Arc 1 - A New World - Chapter 2: A New Dimension
Naruto stalked along the game trail, wishing he had a kunai. Through the gaps in the trees, he could see a deer foraging in the snow. Fortunately, D-rank missions, especially ones involving Tora the cat, had given him plenty of experience rounding up animals. He made two clones, making sure they stuck to trees before their feet could crunch the snow. The slight pop alerted the animal and it stopped foraging for a moment as Naruto and his clones waited until the deer relaxed. Naruto climbed a tree with all the stealth he had used to paint the Hokage monument wearing a bright orange track suit. His clones circled around. One went left and the other right. As they moved into range of the deer's nose, the animal perked up and glanced around. Both clones began to run at the deer, making plenty of noise. The deer bolted in the only direction available, right under Naruto.
Naruto dropped, landing astride the deer's back. He hooked his ankles under its forelegs from behind. He brought his elbow up under its chin and locked it in the crook of the other arm which was pinned against the back of the deer's head, grabbing the opposite bicep. Naruto held his choke, blocking both breath and blood from passing through the deer's neck. A minute later, he felt the animal's heartbeat slow, then stop. The deer was dead.
Naruto summoned six clones to carry the deer back to camp.
X-23 was waiting for him at the camp. She had used sparks from her claws to create a fire, and then cut down some pliable branches.
"Ai Gottu Diiru!" Naruto announced happily. Naruto had played the 'what is this' game every time no matter whether he didn't know or had the English word for something. With English being the only language he could communicate in, he was learning very fast.
The two of them used the branches to hang the deer by its feet before X-23 released one claw and decapitated the animal, letting the blood run out of the meat. They would not need any food for several more days.
At the camp, jobs were dished out by necessity. Anything that needed a cutting edge would be done by X-23. Anything that needed a lot of labor would be done by Naruto. It seemed to be a fair arrangement.
Naruto began preparing their shelter for the night. This involved grinding a pair of symmetrical slots in adjacent pairs of trees, He would then find strong branches and grind them down to an appropriate length and slot them in. He would then scoop all the snow out and then cover the ground with a thick bed of pine needles. He would then lay branches all around and on top until it was a solid wall and ceiling. Next, he would gather snow and bury the whole thing, creating a little igloo where they could huddle together for warmth at night. With the proper application of clones, this process only took him about an hour.
X-23 signaled for Naruto to stop, cocking her head to the side. Her senses were much more acute than his.
Then Naruto heard it, a soft crunching of snow as someone tried sneaking up on them. Naruto turned and lashed out with a punch as the largest, hairiest man he had ever seen leapt at them. The man grabbed him by the wrist and swung him into a tree.
X-23 unleashed her claws with a loud 'snikt' and attacked.
"So, you take after Wolverine," the man said, dodging her claws and jamming the claws at the ends of his fingers into her gut. "Thing is, I've beaten Wolverine, over and over again."
X-23 kicked out, surprising their attacker with a claw out of her boot, slashing his thigh.
"So, the little girl has her own tricks?" the man asked sarcastically as his wound closed itself, "But that doesn't matter to me!" He swiped out with his claws, tearing out X-23's throat. "I know that won't kill you, but ti should give me time to finish your friend."
Naruto leaps at their attacker with a rasengan in hand. The man side stepped, then rammed his head into Naruto's nose, shattering the cartilage.
"Who you are? Why you is attack us?" Naruto demanded.
"The name is Sabretooth, and I'm just doing my job, returning a couple stray children to where they belong."
"Wareware wa, ninshishō no basho ni modotte iku koto wa arimasenda, kono yarō! (We're never going to go back to that demented place, you bastard!)" Naruto yelled, forgetting to translate his statement in his rage. "Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"
Whether one or one-hundred, Naruto found he could not land an effective blow on the mutant. He may not have had a metal skeleton, but in this case it was an advantage. The man had enhanced senses and was used to fighting with his current bulk. The clones were quickly dealt with.
