Broken Faith 24
Finale
Disclaimer : I don't own anything, Naruto and its variants belong to Masashi Kishimoto, Mahou Sensei Negima and its variants belong to Ken Akamatsu. Songs belong to their respective singers and publishers and I'm simply borrowing all of the above. This chapter is released in commemoration of Chapter 355 of Mahou Negima Sensei, the last chapter of a manga series that has lasted for nearly a decade and entertained millions.
Godspeed Ken Akamatsu.
Naruto's Armour : i1257 . photobucket . com / albums / ii516 / Kur0Kishi / Dukemon . jpg *Just take that dinosaur thing off the helmet and replace it with a red crown.
Thanks goes to GxTBilly and Khagerou who first let me know when chapter 355 came out.
I seriously suggest you read this while playing the songs.
Soundtrack List
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann OST - Baf!Baf! Sonna ni Moeru no ga... Suki Kai?
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann OST – Ten Wo Tsuke
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann OST – Is It Ok Just To Get Fired Up?
AKINO & AIKI bless4 – Gekkou Symphonia
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann OST – Libera Me From Hell
AKINO – Sousei No Aquarion
****Broken Faith****
Last time on Broken Faith
Takane who had been quiet thus far suddenly spoke, "Will Naruto-sama be included in this operation?"
The dean looked at the tall blonde girl in surprise, he hadn't known that the girl and Naruto were acquaintances, "At the moment I haven't seen him yet but Negi assures me he will be fighting on our side. He seems to be doing something that will help us later."
With that said, everyone seemed to start having confidence in the wildly crazy plan, Konoemon tried to rally them even further, "Remember this; we have underestimated her for long enough, this plan of Chao-kun must be stopped. Support from the home country probably won't make it here in time either. Keep this in your minds as we fight: If we cannot stop Chao-kun's plan, the world will be changed. Everyone put your full effort into this operation!"
All of them stood up with their backs straight and a loud and overwhelming "Yes sir!" reverberated in Konoemon's office.
The wizened mage smiled at them gratefully.
****Broken Faith****
Asuna fidgeted uncomfortably in her costume and tried to adjust her shoulder armour again as she glared at the chuckling ermine, "Neh... is it really necessary for me to wear this? It's so... outlandish. Won't they target me even more while I'm wearing this?" she mumbled nervously.
Chamo grinned at the girl who was dressed in an elaborate costume consisting of a silver breastplate, an intimidating gauntlet on her left hand along with thick defender's pauldron on her left shoulder and a red swirling skirt with an opening in the front that showed off her slim legs clad in sturdy greaves, "Of course, You didn't forget you were a hero unit did you?"
Asuna flustered, "He-hero units?"
"That's right, didn't you read the manual?" the ermind smirked, "You are supposed to stand out. It'll make it that much harder for Chao to target you personally, and at the same time, the hero units are supposed to rally the normal civilians and protect them from too much damage; being dressed like that will make your task that much easier." The ermine explained authoritatively.
Beside her Setsuna flushed deep red in the maid costume that she wore during the Mahora Tournament, complete with cat ears and tail, "Bu-but thi-this is embarrassing..." the swordsgirl muttered.
A thin arm draped itself around her neck and squeezed affectionately, "Awww... you look cute like that Se-chan, don't complain so much."
Setsuna sweat dropped at the flaky princess, "I-If you say so ojou-sama..."
Konoka who was also wearing her Mahora Tournament maid costume smiled gently at her childhood friend, which just made Setsuna blush harder, "Speaking of costumes, has anyone seen Naruto around? He disappeared after bringing Negi to the library, does he know the plan to indirectly use the normal people as combat forces?"
Asakura nodded, "He sent a message by clone saying that Konoemon told him, but he went off to get something to help us further."
"Get what?"
"How the heck should I know?" the ermine retorted.
"What about Negi?"
Chamo scratched his chin with a stubby claw, "Negi's still resting, so we're going to have to beat the robots back until either Negi has rested enough or someone manages to get to Chao and stop the ritual."
"Don't worry about that idiot; I'm more worried about us. We're earlier than expected, Chao will definitely notice something of this magnitude, it's not like we could have hid a mobilizing force so easily. I'm worried about what she might do and how much it will deviate from the knowledge we have of the future. Negi might not even get here in time." The armour clad girl grumbled.
"It's a possibility," Chamo admitted sanguinely, "But we have no choice at the moment. We know she's coming, we had to do something. If we manage to scare her into stopping her plan, then hurrah for us, but I doubt it." He shrugged casually, "If it comes down to it, we'll just have to get through by pure will power."
"Uh huh, and will power can create big robots for us to fight Chao with as well." Asuna shot at the ermine dryly.
A bell rung loudly and the volume of the chattering amongst the crowd gathered at the lake shored increased even further.
Chamo gulped, "Well, I forgot to mention the other possibility but it looks like Chamo sped things up. She's early by an hour."
All of them glanced at their time pieces; 5.15.
The ermine groaned, "Call Negi!"
"No point, electronic communications have been cut off and either Negi's not responding to the Pactio telepathy because he's still resting or it's been cut off as well." Setsuna cut in as she flipped her phone shut and stored it in her skirt.
The group of girls, an ermine and a ghost watched as the battle commenced and bright beams lit the darkening sky as both sides of the conflict started attacking each other.
"Eh... looks like it's just us then."
Asakura nodded, "Looks like I need to go and start doing the announcements, good luck guys."
Three of the girls watched the reporter go before sharing a look and leaping away.
The ermine sweat dropped as he watched the battle. The first of the maid duo; Setsuna went straight to the front lines and started cutting down robots by the dozens while the second...
Konoka... Chamo sweat dropped, calling Konoka the team's heavy artillery on legs was probably the most polite way he could think of to describe her at the moment. Her barrage of huge beams of magic flattened and destroyed even more robots than Setsuna did. She apparently had no hesitation whatsoever when it came to causing mass destruction to robots.
Asuna on the other hand was a perfect example of a tank on legs. Except, instead of shooting stuff, this tank simply swung her sword around like a propeller and bulldozed her way through the army like a weed whacker mowed down grass, occasionally leaping high into the air and slamming into the ground like a comet with her huge sword, destroying anything even remotely near her. What she lacked in terms of speed, she made it for it with pure strength and surprisingly thick skin.
"At this rate, I don't think Negi might even need to show up. Still..." the ermine muttered under his breath before whispering into KuFei's ear, "We need to go get Negi in person since our communications are down."
****With The Combatants****
Play Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann OST – Baf!Baf! Sonna ni Moeru no ga... Suki Kai?
"Hey our defence point is the World Tree Plaza isn't it? So why are we at the lake?" Madoka quietly asked her cheerleader friends.
"Because there were some rumours on the net saying that the enemy will be coming from the lake," Sakurako answered her fellow cheerleader. "We're gonna go BAM BAM and kill them all and get the reward!" The girl excitedly faked shooting her bazooka around.
"But there's still more than an hour before it will start. I'm bored."
A slow rumbling could be heard from the lake.
"Hey what's that?" A shaky voice from a random defender shouted.
"Ooohh!" the cheerleaders heard a few students gasp. Looking towards the lake, Misa's jaw dropped. An army of Tanaka type robots walked out of the water. They were accompanied by spider-like-tanks as big as trucks and more than a few floating spy-cam type machines.
"This is too extreme! Wait this is too early! It's not even start time yet!" Misa shouted indignantly. Before anything else can be said, Tanaka and a few of the other robots opened their mouths and opened fire with beams. A few people in the front got caught in the fire, including Madoka.
"Are they dead?" Sakurako asked as the place that was hit was covered with smoke. When the smoke had lifted, Madoka and the rest of the people who were hit were naked, save for their underwear. Guys were trying and failing to stop their gushing nosebleeds, while girls were screaming and covering themselves. "It's the strip beam, it's real!"
"Stop gawking and get me some clothes!" Madoka shouted at her friends.
"To those who have lost their equipment, please leave the area to get resupplied!" the announcer shouted.
