Mass Effect 2: Naruto's Mission

Written by I.K.A. Valian

All characters and material from Naruto are the property of Masashi Kishimoto.

All characters and material from Mass Effect are the property of BioWare.

Chapter Nine: The Unraveling Plot

Last Time

Naruto arrived on the Citadel with every intention of facing the Citadel Council. They are both the ruling body of power in the galaxy and the people he targeted two years prior in the Battle of the Citadel. No matter what he'd done before, he had to face them. His people needed an alliance and he'd be damned if he didn't get it.

But once he was on the Citadel, things didn't add up. While other crew members were out and discovering similar circumstances, Naruto and Shepard found themselves facing the Council alone. Or as it turned out, a female version of Naruto using a genjutsu to make them think they were looking at the Council. Upon realizing that the Naruto in front of her wasn't who she thought he was, the female version of Naruto quick drew her hand gun and shot Naruto before he could move.

"DIE!"

Bang!

Poof!

The young woman who stood atop the balcony railing with her hand gun pointed at the cloud of chakra vapor searched the room with frantic urgency. Who knew anyone could use Shadow Clones like that? She and her sisters had figured out much more about jutsu than the other Companies in the Corps, sure, but not how to activate a Jutsu while literally being watched the entire time.

"Who the hell are you?" Shepard shouted. She had her own hand gun pointed at the blond girl above her. "And what the hell is going on here? What happened to the Council? Answer me!"

"Must kill him," the girl muttered. "He can't live. He must die. Must kill him. Must kill him."

There was a light tap on her shoulder and she spun around. She lashed out with her leg and grinned triumphantly when she caught the impossible man in the head with her heel. The heel of a combat boot to the temple was deadly, especially composite material combat boots. But instead of falling over a corpse, Naruto remained standing. Her eyes widened when she realized that he'd actually caught her foot before it hit and she hadn't even seen him move. What the hell? No one but Fox Company was that fast!

"My name is Uzumaki Naruto," the impossible blond man told her. "You look like I would if I were a girl. What's your name?"

Without answering, she kicked the man in the face and used the blow to launch herself backwards. She did a flip in the air and unleashed bullet hell upon Naruto, screaming as she held the trigger down for full automatic pistol fire. She let the gun fire until the thermal clip clicked indicating full capacity.

She remembered the archive footage of Uzumaki on Therum. The records of Uzumaki on Feros and Noveria were clear in her mind. On top of that was her master's order to the whole Corps, something imprinted upon their very DNA: Destroy Uzumaki Naruto on sight. She didn't so much fear that his skills were that much better than hers, but knew it to be so. Her only hope was to strike before he did and hope the plan she was coming up with was enough.

She landed on the bridge and searched for the body, blood spatter, anything. Naruto had vanished, though. She backed up, changed the thermal clip in her gun, and then kept her gun level in front of her in case the bastard appeared again. She stopped when she felt the cold, hard muzzle of a M-6 Carnifex Hand Cannon.

"I may not have liked Naruto much before he reappeared," Shepard said, "but he's not so bad now. You, however, just jumped up to the top of my shit list."

"Shepard," the blond said. "You know who he is! What he did! To you! To everyone! How can you just let him walk free. Side with me and let's take him down together!"

"Sorry to disappoint you, but I know he's no longer indoctrinated," Shepard said. It felt like the floor fell out from beneath the blond woman as she realized that any hope of convincing Shepard to help her against Naruto was long gone by now. "Who are you and what the hell is going on here? Where is the Council?"

"I'm really in no mood to talk at the moment," the blond said. "But for now, call me Echo Ninety-nine. Activating Multi-Shadow Clone Jutsu Tech!"

E-99 spun around and ducked at the same time, cleanly avoided the bullet that exited Shepard's gun, and swept Shepard from her feet with a low kick. At the same time this happened, the familiar orange glow of an omni-tool lit up around her right arm. The tool's holographic interface seemed to glow all the brighter as the room was suddenly populated by dozens of E-99s.

"You know what to do," E-99 said. The clones saluted and spread out, searching. It didn't take them long to find their target. Naruto was driven from his hiding spot on the second floor balcony with a shout as ten or so clones attacked him. He escaped by leaping over the railing and into the air.

At the same time as Naruto was free falling to the first floor, the original E-99 attempted to pick up Shepard. She was stunned and pushed back by a well timed elbow jab to the gut from the downed SpecTRe. Shepard grinned at her tactical victory as she got back to her feet and glared at E-99, who glared back while holding her gut. The blond didn't seem to be too out of breath since the armor had taken the majority of the force.

Naruto landed seconds later behind Shepard, kunai in hand. Both he and Shepard pushed their backs together as E-99 and her shadow clones surrounded them. Shepard gripped her Carnifex a little tighter as she eyed the circle of shadow clones while Naruto did the same with his kunai.

"Naruto!" Shepard whispered tersely, "Why haven't you countered the shadow clones yet?"

"Long story," Naruto said back. "I won't be at one hundred percent for a few weeks. Missile, among other things."

Shepard resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Okay then, any suggestions on how to beat these things? You know more about clones than anyone else."

