Phew! Longest chapter yet! Enjoy!
disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or anything to do with him outside of this fic. But the rest is hella mine
(again) Colorful Language Warning!!
(earlier)
"Hey, who're you?!" Yelled out the guard of the front gate of Hive City.
"This is Lieutenant Sovan of the fifth regiment!" Responded a voice. "We have reason to believe you are sheltering a suspected criminal. We are here to apprehend her."
"Oh? Hey Jhavil!" The red-eyed guard called out to a nearby Agende Vhansin. "We got some military boys wantin' to 'apprehend' someone here!"
Jhavil leapt on top of the gate and looked down on the gathering of soldiers. "You guys know you have no authority here! State your business!"
"You heard me the first time!"
"Really?!" The freakish red-eye shot back in a demeaning manner. "According to treaty number zero one five dash thirteen, Hive City is solely under the jurisdiction of the Agende Vhansin family and all laws therein shall be acknowledged and obeyed by all current inhabitants under said jurisdiction. Sound familiar?!"
"Our reports indicate that the suspect is not a red-eyes, so under amendment seventeen of treaty zero one five dash thirteen, any non-red-eye criminal is subject to national law prior to the laws of Hive City. If you will not comply, we have the authority to take the suspect by force."
The Agende Vhansin grinned maniacally. "Any new laws or amendments to current laws decreed after the death of the king are not acknowledged here in Hive City. That is our law." He slurped his tongue in the air in an ancient insult from his family's culture. "So tough shit! Go away, you're not wanted here!"
"Very well," Sovan muttered as he touched the 'send' button on his radio. "All teams, move in!" As soon as the words left his mouth, a bullet left a new gaping hole in his head.
----------------------------
Hinata moved through Hive City with newfound strength in each step as she matched Naruto's pace. "Strange," she thought. "I'm about to fight again, but I don't feel any anxiety at all. I'm either used to it by now or…" she glanced at the blond red-eye easterner. "Maybe those old feelings aren't quite dead yet…"
Uzi suddenly stopped and slammed into a concrete pallet that conveniently lied across the street, blocking a strafing of machine gun fire. "Hinata! The Hyuuga have a special power, right?!"
She nodded as she took cover across the small street. "Yeah!"
"What is it?!"
"It's the Byakugan!" She activated her bloodline. "It gives us a three-sixty degree field of vision as well as the ability to see through multiple layers of solid objects!"
Naruto looked at the veins in her eyes with shock until another burst of fire brought him back to reality. "That's awesome! What do you see out there?!"
She focused her attention for a second. "Looks like a light tank! Doesn't have a large cannon, but it's got dual machine guns instead!"
"Gotcha!" His crimson eyes burned brightly then receded. "Move!"
Hinata dashed from her cover to charge the tank. Her superior vision could clearly see Naruto's chakra emanating from his body to create a loose shield in front of them. The tanks heavy machine guns fired at them only to have the bullets ricochet off the swelling wall of chakra.
"Cover!" Uzi suddenly yelled out as the Konoha runaways reached spitting distance of the armored vehicle. They immediately leaped sideways for cover into crowded alleyways as the tank suddenly went up in flames.
"Did you do that?!" The Hyuuga yelled from her side of the street.
"Nope! We were the decoy!"
"Then who…?"
Her question was answered when her Byakugan saw a swift horde of red-eyes on the other side of the smoking wreckage. One of them had stuffed a sticky bomb into the exposed fuel tank while she and Naruto distracted the tank. "Good teamwork," she said inwardly.
"Scatter!" They heard a muted voice come from one of the rooftops as they left their cover. All the red-eyes, Naruto included, immediately took new cover elsewhere in the large bullet ridden courtyard that the dead tank had passed through. "It's a walker!" The voice added before a slew of unusually dull gunfire cut it down in a dieing gurgle.
"Walker?!" Naruto said out of surprise as he poked his head over his stone block. Hinata already noticed the massive vehicle, if it could be classified as one. The body resembled an armored personnel carrier with the exception of being twice the size of one, and the thing was elevated at least one story into the air by four massive steel legs covered in smooth aerodynamic armor plating. She could see the source of the muted gunfire: a strange looking auto cannon that fired high intensity chakra bullets. The ammunition flew from its stringy barrel and burned glassy holes into the stone barricades before passing through them.
"Hinata!" Naruto called. "Is there a weak point on that thing?!"
