Chapter 10: Midgar Assault!
The Highwind was flying high in the sky. Gaara and Naruto readied their boards for the mission. Naruto looked around to everyone. Cloud, Aeris and Tifa were busy clipping on their parachutes. Nanaki looked a little strange with one on, especially with such a serious face on. Barret was talking to Cid about the mission. Yuffie was downing two Tranquilisers for the flight down. Vincent was silently watching everyone. And Cait was looking excited.
"Everyone ready?" asked Naruto. The group collectively nodded their heads. Naruto and Gaara then placed their boards on the deck and stepped on them. The boards hovered off the ground, the boards automatically pulling the necessary amount of chakra out to power the devices.
"Here we go!" yelled Naruto before he pushed off on the board and jumped over the rail.
The flight down was quite fun. The Highwind was flying over the central area and the group freefell straight past the cannon. Naruto then fed extra chakra into their boards and both he and Gaara slowed down until they were descending gently. Naruto looked up to see that everyone was fine and they had all opened their parachutes.
As Naruto floated down, he looked around him. The 'fins' of the cannon were jolting irregularly as if there was something majorly glitchy about it. The group descended past a large brown building and landed safely on the ground. Everyone was fine, except for Yuffie who was temporally trapped under her parachute. She scrambled out from under it and grinned at everyone. She then brought her hand to her mouth and almost did a technicolour yawn onto the ground. However after a few moments she was fine. She had left Jess on the Highwind.
"Heidegger is coming after us. We'll have to move underground if we want to slip past the patrols," advised Cait. Naruto nodded and the group of 11 followed the cat into a side alley. At the end was a steel trap door. Everyone crowded around except for Vincent who was standing a few meters away. Naruto, curious, walked up to him.
"So it was Hojo who stirred up all this commotion after all these years?" he said to himself.
"Don't worry. We'll stop him," said Naruto confidently. Vincent turned his red eyes to look into Naruto's azure blue ones. The two held this contact for several seconds before Vincent nodded. A small smile crossed his face. "I have faith that we will," he replied.
"I never got to ask you this before as we were busy," began Naruto as Cait Sith was comically trying to open the doors with little success. "But why did you offer to travel back with me to my own world after this is over?"
Vincent was quiet for a moment before answering. "There is nothing for me here. The love of my life is gone forever. I have no family. In fact, you and everyone else in this little team are what I would consider being friends. But for the most part I would like a fresh start. Maybe even find love once again. I will never be over Lucrecia but if there is one thing I've learnt from you, especially learning about your past, is that I shouldn't let my own past keep me at a standstill. I need to keep moving forward or I will never be able to face Lucrecia when I finally die."
"I see," said Naruto before clapping his hand on Vincent's shoulder. "I'm glad," he said simply before turning around and walking over to the now open entrance to the underground, courtesy of Tifa.
"This may sound strange comin' from me," said Barret, gaining everyone's attention. "But it feels like home bein' back in Midgar. Kinda makes me sick."
"Just because Shinra run the city doesn't mean you hate the city itself. Home is wherever you feel it, even if it's deep in enemy territory," explained Naruto who knew from experience. No matter how much he was ostracized and mistreated, he always thought of Konoha as his home.
"I guess you're right," replied Barret, looking much less disgusted with himself.
"Well, time to get this mission started!" said Naruto as he jumped straight into the hole without bothering to climb down. Everyone else was a little more careful.
Underneath was a cavernous like room with walkways, ramps, stairs and ladders everywhere. Half an hour was spent traversing this maze before they arrived at an opening with red paint painted on the edge. They then, much to Barret's annoyance, crawled through a maintenance duct of sorts. The duct came out into a train tunnel. The group was just about to move up the tunnel when a cry of surprise came from behind them.
"Oh no! They're here!"
The group turned around to see Elena running up to them. "What are we going to do! I think it's ok for you to ignore your orders now."
Naruto cocked his head to the side as he heard her weak suggestion that they turn back. From out of the shadows, Reno walked up to stand off to the side. "Elena, don't act so weak."
Following Reno was Rude. "We're Turks, Elena."
Elena sighed softly. "...Yes, sir. You're right."