****With The Battle Maids****
Setsuna swung her nodachi and sliced a wide arc of machines in half, having long since given up on using techniques in favour of reserving her Ki to maintain her speed and strength, but her attacks were no less effective. Despite that, the puppets seemed to have some sort of sentience in their programming, rather than waste time shooting strip beams which she dodged anyway, they started bum rushing her in huge numbers. The only reason she hadn't been completely overwhelmed yet was because of her ojou-sama; every so often when the number of puppets started getting too much for the front line to handle, Konoka cast a huge area spell before returning to general healing and crowd control.
"Audi spirituum Inferni, ad lucem et ignis, et devorabiture penetrare, Hell's Lightning!"
Like now.
Two bolts of lightning shot forth from Konoka's palms, blowing holes through dozens of machines, just then, the spell's secondary effect kicked in and huge flaming walls of fire sprung up in their wake, momentarily halting the machine's advances, "Ko-Konoka-ojou sama..." Setsuna breathed out in awe.
"Yes Se-chan?" Konoka smiled sweetly at her childhood friend, completely contradicting the background of flames and destruction behind her slight figure.
"I didn't know you could do spells like that!"
The princess shrugged, "I don't like using them on people; they are a little too destructive for me, as you can see, this is usually what happens when I combine two C-rank or lower spells. Unlike Negi-sensei who specializes in combining spells with his body for destructive physical attacks, mine is in combining spells." then she shuddered slightly, "I can combine up to six at the moment, but only twice a day, the mental concentration required to pull it off is enermous. Plus I'm still experimenting on doing the same to spells that are B-rank and higher but it isn't easy." She lightly added.
Setsuna took one look at the walls of fire behind Konoka, remembering the princess doing something like that during the Tournament. No wonder Naruto-sensei passed out in the Tournament, he took 6 combined ones straight to the face; in fact he was rather lucky in that all that he was missing was an arm. She paled and immediately prayed she never pissed Konoka off if she ever learnt how to combine anything higher than A-rank spells.
Suddenly a few huge explosions rocked everyone around, throwing the Setsuna and Konoka to the ground since they were the nearest to one of the explosions; behind them, several of the spider tanks had sacrificed themselves to open up a few paths through the fire, its comrades were already marching forward over the spider tank's remains, advancing on the two maids that were still on the floor. Setsuna gripped her sword and tried to protect Konoka who was still on the floor, trying to heal her sprained ankle.
Growling, the half demon set about making mincemetal of the machines but slowly but surely, they were overwhelming her with large numbers, more and more puppets managed to break through the defence lines and move into the city, fortunately ignoring the downed Konoka.
It was like fighting against the flow of a tidal wave, only this tidal wave was made of an army of Tanaka style robots. As she was forced to slowly give ground, a loud whistling sound made itself known above the din of metal crunching into metal. Setsuna barely had time to look up into the sky. Her eyes widened in surprise and she threw herself over Konoka to shield her best friend just in time for a red blur to drop out of the sky. Using the momentum from its flight path, the blur swung its sword the moment it landed in the middle of the army with an incredibly loud explosion.
The resulting shockwave exploded outwards and toppled everything nearby as the earth around them shook from the impact.
Shakily the swordsgirl helped Konoka stand up as she protested loudly, "Dammit Asuna! Don't do that near people!"
"Ehehehe... Sorry. You looked like you needed help and I got here as fast as possible." A sheepish voice replied from within the dust cloud as an armoured Asuna slowly walked out. Her armour slightly scratched, but all in all, the miniature juggernaut looked completely fine despite her insanely reckless tactics.
"Get here as fast as possible without trying to pretend to be a meteor," Konoka muttered quietly.
"I'm going to kill Naruto-sensei for teaching you something like that." Setsuna grumbled.
Asuna looked miffed, "That idiot didn't teach me anything like that, he just told me to play to my strengths. I learnt this on my own."
"Tch, your super hard head and stupidly strong muscles you mean. God knows why you even have a sword when you swing it around like a damn club like that." the swordsgirl retorted.
"Meanie!" Asuna pouted at her friend while Konoka giggled at their bickering, "I know how to use a sword, but there's too many enemies here to be bothered about finesse. I'll worry about stances and techniques when I'm fighting one on one."
"Asuna! Konoka! Setsuna!"
All three of them whipped around at the sound of their names being frantically called, "Yuuna?" Asuna breathed out in surprise, "What's wrong?"
The girl with a side pigtail braced herself on her knees and panted breathlessly for a few moments, "We need help from the hero units; there was a sneak attack, all over the city robots are popping out from underground bunkers and abandoned houses all over the city. The forces from the lake pincered the first and second central defence points with those in the city. Both of them were immediately overwhelmed." Yuuna said ominously, "There's only four more left and they already started falling when I snuck out for help because we couldn't contact anybody for support."
Konoka immediately flipped out her phone and dialled a number, "She's right, I still can't call anybody." She glanced at the side to see Asuna stowing away her Pactio with the same results, "We haven't been able to reverse the information blackout then." she concluded grimly.
"Wha-what? In the city? But I thought they only came from the lake!" Setsuna exclaimed.
Asuna silently chewed her lower lip in thought and came to same conclusion Naruto did, "No... We were misled."
"Hu-huh? Misled?"
Asuna waved her hand at the still advancing army, "Does this look like 2000 to you? It's at least triple of that. The future thing was a diversion. Chao showed us the forces she was going to use in the future, but those were the forces assuming there was no one to challenge her; simply the expendable forces. Chao knew if we managed to come back, we would only plan for what we saw and won't expect more reinforcements." Asuna looked at Yunna calculatively, "Setsuna, you have to go into the city and help them."
Asuna glanced at the princess apologetically and received an understanding nod in return, "No offence, but Konoka's more suited for wide area bombardment, her fans won't do any damage to the machines plus she won't be able to fight effectively if she's too busy dodging beams so she needs someone to take the heat for her. Same more or less goes for me, my attacks will cause too much collateral damage, fighting in the city will limit both of us a lot, so I'll stay here and stop the puppets from the lake from overwhelming the city. Out of all of us, you are the only one with enough finesse to fight full power in narrow streets and alleys."
Setsuna's first instinct was either to protest or drag Konoka with her anyway but an unbidden memory from the Tournament surfaced in her mind.
'Do you have so little faith in her Setsuna? Even after how hard she trained so that she can fight beside you?'
Setsuna sighed resignedly, "When did you get so smart?" Ignoring the red head's protest she growled at her, "I'll do it, but make sure Konoka stays safe or I'll make sure I tell Naruto about that stash of romantic novels under your bed!"
Asuna spluttered and Konoka giggled as Setsuna grabbed Yuuna by the scruff of her costume and leapt away at maximum speed.
Konoka smiled sweetly at Asuna, "Looks like it's just you and me A-chan."
Asuna glanced at her friend weirdly, "A-chan?"?
The princess shrugged, "Setsuna is Se-chan, so Asuna should be A-chan."
Asuna readied her blade as she observed the walls of flame dying down to reveal an amassed army of puppets, "Tch, I can't convince you otherwise can I?"
Konoka shot a blast of pure lightning into the army, "Nope!" she chirped merrily.
"Whatever." Asuna hid a smile and took off with a huge burst of speed that cratered the ground, spinning in mid air she used the momentum to violently swing her sword and cut down the first wave of machines.
All hell broke loose.
****Broken Faith****
Mahora Information Control Centre
"Th-this is bad!" Just as someone said that, alarms started clanging all around the centre.
A tall man immediately strode over to a cute female operator, "What's wrong?"
"Seconds ago, somebody started hacking our network. They have already cut off all our communications systems. All our fores are now completely isolated! Whoever it is has already bypassed 3 out 8 of our firewalls and is slowly bringing down Mahora's barrier! It has already fallen enough for Chao-san's reinforcements inside the city to activate! Our forces are slowly being overwhelmed from two directions!"
"No wait, the hacker has already reached the System Core! 1 minute to complete barrier shut down!" Someone else shouted.