"These clones aren't as good," Naruto said, "their blows felt weak when they were hitting me, and not just because they're girls. Maybe a bad mix of chakra, I dunno. But they not as strong as mine. What? You want me to make some of my own clones?"

"The effort would be appreciated," Shepard said.

"You do realize I can hear everything you're saying, right?" E-99 asked contemptuously. "Not like it matters. Thanks for telling me you're not in top form, Uzumaki. Killing you might not require back up after all. Shepard, you'll be coming with me after I deal with that thing."

"Let's finish this then," Shepard said. "Naruto, now!"

Naruto leaped toward the clones directly in front of him. At the same time, a dozen more of him popped into existence without him ever making a hand sign. The E-99 clones in front of him watched him close, now with clones in tow, with wide eyed wonder. They were so surprised they never even lifted a hand to defend themselves before they popped and left behind a musty, yellowish haze that sparkled with dissipated holographic energy. Naruto and his clones moved on and began to engage the forty or so clones filling the Council Chamber.

At the same time, Shepard brought her gun up and aimed at the original E-99 and pulled the trigger. The Carnifex Hand Cannon lived up to its name and tore through the two clones that threw themselves in front of the original. However, unlike the clones, the real E-99 had a kinetic barrier. She smirked and vanished under a cloaking field as the shot bounced harmlessly off the shield.

The clones facing Shepard, about twenty or so, took the original's vanishing as a sign and attacked all at once. Shepard threw herself to the side and rolled away from her previous spot where several clones attempted to lodge their foot into Shepard's body. Shepard then jumped backwards as a couple more clones attempted to gang up on her, and as she moved, shot at the different clones coming after her. The mass accelerated rounds tore through the clones like a hot knife through wet rice paper.

Across the room, Naruto winced when one of his clones was gutted by another clone using his own kunai. He'd never seen a disarming move like that before, he'd have to be careful of that in the future. Fortunately, the clone and the knife vanished in a cloud of white chakra vapor so he wouldn't have to worry about his own weapons being used against him. Give the enemy an inch, and they'll take a mile, after all. Or so Pervy Sage told him.

Naruto ducked under the swing of one clone's fist, leaned to the side to avoid an ax-kick by another, and then jumped straight up when a third tried to sweep his legs out from underneath him. On his way down, he dispelled the first clone with a hammer punch to the top of the head, the second with a well placed boot to the face, and the third he grabbed by the shoulder and head butted just as he landed.

The three clones exploded in their hazy yellow holographic dust and left Naruto with a small clearing around him. The entire battle had been going like that. These clones just couldn't touch him, or so it seemed. Maybe it was that he was a real ninja and these were so amateurish E-99 might as well not be even with a pre-academy student. That said, the clones were surprising him with the Taijutsu moves he'd never seen before. He was just too good to fall for them, and too fast. Speed always helps.

"I wonder if this was how Kakashi-sensei felt when he gave us the bell test," Naruto wondered aloud as one of his clones finished with a group of clones. His clone made a short leap and landed next to him.

"I noticed they're not using chakra to enhance their taijutsu," his clone said. "It seems they don't know how to even use their chakra at all."

Miranda stood over the now very dead body of what looked like Uzumaki Naruto, but his armor was all wrong and he hadn't recognized her in the least when he, instead of the threatened C-Sec agent busted in the door of the Cerberus Safe-house. "If I had to venture a guess," Miranda said as she studied the body with cold calculating eyes, "That is not the real Uzumaki Naruto. And judging from how he fought, he had no clue how to use his Chakra like a real ninja. It's almost like his Ninjutsu skills were based off of watching someone else doing it without having the ability to ask that person any questions."

Stanley coughed into his shaking fist as he bent down next to the fallen blond. He really had seen a Turian C-Sec agent when the door opened and was prepared to activate the Burn and Run Protocols when Miranda had struck with a very devastating biotic attack. She lifted the man up and smashed him into the ceiling, and then down to the floor, and then back into the ceiling. She repeated this several times, in his mind for the sadistic pleasure of crushing life with her mind, until the genjutsu fell and revealed the blond on the floor, dead.

The display of biotic skill and power, not to mention the threat of discovery, and the long sleepless nights had finally gotten to him. He was so close to going to the makeshift armory, getting a gun, and blowing his head off just so he could end this nightmare. If Miranda let him. Now that he thought about it, she would likely take the sadistic pleasure of torturing him by forcing him to stay alive and awake just to watch him fall apart.

These thoughts were pushed to the side when he scanned the man's active Omni-tool. "This…" Stanley said, rising excitement in his voice. "This is the data my men were sent out to retrieve! And the module that's transmitting the genjutsu signal is attached to this Omni-tool! But that must mean… my men!"

"Dead, most likely." Miranda, calm as a cucumber, like she hadn't just bludgeoned someone to death with the ceiling and floor, asked with a quiet commanding voice, "What is the range of the module? And how strong is the genjutsu that it can project?"

Stanley shook his head and stood up. He moved to the console on the wall and quickly uploaded the data he'd mined from the dead Naruto fake. The main computer processed the new data for several seconds before the results were displayed across the map of the Citadel.

