Just a Survivor
Originally Written: November 5th 2009 332AM to approx. November 5th 2009 1158PM
Notes/Spoiler: Naruto: Volume 44. Literally between chapter 408 and 409. Seriously. I'll try to throw in enough detail that so long as you know some basics with Naruto (Shippuuden) you won't get lost.
AN: Just ran a gauntlet of three chapters in three days, plus some chapter rewrites a little while back. So I decided to upload another chapter.
One of the first things both Ienzo and Roxas realized while being held in custody was that the man known as "Ibiki Morino" was insane. Overly insane. Even more-so when it came to gathering information from people who had been suspected of attempting to attack his home village. Ienzo guessed that was why he was head of the Torture and Interrogation force.
Ienzo folded his arms as Ibiki stared at him head on. A few minutes ago, he went off and came back with a male who had very long dirty blond hair tied in a ponytail and brown eyes. At least they looked brown. He really couldn't tell in the darkness of the room.
Every so often the blond would make a few strange hand signs, place a hand on Ienzo' head and Ienzo would feel something probing at his mind and memories. "I wouldn't do that if I were you. I know you're trying to get inside my head. You'd probably never be able to leave." Ienzo repeated for a third time. "I already told you all I know about these heartless. I've told you about where I was headed, and what I was doing. I can't give you any more than that." Ienzo stared straight at the blond and Ibiki. "I didn't come here to attack your village."
Ienzo really didn't want them probing within his mind. Sometimes he got lost in his mind himself. He could only imagine what would happen if someone else tried going in there. It wasn't as though he had complete mental control over his mind anyway. If he wasn't careful, he'd very well wind up spitting out a mimicked move he had learned over the years. With each person he mimicked from, along came small bits of their personality. Just enough to give him a head start if he truly had or wanted to pose as someone else. Still, with abilities from over 12 people in his arsenal, that was a lot of room taken up within his head. The last thing he wanted was some man he hardly knew stuck in his head while he wandered around confused as though he had a personality disorder or something.
Ienzo dropped his gaze to the floor. Yes, at one point his job would have been to go to a world, check it out, and then let the heartless and darkness rain on the world's parade if it had suitable conditions. 'But...I have no reason to do such things anymore. I don't even want to.' Ienzo would've placed a hand on his chest if he wasn't tied to the chair. 'I've dealt with this too long...I wouldn't ever do that again if given the choice...'
~~~~~
Roxas watched the Jounin outside the room he was being held in pace back and forth. They were waiting for something or other, and they were interrogating someone else a few doors down or something. Trying to pick up information of some kind from a hostage, Roxas guessed. All he knew was that there were people running around. He could easily summon Oathkeeper and Oblivion and go wild on the side of the building, find Ienzo and then run like heck, but that was way more trouble than it was worth. Especially considering that he and Ienzo could have just gone in another direction.
Now however, he was stuck just waiting for that mean looking bear of a man who had the balls to call him a snot nosed brat to come back and squeeze some more information out of him. Didn't Xemnas have a rule about getting too involved with other world's happenings? Or was that the king? Roxas shook his head slightly confused.
"Sora..." Roxas whispered to himself, "Jerk." Roxas tapped his foot annoyed against the ground. He didn't get just what about the brunette made him so angry. Was it one thing, or many? Hell if he knew. He didn't care too much either way. Just that Sora wasn't here and he wasn't going insane from not knowing who he was. That brought a bit of ease to him. He remembered being just fine all that time he spent kicking Organization XIII butt while inside Sora. Well...it wasn't just fine, as Ienzo pointed out, he really shouldn't be too happy about defeating those who had took him in. Except maybe Xemnas, "Manipulating bastard." Roxas blinked, that was a new one. He wondered if he picked that up from the blond he had met yesterday.
Roxas shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Did he mention they gave him no time to sleep last night? He wondered if they did the same to Ienzo.