The man scratched his head furiously and yelled, "Is there anything you do to slow or stop it!"
"We can't," someone replied helplessly, "The hacker was already in by the time we noticed and every time we try something, the signal evolves into another spectrum that we can't catch on our sensors. It's like a living being is hacking our systems!"
****Broken Faith****
Setsuna grunted as she drove her sword into the ground before slashing upwards, releasing one final huge shockwave that cut down a whole line of puppets.
"Whoa! So cool Setsuna-san! Thanks to you we managed to secure the third checkpoint! The way you fought off an entire army from two directions was soooo cool!"
"Ehehehe..." Setsuna laughed sheepishly before suddenly lunging at Yuuna and pushing her out of the way as a huge spider tank landed where she had been standing moments ago. Wincing at a gash on her elbow, Setsuna tiredly helped Yuuna shakily stand up, "Come on, you have to be more careful."
"Ye-yeah... I'm sorry... Setsuna-san; the robot!" Setsuna turned around too late to stop a huge metal limb from slamming into her, crushing her into the building. The half demon barely managed to shield herself from the majority of the force with her sheath.
"Setsuna!" Yuuna shouted worriedly as she shot her guns at the robot.
"I'm alright!" The swordsgirl grunted in reply as she burst out off the building and slashed the spider tank into half, "What's going on here? These things aren't supposed to attack us physically." She muttered under her breath.
Three more spider tanks somehow fell from the sky and surrounded Yuuna and a tired Setsuna.
****Broken Faith****
Mahora Information Control Center
"The systems have failed! The barrier is completely DOWN! I repeat, the barrier is completely down, all of Chao-san's robots are now fully operational!"
"Damn it!"
****Broken Faith****
Asuna cursed as she and Konoka hunkered behind Asuna's huge blade, flashes of light continuously hammered the other side of the blade. She had been right about the robot's learning how to fight, the machine army had separated into two forces, one side continuously fired strip beams at them, leaving no space to dodge while the other continued to overwhelm Asuna, Konoka and the other defenders with pure numbers.
The red head gritted her teeth as Konoka chanted nonstop behind her, "Spiritues Caelum, adolebit cum Apollinis fiducia, cremabis terra cum ardentis spiritus, Apollo's Touch!"
Great gusts of fire rained down from the heavens on the advancing army, clearing out nearly half of the puppets attacking them, causing Asuna to breathe a sigh of relief before lifting her sword and dashing into the fray to clear off the remains of the army with one huge blast of Kanka.
"Konoka, you alright?" Asuna asked the panting girl as she limped back to where the princess was resting.
"Ye-yeah... just a bit tired. I haven't tried using so many spells for an extended period of time before." She groaned slightly, "I should have insisted on training my endurance more."
Asuna was just about to fall beside Konoka and rest when a huge rumbling started, everybody there immediately focused on the bubbling surface of the lake.
"Wha-what the hell is that!"
The armour clad girl groaned, "I totally forgot about them..."
Konoka swallowed a lump as she stared at the rising metal hump, "So... everything we've been fighting so far is just the little ones?"
Six huge metal titans, taller even than the nearer buildings slowly stepped out of the water, each step caused the earth to shake. Rising out of the water with them was a new army of spider tanks, Tanaka robots armed with some sort of huge Gatling guns and heavily armed spy-bots
One of the titans swivelled its head around to survey the exhausted defenders before seemingly locking onto the biggest threat. A loud clicking noise emanated from the titan and the other five suddenly turned as well, all of them focusing on Asuna and Konoka. As one all of them suddenly started charging huge orbs of energy out of their gaping jaws.
"Ooh... crap." Asuna immediately hefted her blade to shield herself and Konoka.
Play Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann OST – Ten Wo Tsuke
Six separate beams roared out at Konoka and Asuna.
"Ame no Nuboko."
A flash of blue lightning rammed into the blast head on, the beams held for barely a second before the blue lightning drilled through and exploded towards the first titan and punching a gaping hole clear through the metal monster.
Everyone winced at the sound of metal creaking and gashing as the titan ignored its missing left arm and reached out with its right hand to grab its attacker. A bright flash appeared and its entire right arm was lopped off by Takamichi who appeared out of nowhere.
A huge crash sounded as the titan toppled over backwards, it's left arm, right hand and torso completely missing, throwing up a huge cloud of dust, water and sand.
Asuna blinked at the sudden change in tides as if she couldn't believe it had just happened.
Footsteps crunching on the sand that marched in sync rang out through the dust cloud, "Is... is that our reinforcements?" Konoka asked hesitantly.
"I'm... I'm not sure... but it sounds like there are a lot of people coming."
The dust cloud slowly lifted to reveal a person in resplendent white armour with red and gold highlights complete with a flowing red cape, his right hand was literally holding a bright blue sparking lightning bolt that he used as a makeshift lance while he carried a large shield in his left.
Behind him was a whole army of people wearing yakuza style clothes that marched behind the knight like soldiers.
The knight lifted his sparking blue lance to the sky.
"Let's roll."
His army roared and confidently charged the titans and robots.
****With Setsuna****
Setsuna closed her eyes as she tried to protect Yuuna from a falling metal foot that was about to crush them.
For a moment there was nothing but the inky blackness behind her eye lids.
A loud crunch reverberated in the clearing, prompting Setsuna to open her eyes.
A huge burly and muscled man dressed in a yellow haori grunted as he swung two huge clubs, completely crushing two spider tanks with one blow before punting the third one into the sky with the second club.
"Oi Tatsu! Wait for me!" a voice rang out.
The man in the yellow haori laughed gruffly, "Gomen, gomen Hiro-jii san. I got a little excited, I never get to fight properly anymore... everybody is so soft nowadays..."
An older man with greying hair in a green haori and orange sash, holding what looked two huge katanas ran up to the muscled man before panting tiredly, "Whatever; just don't run off like that again. I'm not getting any younger."
The man called Tatsu laughed again before turning to Setsuna and Yuuna, "You two alright?" he asked gruffly.
The two girls shared a curious glance, "Err... yeah... Who are you two?"
Tatsu grinned, showing teeth that looked like tombstones in his huge jaw, "Us? Naruto's friends. Take care now!"
He ran off again, swinging his clubs wildly at anything that resembled a robot, leaving Hiro to slump down before running after him while grumbling.
****Broken Faith****
Mahora Information Centre
"Sir!"
"What now... there can't be more bad news since we're already hacked can there?" the man in charge grunted tiredly.
"N-no, nothing like that. Our systems!"
"What about them?"
"Something is fighting off the hacker. Their coming back online and the barriers are restarting again!"
The man perked up and a smile broke on his face, "Well? What are you doing standing around? Go HELP them!"
"Ye-Yes sir!"
****Broken Faith****
Everyone watched disbelievingly as one of the yakuza's, a huge burly man in a crop cut dressed in blue and orange haori, topping eight feet in height and wielding what looked like a wakizashi... a huge wakizashi that was as long as the titans was tall... and he was somehow swinging it around like a feather as he laughed insanely, cutting down whole swathes of Tanaka style robots with each swing.
The white knight and Takamichi fought back to back as they flashed around the battlefield, his sparking lightning bolt cut down everything that dared to oppose him with impunity before spinning on the spot and violently hurling his shield like a discus at the fallen titan before it could completely regenerate while Takamichi fired off huge meteor like punches that disintegrated whole portions of the army.
The shield wasn't even a tenth of the titan's neck's width but it somehow managed to chop the titan's entire head off.
The knight's red cape flapped in the wind and his white, red and gold armour radiated confidence and superiority as he levelled his lightning bolt at the fallen head and hurled it at the hacked off head. A literal blue beam roared out, disintegrating the head completely.
The explosion threw up another dust cloud, obscuring the knight and Takamichi from view.
Asuna shielded herself and Konoka from the shockwave behind her sword, once the sand storm passed, Asuna peeked over her blade to see the armoured man and her old homeroom teacher emerging from the cloud, talking casually even as another sparking bolt slowly reformed in his hand.
"Your late you know."
