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Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters here that belong to Naruto that I put into this story except for my own OCs. Neither do I own any of the character in any of the crossovers I do. I'm just using them in this fanfiction and I have no money so don't bother suing me. You'll just lose money instead of gaining any. And remember to leave a review!
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The Choosing –
For the last two of days the three ninja team Niamh had gotten to fix her and Naruto's new home, they have all been busy fixing the building and putting up a wall around it. Well mostly the guys doing all of the hard work as Niamh and the other women had once again trick them into doing most of the work. Much to the dismay of the guys who still don't get how they were talked into doing all of the work they were doing.
"Shouldn't we help them?" Hinta ask as she sits on a chair with the other girls as they watch the guys put up the sections of the outer wall around the compound.
"Ino you think we should help them?" Sakura ask her rival sitting next to her.
"Let me think about it," Ino said as she taps her chin with her finger as she held a glass of ice-tea in her other hand. "Naw."
"Good call," Sakura said as she sits back in her chair seated underneath a sun umbrella protecting her from the midday sun.
"Is this how women where you come from get work done?" Kurenai ask as she sits next to the female soldier from another world.
"As if you never use your charms to get dumb boys to do something for you," Niamh replies.
"Good point," Kurenai answers back.
They all sat back as they watch the men work in putting up the fence saying nothing as they watch. Until Niamh broke the silence, "You know we can't just lay back here and watch."
"Are we going to help them?" Hinata ask her.
"No we need some music to listen too," Niamh said as she pulls out her CD player out of her Bergen pack next to her chair and selected one of her favorite songs and press the play button. The song 'Fall Into the Sky' began to play echoing through the area, surprising the people who didn't know the kinds of tricks and gadgets Niamh has.
"You have music boxes that small?" Hinata ask as her sister had gotten one of those new music boxes for her birthday.
"That's why it's called a compact," Niamh explain.
"Hey that's not right!" Kiba shouted as he stops hammering to see where the music is coming from.
"What? That we girls are sitting here enjoying music while you guys work?" Niamh ask.
"Yes," all of the guys but Naruto answers back, as Naruto already knows that Niamh always wins in these kind of things.
"How about we put on swimsuits and get a tan while we're sitting here and you guys get to stare at us?" Niamh suggested making the younger girls to blush, while Kurenai started smirking as she plays with the idea in her head.
"I wouldn't mind that," a new voice suddenly arose.
"Can't you read those signs I place out in front," Niamh said thinking it's another guy trying to woe her. "Keep out till the construction around the house is done with."
"Sorry but when I heard about a woman soldier from the lands across the sea who destroyed the crime lord Gatou's home base and destroyed his crime ring, not to mention killing him," a man with long white hair said as he walks up to the women sitting in the chairs with a lecherous grin.
"Any of you know who the old guy is?" Niamh ask everyone making the old man face fault at the word 'old man'.
"He's Jiraiya the Frog Hermit one of the three students of the Third Hokage, he and the other two students are known as the Legendary Three Ninja or simply the Sannin," Asuma answers her when he saw who it was.
"So why are you here?" Niamh ask eyeing him. "No don't answer let me guess. You're here to see if you can find out anything about me that I might let slip out right."
"Do you think that's all we think about?" Kurenai ask her.
"Well… let's see you guys since I gotten here have been following me around or have been trying to get me to marry into one of the village clans," Niamh pointed out.
"She has a point there," Ino said as she notices that a lot of people around the village have been paying attention to Niamh whenever she walks around the village.
"Not surprising since with my knowledge of weaponry and technology, not to mention the power that I have to move at super speed, that I would be followed around and kept watch by people in the village," Niamh said. "I already heard about people talking about trying to reproduce my bike, around the village."
"Make more of your bike?" Naruto perk up. "Cool and you can teach me how to ride it!"
"Speaking of which where is that machine that can go faster then a horse that I heard so much of?" Jiraiya ask.
"It's under the sheet over there," Niamh said pointing to her bike that's covered with a large piece of cloth. "You can look at it as long as you don't try to take it apart or start playing around with it. Or I'm going to have to hurt you."