"From the primary analysis," Stanley said, "each chakra transmission module has a range of about one thousand yards. But that's the max that it can carry a solid signal without getting interference. Despite that, the genjutsu being transmitted over that distance from one device wouldn't be very strong, maybe only enough to make your nose itch constantly."

"So this one has been dialed down to transmit in a shorter range," Miranda concluded. "Maybe 200 meters. If each of the operatives holding these modules has the same setting, then there has to be thousands of operatives operating on the Citadel. What in the hell? Who could muster that much Chakra enhanced manpower in such a short amount of time?"

"Who would have the capacity, manpower, and funding to do this?" Stanley asked. "It would have to be one of the Council races. The Turian Hierarchy would never clone humans to look like Naruto, or clone Naruto. Turian honor would demand they'd splice some kind of Chakra network into a Turian. Unless it was a criminal, some rogue mad scientist bent on ruling the galaxy."

"But that could be said of any species," Miranda said with a dismissive shake of her head. "The Asari are all biotics, more than a match for chakra, and are, generally speaking, peace makers. The only council races I could see doing this would be Humans and Salarians."

"If Humans were doing this, wouldn't we have known about it?" Stanley asked. "Cerberus would be the only organization that would have the guts to pull something like this, but if it was us, why wouldn't TIM tell us to be ready for this?"

"No, Cerberus has no hand in this," Miranda said with finality. "That only leaves the Salarians. Though peripherally, the Batarians have the ability to do this too, but the Hegemony haven't made any real attempts at interacting with the galaxy since they pulled up stakes two decades ago."

"The Salarian STG might have experimented with this sort of stuff," Stanley said, "but they already have a leading voice on the Council. They've never shown any ambition for power since co-founding the Citadel Council with the Asari thousands of years ago."

Miranda glanced down at the dead Naruto look-alike and grimaced as another thought crossed her mind. Naruto had been a willing, indoctrinated slave to Sovereign, a Reaper. Who's to say Sovereign didn't have a backup plan in place if the "impossible" happened and he was defeated. Could this be related to the Reapers too? There was one more group with the ability to do something like this.

"The Collectors," Miranda said with grim finality. "It's the Collectors. It has to be. They're the only ones left who have the technology advanced enough to clone an army like this in such a short time. I believe from the fact that they look like Naruto, and that they probably are Naruto clones, we can confirm that the Collectors work for the Reapers as well, since they likely got Naruto's genetic code from Sovereign before it was destroyed two years ago. Why else would they have taken the Citadel, if not to open the Citadel Mass Relay into Dark Space?"

"That's an interesting theory," Stanley said, pushing his glasses up his nose, "but we really don't know what their aim here is yet. We need more data." At the harsh look from Miranda, Stanley coughed and quickly added, "But I don't see any other alternative that would readily explain the current situation."

"I suppose I can respect the enemy's ability to adapt to the opposition," Miranda said. "They threw a Reaper at us and we just destroyed it. This time they're going to try and open the relay before we even know they're here. We wouldn't have had a chance to stop them."

"If they're here to open the Relay into Dark Space," Stanley said. "Why haven't we been overrun with giant Space Cthulus yet?"

Miranda grimaced as if she'd just eaten something sour and rotten at the same time, with a heaping dose of salt. She knew why, sort of. "They did something after Sovereign tried to access the main computer of the Citadel," Miranda said disdainfully, like she wanted to spit after speaking, but refrained from doing so because it was an unsightly habit. "What they did or who they are, nobody knows. It's one of the greatest secrets in the galaxy. It's certainly the most often spoken about secret in the dark corners of the intelligence community. It's not that well known since most reputable intelligence agencies dismissed it as a conspiracy theory before it could work its way through the grape vine. I suppose we can put this up to what they did. They changed something in the Citadel computer that prevents it from responding to the commands to activate the Deep Space Relay."

The supposed "rumor" was also one of the greatest stains on her pride, since she was the one who had been assigned to figure out what was done and who did it. The limitless resources of Cerberus at her command and she finds absolutely nothing, which only proved that there was something because real false rumors and conspiracy theories have a trail that leads to someone spreading lies. Only problem was, there was no trail and the rumor had come from, apparently, out of thin air. She'd been forced to deliver the bad news to the Illusive Man personally. She couldn't figure out what was done or who did it or where the collective knowledge in the intelligence community originated. Ironically, the Illusive Man wasn't as concerned about the mark against her abilities as she was, saying, in the long run, it didn't matter because the Reapers would arrive one way or another.

That was just before he assigned her to shadow Shepard, who promptly died. The two failures, in her own eyes, made her see the Lazarus Project as an opportunity redeem herself. The Lazarus Project went from reviving Shepard, to enhancing Shepard. Miranda smiled inwardly at the smashing success that was the Lazarus Project, and how far she'd pushed the envelope while remaining within the constraints of the program set down by the Illusive Man.

"If the Deep Space Relay can't be activated then why are they still here?" Stanley asked. Though he still had bags underneath his eyes, dark as bruises by this point, his eyes shone with the excitement of discovery. "Keeping the Citadel under control like this has got to take a lot of resources and man power. If their main objective really was to activate the relay, then when they found out that it was inoperable, why did they stay here and continue controlling the Citadel? Unless… do you think they're buying time to hack the Citadel?"