"Yeah, yeah, had some problems getting everyone organized and here in time. They were all over the place and they didn't want to come until I said this was a paid vacation sponsored by me." Asuna got the feeling the man in the armour was rolling his eyes.
"Eh... well, there's still one day of the Festival."
"Ta-Takahata-sensei? Na-Naruto? Is that you?"
Both of them turned to look at the girl peeking at them from behind her sword.
"Yo. What are you two still doing here?"
Asuna blinked, "What do you mean 'still doing here?' Wait, where the hell were you? And who the hell are these people? And what in the world are you wearing?" the red head babbled confusedly while Konoka nodded wisely behind her since Asuna already asked everything she wanted to know anyway.
"Ahahaha..." the armoured knight tried to scratch his head but emanated waves of embarrassment when he failed because of his helmet, "I'll tell you later, for now, you two go find Setsuna and join up with Negi. He is already up and heading for the World Tree with KuFei. Chisame and Ayaka are holding things off on the internet."
The girls shared a confused look before hesitatingly nodding and leaping away. The two men watched them go before Naruto pointed his lance at a seemingly empty part of the shore, "Now that they're gone, what do you want?"
Chao faded into view with a cat smile on her face, dressed in some sort of skin tight suit with 5 gun pods floating behind her, "Ah... trust you to notice me even when I'm hiding Naruto-san."
Blue eyes shone curiously from behind the darkened visor, "We've already taken out one of your demon lord robots and the rest will fall soon enough. Shouldn't you be giving up already? They're the most important part of your army isn't it?"
"Hmhmhm... Who said they were? Besides that, do you not realize it?"
A lump formed in Naruto's stomach, "No-notice what?"
The girl waved a hand carelessly at the fallen titan that was already starting to stand back up again, its head and arms were somehow regenerating, "Don't they seem familiar to you? That demonic energy? Just a little present I thought you might like."
This stunned Naruto and he mistakenly looked at the titan in shock, he truly hadn't noticed the demonic energy from them, "Wh-what is this?"
Chao grinned ominously, "Chance..."
"Naruto!" Takamichi suddenly yelled from the side before he shouldered Naruto out of the way, Chao that had suddenly appeared behind Naruto with no sign at all, punched Takamichi instead. Naruto crashed into the ground and as he struggled to get up, he saw a magical array that appeared in mid air before transforming into an expanding black orb that engulfed the teacher, "Takamichi!"
He turned back to Chao, "What's going on Chao? Where is Takamichi?"
"Fufufu, it's too bad... I wanted to get rid of you while you were shaken since you were a bigger threat than Takamichi but I suppose this will have to do, don't worry, he's safe. As for what I'm doing here... I'll leave that to you to figure out. Anyway, I have some other more interesting people to play with, see you later!" the girl faded away again.
Just as she did a barrage of bullets from somewhere started taking out their forces, Naruto grunted and fired off another bright neon blue beam at the sniper that was evaded easily. His neck hair crawled and suddenly a barrage of bullets was shot at him from all directions, he gritted his teeth, there was no way he could dodge everything.
"Oi Naruto!" a large blade swatted him out of the way, denting his armour, Naruto landed roughly on the sand, "Tha-thanks Kichi."
A deep voice growled at him as the huge burly man shielded the two of them from the time bullets with his huge wakizashi, "What's got you so shaken?"
"No-nothing, don't worry about me."
"Hmph, whatever." The man jumped away with his huge blade, leaving the knight to pick himself up from the sand. Just then a loud voice rang out throughout the whole campus.
****Broken Faith****
Play Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann OST – Is It Ok Just To Get Fired Up?
"FUHAHAHAHA! Looks like the ladies and gentlemen mages of the Mahora Mage Order is having a tough time repelling my Martian Invaders aren't they ne?" Asakura's jaw dropped.
The reporter swallowed nervously at the huge projection image of Chao Lingshen that was floating in the sky before gathering her wits again, "Lo-Look! That's Chao Lingshen! The Final Boss of this event!"
"Fufufufu, that's right I'm the Final boss and I'm impressed, your swift counter attacks in the first half of the event were truly amazing. Even now, tired and overwhelmed, the mages of the Mahora Mage Order are still putting up a good fight. Now, as the Final Boss, I can't let this continue can I? I have to at least make this a little harder for all you heroes out there fighting against me.
The image projection pulled out a bullet, "That's why I am introducing these to the battlefield. Getting hit by these bullets means an instant disqualification; you can no longer go back and get new robes and weapons. No need to worry, those that are hit will simply be teleported to the losers' room where they will be put to sleep until the end of this event."
Chao's image smiled at the loud clamouring made by the defending forces, "Fufufu, there's no need to complain now is there? If this event was too easy, it would be hard to find a true winner. However, there's still a chance for you, if you can find and defeat me before 8.00p.m., I will concede defeat."
Suddenly the apparition grinned and looked far less intimidating, "Oh by the way, the robot army of this event was co sponsored by Chao Bao Zi, Meat bun of the World, and the Mahora Engineering Department."
Asakura and Chao made eye contact and the reporter grinned nervously at the chinese girl, "And there you have it! The second phase of this event! The Final Boss and co sponsor of this entire event along with the Yukihiro Group has finally made an appearance, now can we find and defeat her? Those that have correct information about her whereabouts will be given extra points as well as reward money!" Asakura enthusiastically yelled into her microphone.
****Broken Faith****
"Naruto-sama!"
The knight swivelled around to look at the person who had called out to him, "Gandolfini? What's wrong?" he lifted his shield to protect the two of them.
"You're needed at the last defence point." The panting mage informed him.
"That's... that's the World Tree is, isn't it? Wh-what about here? The sniper will pick off all of forces if we don't take her down now! She's already got half of the defenders here!"
"No time, you heard Chao's announcement haven't you?" when the armoured knight nodded Gandolfini continued, "We have received intelligence about Chao-san's real whereabouts; 400 metres in the sky directly above the World Tree. But when we tried to reach the World Tree, three new robots suddenly emerged and conquered the last checkpoint, preventing anybody from reaching Chao." The dark skinned teacher swallowed a lump in his throat, "These ones are different from the rest. They are really attacking people and hurting them. We've already pulled out all the civilians and deployed our anti-demon forces, but they are being overwhelmed."
Naruto looked at the four remanining titans hesitantly and the dark skinned mage saw the look, "Don't worry about them, Naruto-sama. Me and the rest of the teachers will hold this place, you have to go help at the World Tree immediately."
Behind his visor, the blonde closed his eyes and breathed deeply, calming his raging thoughts, "Alright. I'll leave this place to you then."
Gandolfini watched the battered knight leap into the air, his ragged red cape flowing behind him, before turning back to the titans, "Alright! Let's show Chao what the teachers of Mahora can do!"
Naruto leaped over the rooftops, urgently increasing his speed as much as he could afford too. The barrier had dropped, meaning his regeneration had increased but the emotional turmoil he was in made him feel like he was carrying weights.
All too soon he dropped down onto the scene of a battle at the base of the World Tree.
Three humanoid robots, special units made obvious by their extraordinary design, were thrashing the mages. From where he was standing he could see Negi, KuFei, Asuna the rest were fighting as well, but they were losing badly.
Of course they would.
Tears started to fall behind his visor and Naruto howled to the sky.
Everyone present stopped fighting as a loud howl rended the air and a man in battered and wrecked white knight's armour dropped onto the battlefield like an enraged God.
He was surrounded in a blazing red aura with hanging ominous black chains wrapped all around his limbs and torso, his red cloak flapped in an nonexistent wind, a truly fearsome image.
A corrupted white knight.
"Get away from here." A deep gruff and malevolent order was issued from the knight.
All the anti-demon mages immediately retreated from the corrupted Paladin.
"Ni-nii-san?" Negi asked shakily, he had never felt such a malevolent aura from Naruto before.
Instead of replying the knight reached out and grabbed Negi by the scruff of his cape, "Wa-wait, wha-what? Nii-san?"