~~~~~
"That's not supposed to happen." Ibiki restrained himself from face palming. Inoichi managed to get into Ienzo's mind. Ibiki's ears were still ringing from Ienzo's frantic raised voice. The bad news was, he had been thrown out like a rag dog and was on the ground reeling from the experience and Inoichi was now lying on the ground unconscious. The whipped topping and cherry on the cake was that Ienzo was out like a light too. "Get me Lady Tsunade! Now!" He yelled back to another member of the Interrogation squad. He left without a hitch. "His daughter's gonna kill me."
~~~~~~~~~~
"He noticed them before I did. Froze right in his tracks. Then he told me to hold on a minute and stay back. Before I could really grasp what was going on, those black blobs of who knows what were ganging on him and myself. I did notice how well he threw those kunai. One would've thought he had some knowledge of chakra." Kakashi nodded to the ninja standing in front of him. "From what little I've seen, he's quiet. Well composed. As though he's got nothing to say, and yet nothing to hide. It could be an act. Still, there wasn't anything there that set me off about him. Except maybe that cloak he was wearing, but it looks nothing like the one I'm thinking of."
~~~~~~~~~
"I don't think he would do that!...I don't see it in him."
"Well, you nearly attacked him the first time you saw him, Naruto."
Naruto looked at the ground, "...He said something that set me off, okay?" He then looked back up at the ninja. "I get good vibes from Roxas."
"He didn't do anything strange while chatting with you right before the attack?" The ninja paced around a bit.
"Well, he kept looking back, like something was making the hairs on the back of his head stand up. Next thing I knew people were screaming and Roxas was off. Nearly knocked the stool right over."
"Anything else?"
"I get a weird vibe from those keychains hanging off the right side of his pants. They look like...well, keys...I guess." Naruto's stomach growled. The Interrogation squad was kind enough to let him rest with no breakfast. Naruto frowned at that thought. The ninja looked back at another ninja and the other one was gone within the blink of an eye.
"How about before you took him out to eat?"
"You say it like it was a date." Sharp eyes glared down at him. Naruto waved his hands in defense. "We chatted a bit. He and Ienzo both said that they were looking for some Fire Terminal place. 'Cept they got lost and wound up here, even after Roxas told their friends or whatever that they weren't gonna get lost. Ienzo started to mention a few names or something, but Roxas cut him off each time. They were like having this mini fight. Ienzo looked pretty mad that they had gotten lost. Roxas looked more embarrassed for doing something stupid. Kinda like making an Academy Student mistake in a training session for the Chuunin Exams." The ninja blinked at that one, but nodded anyway. "Ohhh yeah...Roxas kept calling me Axel. Don't know what that was about."
~~~~~~~~~~
Tsunade stared out the window of her office. A lot was on her mind. The town was on alert in case the creatures came back, but she didn't want to upscale the warning like she should have and like the council wanted to. Naruto would never want to leave the village to train if that happened. There was a major difference in difficulty in terms of defending a village from a fucked up psycho ninja organization and defending a village from foreign creatures one didn't recognize as anything known or couldn't see. And if this was just a false alarm and Akatsuki showed up looking for Naruto. In his current state...the teenager would be a dead man.
Those two men from yesterday didn't help the situation any either. She had no time to worry about it, but seriously, "Where the hell is Fire Terminal and why haven't I heard of it?" Tsunade clenched and unclenched her fists. Roxas' strange statement of them being from another world was slowly beginning to sound more and more plausible.
This really fell in line with one of the stranger things Jiraiya would know. "Dummy." She mumbled to herself. "What the hell...?" Tsunade stared at the strange simian creatures with the same beady yellow eyes from yesterday. A group of them just appeared from tiny black portals, standing on the roofs of various buildings in front of her, all armed with slingshots. As they aimed she prepared to duck for cover and run, only to find a slew of banana peels flying through her office windows. It took her a while to get her mind off of wondering why they were slinging banana peels, of all things, at her.
Behind the brown ones decorated with gold earrings and purdy red bows, there were buffer blue monkeys, hopping about. They made no noise however, so aside from the sounds of the banana peels being shot through the air and the people below going about their daily lives unaware, all was quiet. It made for a very interesting and disturbing experience.
A few seconds after that, a group of Anbu entered the room. "Lady Tsunade! Are you alright?"