By now, X-23 had healed and was back in the fight, a whirling dervish of blades. Sabretooth spotted an opening and darted in, punching X-23 in the throat, crushing her larynx. He then slammed her head into the ground and then stomped on her stomach, forcing the air out of her lungs.
Naruto tackled Sabretooth off of his friend. He was thrown off with a rolling kick as they hit the ground.
Sabretooth came out of his roll and landed on his feet. "You know, they promised me a set of them fancy metal bones if I could bring you in."
Naruto leapt to his feet just in time to see Sabretooth's claws tear gouges of flesh from his face before he was sent flying back by a powerful stomp kick to his chest. Naruto was dazed for a moment, then wiped the blood from his eye. Naruto regained his feet and senses just in time to see X-23 slammed into a tree, impaling a broken tree branch through her eye.
Naruto growled. The air became heavy with killing intent. Sabretooth turned from X-23 to look into Naruto's red slitted eyes. "Is no you only with claws!" Naruto growled as a tail of chakra burst out behind him. He dashed forward, much faster than before, and slashed with a claw of chakra, raking Sabretooth from shoulder to hip. Sabretooth blocked the followup strike with his forearms, leaving them a bloody mess.
"Looks like you have some more tricks up your sleeve," Sabretooth grunted as he took a few steps back.
A sickening squelch signaled X-23 removing herself from the tree where she had hung by her eye socket. Her eye remained where it was so X-23 severed the connecting tissue so it could start growing back. She looked a little bit shaky, but she wasn't the only one.
Sabretooth had stopped looking at Naruto with contempt and now looked at him with terror as he realized that whatever the kid had done, it wasn't healing. In fact, the wounds were getting worse, like they were being eaten away by a slow acid. As Naruto formed a glowing red rasengan, Sabretooth decided it was time to retreat.
Dr. Strange noticed an odd humming sound just as he was about to sit down and enjoy a good book. With the many magical devices in his home, it took several minutes to find the one alerting him. It was a sheet of paper and a crystal, part of a locating spell. It took a moment before he remembered the dimensional incursion and the demonic presence he had sensed some years ago.
Dr. Strange activated the tracer and received the last known coordinates of the demonic energies. The crystal had spun to point about thirty degrees North of West and the distance was measured at about five thousand kilometers.
Dr. Strange consulted a map and found the location was somewhere in the Canadian Rockies. He gathered his belongings and teleported.
Dr. Strange found a scene of carnage when he arrived. There were sprays of blood littering the snow. Strips of flayed flesh only added to the gore. A lone eyeball was impaled on a tree branch. After reviewing the scene of horror, Strange was both surprised and relieved to find that three sets of footprints arrived and three left. Despite the carnage, no one had been killed. Surprisingly, the demon wasn't the one who'd left on their own. Perhaps it was one of the rare few who just wanted to be left in piece and someone else had attacked. That trait, however, was only common in the lower tier of demons. This one was terribly powerful.
Dr. Strange began following the footsteps of the demon and its ally, using the cape of levitation to hover over the snow so it wouldn't hear him coming.
Naruto and X-23 knew they were in luck when they came upon a small town a few hours after the end of their fight with Sabretooth. They had lost a lot of nutrients with so much blood spilled, and not everything could be replenished with meat. The town was not so much a group of houses, but rather cabins. There was a single general store in the center. Naruto jumped X-23 to the roof of the cabin opposite the store. He could see that the selection was limited, but there were some nice fresh-looking apples in a basket. Naruto formed a single clone and had it transform into an apple. When someone entered the store, the clone disappeared in a small puff of smoke, replaced a blink later with a real apple from the basket. The clone could wait until no one was around before dispelling so no one would know what had happened.
Dr. Strange turned himself invisible when he heard the shuffling footsteps ahead. He was surprised to see two teenagers in slashed up military fatigues. He watched them as they approached a town and the boy carried the girl onto a rooftop.