"This isn't your fight. Yours is above." Having said his piece, the Paladin reared back and threw a screaming Negi into the sky with all his demon enhanced strength.
"Naruto! What was that for?" Asuna demanded.
Naruto didn't even bother to look at the girl and simply growled out his earlier order with increased killing intent, "Everyone get away from here, go help Negi. This is my fight."
Reluctantly and shaky from the insane amounts of malicious aura, everyone retreated, leaving the corrupted Knight alone to face the three robots as they watched from afar.
Asuna watched worriedly as she walked away, were those tears?
The knight looked up into the sky, salty tears leaked out from his helmet, he truly hadn't noticed until Chao had mentioned it, but now that he was here, it was all clear.
He howled again.
The titans were all powered by the Demon Lords.
The Nine Demon Lords.
The largest of the three, built to mimic a muscle builder of sorts charged at him, Naruto simply caught the oncoming fist and stood his ground even as the shockwave from the punch obliterated everything around him with magnificent force.
"Hachibi..."
A large cloud of sand shot forth from the smallest machine and tried to slam Naruto away from the first puppet. A rapid burst of water exploded from the knight's mouth, washing away the sand before kicking away the body builder puppet.
"Ichibi..."
The slimmest of the three attacked him with flailing tails.
"Akane..."
****Broken Faith****
"This is it! The Paladin of 3-A, Naruto Namikaze-Springfield versus the three super robots while Nagi Springfield goes ahead of him to fight the Final Boss herself, Chao Lingshen!" Asakura yelled hoarsely from her stage as a huge screen behind her displayed the fighters.
"How will the Springfield Brothers fare! Are they our only hope!"
****Broken Faith****
Negi stepped off his broom onto the platform where the final ritual was supposed to be held.
"Ah... you finally made it here Negi-sensei... I'm proud of you. You have truly proven yourself as one of the strongest."
Negi landed gingerly and calmly stared at the chinese girl, "I didn't get here alone so I do not deserve that title. Everyone, Asuna, Konoka, Setsuna, Kotarou, Takane," he glanced at the wide screens floating in the air all around them, displaying everyone's battles for everybody to seem, in one of the screens Naruto was fighting off the three super robots, "And Naruto. They all helped me get here because they believed that what you are doing is wrong."
"Be that as it may, you alone have reached this place. So what will you do now?"
Negi glared at her, "Naruto-nii san was right. There is no right or wrong here. Whatever happens there will always be bad things and good things; the world isn't going to be perfect even if your plan succeeds. Your way may cause less pain in the long run but there is no guarantee.
He clenched his fist and showed it to her as a display of his resolve, "That is why, even if it might be wrong, with what information I have right now, I will still fight for my belief. Even if I have to fight you, my student Chao-san."
"Ahahahaha! Very well, I expected as much from someone like you. If that is what it comes down too, I'll fight you as well for my own beliefs." Chao disappeared and appeared behind Negi without so much as a burst of magic; there was no warning whatsoever as her fist was posed to hit Negi with two displacement bullets.
And just like her Negi disappeared and reappeared behind Chao with an elbow strike aimed for her neck.
Negi blinked as his elbow missed and ducked a claw strike before blowing Chao away with a powerful reverse kick, the girl bounced away violently before disappearing again and reappeared above Negi with an axe kick. The child teacher managed to lift cross both hands above his head in time to block the kick when Chao suddenly reappeared in front of him and tried to punch his stomach but Negi managed to disappear. Chao immediately spun in place to where she assumed Negi would reappear behind her only for the child teacher to reappear exactly where he was and violently shoot a point blank Fulguratio Albicans at Chao's back.
The girl clad in skin tight grunted as she was shocked but suddenly flashed behind Negi with bullets spread in the air all around the teacher.
Negi's eyes widened in shock as he was simultaneously hit by over a hundred time displacement bullets.
The bun haired girl smiled in satisfaction until she felt something an elbow strike crunch into her back violently.
Chao felt the air leave her lungs in a gasp as she landed roughly on the surface of the blimp, disappeared and reappeared again to attack Negi from behind only to find a wall of stone in front of her before multiple Negis appeared everywhere, one kicked her from behind and her body was bounced all over the place before a final Raika Houken smashed her through the stone wall.
Chao hit the platform violently beside Hakase before doing another time stop and reappearing beside Hakase completely fine despite the heavy hits, "Fufufufu, not bad Negi-sensei. You are truly talented to be able to fight with Cassiopeia to such a level, especially since you've only had it for a day or so. Even I had to practice for years to be able to fight at this level." She smiled at him grimly.
Negi stared at the girl resolutely, "You'll have to thank Mana for that. When I was hit by her bullet, I realized that I had an advantage over her as long as I had the Cassiopeia, she threw me forward 3 hours in time, I simply used the Cassiopeia to come back 3 hours to the past. That way, even if I were to take an unavoidable hit, as long as I can jump to another point in time I can avoid the attack before it hits me. Also, jumping to another time and space at high speeds allows me to enter a pseudo time stop, just like when you used it to place all those bullets around me."
"Bu-but that isn't possible! To do something like that requires an insane amount of concentration and an ability to predict where the blows would come from, especially in active battle." Hakase yelled in a shocked tone.
"Hakase is right. Even the 3rd Cassiopeia on my back is controlled by an highly advanced AI that predicts and turns back time when I cannot." Chao admitted.
Negi lifted his Cassiopeia and gestured at the two small half transparent fairies on the device, "The secret are these little spirits; a spirit for basic movement to activate the Cassiopeia whenever the spirit of prophecy manages to predict an incoming attack."
"Fufufufu, truly, you are not called the son of the Thousand Mage for nothing." Chao smiled in satisfaction.
"Now that you know you cannot beat me in a fight as long as the both of us have the Cassiopiea, surrender in peace, you no longer have a reason to continue this ritual Chao-san!"
"Oh? Why are you getting so pushy Negi-sensei? That's not like you to ask for something before seeing it through to the end. You said you would fight me to prove your belief after all..." Chao smiled coyly, "Or are you hiding something?"
She suddenly reappeared behind Negi with one arm wrapped around the hand that was holding up the Cassiopeia, "Hoh? She looked at the cracked and sparking device, "No wonder, this is bad for you isn't it Negi?"
The teacher immediately pulled out of her grip and tried to throw her over his shoulder in a judo throw but it failed as Chao disappeared before she hit the ground and disappeared behind him with two fists ready to hit Negi.
The teacher simply spun around and calmly let her hit the Cassiopeia.
****Broken Faith****
A flaming broadsword sliced through a sand cloud before a rampaging armour clad figure burst through, the sand melted into glass on contact with the burning aura, the figure charged at the body builder recklessly with insane speed and swung his blade, shearing off the body builder's metal left arm with a mad roar, the blade hit the ground violently, shaking the earth enough to destabilize the body builder. The knight flipped in mid air and kicked the machine away violently.
The two other super robots immediately retreated and stood guard in front of the third robot to give the body builder time to regenerate, allowing everyone could see a screen to watch as the fearsome hunched over knight stalked out of the mist towards the three super robots, steam rose from his mask as tears fizzled and dried immediately.
His chains clinked loudly as the knight disappeared with a huge burst of speed and reappeared behind the smallest machine with his burning claymore ready to cut it in half, unfortunately it was deflected by three flailing tails while the other six tried to pierce the knight. The screech of metal gashing into metal had everyone wincing as the points of the six tails were deflected by the armour or the chains; one burning hand grasped the nearest tail before the slimmest one was aggressively flung into a building.
The still one armed body builder took the chance to body slam the knight in wrecked armour, only for the madly flailing broadsword to cut completely it in half at the waist, cauterizing the open wound so that it couldn't reform, or at least not that fast. The knight screamed to the sky as steam poured out from his visor in an unending stream, not one of victory but one of sadness, over the body of the puppet.
A malicious and angry red aura swirled in the air as the knight advanced on the remaining super robot.