"They're banana peels. I'll be damned if I'm gonna get hurt by a banana peel. At any rate, take them out. I don't want to find out if they have any other abilities up their sleeves."
"Yes ma'am!"
~~~~~~~~~~
"What, you want to see my keychains? Sure. Wouldn't hurt. They are just keychains. They're right on my hip." Roxas wiggled in his seat. Mentally however, as the interrogator moved to unhook the chains, Roxas was screaming, 'Please don't return to me. Don't return to me!'
The ninja eyed them warily. One glowed within in his hand in the dimly lit room and the other seemed to disappear within the room's darkness. "Like the creatures..." The man whispered. He then held up Oblivion's keychain in front of Roxas. "They're just keychains?"
"Mhm." Roxas nodded. The man eyed him strangely. 'Roxas, he doesn't believe you and you're a dead man.' Roxas suddenly looked up and Oblivion and Oathkeeper returned to full size, nearly stabbing the ninja. Then they disappeared and fell to the ground right in front of Roxas before returning to their shrunken keychain size. Roxas slowly lowered his head, and stared straight at the ninja. "More heartless have come."
The guard bolted out the door to inform his coworkers.
~~~~~~~~~~
"Lady Tsunade!" A Jounin from the interrogation squad poofed into the Hokage's office. She eyed the slew of banana peels littered about the room for a few seconds, and Tsunade who was having a relatively easy time avoiding them.
"Don't let them cause too much of a-" One of the orange monkeys shot a sphere of dark material right through the window Tsunade was standing at. The interrogation ninja threw a kunai at the small sphere of darkness that stopped right before Tsunade and the Anbu she was about to order. The dark blob burst into a multitude of smaller blobs before dissipating in the air. A small pink heart floated up from what was the mass.
"Those things are everywhere milady." The interrogation ninja commented.
"-ruckus." The Anbu member balanced expertly on the window, easily blocking and slicing anything unfortunate enough to be shot at him. Tsunade looked back at the ninja. "Everywhere?"
"They're sticking to the rooftops, but yes, they're all over the village."
"Dammit." Tsunade clenched her fist. "Be careful." The anbu nodded before joining the fray once more.
"That isn't all milady. Morino Ibiki called Yamanaka Inoichi to help with Ienzo's interrogation. The details were not adding up. Ienzo politely requested multiple times to not involve Inoichi for the fear that Inoichi would become "trapped" within in his mind. It was foolish of us to think it was an idle threat, but now both Ienzo and Inoichi are unconscious. The resulting backlash of energy was enough to make Ibiki stumble."
'Those two are a curse...' Tsunade mentally yelled. She prayed with all her might and strength within her that Akatsuki didn't play it smart and decide to attack them now, looking for Naruto.
~~~~~~~~~~~
"Oh fuck! Get him!" Ibiki yelled after a few Jounin, before catching up with him. He rubbed his side a bit. A few minutes ago, Ienzo disappeared in a black portal from his seat, showed up behind Ibiki in the form of Inoichi and dropkicked him in the torso. Then he disappeared in another portal outside the interrogation room. And every time they got near him with a kunai or their own hands, "Inoichi" would disappear through another portal.
The portals left behind wisps of deep black much like the dark blobs of black that occasionally got in "Inoichi's" and their way. "Why is this bunch leaving these pink heart shaped things behind?" Ibiki thought out loud to himself. "Does it have something to do with them being heartless?"
"Please!" 'Inoichi' called out, "I can help you." The sound of his voice, mimicked perfectly, temporarily froze all the ninja into a state of shock. 'Inoichi', held his head and collapsed against the wall. "I told him...not to..." 'Inoichi' composed himself, drop kicked another ninja, and circled around the corner. About thirty seconds later, he had successfully performed the "Mind Transfer Jutsu" and caught Ibiki in it.
'Ibiki', who was now being controlled by the true Ienzo, grabbed 'Ienzo', who still had Inoichi trapped within his body, by his shirt and threw him up against the wall. Then he dragged his body back the way he came.