Dr. Strange glided up and watched the boy use some strange, but impressive, magics just to steal an apple. The girl then revealed that her body housed some impressive looking hidden blades. The boy didn't even flinch as she sliced the apple in two almost-even pieces. The boy gave the girl the larger of the two.
Dr. Strange was surprised. From this distance, it was easy for him to sense hints of demonic power in the boy, yet he acted like a gentleman. Perhaps it was one of the cases where a demon became infatuated with an attractive woman. Either way, despite their abilities, they were not acting overly aggressive, so Dr. Strange decided to reveal himself.
"You know, it is not polite to steal," Dr. Strange said, keeping enough distance that he would not appear hostile.
The two turned to him, taking defensive stances.
"What you say?" the boy asked. For a moment, Strange thought that this demon might be some sort of powerful halfwit. "Me English no good yet."
"Why shouldn't we take it. We require the nutrients from the fruit. We cannot sustain ourselves with just meat."
Strange thought for a moment. It was odd. The demon had morals and the human relied solely on self-serving logic. He would have expected the opposite. The boy seemed to grasp what they were talking about now.
"We run. No... Ryo... Big fight with Sabretooth. He try take us back. He run, but we hurt and need food. Would give ryo if had." The boy flushed with embarrassment.
"Money," the girl corrected.
Dr. Strange looked at the boy for a moment and decided to trust him for now. He took out his wallet and handed Naruto two dollar bills. "This is money from America, but they should accept it." He handed the money to Naruto.
The boy leapt off the roof, his clothes suddenly transforming into garb similar to what the locals wore, but different enough to show he was from out of town. He walked into the store and grabbed another apple from the basket. He walked up to the cashier, showed the apple, put the two bills on the counter then walked out.
Dr. Strange was preparing to give the boy a lecture on stealing when the apple in his hand disappeared in a poof of smoke. He realized that the boy had carefully purchased the fake that he had replaced the real one with. It allowed him to both pay for the apple and hide the fact that he had done anything wrong in the first place.
Dr. Strange turned to the girl. "You said that it was alright to take the apple because you needed it."
The girl nodded.
"What if someone else was hungry and took the apple from you before you could eat it?" Strange suggested.
"I would fight them and take the apple back," the girl replied immediately.
"And, if the person who took it is stronger than you?"
"Take another," she replied, this answer a little harder.
"What if the one you stole was the last one?" Strange continued.
"I would get Naruto to help me take it back."
"Work together! Many little can win against one big!" Naruto announced. He had learned his lesson in Kakashi's bell test.
"And what if the person you stole from has more friends than you and comes to take their apple back?"
"Play dead and then kill them in their sleep," Laura said after weighing the options.
"Or you could just not steal the apple, instead find a way to earn it. Did you even think to ask if anyone in this town would be willing to feed you, or perhaps pay you to work for them?"
"Sabretooth near. No time for stop," Naruto interrupted.
"Everyone always has excuses, that doesn't make things right." Dr. Strange though for a moment. "What if Sabretooth had captured you and took you to this place you were running from and they gave you a choice. You could help them keep the other and be free or you can refuse and have to fight your own way out at the risk of being captured." Dr. Strange posed an altered form of the prisoner's dilemma.
"Lie," X-29 replied, "Tell them I will help, then work together to escape."
"If you do bad things you bad. If you betray, you more bad," Naruto said, "You strong only when guard people here!" Naruto put a hand over his heart.
"Yes. Everyone needs to work together. If one person hurts others, they may be better off for now, but everyone will turn against that person and they will have less than they started with. Cooperation may only get you small gains, but in the long term, you end up with more."
"Is like man named Gato. He do bad things, make more money, kill people who try stop him. town give money for shinobi. Gato try to stop, but we kill Gato and many bad men. Now, town happy and have more money." Naruto liked the philosophy of peace through cooperation. Every once in a while, a bad person might appear, but working together, that person can be dealt with and peace can continue. It was certainly better than the lies and backstabbing that constituted peace among the hidden villages.