Clouds of sand and stone attacked him in an unending barrage which the blonde completely ignored, wading through melting sand, tearing through the sand defences like so much wet paper, slowly and maliciously cornering the last robot until it was backed against a solid wall. One gauntleted hand with claws inexorably reached out and grasped the robot's face before slowly crushing it in his burning grip. A loud howl of anguish issued from the knight's lips as he completely crushed the puppet's head.
Slowly, implacably and inevitably, the knight turned towards the last super robot.
And charged forth with its broadsword once again raised, crying red eyes, burning with anger, sadness, despair and madness shone from behind the visor as the slimmest robot made no move to defend itself and simply stood waiting for its end.
The broadsword swung downwards like an executioner's blade.
And still it made no move, the tails already frozen and seemed to be waiting for its inevitable death.
The keen edge of the blade stopped mid swing, barely centimetres from the robot's faceless head; the heat from the aura was already turning the robot's face red.
Naruto dropped the blade from his lifeless fingers and collapsed to his knees and started sobbing, "I... I can't... Akane... I can't..."
A wet thudding sound rang out in the clearing, everyone watched in horror as the previously nine unmoving tails suddenly tore through his armour and chains; stabbing through the knight all over his body.
Blood slowly dripped from the holes in the armour and the red aura slowly faded away into nothing as the tails easily lifted the limp body.
"NARUTO!"
A girl's voice screamed loudly, full of anguish.
****Broken Faith****
Shocked the Chinese girl jumped away after breaking the device, "Wha-what was that? Why did you let me hit your Cassiopeia, was all that talk about your resolve just a bluff?
The child teacher simply brushed his hand to clear it from the clock's debris on his robes, "I wanted to show you, that even with all your advanced technology, you won't win. This fight is about our beliefs. If I win it because I am using your technology then there is no meaning in us doing this."
"Damn right Negi! You show her!"
"As-Asuna-san?" Negi looked around for the red headed girl in shock, above him, displayed on a floating screen was Asuna, Setsuna, Konoka, Kotarou and Misora as they fought against Chao's flying puppets.
Negi wiped away his tears and smiled brightly at the screen before turning serious again and looked at the dumbfounded Chinese girl.
"Besides, your Cassiopeia has two fatal flaws."
The girl seemed to gather her wits together and jut her chin out at him defiantly, "Oh yeah?" she appeared and reappeared behind him, ready to kick him as hard as possible when rock spires burst out from all around Negi, one spire slashed her side badly before another knocked her back down onto the blimp, she disappeared shortly before hitting the blimp and reappearing again, the tear in her suit was still there.
Negi pointed at the tear, "Your first weakness, as long as you are hit, the damage cannot be undone unless you heal yourself before going back into the battle. You are going back in time true, but your body is still the same, the only thing that changes is the time line. That way, the damage will accumulate until you surrender or die."
Negi flashed above Chao with huge spurt of speed, his foot raised in an axe kick aimed at Chao's forehead but she disappeared, instantly Negi flooded the whole area with a huge lightning spell that shot random strikes of electricity all over the platform.
Chao reappeared in time to get shocked badly and Negi hammered her with his fists until she disappeared again.
When a panting Chao reappeared at a safe spot the teacher lifted another finger with a serious look on his face, "Your second and biggest flaw, this is something Saotome-san clued me into. The Cassiopeia works by taking you back in time. You then heal yourself, pick a proper spot, say behind me, before coming back to the future, perhaps a split second from your original point in time to make it seem like instantaneous teleportation. The Cassiopeia cannot move you through space, only time. But you won't know if something is already there, your prediction AI cannot work on what it cannot see. I flooded the place with lightning after you disappeared, so even when I didn't know where you would appear, as long as I am fast enough, a wide area spell will guarantee an absolute hit."
Chao chuckled tiredly as the Cassiopeia sparked and exploded; her insides had been shocked badly when she returned back into the future with electricity inside her. Both her tight suit and the time device were actually insulated against electricity, knowing Negi's propensity of lightning spells, but she had materialized with the lightning side her body and the time device, "I see... so I suppose using the Cassiopeia against you is pretty stupid."
Chao smiled grimly.
Seals started form on her skin, "Code : 9784063637328 1929979004002, spell circuit pattern open, seal released," Chao mumbled under her breath.
"Wha-what is that?"
Chao placed her palm on the glowing spell array that had formed underneath her and grinned at Negi, "Last Tale My Magic Scir Magister, Hear me O Tyrant of Flames, Heed the Contract and Obey my Command, Come Forth, Flames of Purification and Fiery Broadsword, Fire and Brimstone Surge forth, Burn down Sodom, Turning Sinners into the Dust of Death, Blazing Heat In the Sky!"
****Broken Faith****
Play AKINO & AIKI bless4 – Gekkou Symphonia
It hurt.
Gentle breeze blew locks of his around his face and some hair tickled his nose, causing him to sneeze before wincing as the action wracked his entire body in pain.
Slowly, he tiredly opened one blue eye to find himself looking up into a clear blue sky without any clouds. The only indication it wasn't normal was a missing sun despite the bright light.
Grunting, he shakily sat up and braced himself with one elbow to look around at his surroundings.
He seemed to be in some sort of weird clearing surrounded by leafy trees.
As if in a trance, he brushed his blonde locks out of his eyes and shakily walked in a random direction, something seemed to be pulling him there.
Placing his hand on a tree, he gently revelled in the feeling of nature as he hobbled along the unbroken path towards whatever was attracting him.
He knew not how much time passed, the pain never went away but it never increased either, it was just there as the blonde slowly followed wherever divine providence seemed to be leading him. It didn't take long for him to notice a light at the end of the road.
Naruto snorted, how ironic. A light at the end of the tunnel.
Was this his death?
He couldn't turn back no matter what he did, his tired legs continued despite his brain's urging. Before long he reached the light and walked through.
Into an open field, flowers were scattered everywhere as a gentle breeze blew a nostalgic scent to his nose. It was empty save for a solitary figure that seemed to be tending to the flowers in the middle of the field. Not knowing what else to do, he headed towards the figure.
As he neared the figure, it stood up as if waiting for him but never turned back to face him.
But he didn't need it to, he could recognize that back anywhere even if it had been 5000 years since he had last seen it, a straight back, clad in a pale pink kimono with a soft cream white sash.
Vibrant wavy red hair fell down her back like a river of flames.
His hobbled walking got faster until he finally reached her and threw his arms around her waist, burying his face in her hair.
Tears fell unheeded.
A soft hand patted the arms around her waist soothingly.
"Akane..."
"Naruto..."
Naruto cried harder.
Hours might have passed as he cried on her shoulder but he took no notice. The lady gently led the sobbing man to a couch that had materialized out of nowhere and sat down on his lap, she leaned into his embrace, "I missed you."
Naruto just blubbered into her shoulder and held her tighter, causing her to laugh; a clear tinkling sound that he hadn't heard in years.
"Look, you've dirtied my kimono with all your tears, what happened to the Great Naruto, you've never cried before." The lady chided him gently in an amused tone.
Naruto sniffed and smiled a watery smile that she probably couldn't see, "Ho-how are you here? And am I dead?"
The figure stiffened, "Is that what you want? Have you fallen so far?"
Naruto buried his face in her kimono again, "What am I supposed to do then? What can a broken person like me do? Everything I knew, the people I grew up with, the people I knew, the culture, my purpose; all gone."
"What did I give you my power for? Have you achieved what you wanted to achieve with it?" She said as she lifted her hand to caress his cheek with the back of her hand.
The blonde snorted and pulled away, his tone coloured deeply in self hate, and leaned back into the couch with his eyes closed, "And what good did it do? Your last gift, your essence, your core, and I couldn't use it. Every time I used it I simply brought myself one step closer to death, looking at those flames just reminded me of my weakness."
He looked at the woman's back and choked out lowly, "I was afraid of it, afraid that you hated me in your last moments; Deep inside I was afraid that was why whenever I used it, it was killing me. That you wanted me to atone for abusing that power with my death. I wasted your gift, I even used to it to become a monster! How could you not be angry at me? I deserve your hate!"