"Come on, we've got work to do," said Rude.
Reno sighed loudly. "I'm not really up for it, but..."
"Our orders were to seek you out and..." Elena paused. "...Kill. Our company may be in turmoil, but an order's an order. That's the will of the Turks. Believe it!"
Naruto's eye twitched as he heard Elena's last two words. Never again would he utter those words again. He then extended his arm and his sword flashed into his grip. The others respectively drew their own weapons, ready.
"Try this on for size!" yelled Elena and she threw a canister of something at the group of eleven. The canister smashed onto the ground and released a wave of intense flames that exploded. Naruto, expecting something to explode, had already flashed through a string of hand seals and called out, "Ninjutsu: Chakra Shield!" A blue energy shield encompassed the team and successfully protected the team from the deadly flames. It was the same jutsu Naruto used against Jenova in the Northern Crater and those flames were hotter than before. As such he was still in good condition to fight afterwards. That and he wasn't on the brink of chakra exhaustion.
As soon as the shield was down Cloud moved to engage Rude in battle. Tifa exchanged blows with Elena and Naruto clashed with Reno. Aeris was on support and the rest of the team watched, ready to switch if someone got tired. As the fight was taking place in a tunnel there wasn't enough space to move around so they had to keep it to one-on-one battles.
Naruto took a swipe at Reno but the red head blocked with his metal rod and pushed back, forcing Naruto to step back slightly. They then exchanged high speed blows as sword and rod crashed against each other. However one had to win this bout and it was soon clear that Naruto was gaining a clear advantage thanks to his ninja background and teachings. After several seconds of more furious fighting, Naruto broke through Reno's defence and knocked his weapon out of his hands. The Rod went skidding across the train tracks.
In the other battles, Tifa and Cloud had reached similar situations. The three Turks, realising that they were beaten, slowly raised their hands up into the air as Cloud, Vincent, Garra and Naruto all pointed their weapons at their beaten opponents.
"So... now what?" asked Reno.
"Now you need to choose," said Naruto.
"What?" exclaimed Elena.
"Choose what?" asked Rude.
"Choose whether to follow orders or follow common sense."
There was silence as the three Turks adopted questioning looks on their faces. "What are you talking about?" asked Reno.
"Are you going to follow orders and get in the way of us saving a good chunk of Midgar from being totally obliterated? Or will you let us continue and let us save thousands of lives?" asked Naruto calmly, watching for their reaction.
"What?" exclaimed all three.
"We weren't told that. Just that you terrorists were making your way towards destroying this gun," explained Elena.
"Right now, Hojo is trying to send Sephiroth more energy via this Mako cannon but said cannon needs to cool for a few hours before another shot is fired. Hojo is bypassing all the safety protocols in order to fire the cannon again. The overload will create an explosion several times what was done at the No.1 reactor," Naruto explained.
There was another silence before Elena stepped into a defensive stance. "You're lying. Our superiors warned us about listening to your stories. We won't be fooled!"
Naruto sighed before he activated his Kikangan level 2 and swiftly knocked them out. "I'm sorry you feel that way," he said before releasing his bloodline power. He turned to his friends. "C'mon! We have to keep moving!"
They continued down the train tunnel until they reached a fork in the road. Hoping for some luck Naruto led the team down the right side. This turned out to be the correct choice as they soon exited the tunnel. A support pillar was built right on the tracks for the cannon. They swiftly climbed up the bottom part until they could jump onto a path flush with the side of the pillar.
Naruto and the others were stopped dead when the ground shook along with a great crash that sounded behind them. He turned along with everyone else to see a large robotic monstrosity.
"What! You serious?" yelled Cid.
"What in the hell is that?" exclaimed Barret.
It was a giant, four armed humanoid robot. Each arm was decorated with long, claw like fingers. The thing was coloured in mostly red and gold. And lastly there was a huge artillery type cannon strapped to its back. Then the front opened up and out stepped two very familiar and annoying people.
"G'yaaa, Haaa, Haaa! Here they are!" guffawed Heidegger. "G'yaaa, Haaa, Haaa! So they really showed up! You sure did treat us like dogs up to now!"