"Be careful she's much stronger then she looks," Kakashi said. "Believe me I should know."
"Kakashi has become the butt of every joke in the village ever since Niamh came here," Kurenai said.
"How many times has she left him hanging for anyone to laugh at now?" Ino ask.
"I think its eight," Sakura answers.
"Nope," Niamh said. "I have gotten him ten times, counting the times I got him before we got into the village."
"Interesting," Jiraiya said as he pulls the covers off of the mono-bike. He stooped to examine the vehicle's single wheel. Small, squat, bellied almost soft looking. He poked the black substance with a finger. Not as soft as he had though. "What is this wheel made out of?"
"Rubber. We call them 'tires,'" Niamh explains.
"I never seen rubber like this before," he poked it again, harder. "It's filled with something. Air?"
"That's exactly right. The air is… ah, pumped into them at high pressure," Niamh replies.
Jiraiya nodded, and looked back at the tire. "That's very shrewd. The air acts as a cushion."
"It's going to take you guys awhile to figure out how to make the parts needed to make bikes like mine," Niamh said. "Especially since the only working model is in my possession and anyone who has tried to take apart my bike to see how it works have seen why my codename is Blink."
"I'm surprise that people haven't tried copying your power or come close to it," Jiraiya said as he knows that many clans and villages would pay anything to learn how her power works.
"Oh they have tried and came close from where I come from but since my families bloodline often skips generations it's hard to copy something that only appears every few generations. I'm the first person in my family for the last hundred years to be able to use our bloodline power," Niamh said.
"It skips generations?" Jiraiya ask as the bloodlines he knows about don't work like that. Then he remembered what she had also said. "People have copied your bloodline?"
"Yes people have managed to come close to copying my bloodline. It's called Red Eye, it's a drug that's been made to try to recreate my power for the common soldier. The drug is taken as an aerosol substance directly into the user's eyes and can give the user periodic surges of superhuman reflexes and a slowed perception of time. Popular belief is that the drug increases the connection from eyes to brain (processing information on the environment so quickly that everything moves in slow motion from the user's point of view) to the point of dodging punches or even bullets. Red Eye is the largest commodities of the various criminal syndicates throughout the lands where I'm from. Like many drugs, heavy and prolonged use has a detrimental effect on the user. Red Eye was developed by an unknown military institute, for use on soldiers. The governments where I'm from, consider it as a high-priority/heavy-class substance, but are unable to get much of a hold on 'illegal' leaking and marketing of the drug. Red Eye is very addictive, and users shown using it are depicted with shaking hands and blood-shot eyes during withdrawals. After-effects include tremors and vomiting. Also the more a person uses it the shorter their lifespan becomes, till they just drop dead from taking it. A version of Red Eye known as Bloody Eye, and is apparently a higher-end (purer/more powerful) version. But from what I heard the side-effects are so damaging that no one has ever taken it more then once before they burn themselves out." Niamh explains. (1)
"Wait your bloodline allows you to see the world in slow motion?" Kakashi ask as this was the first thing she said that has anything to do with her bloodline.
"Well you could say that," Niamh said knowing well not to let out too much information of her power to move at super speed. Then she remembers something as she turns to the guys working on the wall. "I also need two of you guys to build a chicken coop next to the house."
"A chicken coop?" Kiba ask.
"Yes I'm going to buy some chickens," Niamh said as she knows that having a source of food nearby is an important thing to have. She didn't have to worry about digging a well since the house has plumping in it.
"Just great more work," Shino said giving out a puff of breath.
"Deal with it," Niamh said.
"Naruto you know the Shadow jutsu," Sasake said to him. "Why don't you use it to help us out."
"Sorry can't," Naruto said as all the guys look at him. "Niamh said that I can't use it to help with the building as it would be too easy."
"You mean the reason why we're working so hard is because you're not using that jutsu of yours to help out?" Choji ask as he's getting hungry.
"She said hard work will help me get stronger," Naruto said. "And I don't want to end up like Kakashi, who's just lazy."