The woman in his lap snapped her fingers and Naruto was suddenly engulfed by red fire and chains. His eyes closed he waited for the pain to hit, but when none did he slowly opened his eyes. The red haired woman in his lap ran her soft fingers on the black chain links on his flaming hand, "Do you truly believe that?"
"Yes!"
"Naruto..." she said reproachfully, "I thought we promised not to lie to each other?"
"... No..." The blonde admitted shamefully, "... I-it just felt better to think that you were blaming me rather than me blaming myself..."
"And that's the reason why...I passed on this gift to you willingly; a gift from a wife to her husband. Something like that would never have hurt you... The reason that it is slowly killing you isn't because of me. It's because deep down inside you, you hate yourself so much that the youki instinctively follows your emotions. All this time, it wasn't killing you. You were killing yourself."
"Do you forgive me?" he whispered.
"I've always forgiven you, no matter what you did."
The sounds of chains starting to break could be heard.
"I caused your death!"
"And I followed willingly." She calmly replied with her back to him.
Naruto looked down, having no more arguments, desperately wanting to keep wallowing in his own bitter anger.
Chains started falling off.
She shifted around on his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face in his chest, "I've forgiven you Naruto... it is time for you to forgive yourself... Return to the Naruto I once loved."
Naruto started crying again, his tears dropped onto her vibrant red hair as he sobbed harder and harder on her, "I-I'll try..."
Everything started fading into a pure whiteness; the two of them seemed to be floating in mid air.
The chains that had been slowly breaking ever since his unsealing from the World Tree finished as that last link that was holding everything together shattered and the black chains that were once wrapped around him started falling off bit by bit.
"Will I see you again?"
"I don't know...Maybe."
Naruto sniffed wetly and wiped his tears away, "I'll be alright now Akane. I promise."
The woman snorted and let him go as she bent down to pick up the chains, "Are you sure? These chains represent your anger and hate. They've given you strength to do what was necessary for so long. If you chose to do this, you will be weaker than when you came here."
Naruto shook his head, "Then I'll live with it. I don't want that kind of strength anymore. I just want live knowing that I have your love even in your last moments."
"I will always love you, even if you do something frustratingly stupid which is frankly enough very frequent." Her shoulders shook in barely concealed amusement.
He smiled ruefully at her jab and held her warm slight frame to his own lean one, "I love you too..."
The two of them floated there silently, revelling in the embrace, "Ca-can I see your face one last time?"
Ruby eyes turned to look at him, her full pink lips quirked in a smirk that brought a glow to her flushed cheeks as she lifted one hand to caress his whiskers lovingly.
The blonde smiled as he lovingly carressed those familliar high cheekbones.
He slowly leaned down to kiss her.
She kissed back just as vigorously as she started fading away as well.
Naruto kept kissing her until he was left holding nothing but air and few glittering sparkles.
He wailed loudly.
A tinkling laugh reverberated in the air and a soft whisper caressed his ears, "Forgive yourself. Don't forget me but don't let it hold you back from loving again either. There are a lot of people who will love you as much as I did."
"But I will never love them as much as I did you." He promised vigorously as his vision slowly whited over.
"You will learn. Give it time." Said the amused voice.
A bright light engulfed him as everything turned to white.
****Broken Faith****
Play Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann OST – Libera Me From Hell
Clear blue eyes opened again, the sounds of tinny screaming reach his ears through his damaged helmet as he tiredly tried to move a gauntletled finger.
He seemed to be lying down on the ground, and there was something in his left hand.
He slowly brought it up to his visor, it was a Pactio card. The picture on the card was one of a red headed woman in a kimono sun bathing beneath the World Tree, there was no description whatsoever on the card, no latin numeral, nothing.
Chuckling slightly he braced himself and slowly stood up, using the Totsuka no Tsurugi as a crutch; "Even if you are gone you still have to watch over me huh?"
He looked around, from his vantage point at the top of the hill, the World Tree behind him, he could see the three robots were ignoring him in favour of attacking the anti demon mages still around.
"Very well... watch over me Akane." As soon as he said that the card in his left hand and the claymore in his right hand started vibrating and heating up, "Huh? What's going on?"
The two items were drawn to each other as if magnetized, the moment they made contact a deep gold light emanated from them and they melded together.
The screaming stop as the three healed super robots turned their attention to the bright light.
As the bright light subsided, Naruto was left holding a large sword, it was even larger and broader than the original Totsuka no Tsurugi and seemed to be made out of a weird shiny metal. A red tassel with a fox motive hung from the hilt.
He looked up into the sky; the clouds were slowly clearing above him.
He laughed and tears fell down his face.
He roared at the sky and a tower of pure power erupted from the blonde; everyone around stopped fighting to watch in shock as someone who was dead came back to life.
A straight backed and proud figure walked out of the towering blue flames, the corrupted knight was gone, his wrecked armour completely repaired to its original pristine state with one large sword hefted on his shoulder as his red cape once again flapped proudly in the wind.
His steps sure and confident.
The three super robots charged at him.
He exploded into flames again, but this time there were no chains, no malicious aura, just a solid presence, pure unrivalled power. The knight levelled his sword at the three incoming puppets, "Sorry but I'm not dying yet."
Pure speed.
Reappearing behind the smallest puppet it was skewered on the silver sword before a clicking sound emanated from the sword and it forcefully split apart into 6 pieces, which cut the puppet into six pieces. The blonde caught one of the larger blades in his off hand to deflect a massively powerful desperate blow from a huge cloud of sand before spinning from the force of the deflection, catching another sword mid spin and consecutively slashing the 6 pieces of the smallest puppet into even smaller pieces, "You always were the slowest bastard, Ichibi."
As he watched the pieces of the puppet slowly fall to Earth, he realized he didn't have time to rest as he ducked under a huge fist. Naruto grabbed the arm and used it like a monkey bar to swing up and kick the remaining four blades, stabbing them through the puppet that resembled a body builder. While it was still struggling a clone of the knight formed on the opposite side of the field.
"This one is for you Hachibi, Killer Bee." He spoke lowly.
"North and South Double Burning Lariat!"
The two knights smoothly clothes lined the puppet with enough force to cut it in half.
"Mugen no Bunkatsu."
All the separate pieces of the two puppets barely even had the chance to land on the ground before there was a bright flash, and then nothing, the pieces of the two puppets had been cut into bite sized pieces and hung in the air, falling to the Earth in slow motion.
His sword lit with blue flames again and the knight swung it down smoothly, "First Heaven!"
A tidal wave of blue flame devoured the bits.
When the flames finally died down, both of the puppets lay in burning pieces so small; it was hard to tell there were originally two of them. The third one, the slimmest one was stabbed to the World Tree's trunk, four blades pinning its nine flailing tails to the trunk while the fifth and largest one was stabbed through its torso, effectively shutting down all resistance.
Soon it stopped struggling even as the knight seemed to be crying over it. One mechanical limb lifted up to touch the tears falling from his visor away before falling limp.
The crying knight stood up before lowering his head as if in prayer, bright blue flames spread from his sword to cremate the inactive machine.
The 6 swords disappeared with a flash, leaving behind a card floating in front of the knight.
He gently grabbed it and glanced at it, the picture had changed into a red haired woman sitting under the Tree, cradling the large silver sword like a baby.
The number zero was on the top right of the pactio.
Namicaze Naruto,
Qui Caelum Terebrare,
Virtue : Remissio,
Directio : Centrum,
At the bottom left of the card were the words Astralitas : Caelum Sideralis.
Carefully he stored it away before looking up into the sky where another battle was taking place.
The blue flames around him flickered before forming into six huge wings that flapped once experimentally, and he took off with a one huge leap.
****Broken Faith****
Play AKINO – Sousei No Aquarion
Negi hurtled out of the clouds, his barriers had barely held against the High Ancient Fire spell. Even then he was still injured; his left arm was burnt badly. Struggling, he managed to get his staff to start floating again as he slowly went back up to where Chao was waiting for him, panting and burnt as well.
"Was that magic?"