"You killed off a lot of my precious soldiers!" called Scarlet.
"Oh I'm so sorry I killed off all your fuck toys!" Naruto countered back.
Scarlet's eyes flashed in fury. "What!" she all but screamed before she took a moment to calm down.
"G'yaaa, Haaa, Haaa! But let's see how you do against anti-Weapon artillery!" laughed Heidegger. Scarlet did the same. "You guys are worthless, but my proud creation is a sure thing!" They stepped back into the armoured weapons platform. The front closed and before it lunged at the group Scarlet said one last thing. "I'll show you the destructive power of the Proud Clod!" The weapon then began to power up.
Naruto turned to Aeris. "Aeris! I need your Gravity materia!" he said. She nodded before pulling it out of her staff and throwing it towards Naruto who caught it easily. He gripped it tightly and focused an insane amount of chakra into it. The materia glowed brightly; the small black hole inside growing darker. Naruto powered up a little more before he let loose a powerful Demiga spell. The whole spell covered the Proud Clod. Naruto then, with a lot of help from Kyuubi, focused with his mind and stretched out his arms. He then began to very slowly bring his hands closer and closer together. Following his movements the powerful gravity spell copied his movements and began to squeeze and crush the weapon into a scrunched up ball. As he finished up sweat was pouring down his face. He had activated his Kikangan Level 2 for extra power but it had been a very exhaustive activity. Even his unusually extra spiked up hair was matted down, completely drenched in sweat.
Suddenly he let go, revealing a glistening ball of rolled up metal. As the ball began to slowly, in his point of view, descend he summoned his sword and jumped up towards the large metal ball. He sliced through half of the ball as he moved past and flipped over it. He then brought the sword down on the other side with two hands, slicing completely through and landing as the two halves of what was left of the Proud Clod, the cut edge glowing with heat from the slice, crashed behind him.
Naruto then collapsed to one knee and almost passed out if Aeris hadn't cast an advanced curative spell on him to revive him. He stood up and thanked Aeris. "Let's go!" he said, feeling much better, and the team rushed down a side alley, making their way towards the cannon.
The group arrived at a similar, at least to some, area. Naruto, Cloud, Gaara and Aeris recognised the area as where they met for the first time after the bombing of the No.1 Mako reactor. The square was different now as there was several support pillars for the cannon. There was also a stairway leading up the side of the cannon.
"This is it guys! Hojo is at the top and completely insane. I think it's time we send his ugly ass to the Lifestream, what do you say?" asked Naruto.
"Yeah!" called everyone. Naruto then grinned. "Let's do it!" he roared and with that they charged up the stairs. There were a lot of them. They all reached the top and ran across a walkway that led to the mainframe. They stopped a few meters away from the console. There were large bolts of electricity being discharged all around them and seated in front of the console was a man with greasy black hair, round glasses, a white lab coat and had an insane look in his eyes. Vincent stepped forward and glared at the man with angry red eyes.
"...Hojo."
"Hojo! Stop right there!" called Cloud as he gripped the handle of his sword, preparing to attack.
There was a slight pause as the scientist stopped in his reprogramming to listen to Cloud's voice.
"Oh... the failure," he said as he turned around to see the group. His eyes flickered over each in the group but when his eyes settled on Vincent, his eyes showed a minute amount of surprise before he began to laugh. "Ha ha ha ha! And Vincent, formally of the Turks. This is a surprise. I thought you were dead, but no matter."
"I think it's time you stopped this Hojo!" called Naruto. At that precise second, a warm rain began to pound down. Soon it had soaked into everyone's clothes but no one was cold as the warmth seeped into their bodies, giving them strength.
"This?" asked Hojo as he continues to type away. He seemed that he didn't even know what Naruto was talking about. Another few moments passed before he seemed to realise what exactly he was talking about. "Oh, this..." he said. He then turned around, forgetting about the consol for the moment.
"Ha, ha, ha... Sephiroth seems to be counting on the energy. So I'm going to lend him a hand."
"Why! Why would you do that?" asked Cloud.