'Interesting,' Jiraiya thought to himself as he listens in, coming back here has proven to be very interesting as in all of his travels he has never encounter the likes of the strange woman soldier Niamh Bradley. The Land of Snows kunai shooters don't come even close to the kind of power that her guns are said to have. He had only heard by second hand of the power that Niamh's guns have, the bullets as they were call can fly through the air faster then a ninja could throw and with more power. According to his old teacher her bloodline power allows her to move so fast that if you blink while facing her you'll end up tied up and strip naked before you knew what had happen. He already heard that Niamh has made Kakashi the laughing stock of the village and that each time Kakashi didn't see how she did it as it had happen so fast even with his eye he couldn't see how she does it. He was called here to see if he could figure out her bloodline and how powerful she is as according to the 3rd they have no idea the limits of her powers. 'I wonder what will happen once she discovers the secret that's hidden in Naruto. The letter he had received from the 3rd did said, that she has gotten close to him in the time she has known him. And if she's even half as powerful as I heard she is, and then we are all in trouble. Once she knows that truth about Naruto and the reason why the village treats him as they do.'
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Two days later –
After two days of hard work on the guys part the house and the surrounding wall was finally built. Niamh inspected the handy work the guys had done and improve on the work they did. She and the other girls had helped out the guys for the last two days as they couldn't be expected to do all of the work by themselves. Niamh also learned that the strange looking old man, Jiraiya is the one who writes the books that Kakashi always reads. She took a dislike to him as she knows he's here to spy on her but also because she heard that he's been peeking around the woman's bath house ever since he has gotten here. She had gone and taught him a lesson by going and tied him up and left him hanging by his feet from a lamp post. Then she told the women he was peeking on a fun game where you hit a big object with something long and hard till the candy inside falls out. But since she didn't had time to make one they had to use something else… so they used Jiraiya. The doctors said that he'll be out by the end of the week.
"Nice work," Niamh said to the ninjas in front of her. "Now that the house is done I can now work with you kids and see which one of you is going to learn how to use a gun."
"About time," Kiba growls as he didn't see the point of doing all of this work to learn to shoot a gun.
"To see whose going to be taught by me I'm going to have you kids do a contest against each other," Niamh said as she held up a glass orb. "Now I want all of you to…"
"NO!" the kids all shouted at the same time.
"We're not falling for that again," Ino said.
"We won't fall for the same trick twice," Shikimaru said.
"Fine," Niamh said as she puts the orb down on a table. "Instead I want you kids to go down to the village and pick up a couple of things."
"You're using us to do your shopping?" Sasuke deadpanned.
"Yes," Niamh said as she hands the kids a list of things she wanted. "You guys go and pick all of the things listed then when you come back I'll chose who's going to be my new student."
"Great," Ino said as her parents have been asking her when Niamh was going to choose a student to learn how to use those guns.
"So hurry up and try to get back before dark," Niamh said to them.
The kids nodded as they walk off towards the village, leaving Niamh and the older ninjas behind.
"Why is it that I have a feeling that this is a test?" Asuma said as Kakashi and Kurenai nods.
"You could say that,' Niamh said. "But that's for me to know. I can't risk you three telling your students till after it's done."
"You have already chosen the one you're going to train right?" Kurenai said.
"Yes but I'm giving the others another chance for one of them to prove to me they can work with my students I already have. I'm not about to have people who don't get along with each other in a team just because some higher ups place them on the same team because of what the information on their skill levels are on paper but never seeing the people in person. I had someone like that on my own team once before who always made trouble for the team. He was very cool, calm, and collected soldier, unfortunately, he was also a ruthless sociopath, with no semblance of moral fiber. His actions are always aimed at pleasing his superiors and creating as much positive publicity for himself as possible. No matter what the cost were. That's the reason why I didn't bother to save him when he forgot to check his cable line I saw it but said nothing and watch as he fell to his death when we scaled down the cliff face we were training at. In battle you have to be able to trust not watching your back, and since I'm forming my own team I'm not about to let in someone who can't get along with the rest of the team no matter how skill or strong they are," Niamh explain herself to them.