"Hold on!" She focused her attention on the forward weapon as it was producing the most amount of power. Her advanced vision saw that the gun produced little heat, which was odd considering that the bullets were hot enough to melt stone into glass and still travel through. She began scanning the massive walking vehicle for some sort of heat dump, and saw several boiling hot vents on the top. "Naruto! There are heating vents on top of that thing! If you can plug them it should make the gun overheat!"
"Gotcha!" His eyes flared again as he yelled out to the other red-eyes in hiding. "Distract that damn thing! I'll take it down!"
A few red-eyes popped around corners and took potshots at the gun before it redirected its fire towards them. The Hyuuga woman marveled at their teamwork, as the distracting red-eyes waited for the gun to point in the opposite direction before revealing themselves, thus making the gun take a few precious seconds longer to reconfirm targets.
However, she was more amazed by what she saw Naruto doing. Her special eyes could see chakra building up in his left arm and being focused into his left hand. He ducked out of his cover as soon as the auto turret swung farther away and slapped his hand on the ground, discharging the chakra from his arm and flinging him into the air in a similar fashion to a catapult. As his trajectory brought him back onto the top of the machine, he thrust his left hand forward and a wave of slashing chakra shot forth from the tattoos in a chaotic pattern. The whirlwind of blades struck the armored surface of the war machine and cut deep gashes all the way through the foot thick steel like butter before dissipating into the floor below.
Hinata was dumbstruck by the blonde's display of power before she saw an enormous buildup of chakra inside the machine. "Naruto! Look out!"
"What?" He said as he landed on the exploding surface of the four legged tank. Some sort of generator or concealed weapon had been severely damaged by his attack and went critical, crumpling the thick metal plating like paper in a fire and melting it like ice in a stove. Somehow, Naruto managed to jump out of the wreckage in time, although how he did it was beyond her.
Her curious mind was answered as he landed in front of her with a smile plastered on his face. Her Byakugan was still active and could easily see a limb of chakra protruding from her former crush in the shape of…
"Is that a tail?" She asked.
"Huh?" He looked back at his visible appendage. "Yeah! That's the fox's chakra. I can pull out a few tails at any time. Pretty useful, huh?" He gloated as he jerked a thumb back at the collapsing hunk of superheated metal. "Anyways, let's head for the bigger fight." With that, the eastern duo and the majority of red-eyed fighters broke out in a run towards the main Agende Vhansin compound which was taking the heaviest beating out of the entire city.
----------------------------
A negotiator stood behind an armored car and yelled into his megaphone, "We will give you one last chance to hand over the suspect. If you will not comply, we will storm the compound and search it until we find her!"
A faint voice could be heard from the other side of the bullet ridden wall. "She ain't here! Go away!"
The military man shook his head in frustration as his anger got the better of him. "Listen, freaks!" He shouted into the handheld noise amplifying device. "Either you hand over the woman or we're taking you down! We should do it anyway; be one less group of you red-eye freaks to deal with!"
An older Agende Vhansin suddenly appeared at the top of his home's gate and overlooked the assembled forces with an authoritative air about him. "You sure that's such a good idea?!" He taunted. "You come into my city and kill my people and demand that we give into your pathetic little show of something you think is force?!"
"All teams, fire at will!" The majority of the troops obeyed as they proceeded to empty their clips into the red-eyed specialist to no avail, unless laughing like an escaped mental patient counted.
"You ignorant fools!" The red-eyed man continued to mock them violently. "Didn't you do any research before coming here?!" The slew of bullets stopped flying as the harsh energy protruding from his tattoos began to cascade outward. "We are the Agende Vhansin, masters of fear! You will all die here today!"
As if the speech were a command, the gathered throng of soldiers was ambushed from every direction by the yellow-eyed specialists.
----------------------------
The Konoha duo and company were a few blocks from the central compound when they began to hear screaming. Hinata focused her Byakugan forward and immediately saw the cause of the ruckus. At that moment, she was grateful that her bloodline could only see in outlines and chakra coils.
She saw Agende Vhansin members tearing apart and consuming enemy soldiers while they were still alive. Troops were knocked over and eaten alive by groups of the specialist cannibals. No matter how many bullets they fired, the doomed invaders hit nothing but air or cascading chakra as the swarm of fear inducing man-eaters overwhelmed them.
Hinata stopped and leaned against a wall to catch her breath while resisting the urge to vomit. Naruto saw that something was wrong and stopped next to her.
"What's up?" He inquired.
"Those… Agende Vhansin…" She wasn't sure how to voice her fright and disgust.