'Ienzo' looked on confused. "What's going on?"
"Didn't I tell you not to do that? Huh? Huh!?" 'Ibiki' looked back at 'Inoichi'. There was a frightened look on 'Ibiki's' face, one that did not suit Ibiki at all. And 'Ibiki' was trembling fiercely. Even though Ienzo successfully performed one of the Ninja Jutsus, it was still taking a toll on him.
The other ninja were at a loss of what to do. To be quite honest, nothing like this had ever happened before.
"I remember saying you might get stuck in there!" 'Ibiki' continued yelling. "Would you stab yourself with a kunai even though someone warned you multiple times that it was poisoned...and sharp!?
"Y-you have the power to mimic other beings...nearly flawlessly." 'Ienzo' commented, staring wide eyed.
"Yes! Nothing to the extent of that Copy Cat Ninja however...I think." It was then the other ninja realized that just as Inoichi, stuck in Ienzo, was fumbling around for information in Ienzo's head, Ienzo was gathering information from Ibiki. And Ienzo had a feeling that it would be a while before they'd let them leave after this situation passed over. "It's a hard to control ability isn't it?" 'Ibiki' whispered almost bitterly. 'Ibiki' watched 'Ienzo' nod, shaking with concentration, his face turning grim as he saw 'Ienzo's' form flicker from the body of Inoichi to the body of Axel. "I hope to Kingdom Hearts you don't turn into Luxord."
~~~~~~~~~~
Roxas watched helplessly as a bunch of Darkball Heartless, big orbs of pitch black and violet, bobbing around in the air with their jagged smiles and golden eyes taunting the ninja, nearly took out the three Jounin fighting around Roxas. It was no surprise that the Jounin interrogating him and the guards at the door really had no idea how to fight the teleporting things. Roxas winced as a Jounin nearly missed getting his head chomped off by one of them only to be tackled by a tag team of Shadow Heartless and another Darkball charging at him.
"Hey! Untie me!" Roxas yelled to them. The three ninja took a few milliseconds to glance at each other. "You know these things are kicking your butts! Give me my-ahh!-" Roxas leaned back as a Darkball nearly missed charging into him. "-keychains!" Roxas' legs twitched as he watched the slowly growing group of Shadow heartless edge closer to him. "I can help you!" Roxas smiled as a Kunai lodged itself into the ropes tying him. He let himself out of the ropes and jumped out of his seat.
The interrogating ninja moved to throw the two keyblades to Roxas only to have them disappear from his hands and appear in Roxas' hands just as he motioned to perform a cross-slash in the air. The move took out about three Darkballs, all of which were ganging up on one of the other ninja's. Roxas then threw Oblivion into the fray of heartless blocking the door.
"Move move!" The lead ninja yelled as Oblivon circled back to Roxas. Roxas was the last one out, the lead interrogation ninja the first.
~~~~~~~~~~~
"I'm going to let go of Morino-san now." 'Ibiki' pointed to 'Inoichi.', who was now in the form of Axel. "With you turning your focus to return to your own body, I just know you'll accidentally blow up something. Whether or not you want to believe that I didn't bring these heartless with me, do this for me, and I can help out against them. They're much more dangerous than they look. Trust me on that one."
'Axel' nodded, too much into concentrating and working with energy he's never felt before to give an actual response. The surrounding ninja caught Ibiki as he collapsed mentally shaken.
"We should've listened to the damn kid." Ibiki mumbled annoyed as he slowly stood and watched 'Axel' placed a hand on Inoichi's head. 'Axel' fell to the ground while summoning a chakram and throwing it at the ninja. They all dodged out of the way luckily, and watched as the chakram took out the highest line of Darkball's floating in the air.
"AHHH!" Naruto's scream shook the building. The chakram continued to fly out of the room, would've sliced off the top of Naruto's head if Roxas hadn't tackled him, nearly grazed the wall, and circled back to 'Axel.' Kakashi and a few more jounin whistled in the background as 'Axel', now back to Ienzo, caught the chakram and turned it back into a very thick black lexicon.