"It's one possibility, among others, to be sure," Miranda said. She crossed her arms and studied the Citadel Map on the main display. There were now fields of energy surrounding the five Wards and the Presidium. Every now and then, a pulse ran across the fields from the Citadel Tower, as if it were alive. That was, of course, ridiculous. This was a simulation of the data mined from the dead clone. Wondering what it could mean would wait for later. "In any case, they have to be stopped. We don't need to worry about the Council Chambers. Shepard and Naruto went up there, so whatever problem has rooted itself on the tower has, in all likelihood, been dealt with already."

Naruto ducked under a punch by the last of the clones near him. The elbow he drove into the clone's gut destroyed it. He grunted when the memories of his last clone being destroyed by a particularly strong Raiton attack filtered back into his mind. The clone's last few seconds of memories were of a mini-Chidori shoved through his chest. The vivid image of a fist covered with the white hot arcs of electricity and the visceral sensation of it, washed over him for a moment. Had Naruto been fighting anyone with an ounce of ninja training, he would have eaten a knuckle sandwich at that point.

Fortunately for him, this living clone of his sexy jutsu didn't seem to have much training in any jutsu, aside from this shadow clone knockoff and the weird taijutsu she was fighting with. It was only a minor factor playing in his favor, but he'd take what he could get. It wasn't like these shadow clones were hard to fight, or defeat, but their eccentric fighting styles were getting the better of him every now and then, and on top of that, the original was going around, invisible, and taking out his clones from out of nowhere. He guessed if she were to focus on assassinations, she'd be downright unstoppable, but she wasn't nearly as effective in a straight up fight.

"Naruto." Naruto blinked as Shepard reappeared next to him in as her personal cloaking field fell. "They're pulling back. I have a feeling that Ninety-nine is about to create a new batch of clones. I'm nearly out of ammo and my cloak needs to recharge. We should retreat and escape to the elevator. Make a few clones to hold them off while we run."

"I don't think that will work," Naruto said. At that exact moment, he flung a kunai behind him at the clone that jumped out of the fountain with a scream. Shepard didn't even spare the chakra cloud a glance as she continued to give Naruto 'The Look', which plainly asked, 'Why are you questioning my orders?'

She and Naruto stood on the lowest level, just in front of the water fountain. E-99 could be heard talking on the higher levels as several pops proceeded the creation of dozens of new clones. It quickly became apparent that they weren't going to be able win, let alone survive.

"I never run from a fight I can win," Naruto said, "but… this is going to take Sage Mode." He made the clone seal and several clones appeared around him.

Shepard's face twitched in annoyance, but she nodded at Naruto when he looked at her. She'd follow his lead this time. "This had better work," Shepard muttered.

"I'm going to need a few minutes to gather the right amount of Natural energy and balance it out," Naruto said as he sat down on the floor, crossed his legs, and assumed the lotus position. As he closed his eyes and reached out for the ridiculous amounts of natural energy floating around him, he added, "don't let anything move me or being caught will be the last of your worries."

E-99 chose that moment to lead the charge down the stairs. Shepard steeled herself and forged straight into the fray. If Naruto needed a few minutes then he'd have them. His clones joined her as they fought hand to hand against the clones. E-99 mysteriously vanished once more.

"The next best place to start a counter attack would be…" Miranda paused to study the map. "C-Sec headquarters. If we can break the genjutsu over C-Sec, we'd free up the manpower that will be needed to counter the enemies across the Wards and the Presidium."

"What about communications?" Stanley asked. "The block on outgoing com traffic, well, any com traffic, is still up. Only written and vid messages sent over the public channels works, and those are obviously compromised."

Miranda turned and tilted her head slightly as she pondered an idea while simultaneously studying the bloody remains of the Naruto clone. She moved next to the clone and began a scan of the body, sweeping her Omni-tool across his body several times. A small smile crept onto her face as she studied her findings.

"Maybe," she said, "a new communication channel can be opened. While I follow this idea, please work on a program for detecting Chakra emitted by those modules. It would be advantageous to be able to avoid any future run-ins with the ninja clones."

Stanley nodded and started working on the main console.

Garrus dropped from the ceiling vent and landed near silently. It would have been completely silently, but he really was still in recovery from the attack on Omega. The slight tap of his landing, however, did not attract the attention of the guard stationed outside of the C-Sec Com Array room. The guard might have looked like an unsuspecting, if hard faced, fierce glaring Turian C-Sec agent to anyone who wasn't a Turian. But to Garrus, it was clearly an Uzumaki clone with a funny looking transparent projection of a Turian around him.

Garrus reached down to his boot and unsheathed a fifteen centimeter serrated blade, made to look exactly like the ceremonial one given to newly minted officers of the Hierarchy. He'd gotten cheap off of a thug on Omega. He thrust this blade into the back of the clone's neck and gave a short slash and a twist, ensuring that the spinal cord was severed and shredded. When the body fell to the ground in a slump, Jacob dropped from the vent, slightly bruised and out of breath.