"Ah…" He nodded with understanding. "First time seeing the Agende Vhansin fight. Yeah, they're pretty gruesome. I know how you feel."
She took in several deep breaths and shut off her bloodline. She closed her eyes to block out another sense as she focused on calming down. As soon as she could speak without fear of suddenly puking, she said, "It looks like they don't need our help right now. Is there somewhere else we could go?"
Naruto looked around before settling his red and blue eyes on another location and pointing it out to the blue haired woman. "Looks like the main housing district is under some pretty intense stuff. Let's head there."
Hinata nodded and the pair started off toward their new destination. She noticed that a certain handful of red-eyes seemed to specifically follow them. She looked back at a few of the familiar faces and was met with acknowledging looks.
They spent the next few minutes running hell-bent to the war zone. Each little skirmish they passed on the way was easily handled by the trailing red-eyes so the eastern duo didn't have to detour from their objective.
When they finally arrived, that portion of the city was devastated. No building was left perfectly intact and the ground was littered with bodies from both forces and debris that choked the streets. Hinata activated her Byakugan as soon as they arrived and flinched at what she saw.
"Naruto," she addressed the blond next to her, "There are six more of those walker things here…"
"Alright, no sweat. Plenty of cover…"
"They're bigger than that first one…"
"I can run up buildings…"
"And they're much better armed than the first one as well."
He didn't have a response other than, "What?"
"They've got troops on platforms, more of those auto turrets, and they've got some kind of larger weapon mounted to the top. There's one now! Stop!"
Everyone immediately took cover behind a partially leveled building. A red-eyed soldier poked his head around the corner and viewed the nearby walker. "She's right," he said as he turned back and his eyes burned brighter. "They're friggin' huge."
"Uzi," another red-eye addressed him, "Leave the troops up to us. We'll provide the distractions."
"Got it," Naruto replied as the crimson in his eyes lit up. "Hinata, let's go."
"Right."
The long time runaways moved into the wrecked building as the other red-eyed troops moved to other various positions. As soon as the pair reached the 'top' of the somewhat collapsed building, Naruto saw the enormous walker.
He observed several troops go limp as their blood splattered the hull behind them, the handiwork of his red-eyed admirers. The walker's legs pounded the ground as it turned to face the building, auto cannons whirring to life. A salvo of the superheated ammo flew from the coiling wires of the guns and imbedded themselves into glassy holes along the building.
Hinata drew her pistol in anticipation of boarding the large machine even though she knew the blond man next to her was fully capable of outright destroying it. She searched for a weak point on the behemoth and couldn't find any internal heat sources other than the crew. "There's no weak point on that thing!" She yelled over the dull impacts of the hot bullets against the structure. "We'll have to take out the crew!"
Naruto nodded and ran into a clearing of the wreckage on the new roof. Once again, he built up his chakra in his left arm and hand and prepared to catapult himself over the wall. As soon as he slapped the ground, though, four tails emerged and struck the ground behind him, launching him even higher into the ground. Once he cleared the wall, the tails moved in front of him to act as a shield against the barrage of superheated and normal bullets. The ammo fired by the troops simply ricocheted off, but the chakra induced metal lingered for a second more before smoldering into nothing.
Hinata took the advantage given to her and gathered chakra in her legs. She launched herself off the edge of the 'roof' and just managed to clear the space between her and the platform of the approaching metal monster. The troops that noticed her sudden appearance were too stunned to react before she lifted her pistol and ended their lives. She scooped up an automatic rifle dropped by one of the dead serviceman and emptied the clip into the gathering of troops who almost never noticed her. As soon as the gun stopped firing, she picked up another and repeated the process until she properly finished the job. She looked up as she felt a pair of eyes gazing at her and saw Naruto crouched above her.
"Good job, Hinata!" He said with a smile. "That was impressive! You didn't even break a sweat!"
She returned the smile. "Thanks! Now let's take out that crew."
He nodded in agreement as he jumped down onto the platform in front of the entrance hatch. The tails reared back and shot forward, knocking the heavy hatch inwards. Naruto moved into the doorway and stopped, letting the tails' reach grow and move throughout the cramped spaces and impale the surprised crew. After a few seconds, the tails retracted to their normal length.
"Not so tough after all!" He gloated.
Hinata smiled at her partner in crime before her Byakugan saw a sharp increase in chakra from another walker that had turned towards them.
"Shit!" She yelled. "Get off! Get off!"