"You're picking from who can get along with Naruto," Kakashi said as he realized what she's been doing all of this time.
"That's right all of this time I have been watching which of the kids get along with Naruto. I know that Sakura doesn't get along with him but since I'm already teaching her she stays. Besides she's only acting like she does to Naruto because she's sees him as a friend but hates how he acts but that's how boys are like at that age," Niamh said.
"So it doesn't matter what skills they have but how they get along with the members of the team that counts," Asuma said.
"I got the idea from a group from where I come from that are the best at what they do. Outer Heaven is a paramilitary (non-governmental) organization possessing advanced technologies and weapons superior to that of any national armed forces. It was founded by a legendary mercenary who was considered to be heroic and demonic at the same time. Outer Heaven organization was founded by the most powerful living soldier codename Big Boss, with the money he accumulated during his mercenary days. Outer Heaven remains an extremely secretive organization, its existence unknown to all but the most senior of military and political personnel. Its motives, funding, structure, and personnel are all kept secret. Its secrecy is vital for its continued existence, as Outer Heaven is a specialist organization dependent on fast surgical strikes with small numbers. They do not possess the numbers or capacity to withstand a conventional war of numbers. But they make it up with the people that they have and trust isn't an issue with them as all members are hand pick by the commander and only those who can work with the others in the group. That's why they're the best since they don't have to worry about trusting a teammate in doing their job," Niamh said as she often wished that the army would put people who could work with each other without having people forming rivals within their own ranks. (2)
The three ninjas were taken aback at what she had said, all of them thinking about what she said. The silence was broken when Kakashi spoke up, "Have you already decided on your new student?"
"Yes but I want to see if any of the others might be able to be train by me later. Now you three stay here and wait for the kids to come back," Niamh said as she suddenly disappears in a blink of an eye.
"Should we follow her?" Kurenai ask.
"No its better that we don't," Asuma said. "It will only make her mad."
"Yeah," Kakashi said as he starts reading his book. "I can finally catch up on my reading now."
Both Asuma and Kurenai shared the same thought, "Niamh is right. He is a pervert."
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In the village –
"Okay what does Niamh want us to get?" Sakura ask Ino who's holding the list, as she and the others walk down the street to the market place.
"Well on the list she wants us to pick up some things she had ordered from the blacksmith, a big bag of flour, milk, a side of beef, ham, potatoes, cabbage, onions, two dozens small glass bottles, some metal work tools and she wants Naruto to get a keg of black powder but he's going to need some help with it," Ino said.
"I'll get the order from the blacksmith," Kiba said walking off.
"I go to the butcher," Choji said taking off as well.
"I call the glass bottles," Shino said.
"I get the flour," Shikimaru said as he left.
"I get the tools," Sasuke grumble as this was a waste of time.
"So whose going to help my with the black powder?" Naruto ask the girls
"We'll get the rest of the items on the list," Sakura said as she turns to Ino who nodded in agreement to help her.
"I… help you," Hinata said as she taps her index fingers together.
"Thanks Hinata," Naruto said glad that at least someone is going to help him with the keg of powder.
"Be careful Hinata," Ino said.
"Make sure you don't drop it," Sakura said to her.
"What about me?" Naruto said as the girls are more worried about Hinata then him.
"Naruto you're the one who has the gun and know how to be safe around it," Sakura pointed out as she had watched the training sessions between Naruto and Niamh.
"Yeah you can handle yourself," Ino said glancing at the gun in his holster as it was called.
"Fine," Naruto said before turning to Hinata. "Let's get the keg Hinata."
"Alright," Hinata said as she walks next to him taking sideway glances at him.
Up above them watching all of this, Niamh let out a sigh as she sees what she had already expected to find. The only one that's willing to make the effort to get to know Naruto as she has come to know him was Hinata. All of the others only see what he acts like but she has gotten to know him and knows that he just wants people to notice him. And besides… as she looks down at the pair, they make a cute couple. A fast moving figure suddenly caught her eye.
At the top of some concrete stairs leading down to the open area where Naruto and Hinata stood a woman suddenly appeared, moving at incredible speed, and just as she reached the first step she crouched for a split second before launching herself into the air.