"I don't know how you do all that climbing," Jacob said. "How the hell did you get through those small spaces so fast? I nearly got stuck four times and you were just gone!" Jacob then looked down from the knife cleaning Garrus to the dead Naruto on the floor. "What the hell! Naruto?"

"No, a clone," Garrus said as he put the knife back in his boot. Then he pulled the sniper rifle off his back, faced the entrance to the com tower control, and grinned a mandible twitching, fang revealing grin. It was decidedly more disturbing considering all of a Turian's teeth were, as humans called them, 'fangs'. "Just like old times."

Jacob pulled the grenade launcher from his back and took up position on the far side of the door while Garrus leaned up against the other side of the door and began to hack the red interface. "I guess it is like old times for you," Jacob said. "And these clones look just like Naruto. Maybe it's too much like old times."

"Before when I took out clones, they always exploded," Garrus said as he hacked the door. "After something attempts to hack you to death with a screwdriver, you kind of want the satisfaction of a gruesome bloody death in revenge. It was the most annoying thing in the galaxy to just watch them pop and leave nothing behind." The door's holographic interface turned from red to green and emitted a soft ding. Garrus glanced at the dead body of a Naruto clone on the floor and his mandible twitched. "Now that there I finally got a bloody gruesome death, I'm not sure which is better. Having a body left behind or not."

"I'm sure you can figure out how you feel after we clear the room and take the coms back," Jacob said. Garrus nodded at him and hit the switch.

The sight that greeted them when the door opened was not what they were expecting. At least, not Garrus. He blinked and realized he had spent too much time on Omega. Instead of bodies, whole and otherwise, strewn about the room, blood spray across the walls, and bullet holes strewn across the place, there was only a couple dozen C-Sec officers, of all species, slumped over their desks unconscious in the large, spacious room. For half a second, Garrus was almost sad that there wasn't some bloody horrible scene straight out of his nightmares to greet him. He pushed that thought from his mind and focused on the three people at the back of the room who now had turned to face he and Jacob.

They all wore C-Sec uniforms and they were all Turians. Garrus saw Jacob nod his head at the agents and Garrus nodded. He could, in fact, see through the 'Turians' just like the guard at the door. But only the three at the back of the room, not the sleeping agents slumped across their workstations.

"Who are you?" asked one of the agents who appeared to have the highest rank. He pulled out a hand gun and pointed it at Garrus, having not seen Jacob hiding in a crouch just outside the door. "I asked you a question, fool."

"Jacob, if you would aim for the back wall," Garrus said.

The three 'Turians' barely had any time to move before the M-100 made a loud FWUMP. The grenade sailed across the room, bounced off the wall behind the three 'Turians', and promptly exploded just as they were turning around to look. The explosion launched the 'Turians' across the room and left a decent sized crater in the floor.

Garrus quickly raised his sniper rifle and took three shots. Each bullet found their home inside the skulls of the three 'Turians' even as they flew across the room. The three blond corpses landed about the room, half burned from the explosion and all dead.

"Scoped and dropped," Garrus said with a grin. "Let's fix whatever these bastards broke and save the day."

"Again," Jacob said as he moved up to one of the consoles not being slept on by a real C-Sec agent. While Jacob worked his way through the system, Garrus moved to the dead Naruto clones and shot them each in the head one more time. Better safe than sorry, especially with clones of the freak healer.

"Got it," Jacob announced. "Seems they made their move on C-Sec a week or so ago. Most of the people here have been asleep as long. Good thing we arrived when we did. There." Jacob raised his hand to his ear. "Normandy, this is Jacob. Do you read me?"

"Loud and clear, Jacob," Joker said. The relief was evident in his voice. "You do not know how great it is to hear your voice. Please tell me you've killed all the ninja attacking us and are calling to tell me its okay to open the doors again. Cause I really have to go to the little boy's room." There was a short pause and then Joker added, "Badly."

"Don't get your panties in a twist, Joker," Garrus said. Jacob gave Garrus a sideways glance that caused the Turian to wonder if he'd gotten the Human saying right. After a moment's thought, he concluded that Humans and their sayings would most likely forever be beyond his understanding. He'd be better off sticking to shooting stuff. "Communications are restored. How's that AI doing with the computer?"

"Computer control has been restored and all hacking attempts have been repulsed, Mr. Vakarian," EDI said. "This AI has also commandeered control of the Citadel Computer. It is the reason more Naruto clones did not swamped your location fifteen seconds after you dropped from the air vent, Mr. Vakarian."

"Uh…" Garrus coughed. Probably not a good idea to piss off the AI installed in your ride.

"Aww, Garrus, you made the Ship Cancer angry," Joker said, though it sounded more like a 'take that' than a simple statement.

"Sorry, EDI," Garrus said. "Thank you for watching my back."

"Any time, Mr. Vakarian," EDI said, though it was clear her synthesized voice held a touch of victorious gloating.

"I'm going to try and contact Shepard," Jacob said. "EDI, could you handle coordinating with Miranda. First find out if she's safe, but we need to work together to take out however many of these clones are on the Citadel."

"Considering how large the Citadel is, it's gotta be a lot," Garrus said. His right hand twitched as it yearned for the feel of his rifle.

