivering stubborness. That was when she felt a little guilty for some reason, recalling what Naruto had said just before they left Sanctuary.
Sneaking a brief glance at him out of the corner of her eye, Maya frowned slightly, noticing how Naruto gripped the steering wheel with his left hand so tightly that his glove was straining at the knuckles. Not only that, but his eyes were narrowed greatly as he puffed on another cigarette. He was too tense, probably from containing and suppressing his true emotions for most of his life. She wouldn't be surprised if her assumption was correct. If she were to be completely honest, Naruto wasn't all that bad of a driver. He just had a tendency to pull off normally insane stunts that could easily result in killing them both for no apparent reason other than, in his words, 'shits and giggles'.
"Hey, Naruto?" Maya began softly as she looked over at him, only getting him to glance over at her for a brief moment. "I, uh...I'm-"
Ka-BOOOM!
"Shit!" Naruto cursed, ripping the steering wheel to the right to dodge that sudden eruption of an explosive barrel slamming into the ground no more than ten feet away from them. Gritting his teeth as he felt the weight of his truck shift over to the driver-side while lifting the passenger-side wheels up a little more than what was considered safe, Naruto reacted instantly, his right hand flying to the gear shift and switching to a higher gear before continuing to turn sharply to the right, only to put the truck in reverse and floor the gas pedal, his thumbs flipping up the covers to a pair of red buttons embedded in the steering wheel as the improvised 180 degree turn stabalized.
"Fucking bandits! Eat lead!" Naruto snarled before pressing the buttons and holding them down, resulting in a continuous volley of large calibur bullets to pepper the four Bandit Technicals and a single Outrider leading them with a machine gun mounted on the turret. The Outrider managed to swerve to the side just in time to avoid any serious damage, but the Technical behind it wasn't so lucky due to a bullet or three striking the explosive barrel cradled in its catapult launcher, rupturing it and causing it to detonate prematurely, resulting in the destruction of the Technical itself.
Releasing the buttons and flipping the covers back over them, Naruto whipped the truck back around, accidentally causing Maya to slide across the seat with a brief startled cry and slam into Naruto's side, but he didn't even budge due to his rigid posture and his tensed right leg as he pushed the gas pedal all the way down to the bare metal flooring of the truck's interior. Glancing into the side-view mirror beside him, Naruto's eyes narrowed for a moment as he watched two of the Technicals split off to the right and the third off to the left while the Outrider remained behind him. The second Technical on his right gradually began to pull out in front of him while all four vehicles started drawing closer to him; they were trying to box him in.
"Not gonna happen, mother-fuckers!" Naruto growled as he suddenly slammed on the brakes at the last second, resulting in the two Technicals flanking him to open fire on one another, resulting in their simultaneous explosive deaths, while the back of Naruto's truck made contact with the front of the Outrider. The initial impact crumpled the faster vehicles twin 'arms' and crushed the cockpit, but the Outrider's speed resulted in it flipping up and over Naruto's truck while the blonde steered around the now-flaming and smoking wreckage as it crashed into the ground ahead of him, only for his eyes to widen with shock as the remaining Bandit Technical came into sight directly in front of him with two bandits in the back with a pair of rocket launchers, both armed with a Bandit brand Launcher. He barely had enough time to press the button linked with his turret, causing it to fire a single volley of three homing rockets as the bandits fired their own weapons, resulting in twin rockets hurtling towards the truck he and Maya currently occupied.
"HOLD ON!" Naruto roared as he suddenly turned the truck to the right while slamming on the brakes, only to turn to the right in the seat and wrap his arms around Maya protectively just moments before the rockets made contact with the driver side of Naruto's truck, which was still sliding sideways in the snow with the passenger-side tires on the verge of leaving contact with the ground. The resulting explosions caused the heavily armored vehicle to flip side-ways, rolling several times while the sole-surviving Bandit Technical was utterly destroyed by Naruto's last-second counter-attack. Once the truck came to a stop on all four wheels once again, Naruto groaned quietly and struggled to stay awake, his head pounding and his heart beat thundering in his ears.
The engine had gone silent as wisps of smoke oozed out from beneath the hood, but apart from that, the truck was still in one piece; it was the main reason why he modified the truck so heavily, wanting to make it damn near indestructible. In his heavily dazed state, he idly wondered if the Hyena Brothers had survived, but he was distracted from that line of thought when he started to regain full consciousness, however temporary it may be.