The woman, her arms spread wide and legs half tucked beneath her, slowly hurled through the air, her body almost defying gravity itself while simultaneously fighting off the gusts of wind that clawed at her. Her dark hair, which trailed far behind her, whipped back and forth like the tail of a kite, even though it was obviously soaked through. And as she ripped through the sky, her yell of pure excitement reached Niamh's ears.
Then gravity finally claimed her, and she fell right towards Hinata and Naruto.
Opening her mouth to shout... something, Niamh found herself just watching as the woman landed, her bent knees absorbing the incredible impact as she dropped from a height of at least six meters, right where Hinata and Naruto had stood. They were pulled to safety by Niamh much to their surprise. The short haired redhead woman who had almost landed on top of them was standing there staring at them.
And Niamh discovered that she could only stare back. The woman was a giant, easily taller then just about anyone Niamh had ever met, easily dwarfing even her own brother's considerable height of over six feet. She must be around seven feet as tall as a basketball player. Her hair was short at the front but in the back she has a long thin ponytail that trailed down her back like a kite's tail that almost reaches the ground. And with the clothing that she wore that seem plastered to her skin, she found it easy to make out the woman's impressive physique, lean but hardened muscles running the length of her entire body. And she's armed with a huge long sword strapped to her back (3)
"Hey you! Why did you do that for? You could have hurt them," Niamh said to the woman.
"I heard that the person who killed Gatou carried a strange looking weapon. And from what I heard in Waves her student a blond kid wears an orange jumpsuit and carries one of her weapons with him. I just had to look for a blond haired boy in an orange jumpsuit and attack to bring out his master," the redhead said in a flat voice.
"Hey you could have hurt Hinata!" Naruto shouted causing Hinata to blush.
"Naruto move Hinata to safety," Niamh said as this could get ugly.
"Are you the one who killed Gatou?" the woman asked.
"Who are you?" Niamh ask as she couldn't get a reading off of this woman.
"YOU TOOK AWAY MY REVENGE!" the redhead screamed in a burst of emotion as she flew from a standing position to a flying one right at Niamh. She pulled her sword out from its sheath at swung it at Niam's head.
Niamh stood there as the blade neared her neck to the horror of Naruto and Hinata before she disappear, reappearing next to the woman as she landed from her leap attack. The woman took another swing at Niamh when she saw her next to her. Niamh deftly ducked under the redhead's swing, and then used a leg sweep to knock her off her feet. The redhead landed hard on her rear and back, as her opponent easily disarmed her with a simple rap to her wrist, causing her hand to reflexively open. Before she could recover, Niamh pointed the tip of her knife at her throat.
"Alright who are you," said ask the woman.
The woman seeing how easily she was beaten lost the will to fight as she saw she's no match for Niamh. "My name is Maki Aikawa and I was the one who was supposed to kill Gatuo."
"I killed him. He's dead why are you attacking me then?" Niamh said as she sheathed her knife. She knows she doesn't have to worry about Maki attacking her as she has no will to fight anymore… just the aura of despair coming from her.
"Because he's the one who took my life away from me that's why," Maki said in an emotionless voice.
"Naruto, Hinata," Niamh said to the two kids. "Go and pick up the powder I'm going to take Maki back to the house."
"But she just tried to kill you," Naruto said.
"Naruto unless you learn to take the time to learn the reason why someone sees you as their enemy, then there's never a chance to change it. You just might find that it's nothing but a misunderstanding," Niamh said as she helps Maki to her feet, and hands her back her sword which Maki puts back in its sheath and leads her back to the house.
"Ms. Niamh isn't like anyone I ever met before," Hinata said as people don't usually take the person who had just attack them back to their home. Like Niamh is doing now with Maki.
"That's right she isn't," Naruto said as she was the first person to make the effort to get to know the real him and not who he puts out for the outside world. But he was still scared to tell her about the thing sealed inside of him. Once she knows she might abandon him like all the others have once they learn who he is.