"I have opened communications with Operative Lawson. My estimates put the Naruto Clone population on the entire Citadel at approximately fifteen hundred," EDI said. "Finding and defeating them all would be virtually impossible before they can escape or hide themselves."

"That's about the same as our estimates as well," Miranda added as she joined the conversation. "The local Cerberus cell has discovered a way to track the chakra emitters held by the Naruto Clones. Sadly, the cell had all been discovered except for Operative Stanley Otubak. Their lives weren't lost in vain, fortunately. I'm sending each of your Omni-tools the data needed to track the emitters. You'll be able to use this to track down any clone with one or avoid one that is coming near. The coding was done in a few minutes, so excuse the basic design of the program. I'm also working on decoding their unique communication method that seems to only link to other clone suit computers."

Jacob's omni-tool beeped, but he ignored it and continued trying to contact Shepard. Seconds later, Garrus' omni-tool beeped. Garrus ran the detector program and pointed his omni-tool toward the three dead Naruto Clones. When the omni-tool was pointed toward the clones the holographic interface turned red, but when he pointed it away, it went back to orange.

"Damn!" Jacob pounded his fist on the desk and stood. "There's something blocking communication with the Citadel Tower. Nothing is going in or out."

"Due to updated security measures, all remote operated video feeds from the Citadel Tower were removed after Sovereign's attack," EDI said. "There is no way for me to know the status of Commander Shepard. Someone must ascend the tower."

"That won't be necessary."

Garrus had his sniper rifle up and pointed at the door before the speaker had even finished. Jacob took a few moments longer to get the grenade launcher read, but he too had his weapon pointed at the newcomer. Garrus' mandibles moved back and forth in obvious surprise as he lowered the rifle.

"Councilor Valern?"

Shepard and Naruto's clone reinforcements formed a half-circle around the meditating Ninja. Not two seconds after he'd begun meditating, Naruto already had a swirling mass of green energy radiating away from him. A drop of sweat dripped down the side of his face as the distinct red shadowing of his eyes appeared.

Shepard and the clones, however, were too busy punching clones to notice. Shepard found it surprisingly easy to get into a rhythm of fighting with Naruto. It reminded her a little of N7 training when the conditions were to defend a package with hand to hand combat(their weapons had been 'broken' for the exercise). She and several other N7 candidates had to do something very much similar to what she and the clones were doing now, only they'd had to learn how to fight around each other before they could effectively and pass the test. Part of the lesson, of course, was to learn how to fight around others without losing battle effectiveness, even if you had never fought with them before.

Naruto, it seemed, didn't have that problem. His clones just adapted to her defensive style of SA Marine hand to hand, as if they'd been fighting next to each other for decades, instead of minutes. Shepard would later think on this and realize that since Naruto had essentially grown up fighting hand to hand with many different people, it wasn't surprising that he could adapt so quickly. Not surprising, but rather depressing. Those thoughts would come later, after she was done fighting for her life.

One of E-99's clones got through Shepard's defense and landed a blow on her gut. Before any of Naruto's clones could help her or any of E-99's clones could dog pile her, Naruto open his eyes. In the fraction of a second that it took for Shepard to fall backwards, Naruto dashed forward and grabbed her around the waist. With a casual crouch, Naruto jumped straight up.

Shepard's eyes widened as she continued to rise long after she thought that the jump would have stopped. Then vertigo set in as Naruto, still holding her around the waist, flipped in mid air. Then he slammed into the six story high ceiling. He didn't land. He didn't touch down. He didn't even barely make it. No, he slammed into the ceiling so hard his boots created a small dent in the metal.

"H-holy shit!" Shepard shouted as she dangled. It wasn't like she couldn't handle… well, scratch that. She'd never done anything like this before and it was pretty far outside of her imagined experience. Not even scaling the Citadel Tower was comparable, as even that seemed like walking across a battle field. "Warn me next time you decide to jump onto the ceiling!"

"Sorry," Naruto said. He held his free hand out to the side and a whirling green mass appeared and quickly expanded into a spinning, four bladed, Rasenshuriken. As he swung his hand down toward the mass of clones below, and then held his hand out and created another, he said, "I really wish Kurama wasn't out like a light. If I could have gone into Nine-tails mode, this would have been over in seconds." Naruto sighed and hung his head, at least, as best as he could while hanging from the dented ceiling.

Below, Naruto clones distracted the E-99 clones by jumping about and evading any hits that the much slower clones tried to make. That went on until Naruto dropped the two Rasenshuriken on the crowd. The whirling balls of wind chakra natured ultimate form copy of a Tailed Beast Ball attack exploded in their screaming wind fury.

When the banshee cries of the wind died down, the air cleared of dust to reveal that the entire floor had been leveled, scoured, clean. Gone was the water fountain, the small parks, the benches, the trees, the stairs, the second floor, the second set of stairs, the little bridge in front of the Council's balcony, the Council's balcony, the small park overlooked by the Council's balcony and underneath the bridge, and pretty much everything else. Even the elevator entrance was mauled beyond recognition, though the elevator itself somehow had survived the reckoning of wind and was merely missing everything above five inches from the flooring. The scouring was so thorough that the floor had been eaten through until only a thin layer of metal remained. Space could be seen on the other side in several places and one of the arms of the Citadel beyond that.