"Ngh...Shit..." Naruto grunted out weakly, pain stricken and numb. Hearing something, Naruto struggled to move his head, finding Maya curled up slightly with her lying half-way under him on the bench seat and relatively unharmed apart from some slight bruising, though she was unconscious. He himself didn't get off so lucky; he was bleeding from a cut at the edge of his forehead above his left eye, his bottom lip was busted near the right corner, the bullet wound in his left arm was bleeding again from the stitches being ripped back open, his right hand was most likely broken after using it to cradle the back of Maya's head and cushion a damaging impact with the steel ceiling of the cab, his left knee burned with agony, and his entire back was stiff from heavy bruising with possibly cracked or broken ribs as well. Groaning a little louder than before as he forced himself to move, Naruto gently shook Maya's shoulder. "Ma...Maya? Maya, wake up..."
"Ngh...Naruto? What happened?" Maya mumbled out as she squeezed her eyes shut tight and grimaced with mild discomfort and pain, a little disoriented from the sudden assault that had lasted all of maybe thirty to fourty-five seconds from beginning to end. Opening her eyes and looking up at Naruto's masked face, Maya snapped back into focus and gasped worriedly. "Oh, my god! Naruto, you're hurt!"
"Y-Yeah...that tends to...happen a lot..." He answered a little sarcastically, but she knew he was just trying to keep her from worrying. As his vision blurred and darkened from a mix of a possible concussion, pain, and minor blood loss, Naruto gave her a reassuring eye smile before suddenly passing out, sliding off the bench seat and onto the floor in front of it. The last thing he heard before he lost conciousness entirely was Maya calling out his name and what sounded like another vehicle in the distance...
xXx
"Is he...going to be okay?" Maya timidly inquired of the stranger that had found them out in the snowy lands of the Tundra Express, using an Outrunner to tow Naruto's truck back to the person's camp; luckily, Spaz and Taz were strapped down in the truck bed during the crash, so they weren't all that damaged. The woman was rather friendly and seemed to know Naruto, something that made Maya cautious of her at first.
Standing at a short height of 5'4" and appearing to be about twenty-eight, the woman had tanned skin, dark auburn-red shoulder-length hair pulled back in a short pony-tail, deep blue-grey eyes, and a thin athletic build that bore a slight hourglass figure. She was dressed in a bright orange sleeveless skin-tight top with black on the shoulders and edges while a thin white line ran down the sides of her ribs, black skin-tight elbow sleeve on either arm with a built-in dark grey elbow pad on either one, black fingerless gloves on her hands with dark grey metal caps on the knuckles and a dark grey metal plate on the back of her hands, baggy black cargo pants hanging from her mildly broad hips with the leggings tucked into her black knee-high combat boots, dark grey metal knee pads strapped to her legs over her pants on bands of black skin-tight fabric, a small dark grey one-strap bag was slung over her right shoulder that reached across her modest B-cup bust to just under her left arm that left it resting on her upper back while a small pouch sat on the strap just under her left breast, a rather large and wicked looking hunting knife sheathed across the back of her waist with the handle sticking out from behind her left hip, and a dark grey satchel bag hanging from her left hip with the strap wound around her belt. Strapped to her right thigh was a storage device of black metal with a thin cyan blue light running down its length, just like all other storage devices.
"Relax, will ya'? He'll be fine. He's a lot tougher than he looks." The woman, who had identified herself as Reina earlier, responded a bit teasingly with a grin as she remained crouched beside Naruto, who was bandaged up and lying on a cot. His shirt, body armor, and head coverings had been removed, his torso bound tightly with bandages to keep his cracked ribs from worsening along with the possible hairline fractures in his vertabrae; luckily, there was no permanent damage. His left knee, which had been dislocated in the crash, had been popped back into place and wrapped in a brace over his pant leg, his boots left on him since his feet and shins were unharmed. A make-shift splint had been made from Naruto's entire right hand, having broken most of the bones in the appendage. His head was wrapped in bandages as well due to the head wound he suffered, but it was only a mere cut. "He's also incredibly protective as well as possessive."
"What do you mean?" Maya asked softly, yet cautiously. Reina, who seemed naturally peppy and happy, suddenly gained a faint, sad smile before giving Maya a side-long glance.
"Look at your injuries and compare them to his. Look at what just happened to you two." Reina responded, making Maya glance down at herself. Apart from some patches of bruising scattered all around her body, Maya was practically unharmed. Naruto, on the other hand...