"Heh, is it so surprising? I keep saying I'm your descendant, it is only natural that I can use magic isn't it?"
Negi glared at her, "And you expect me to believe that when you can barely move after casting one spell? Whatever you are doing is hurting you as well!"
"Oh well..." She pointed her palms at him, "I don't care if I die, as long as what I want is realized."
Her homeroom teacher stared at her resolutely, "This is no longer about my beliefs. If you are willing to sacrifice your own life to achieve something like that, then as your teacher, I will have to beat you down before you can do something stupid like that."
Chao clenched her jaw, "Stop saying things like that when you don't have the power to back it up. Flagrantia Rubicans!"
"Fulguratio Albicans!"
Negi sped down under the explosion, using it as cover to get nearer to Chao, "Sattica Magica Seri-"
Negi charged his staff magic before hurling it at her like a javelin, "Stop using Magic damn it!"
"Then stop me!"
"I plan to!"
The small teacher suddenly split into several identical clones that ran at her, zig zagging each other in a confusing pattern, "Wha-what? Grrr! Sattica Magica Series Ign- Gak!" she was stopped again as the javelin Negi had thrown at her suddenly boomeranged into her back, knocking her down onto the platform.
The child teacher kept up harassing his student, disrupting her spells as he and his clones slowly inched closer and closer with determined expressions on their faces, "Grrr! Stop cheating and let me cast a spell!"
"Thats what I said too! Right before Naruto-nii san put his foot through my arse!"
Shortly before they reached her an inky darkness suddenly spread all over, blocking off all light.
Something tripped her up before kicking her into the air.
As she started to slowly fall down, voice whispered in her ear, "Tell me something Chao-san, this two years, the years you spent here, you say you spent all of it preparing for this day. But answer me truthfully, did those days mean anything to you? Those days spent with Hakase, Chachamaru, Evangeline, with everybody in 3-A.
Chao smiled sadly even though she couldn't see anything.
"Yeah... it felt like a fleeting dream... but yeah it did. It was really fun..."
"Thank you," she felt two palms placed on the front and back of her torso, "Dios Tucos: OVERLOAD!"
A short but insanely bright flash lit up her up as the darkness exploded and pain flooded through her body before everything went dark once more.
For a moment there was nothing but a large black smoke cloud when two charred and smoking objects free fell out of the dust cloud.
As the two of them fell to Earth smoking and burnt, Chao managed to rasp and chuckle at Negi, "Wh-what in the God's name possessed *cough* you to use not one, but two, Dios Tucos at point blank range? The attack would have hit all three of us since everyone was in contact!"
Negi coughed badly before mumbled lowly causing Chao to strain her hearing even as wind whistled pass the both of them, "Bu-but...Nii-san looked so cool when he did something like that..."
Negi managed to blush even as both of them fell to their doom as Chao started laughing loudly at his admission, "Common sense doesnt exactly apply to that idiot!" she laughed harder before groaning as pain wracked her body again.
Suddenly his descent was halted as someone caught onto his cloak and a glowing gauntlet caught Chao's limp arm, stopping both their free falls so suddenly that Negi was left a little dazed, "Yare yare, I can't even leave the two of you alone for a few minutes can I?"
"Ni-nii-san?"
"Na-naruto?"
"Hmm?"
Negi looked at his glowing brother in shock, "Are you alright?" he asked hesitantly, he hadn't forgotten the malice that seemed to be pouring out of Naruto earlier.
The glowing knight flapped his wings again with his head tilted in thought, "I suppose I am. It hasn't really hit me yet, it will so I want to get this over and done with so I can go home and cry for a week while I munch on doughnuts and ice cream." He replied drily.
Negi snorted in amusement while Chao chuckled weakly, his brother was back.
"So? Who won?"
Chao grinned and opened her mouth to speak but Negi pouted at her with teary eyes. Rolling her own eyes, Chao relented with a mischevious smile, "It was a draw."
Just then the airship lighted up brightly, and a huge magical array formed in the sky above the air ship, "The seal! Chao-san the ritual didn't fail?"
Said Chinese girl looked down to see 6 glowing points around the World Tree forming a massive hexagon, she chuckled weakly, "Looks like I win after all, the forced recognition spell was activated."
"Wh-what? How why?" the panicking teacher demanded.
"You defeated me, but the one casting the ritual was Hakase, as long as she wasn't disturbed and at least five of the six points were conquered, there would be enough power for the spell to activate."
She looked up at the magical array, "Once that happens, that array will draw out more power from the World Tree and send out a pulse that will resonate with the other 12 Holy Points."
Suddenly an even larger array shone all around Mahora, the girl stared in disbelief at the new array, "Wha-what is that?" Chao managed to stutter out.
"What? You really didn't think I wouldn't have a backup plan do you?" the winged knight spoke in an amused tone.
"What? How? When?"
"The array automatically blocks any sort of energy from going out of the prescribed radius," Naruto nodded sheepishly, "It was a bit of a gamble since the array hasn't been tested yet, the seal was actually meant to keep the energy remaining inside my body instead of being absorbed by the World Tree. As for when, while I was missing I had hundreds of clones going around drawing that thing this evening before the event. When you guys started one hour early, I had to spam a thousand clones to get things done in time. Even then I was still hella late." He noted wryly.
Negi cocked his head in confusion, "Outside? What about those people that are inside?"
"Ah... I didn't have time to think about that... sorry."
"Nii-san!"
"What? I was busy! I can't think about everything!"
"Still! Everyone inside will know about magic! How will we keep it a secret for long?"
"So! Now you don't have to hide everything from say... Ayaka right!"
"That is NOT the point!"
Chao chuckled at the two brother's bickering before fainting
****Broken Faith****
Author's Note
Audi spirituum Inferni, ad lucem et ignis, et devorabiture penetrare – Hear me O Spirits of Hell, come forth with fire and lightning, pierce and devour.
Spiritus Caelum, adolebit cum Apollinis fiducia, cremabis terra cum ardentis spiritus – Spirits of the Sky, burn with Apollo's confidence, scorch the Earth with your blazing breath.
Mugen no Bunkatsu – Infinite Divider
Qui Caelum Terebrare – He who pierces the Heavens.
Remissio – Forgiveness.
Centrum – Centre.
Caelum Sideralis – Starry Skies
****Broken Faith****
(I was a little reluctant to release this so early, because like chapter 23 which came out so soon after 22, barely anybody bothered to review it. Of course that might be because the chapter was mostly filler, but still, 19 reviews out of 700 alerts was rather pitiful. Makes a writer feel rather unappreciated yea know. But still... I promised... and this is a good way to celebrate the manga going out with a bang, so read away!)
That being said... HOLY SHIT THE GIRLS ALL LOOK FKING HOT! Ako, Nodoka, Makie are among the most noticeable.
the Narutaki twins... F...yeah... I'd tap that.
Lol at them and Kotarou/Natsumi getting hitched first though. The one most against love and the most childish ones were the first to get married. Setsuna and Konoka presumably married each other, so that probably doesn't count.
Yeah the ending was rather ambiguous and there's a few plotholes, but it's a general blanket type happy ending. This is probably as good as it gets for Japanese mangas. For some reason they really like to leave their things hanging and open ended, you will very rarely find one with a definite end, unless it's a bad end, then they describe every gory detail with great relish. It's a japanese thing, don't ask. Although part of it might be because of capitalism, if they leave it open ended like that, the questions, the fascination and the popularity of their manga/anime continue long after it even ends, sort of like Neon Genesis Evangelion (I only watched half of the original series before I was traumatised enough to feel the urgent need to slit Shinji's throat, baring that, slit my own wrists just because if I stopped there, the memories of so much psychopathy would always stay with me no matter what I do and the sick curiosity about what happened will always remain despite needing to suffer through huge amounts of angst to satisfy that cruiosity. Does anyone feel like that?), it also opens up the chance for a possible sequel don't you think? Plus if he DID pick someone, 30 out of 31 people are going to be pissed ya know. So yeah, leaving it hanging is probably better, even if people question him, it's better than people hating him. Lol.