"Uh…" Naruto chuckled. "Oops. Uh… could we… maybe… not tell anyone about this?"

Shepard snorted. "I'm actually more surprised this didn't happen sooner than it did. Whenever we'd fought before, you or your clones, things like this happened a lot earlier. The longer the fight against you took, the more collateral damage there was."

"Heh… hehe…" Naruto scratched the back of his head and tried to act contrite. Slowly, the red shadowing around his eyes began to fade. "I could have gone all out with a bunch of shadow clones, actually. I was just trying to hold back the damage so that when we found the real Council, I could say I didn't mess their place up when we found them."

Shepard snorted. Hanging upside down as they were, she chose to cross her arms and glanced 'up' at the damage wrought. "Somehow, I think holding back made the universal law that says you have to cause more damage as time goes on spring like a rubber band."

"I didn't mean for that to happen," Naruto said, an undercurrent of desperation in his voice. "I thought this place was supposed to be built out of some indestructible metal or something. That's what the computer said. How was I supposed to know that a couple of S-rank attacks would be the only things they couldn't stand up to?"

"You weren't."

"Huh?" Naruto looked to his left and blinked. Only now did he realize that he'd dropped out of Sage Mode and was no longer capable of feeling the person that had, apparently, snuck up on them under a cloaking field. The opening that provided was gladly taken when a huge Overload tech blasted Naruto, and consequently Shepard, from behind.

E-99 emerged from her cloak just as Naruto's paralyzed body released its hold on the ceiling. Shepard, just as paralyzed, was released from Naruto's grip. E-99 looked 'up' and jumped straight at Shepard. As she shot past Naruto on the way back to the floor, she grabbed Shepard, and flashed a disturbingly sweet smile at Naruto.

"Thanks for the fun, Uzumaki," she said as she sailed past him. "It was fun watching you play out according to the script we wrote. Who knew you were actually this predictable?"

At that moment, another Overload tech was launched, this time directly E-99. She, of course, didn't see it because it was launched from the wall facing her back. The shock short circuited her cloak and now she too was paralyzed.

Another person, cloaked, swooped in, said a quick "Hithnxbai!" and then was away, Shepard being taken with whoever it was. Then the shots rang out. E-99, sadly, couldn't dodge in mid air. Fortunately, she didn't feel the first three, as her kinetic barrier took the blows. The next forty-seven shots she felt. All over her body bullets entered her and destroyed any hope of regenerating or surviving after she impacted with the floor, without Medi-gel anyway.

E-99 smiled as she realized that she could easily escape by donning her helmet and running out one of the holes in the floor. The suit, though punctured by fifty snipe rounds, was self sealing and could withstand the rigors of space walking. She could heal herself outside and escape back to the master. Unfortunately, E-99 failed to recall until her bleeding body flipped over just before smashing into a scoured part of the metal floor that Uzumaki Naruto, the most unpredictable ninja in the universe, was right behind her. And he was both angry, recovered from the paralysis, and holding a swirling blue ball of death in his right hand.

"Rasengan!" he shouted as he slammed the sphere of swirling Chakra into E-99's chest. The swirling mass of deadly blue chakra quickly ate into and ground through E-99's chest and continued down and out into space on the other side of the, now, very thing flooring.

E-99 swore in her head as she realize she really was dead meat now. She couldn't regenerate from that, even with Medi-gel. No she was screwed. As the darkness swallowed her, she took consolation in the fact that the impact of her and Naruto's body on the fragile floor caused the thing to crack and explode into space.

E-99's failure was complete, however, when Naruto simply jumped away from the falling metal flooring back through the hole it had left, and landed back in what was left of the Council Chambers. He looked left, then right, and seeing no further cracks in the floor, let the breath he was holding out. "That was too close."

He suddenly found several sniper rifles pointed at him as a couple dozen Salarians de-cloaked. Naruto slumped his shoulders, defeated, and weakly raised his hands. "Uzumaki Naruto," one of the Salarians said, "You are under arrest."

Note from the Author

And that ends this installment. Who knew that those Salarians were so crafty and stuff... I mean, you'd think they would have thought up a ridiculous plan of planting a jury rigged ship reactor core to explode in Saren's cloning facility or something crazy like that. Oh wait...

I apologize for taking so long to post this chapter. Writing the fight scenes was fun, until I thought of something that would make it more awesome and then had to rewrite the whole scene as a result. This happened not once, or twice, but four times. Happily, they're semi-satisfactorily complete now. Thank you for your patience.

I read somewhere, I think it might have been on TVtropes, where someone described Garrus as the Turian Batman... needless to say, I'm now going to angle toward that awesome emulation. Does that make Jacob the Boy Wonder? ... will he have to wear tights?