"He...He protected me..." Maya whispered, barely able to utter the words as feelings of guilt and regret gripped at her heart. Eyes watering with fresh tears, Maya covered her mouth and nose with one hand, unable to take her eyes off of Naruto's face as her other arm remained crossed over her stomach. 'Even after what I said, he still made sure I was safe. Oh, Naruto, I'm so sorry.'
"Ya' know, Naruto never was one to do things without a reason." Reina commented as she stood up, only to sit back down in a metal fold-out chair. Just on the other side of the cot Naruto was lying on was a decent sized fire while Naruto's truck, currently out of commission, was parked on the left side just within the cave's entrance while Reina's standard snow white and light grey camouflage Outrunner sat just across from it on the right side. Reina smirked impishly while glancing over at Maya. "I wonder what it was that made him want to protect ya' so bad?"
"W-What are you talking about?" Maya responded, stuttering a little at first as her cheeks became a little flushed. Drying her eyes with her right hand, Maya looked away nervously. She knew what the shorter woman was implying. "There's nothing going on between us."
"Riiiiight..." Reina replied with a cheeky grin, her response dripping with sarcasm. It only made Maya blush even more and resulting in the slightly older woman pouting slightly, mostly because she was letting the other woman get to her. That was when a thought occured to Reina, making her sigh while rubbing the back of her neck. "Man, I've got a lot of work to do on that damn engine. What the hell happened to you two, anyways? I heard all these explosions and went out to investigate it, but by the time I got there, it was all over."
"Bandits. We got surprised by a few Technicals and an Outrider." Maya answered, only to pause for a moment and look back over at Naruto with a look of admiration, confusion, and awe. "I don't know how he does it, but he just keeps surprising me with what he's capable of doing. I've never seen anyone drive like he does. And LIVE..."
"Yeah, that's Naruto, for ya'. And just so ya' know, Naruto doesn't get 'surprised'. He's too cautious and crazy for that to happen." Reina agreed and then corrected, scratching under her chin in thought. "Ya' must've done something to really get him thinking for him to miss a bunch of stupid, noisy bandits."
"..." Maya cast her gaze down at the ground at that, frowning slightly. Guilt and regret tugged at her heart, making her chest ache. It must have been when she called him an ass, all over something as stupid as her not liking how he drove. But why would that affect him so bad? It wasn't like he was a friendly person to begin with. That's when she recalled Reina's words from a minute ago; he never did anything without a reason, but at the same time, he was very protective as well as possessive. Could it be that he protected her because...he had feelings for her? Shaking her head slightly, Maya cleared out those thoughts.
"Something did happen, huh?" Reina asked softly with concern, noticing Maya's downtrodden expression. She refused to say anything about it, but Maya at least nodded in response, her arms crossed under her ample D-cup breasts. Standing up, Reina found herself feeling a little jealous of Maya, mostly because the blue haired Siren was taller than her, standing at 5'9". Dismissing those thoughts, though, Reina reached up and put a hand on Maya's shoulder, making the taller woman glance at her slightly while the red head smiled warmly. "Don't worry about it. If he cares for ya' in any way, he'll be the one to apologize first. It's just how he is."
"But it wasn't even his fault...It was mine." Maya whispered weakly, making Reina sigh quietly.
"Doesn't matter to him. He'll still apologize." The shorter female assured while letting her hand drop from Maya's shoulder, turning around and heading towards Naruto's truck. "I'll be back in a bit. I want to see just what was busted."
"..." Maya was quiet as she moved the fold-out chair closer to Naruto's cot before sitting down beside him, idly noticing how peaceful and serene Naruto's face looked as he slept. Even though they had come uncomfortably close to death, Maya recalled a strange sensation when Naruto had wrapped his arms around her just before the truck was hit. She felt...safe, as if absolutely nothing could harm her so long as he was there. A slight, almost invisible smile formed on her full, blue-painted lips as she stared at him. She imagined herself in his arms again and suddenly, the chilly air wasn't quite so cold, even though Naruto hadn't moved from his cot nor had she moved from her chair.
That's when she realized something. She had moved, if only just slightly...
She was holding Naruto's tattooed left hand with her own, rubbing her thumb over the back of his bandaged hand. Feeling his hand gently grip her hand in return despite the fact he was unconscious, Maya couldn't help smiling a little shyly as she blushed faintly, wondering if Reina was right...
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