Hojo's eyes flashed in annoyance. "Quit asking me why, you moron." He then walked up to Cloud until he was only inches away from walking into him. "Hmm... actually, you might be cut out to be a scientist." He then walked back to the controls and glanced at one of the screens that seemed to show a slowly increasing bar. "Energy level is at... 83%. It's taking too long." He then continued to type away at the keyboard in the hopes that he could speed up the process.
"My son is in need of power and help. ...That's the only reason." Hojo finally answered Cloud's question.
"...your son?" asked Tifa, voicing everyone's question.
"Ha, ha, ha... Although he doesn't know," Hojo continued before bursting into uncontrollable laughter. "What will Sephiroth think when he finds out I'm his father?" he raved between laughs. "Always looking down on me like that." He then continued to laugh loudly, even as he was still continuing on the keyboard.
"Sephiroth is your son!" almost everyone exclaimed. Vincent, Naruto and Gaara stayed quiet as they either already knew or had an inkling.
"Ha, ha, ha... I ofered the woman with my child to Professor Gast's Jenova Project," said the mad scientist. Vincent's gloved hand was curled into a fist and was shaking in fury. "When Sephiroth was still in the womb, we took the cells of Jenova..." Hojo broke off in mad laughter.
'I see. So that's how it is,' thought Naruto as he continued to gather information on Sephiroth's origins in the hope of freeing him from the clutches of Jenova.
"I can't believe you're the one who did this..." said Cloud, absolutely disgusted. He wasn't alone. Everyone was feeling different levels of it.
"This guy really reminds me of Orochimaru," growled Naruto.
"You made Sephiroth into what he is today..." began Cloud but he was interrupted as Hojo giggled fitfully. "No, you're wrong! It's my desire as a scientist! I... was defeated by my desire to become a scientist. I lost the last time as well. I've injected Jenova cells into my own body! Here are..." he then stumbled forward slightly and looked at everyone with eyes completely lost in madness. "...my results!"
"I won't let you!" roared Naruto and in an flash of golden light he flashed forward and severed Hojo's head from his shoulders.
Hojo's head simply toppled off his body, which crumpled to the floor and was still. Naruto sighed and dismissed his sword before turning to his friends. They looked slightly horrified at the quick way that was dealt with but were very grateful that Hojo was finally gone.
"Naruto! Look out!" yelled Nanaki. Naruto turned about quickly to see a thick, fleshy and heavily disfigured arm clobber him over the head and sent him crashing into the wall. Naruto coughed twice, spitting up blood in the process.
"Naru-kun! Baby! Get up! Naru-kun!"
Kyuubi's calls were getting fainter and fainter as Naruto tried to get back up but failed. That attack seemed to have temporally paralysed his whole body except for his head. Plus the fact that Naruto was still weakened from the previous battle against the Proud Clod was still in effect. Naruto looked up to see a heavily fuzzed out image of a pink and purple bruise coloured monster. The others seemed to be moving in to attack it but the monster had already begun to strike at Naruto's head again, going in for the kill. Naruto knew that they would be too late to save him. He watched as the bloated knot of flesh drew closer and closer. Fear crept into his heart. He didn't want to die just yet. He still had so much left to do. He only just began to have a relationship with a woman. He didn't want to give up on that. He didn't. He didn't want to die.
'no...No...NO...NO...NO...NOOOOOOO!'
And then something snapped. A flood of golden energy rushed through him and filled him up with strength. He almost instantly regained feeling in his body. And the fist that was moving at him had slowed to an absolute crawl.
It was then that he struck. He flowed around the incoming fist which he could see with absolute clarity. He swung his sword around with amazing speed and cut straight through the limb, sending it flying off the platform. The monster stumbled back.
Naruto heard sobbing in the back of his mind. He brought the sword up to his face. 'Kyuubi. It's alright. I'm ok.'