Ienzo dropped to Inoichi's side. Other ninja surrounded them, fighting off more of the heartless. "Are you alright?" Ienzo placed a hand on his shoulder. "I'm terribly sorry, but I did warn you." Ienzo said sincerely but sternly.
Inoichi nodded. He then looked over to Ibiki, "He's telling the truth. He has no allegiance with them." He then stood shakily. Ienzo smiled slightly.
"We've got to move, this place is too constrained for efficient fighting against them!" Roxas called out.
"Daddy!" Ino ran up to the doorway. Naruto threw a kunai at a Darkball that was about to tackle her. Ino smiled and "thumbs up'd" at Naruto, "They're different than the ones above ground."
"They're above ground too?!" Naruto yelled annoyed.
"Yeah, they look like monkeys. Quite a few have surrounded the Hokage tower, but are doing nothing more than taunting Lady Tsunade and the staff there with banana peels from the rooftops."
"Banana peels?" Kakashi asked slashing a Shadow with a kunai.
"These things are making a mockery of us!" Naruto yelled annoyed.
"Ienzo!" Roxas called out to him.
"I know..." Ienzo looked around for a brief second, whacking a few heartless with his book. "They-"
"Morino-san!"
"What now!?" Ibiki yelled annoyed.
A ninja skidded to a halt right in front of them. "A group of these creatures are attempting to take the hostage body Lord Jiraiya left us with!"
"WHAT!? Move it!" Ibiki pointed a few ninja, "You guys, Kakashi and Inoichi are with me! Get everyone else out of here!"
"You're safer with them, Ino." Ino nodded as Inoichi followed Kakashi and Ibiki.
"What's going on here?!" Naruto yelled annoyed as the others ran the other way.
Ienzo shook his head, "I'm not quite sure, but one thing I do know..., " Ienzo turned his lexicon into a simple sword, "this is too organized. Heartless naturally do not work like this." Ienzo and Roxas tag-teamed slashing their swords through an arc, destroying the nearest heartless in a circle around them.
"Do you think something's controlling them?" Ino questioned.
"It's quite possible. It's been done before." Ienzo replied. Roxas threw Oblivion. It circled around Naruto, who had charged ahead, a few times before disappearing and returning to Roxas. Naruto looked back at Roxas with a slight smirk. "Let's move!"
~~~~~~~~~~
"What a drag..." Shikamaru mumbled with a hand in his Kunai pouch. A group of Shadows were staring at him, swaying back and forth as though they were in a trance. He'd been like this for a few minutes now. He couldn't tell if they were working up a strategy, waiting for him to make the first move, or really had no interest in him.
"Shikamaru!" He had his answer as Chouji ran up to him. Suddenly they bolted straight towards Chouji, completely avoiding Shikamaru.
"Dammit." Shikamaru quickly spun around and threw a few kunai while Chouji enlarged his arm and squished them flat. 'They were completely avoiding me...why?' Shikamaru thought as Chouji ran up to him. More heartless charged, all directing themselves towards Chouji and the civilians surrounding them.
~~~~~~~~~~
"This is ridiculous. They're not doing anything." Tsunade eyed the the monkey heartless sitting on the rooftops. She swore if they actually had mouths, they'd be grinning at her. "I know they're a distraction, Fukasaku." She looked towards the frog. "But a distraction for what? No reports of any real damage done to the village, or civilians. The only one's they're attacking are my Ninja forces. Why?" Tsunade banged her hand on the desk. "Why? Drain our strength for what?" Tsunade stared at the simian creatures. "I bet they're working with Akatsuki." Tsunade growled annoyed.
"You'd be right milady." Tsunade faced the Anbu standing next to her. Sakura had left with Shino and Kiba, since these heartless hadn't been doing anything more than annoying the dickens out of them. "I've received word that as we speak, there's a large group of these creatures, Heartless, attempting to take back the body Lord Jiraiya left us from his battle with Pein. Kakashi, Ibiki, Inoichi and other Interrogation ninja are heading to the scene. Also, I've received word that there is a growing force of more of these heartless traveling through the trees surrounding the village. They haven't done anything yet. It seems they're just waiting for something, probably the retrieval of that body."