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Back in Niamh's World –
The base was carried on military lists as a minor supply depot, holding decommissioned and obsolete vehicles for spares. In reality it was the premier black-ops installation of England. And currently a Colonel from the nearby army base was arguing with the head of the department who were in charge of the experiment that took one of the soldiers under him.
"Are you quite mad Colonel?" Professor Anwar Mackenzie stared up at Colonel Mervin Morgan from behind his aluminium and glass desk, the scientist's balding forehead wrinkling in bewilderment. Morgan said nothing to this and continued standing ramrod straight, his grey-green eyes looking slightly over Mackenzie's head.
"Attempt a rescue? But...but that's madness." Morgan had known that Mackenzie and Hawkins wouldn't go for it. He'd also known that he had to at least try, he owed it to his missing soldier, she had been under his command when she'd 'gone under' and she was his responsibility. Naturally civilians couldn't be expected to understand or respect a soldier's honor or obligations. Still he had to try.
"You have the plumb-line soundings targeting the world she landed Professor. If we recreate the circumstances that led to Private Bradley's going under and have my chip set to the same depth-gauge I should be able to make the dive myself and find her. If she is dead, then I'll simply activate my chip's return-pulse-line and rise up to the present, if she's alive I can instruct her on the return procedure." Mackenzie looked truly appalled, his bespectacled eyes blinking at the camouflage clad soldier.
"Colonel we received a slew of separate readings from the plumb-line sounding, not just one. Readings from a mass of different worlds, she may very well be smeared across twenty worlds like a temporal grease stain."
"Yes, or as I understand it, she might have briefly stopped at each of those worlds before finally landing, like a plane bouncing on a hard landing. All I need do is go to the last of those soundings and I should be able to find her." Mackenzie scoffed at that.
"Find her? Colonel, she's dead. Forget her, the ministry and our team here have the utmost respect for what you've done for this Project, too much respect to allow you to commit suicide over some...girl."
"She's not 'some girl' sir," Mackenzie had already turned his attention back to his computer screen and Morgan, his voice suddenly very cold, spoke louder. "She's not 'some girl', sir. She's a soldier."
"But who are you going to find to make the jump?"
"Who you think," Morgan said. "He hasn't seen her since he was assign to this base. And I would think he would want to do all he could to bring her back."
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Deep underground –
Deep below the base, in the hidden installation below, a man slept. Advanced medical monitors surrounded his bed, scrutinizing every beat of his heart, each slow calm breath, and the subdued maelstrom which was the sleeping human mind. Suddenly his eyes snapped open and the man named Hunter came awake.
He was chosen as the first and only test subject for an Army Black Ops project to create a soldier with abilities beyond the human norm. His nervous system had been replaced with an electronic network which interfaces directly with his brain, decreasing reaction time and blocking pain, letting him push his altered body to its limits and beyond. Hunter's skeleton had been reinforced by a crystalline lattice to withstand the strength provided by a boosted musculature and enhanced adrenals. Genetically engineered retro viruses strengthened his body's connective tissues and increased resistance to injury.
The project was a failure. The costs were much too high and wrought great strain on the subject body. He could only survive on a specific diet of nutrients and high energy protein slurry. A constantly changing cocktail of tailored drugs is necessary to keep the careful balance of the altered metabolism in equilibrium. This meant that Hunter was an orphan, with abilities far beyond human normal but the only one of his kind. But this also meant that he's expendable as he couldn't live outside the base without all of his needs that only the base could give him.
Hunter could feel the heavy strain the enhancements were placing upon his body. Although many of his internal organs had benefited from the upgrades there were still all too many normal tissues within his body. The metabolic cost of operating in fully enhanced mode would likely last for weeks when he would suffer from fatigue and blackouts. In addition to this he knew that there were long term costs. He could literally burn-out his organs and slowly die from progressive organ failure in a form of premature old age.
But he has a strange feeling that something was about to happen that would change all of that.
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Author's Notes
1 – The drug from Cowboy Bebop
2 – Doesn't that what seems to happen a lot people being paired off with jerks all of the time?
3 – She's from 'Air Master' a lesser known anime.
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