Inside the sword, Kyuubi opened her tear stained eyes and stared in wonder at Naruto. He had obviously unlocked the next level of the Kikangan. And by looks alone she could tell that this was a powerful upgrade. Golden chakra blazed all over his body. Large blue bolts of bio-electricity crackled around him constantly. His face had hardened into a serious shape. The gold band in his irises had changed to about three quarters, leaving a thin line of azure blue around the outer edge left. And his hair had lengthened considerably. The golden hair ran down to his waist in massive spikes and locks. The top was spiking up but the longer tendrils of hair eventually succumbed to gravity. The hair had a lot more volume than it did before, expanding around his head like a great mane. And there was one lock of hair that curled over his forehead and between his eyes, reaching down to the bottom of his chin.
"Wow...!" she breathed.
"What?" asked Naruto out loud in a much deeper and growlier voice than his voice was in stage 2.
"You've unlocked the third stage of your Bloodline Limit. And it looks amazing," explained Kyuubi.
'That's great, but it's time to rid Hojo for good,' said Naruto in his mind before turning to the monster. Hojo was really a piece of work. He was now missing one arm but his other arm looked to be a fleshy trident of sorts. His mouth was wide and gaping, sporting many sharp teeth. Hojo lunged at Naruto but to the blond it looked like the Jenova infused Hojo was moving quite slowly. He easily dodged to the side and sliced off the hellish trident completely.
Hojo was now unable to attack physically but Naruto left no time for spell casting. He sped in low and kicked Hojo into the air, using the Shadow Dance combo starter. He then started to spin at extreme speeds, enhanced further from his bloodline. To the others down below he looked like a golden whirlwind. To an Inuzuka, however, it looked a golden version of the Dual Piercing Fang, but only one of them. The 'tip' of the whirlwind dived at Hojo and drilled straight through him, completely ripping him apart. The many pieces of flesh rained down onto the platform in front of the onlookers. After another few seconds of this Naruto slowed down and jumped back to the group. The remaining few pieces of flesh dropped back to the platform. There was silence except for the sound the energy coming off Naruto was making.
"Wow! What an attack!" said Cloud, looking wide eyed at the new Naruto.
"Is Hojo dead?" asked Aeris.
"No, he isn't. One more form to go," said Naruto, making everyone jump at his more growlier voice.
Indeed Hojo wasn't dead. For all the many pieces of flesh that had been scattered in Naruto's attack, were rising and collecting in one spot. In a sickening display, the pieces of flesh fused together to create a smaller, floating monster. It was quite different from its predecessor. A quick glance made it look like a genie. A closer look revealed it to look like a demented genie. The main colours were black, grey and gold. It had long, floppy arms, a head that looked like just a mass of gold and grey and its bottom half narrowed off in a tentacle like appendage. There was one out of the back of its head too that wrapped around its body.
"Damn!" said Naruto before he summoned up an insane amount of power and focused it into a ball in his hand. He then threw the energy ball at Hojo and the attack hit dead on. From the point of impact, a sphere grew out and expanded around Hojo, completely enveloping him. But the sphere was strange. Outside the sphere there was colour but inside the colour had completely vanished, leaving only black, white and greys. The monster also had completely stopped.
Naruto collapsed onto the floor, back to normal, gasping from the amount of energy he had just used to create that technique. Straight away everyone was crowded around him, asking if he was alright.
"I'm... fine," he said, still heaving. "Quickly... attack... Hojo with... magic and... projectiles. Time is... stopped in there. ...won't last long. ...hurry!" he said between breaths. Everyone nodded and positioned themselves around the sphere. They then unleashed every kind of projectile spell and weapon they had. Most used magic spells like fire, ice and bolt plus magic augmented bullets thanks to Barret, Vincent and Gaara. All the magic and bullets impacted the sphere but as soon as they did so they just hung there, suspended in the air. All colour had left them so now they were just grey fireballs, lightning sparks or pointy crystals. Gaara and Vincent jumped over the sphere and shot from above. This continues until there were hundreds of spells and bullets at the outer edge of the sphere.
"Now we wait," said Naruto.
"Naruto, how did you create... that?" asked Aeris, with everyone else nodding.
"The technique was in my scroll for Bloodline Jutsus. Usually it's a jutsu that can only be used at Kikangan Level 4 but the scroll stated that if enough power and energy was used then the jutsu was possible for someone only in the third level. So I decided to use it," Naruto explained, now feeling much better thanks to Aeris.