I would like to talk about one subject that most authors on FFN have to deal with one way or another. Reviews. Specifically, the review count. Now, I don't think that asking for, begging for, or cajoling for reviews from your readers is bad, asking for criticism is a pretty mature thing for any writer to do, but doing so leaves a little bit of a sour after taste for me. I like to think that if people want to review my works, they do so, and hopefully they impart their joy of reading the story and their desire to see the work improved by suggesting things that they saw that could be better. But let's face facts. As much as I like getting reviews, reading the wonderful comments of readers, the greater benefit of having lots and lots of people review is driving up the review count, which as much as I am loath to admit, even I use to determine if I would read a story. The review count is a measure of how "popular" a story is, and since apparently everyone still lives in Highschool, popularity is Important Business. So, the basic equation goes, the higher a review count = more readers = more popular story. Has almost next to nothing to do with the writer, though good writing certainly helps, and almost everything to do with the readers. Yes, the readers determine how popular a story is, and thus, can and do influence how many people actually read any story.

So, readers of my little crossover story here, let's me put some maths before you. As of the posting of this chapter, 4651 unique visitors have viewed my story. That's not hits, but unique visitors. Maybe some people repeatedly visited, so let's just divide that number by 4. That's 1162 people that have visited this story and read all its chapters. 87 of all 4651 visitors have faved the story as of this chapter. If one-forth of the people who'd viewed this story had reviewed, this story would have shot to the top of the most popular mass effect/naruto crossover list. If the 87 people who have faved the story so far had reviewed every chapter, then the story would have had 869 reviews. Now, I may be tossing around a bunch of numbers and be sounding like a bufoon here, but I am not asking for you to review just to make my story more popular. I am simply pointing out that it is not I, the writer, who has power over how popular this story becomes, but you, the readers. So, if you would like to see this story more popular, then by all means, do what you feel necessary to make that happen. Ok, maths lessons over.

Ironically, I'm okay with whatever the good readers decide that they want. The reviewers that have reviewed so far are just awesome. Their questions, advice, and theories on everything so far make writing this awesome. Thank you to all that have reviewed so far. Speaking of reviews...

Review Corner

LeadStrategist, I hope this chapter answered your questions about the nature of these Naruto lookalikes. If not, then keep watching, because all will be revealed in time.

MEleeSmasher, I'm sorry to say, but this will not be a weekly release, if that wasn't obvious by now. The initial release rate of chapters was mostly from my new story rush of writerly enthusiasm. Now that that grace period has passed, I must rely on perseverance and dedication to the ideas that keep popping up in my head. Truthfully, this chapter would have been done sooner if I hadn't continually gone back and forced myself to re-write the fights. I kept coming up with new ideas to add that would make the fight better after I'd already written the scene. Having said that, I don't think I'll be writing these chapters as fast as before, though I don't think anyone will complain if I post sooner than later. And Javik, yes, is utterly awesome. Much better name than Prothy the Prothean... hehe. At this point in the story, I don't think I can fit him into this story, maybe the sequel. At the same time, I think it would be awesome to see his reaction to the Collectors, his people, or husks of them at any rate. He's probably rain his righteous vengeance down upon them like it was no one's business, all the while cursing the Reapers, but we'll have to see if I can figure out a way to dig him out of the moth balls for that possible scene to take place.

AnInappropriateName, I do like to keep characters as loyal to their canon selves as possible, at least, I try to keep them that way at the beginning. They should, as a natural course of events, change and grow as any story goes on. Being empowered by an author to always win any confrontation basically just turns any hero from any story into the author's avatar (with noted exceptions in AU stories, for their AU-ness). And yes, Multiplayer is rather decent, especially with the free update.

Anakin Mario Son43, not exactly who you had thought up, but close!

Murderous Lord, I believe I answered your questions, hopefully in a believable way.

Speedy Spazz, thank you for clearing that up. I do agree that preconceptions about stories on Fanfics tend to steer people to or away from stories, based on several factors. I already mentioned what I think of the effect the review count has, but you are right in saying that summaries are a factor too. I guess it's kind of sad that, in general, more people don't give something new and different a chance. Well, whenever they do take a look at this story, I hope to surprise them with some awesome story telling.

Quathis, you were nearly right there on the mark. You don't have spies hiding in my brain, do you?

Tinchek, yes, indeed, Turians are resistant to Chakra. Chakra is, after all, a form of energy. Turians evolved on a world with a weak albedo (how much light is reflected off of the surface of a planet) and that means that they get blasted with higher levels of radiation on the surface of their planet than what we have here on Earth. That's silver plating on their head is what protects them from sunlight on Palaven, and I figure it those evolutionary advantages would give them an edge against any energy based attacks (weak ones, as lazer beams kills people! Reapers say so.) So low level genjutsu would, in all likely hood, no effect a Turian. At least, not right away. It'd probably take weeks to effect a Turian with a genjutsu like what was used on the Citadel... oh, was that giving away too much information. Sorry. I'll stop giving plot info away, hehe. As far as Krogan go... well, I don't think they have any real resistance to chakra, more like it would take twice as much chakra to genjutsu a Krogan because they have two nervous systems. But it probably wouldn't be as difficult as getting a one over on a Turian with illusions.

To the rest of you dear readers who have reviewed, faved, and alerted, thank you very very much. And all of the rest of you are just as awesome. Thanks for reading chapter Nine of Mass Effect 2: Naruto's Mission. Hope you liked it.