"Dammit." Tsunade mumbled under her breath. There was an awkward silence as a banana peel landed on her desk. "What of our...guests?"
"Inoichi was able to return his mind to his proper body. Inoichi claims that while Ienzo and Roxas do have some working knowledge of what heartless are, they had no idea that there were heartless trailing them."
Tsunade turned away, staring at a banana peel that had landed on her lap. 'How in the hell? I still don't trust them. This is much too coincidental.' She then turned back to the Anbu member. "No other signs of Akatsuki? Pein?"
"No ma'am. For now it's just these heartless gathering in numbers." The Anbu shook his head.
"I want a report every fifteen minutes. Got it?" She stared at the heartless. "I wonder if they'd step up in their game if I left this room...?" She pondered.
"Yes ma'am!"
"And find Naruto. Keep him from getting too involved with this."
"Yes milady! Permission to speak milady?"
Tsunade could just sense the Anbu sweatdropping and felt a particularly strong headache forming. "Where. Is. He?" She rubbed her hand over her eyes.
"He's currently traveling with Ino, Roxas and Ienzo. Roxas and Ienzo both claim to sense something strong from the formation surrounding the village." Another Anbu poofed in next to the first one.
"Ienzo just sent a note of warning, Milady. Heartless are normally not this organized and usually attack anything with emotion. Both he and Roxas believe that something is controlling them."
"I could have figured out that one myself." Tsunade responded. "The question is who? Where's Naruto now?"
"At the rate they were heading, just about inside the surrounding forests."
She pointed to each Anbu member respectively her voice raised in slight panic, "You go join Ibiki and keep those heartless from snatching up that body! And you get Naruto back inside this village!"
"Yes ma'am!" The two anbu disappeared.
"I don't know what I'm going to do with you." She turned red in the face as a banana peel hit the back of her head. She then turned back around to face the particular Bouncywild Heartless that was pointing at her, taunting her. "I know what I can do to you, in the meantime though."
~~~~~~~~~~
Note: I seriously cannot believe that no one has ever done that scene with Shikamaru in any Kingdom Hearts Naruto Crossover I've ever read in any form. It's so obvious it should be more common than SasuNaru stories and Sasuke turning into the heartless, Dark Riku wannabe.
The heartless used for Konoha are from "Deep Jungle" from KHI. You know, Tarzan's World. It's only fitting, ne? Roxas is spamming variations of Sora's "Strike Raid" ability. Oh...and I hate this chapter. I really do. I'll tell you why next chapter, which I kind of hate too.
1-18-2013: Yes, Ienzo, in his own body used a Bloodline, and he's not a Yamanaka. Bit of a weird plothole thingy for this chapter. Don't worry tho. Ienzo's not a Gary Stu and that's not going to happen often, if ever again. I hope I'll remember to address it more fully in later chapters. For now, a Yamanaka being in Ienzo's body with him + Ienzo's "shapeshifting"-slash-mimic abilities makes a considerable explanation. Though, with the Godmodding Squeenix did to Xehanort and all his forms in that atrocity Dream Drop Distance, no one, including myself, should be questioning this small just barely farfetched power mod. That shit rivals the Godmodding done to Naruto, Sasuke, Orochimaru, Madara & "Tobi", and even to a point Kakashi, Gai AND Hinata. Combined. Good grief. The saving grace in Naruto is that Kishi seems like he's no longer afraid to kill off characters like he has nothing better to do. (Pein/Pain's attack on konoha doesn't count.)
So, I have to rewrite a few chapters I've written already. Need to fix some plot holes that are too big to brush to the side. If I'm not too lazy it shouldn't hinder updating too badly, as those chapters are a bit away. I wonder what to do with the versions before the revision. Save for one, I do like them.
I feel kind of weird rereading this chapter for errors, especially with what happened recently to Inoichi in the manga recently. Man, that was crappy, and not even done in a dignified manner. It was like Kishi needed something to reinforce the display of that "Demon's" power. No cannon fodder is safe from his wrath, even the likeable ones. -sadness-