"But what does it do? It looks like time has just..."
"Stopped?" I asked, finishing off Cloud's question. "Yes, that is exactly what has happened."
"Cool..." said Yuffie.
"But what good will it do when our attacks are frozen in that thing?" asked Cid with Barret nodding.
"The jutsu will deactivate very soon. And when that happens, what do you think will happen to all those attacks?"
"Ohhhhh," said Tifa. "I see. They'll all crash into Hojo all at the same time." The implications of this sunk into everyone's mind.
"Damn! That's one hellava way to go," said Barret.
"He deserves that much at least," said Vincent coldly.
"I thought you might like it," said Naruto.
A strange sound caught everyone's attention and they all looked to see that the sphere was pulsing slightly. "Get ready guys! It's about to go!" yelled Naruto before the whole sphere vanished, restoring the insides back to colour. Only about one millisecond passed before all the magic struck Hojo all at once and the monster was obliterated instantly. Fire, lightning and icy mist flew around Hojo as his body was torn apart down to the atoms. It only took 5 seconds and afterwards there was a silence. The only sounds were the crackling electricity from the turbines behind them.
"It's done," said Naruto.
"Fucking asshole gave us a hard time for sure," said Cid.
"I can't believe that Hojo is the..." Nanaki began but faltered and fell silent, not able to bring himself to say it.
"Well, we now know the complete truth about Sephiroth," said Gaara.
"Yeah..." replied Naruto before his eyes sharpened. "C'mon guys! We still have a job to do."
"Shinra's... finished," said Sith aka Reeve.
"Yeah," said Barret. "I still half expect to see someone pop up and claim the top of the Shinra mountain but... it's really over."
"Not yet. We still have unfinished business," said Naruto.
Cloud sighed. "Meteor's gonna fall in about..." He broke off, not knowing the precise time of impact.
"Before Shinra went under, we calculated that time of impact will be roughly seven days from now," said Cait.
Nanaki nodded. "That's what grandfather said," he agreed.
Naruto walked over to the red hound and patted his head. "Hey Nanaki, you want to go see everyone in Cosmo Canyon again?" he asked. Nanaki paused before turning to the side. "...yes," he muttered.
Naruto then turned to Barret. "You want to see Marlene, right?"
"Yeah, of course!" he replied.
"Well, I think that, for a day, we should see our loved ones and any friends we want to see before we descend into the Northern Crater," suggested Naruto.
"That's a good idea. I was thinking the same thing," said Cloud.
"Well? What do you think?" Naruto asked.
"Sounds good to me," said Cid.
"Ok. We'll drop everyone off to wherever they wish to spend this final day of peace. You don't have to come back if you don't want to," said Naruto. "I have my own reasons to fight, but do you guys have a reason? Aside from saving the planet. I learnt early on that you need a reason to fight. To keep fighting. In the brief few seconds that Sephiroth's true self surfaced, I saw that he was scared. I wish to free him of the parasite Jenova. That is why I fight. To save him, a potential friend. I'm fighting for all the friends I've made while I've been here."
Naruto paused before continuing. "Some of you already know why you're fighting, I'm sure. Like Barret for example," he turned to the big, burly man. "He's fighting for Marline. For her future." Naruto then turned to Nanaki. "Nanaki is fighting for all his friends and family at Cosmo. But what about the rest of you? You need to make sure that you know for sure."
"You're right," said Vincent.
"It sounds cool sayin' it's to save the planet," said Barret. "But I was the one who blew up No.1 reactor. Lookin' back on it now, I can see that wasn't the right way to do things. I made a lot of innocent bystanders suffer..." Everyone was silent as Barret paused in his speaking. "...At first, it was revenge against Shinra. For attackin' my town. But now..." he looked at Naruto and nodded. "Yeah. I'm fightin' for Marlene."
Naruto smiled. "Go and see her. Find out for sure before coming back." He then turned to everyone. "That goes for everyone here. Find that reason. If you can't then that's ok. Maybe it hasn't come along yet. But I would think that it would be very hard to fight without a good reason. So don't force yourselves to come back if you can't find one."
"So who's getting dropped off first?" asked Cid.