The blond red-eyes grabbed her and leapt off the walker, tails jutting below them to break their fall and transform it into a soft landing. As soon as they hit the ground, the energy appendages shot up and formed a shield against the walker. The stationary piece of massive metal was struck by a blinding white light and shattered in a fantastic explosion which peppered the area with large chunks of smoldering debris.
"The hell was that?!" Naruto yelled in surprise.
Hinata examined the trail of dissipating chakra back to the offending walker's larger top-mounted weapon. "That's what those big guns do, I guess."
Naruto's burning crimson eyes flashed even brighter for a moment as his eyes widened then relaxed. "Alright, that one'll get taken care of. Let's move on to the next."
Hinata wondered what he meant by that and took another look at the walker several blocks away. Her bloodline eyes saw the familiar frightening chakra of the Agende Vhansin forming up its legs and realized that the cannibals were easily boarding the war machine in the hardest of ways. The chakra cascaded in the front of the boarders to block the gunfire of the defending troops. Once again, another scene of slaughter that made her sick to her stomach played out, and the walker was cleared of enemies within minutes.
At this point, she and Naruto were already near the next invading walker as it pinned down a large group of red-eyes in a building. The pair was about to repeat their process when the light around the large gun suddenly bent inwards as if being sucked into the machine. The supposed muzzle of the large gun glowed white and released the brilliant light into the building, making it collapse instantly.
"You bastards!" The blond red-eye yelled and caught Hinata's attention. His eyes glossed over with pure crimson and five more tails appeared and buried themselves in one of the legs of the walker, ripping it to shreds. The machine began to dip as its support was torn out from under it and took several seconds to successfully collapse. The heavy machine crumpled like an accordion as the mounted gun came loose from its hinges and landed fairly intact on the ground. The tails wrapped themselves around the machine and lifted it off the ground, pulling it towards Naruto.
"What are you doing?!" Hinata's cries fell on deaf ears as the gun was brought to bear by the demonic chakra tails. One of the tails was loosed from the weapon and thrust itself into the metal ring implanted in Naruto's left wrist. The tail was sucked into the implant completely as the remaining appendages aimed the gun at another active walker closer to the edge of Hive City. Uzi placed his blazing tattooed left hand against the back of the weapon and the thing began to charge again.
This time, though, Hinata could see that the tails were being sucked into the device as well as the chakra slowly draining from Naruto's hand. She became frightened as the weapon began to shake and glow as its full capacity was being exceeded. At the last possible second, Naruto released all the chakra from his tattooed hand into the incredible discharge of the weapon. The burning red shot of compressed chakra flew towards the walker with amazing brilliance. To any normal eye, this shot only differed from the first in color, but the Byakugan could tell that it was entirely different. The bright white light was merely a chakra induced burst, but this projectile was formed from an extremely compressed, highly unstable sphere of chaotic chakra. When the shot impacted the intended walker, it suddenly opened into a wave of slicing chakra that first tore the machine to pieces then vaporized the remnants, sending any remaining slivers flying miles away from the city.
The Hyuuga woman was scared at the change she saw in her recently found target. "N- Naruto?" She tried to get his attention. "W- What's wrong?" She moved closer to him and saw his eyes were still fully burning, hatred practically leaking out of him. She moved closer and hugged him from the back to try to snap him out of it. "Please calm down," she said as she could feel him initially tense up. His heavy breathing began to slow and the murderous feeling began to die away. After a few more moments she asked, "Are you okay?"
His head nodded as he replied. "Yeah, I'm fine." She released her hold on him and he turned to face her with a downcast look on his face. "Thanks, Hinata."
She gave a subdued smile. "No problem, Naruto."
The moment was interrupted as another of the white light projectiles could be heard impacting into a building close by. The pair turned their heads in the direction of the sound then looked back at each other.
"Well," Naruto said with humility in his voice, "Let's get going."
"Yeah," she replied.
As usual, make your reviews full of your unfaltering love for me (or lack thereof (most likely)) and with your comments on how the story is progressing now that the 'Konoha duo' is finally united.
Oh, and I thought of something kinda cool. I get released from prison to go home for a month (aka: winter break during college), so I'll probably do a few pictures of the main characters from this fic (I'm actually a decent artist, so I promise it won't suck too bad). So if you have any talent whatsoever at artwork and are interested, here's my challenge:
Draw Naruto's new look going from the description in chapter 11. I'll post the details on my main account page, so if you really are interested, go take a look. I look forward to any participants (I know how 'successful' contests like this usually turn out, so I won't hold my breath. I need to breath while drinking.)
Catch ya'll later!