Strange nodded. It was a common enough story.
"You know where Hi no Kuni? Place named for fire. Has town of Shinobi. Is my town."
"I am not sure where you came from. But it wasn't from this dimension. Your country does not exist here." Noticing, Naruto's confused look, he drew a circle in the snow, a little mountain, and three stick figures. On the other side of the circle, he drew a small house. He showed an arrow going from the house. To one of the stick figures. "My home. My town. Very far." He spread out his hands to give the impression of a long distance. Then he drew another circle, and a line between the two and a little house. "Your home." He drew an arrow through the barrier. "Go anywhere you want, but it will not take you back to your home.
Naruto frowned. Then, he seemed to have an idea. He bit his thumb and drew some blood, then performed some hand signs before slamming his hand onto the roof and releasing a large amount of energy. "Ninpou: Kuchiyose no Jutsu!" Magical symbols spread from his hand, but after a small puff of smoke, nothing happened.
After Strange thought for a moment, he was fairly certain that it was some form of summoning technique. He drew a third circle above the other two. He drew a stick figure on Naruto's home, then a line going from Naruto's home to the new world, then back towards the stick figure on Naruto's home. He drew another stick figure riding the line back. From the Naruto stick figure, he drew a line that bounced from the third world to the second rather than back to the first. "Your spell brings something from one place to another, but you are not in the right place where the thing will be brought to."
Naruto groaned. "Gamakichi will no like kuchiyose with no me and no Jiraiya." He obviously understood. "How is you knowing I is come from here and no here." Naruto pointed to the second then the first circle.
"I am the Sorcerer Supreme of Earth. It is my job to know when dangers from other planes and other dimensions come here."
Naruto didn't seem to understand. "Is way of make kuchiyose work here?"
"It is possible. If you can change the coordinates of the summoning, you can change the destination."
"So is yes?"
Dr. Strange shrugged, "Maybe yes, maybe no."
Naruto sighed.
Dr. Strange thought for a moment. "It occurs to me that we haven't be properly introduced. My name is Doctor Steven Strange. Most people refer to me as Dr. Strange."
"I is Uzumaki Naruto. You is name me Naruto."
"X-23," the girl said.
Naruto looked sad. "She is no has name. In place we run from, place I was is X-11. Her place was is X-23."
Strange wondered what type of place they had run from. It sounded like it was either a prison or some place performing illegal human experiments. But, they were no longer there and there were more topics to discuss.
"The reason I came here was because I sensed the presence of a demon," Dr. Strange explained. At Naruto's complete lack of understanding, he added, "A monster. A very strong bad thing inside you." Understanding and fear filled the boy's features.
"Is Kyuubi," Naruto said, "More strong than any other bijuu." He drew a large animal of some type, adding nine wavy tails. "Is very big." He put a small dot near the foot. "This big is person. It is attack my town when is my first day. Many, many is dead. Leader of town is make Kyuubi in Naruto stomach. The... spell... is making leader of town dead too. I is can use strength of Kyuubi, but is more hard with more power. If I have power of four tail can no control, kill everything. Kyuubi power is make more angry. More angry make more power."
Dr. Strange considered what he heard. The village leader had used a sacrificial technique to seal the demon into Naruto. Naruto could use the power, but at the risk of losing control of himself.
"I have some experience with using demonic powers. I may be able to help you control your abilities."
Naruto looked at Dr. Strange shrewdly. "What is you want if you is help."
"I will just ask that you use your abilities for good." Dr. Strange answered.
Naruto glanced toward X-23. Noticing his glance, she shrugged, leaving the decision to him.
"If I is go with you, X-23 is go with you," Naruto said.
Dr. Strange nodded. "Take my hands. I will bring us to my home."
The two teenagers each took a hand and the three disappeared.