Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Mega Man Zero.

Dreams about the Past

Sasuke shook his head. "Listen, I want you to become a Hokage like no other. Make sure that sacrifices like Itachi don't need to happen. Otherwise…you'll end up creating a monster like me…"

Naruto grit his teeth. He and Sasuke had their differences. Naruto always considered Sasuke an arrogant ass who could only think about himself. Hell, Sasuke had even tried to kill him on multiple occasions.

But for Naruto, the bonds of friendship were not so easily thrown away. Most people tended to focus only on one aspect of a person. Once Gaara changed, most people forgot that Gaara had been a homicidal maniac even if that hadn't been completely Gaara's fault. Likewise, once Sasuke turned traitor, many people were more than willing to kill him, but Naruto wasn't going to forget the first person in his age group who acknowledged him.

Naruto knew that his concern for Sasuke was incredibly foolish, but he always believed that there was some good in Sasuke. He had to believe.

And Naruto ended up being right. Sasuke ended up fighting to save the world, even if that world was inarguably corrupt.

"You're not a—"

Sasuke went on, ignoring Naruto. "You'll be the one to break this cycle of hatred, Naruto. I…I only wish…I could be there to see it…heh…hey…Naruto…do me a favor…"

Naruto could tell that Sasuke was weakening quickly. Even Sakura's abilities wouldn't keep Sasuke's punctured heart functioning for long.

"Alright…" Naruto said in a resigned voice. "If there's anything I could do for you, Sasuke…name it and I swear upon my name that I'll see it done…"

"Whew…" Naruto remarked as he gently tuckd the young scientist into bed. "I never expected I would have to use a damn genjutsu to get you to rest, Ciel-chan." Naruto turned the lights off and left the room. "It's for your good though, so don't be angry at me when you wake up."

Naruto wasn't the best at genjutsu, in fact, he was downright horrible at casting advanced ones using conventional methods, but at great cost, he had eventually come across a unique way to cast his own. From what he recalled, he still never really used genjutsu for battle though. He preferred causing external damage instead.

Good thing, too, because the Reploids proved to be naturally far more resistant to genjutsu than humans were. It was probably because Reploids didn't have a chakra network to manipulate. Electrical currents could be manipulated by chakra much in the same way chakra flow could be, but electrical currents were far less susceptible to change and manipulation.

In other words, the future would have been a nightmare if he had been a genjutsu specialist.

Fortunately for Naruto, he wasn't a genjutsu special nor was Ciel a Reploid.

Thus it had been a cakewalk to put the young scientist in a genjutsu-induced sleep. Based on her chakra flow, Naruto estimated that she'd be asleep for at least a few days. He was getting better at sensing and reading chakra flow even without directly seeing chakra flow, which was pretty much how he knew whether Ciel was asleep or not at night. Naruto figured his increasing sensitivity to chakra was the Sage Mode training coming back to him.

That thought reminded Naruto that he couldn't really useSage Mode. The planet was nearly dead. While there was plenty of life within the Eden Dome, the Resistance Base was at the far edge of Neo Arcadia, next to a barren desert. Without any sort of life around and the entire planet a barren wasteland, it was incredibly difficult to gather enough nature chakra to sustain Sage Mode. Naruto could enter Sage Mode by drawing nature energy from the ground below him rather than the air and environment around him, but Naruto found out that it took at least an hour to activate Sage mode in that manner.

That was bad news. Without the Kyuubi and without Sage Mode, Naruto was down two ways he could draw out more power when he needed to. And he was unable to use his best techniques properly without either power-up.

Naruto probably could take any kage of his time even without those power-ups, but these combat Reploids were created to fight and had capabilities beyond what humans normally could do.

He sighed.

There was nothing he could do about it at this point besides train and perfect new techniques. And maybe try to enhance his durability with technology somehow.

"What brings you here?"

Naruto blinked. He had already arrived at Cerveau's laboratory without even realizing it.

"I just finished talking to Ciel and—"

"Oh?" Cerveau said brightly. "So you're not tiptoeing around her anymore?"

Naruto rolled his eyes at Cerveau. "I wasn't tiptoeing around her. I just didn't know how to approach her after you told me what you did." Naruto glared. "That's still your fault. None of that would have happened if you had kept your mouth shut."

Cerveau groaned and slapped his forehead. "I give up. This is just ridiculous. I'm not going to talk to you about Ciel anymore. I don't know what made you even more convinced that something between you can't happen, but I'm just going to tell you one last time that you're being stupid."

"Whatever," Naruto muttered, "none of this is any of your business. In any case, I put Ciel-chan to sleep. I think the rest will help her physically and mentally as well. I'm certain she was becoming more emotional in the last few weeks in part because of the lack of rest."

"Put her to sleep?" Cerveau asked in confusion before his eyes widened in realization. "Ah, you mean one of those genjutsu techniques you said you could use."

Naruto nodded. "She'll be out for days. I mentally commanded her to sleep only until her fatigue was gone, but judging from the state of the chakra flow in her body, she'll be asleep for some time. A few days to a week."

"I should hook her up to an IV then. She doesn't need to eat much—her body is far more efficient than a normal human's body—but going a week without food would be unnecessarily putting her in danger," Cerveau mused, finger on his chin. Naruto raised an eyebrow. The Reploid engineer was taking this far too well. Cerveau must have noticed because he chuckled lightly. "She needs the rest. She can argue all she wants about how her work is urgent, but we can more than handle a few days to a week without her."

Naruto nodded again. It was time to move onto business. "Do you have what I'm here for?"

Naruto was in Cerveau's laboratory to pick up his new energy weapons.

Cerveau nodded and led him to a large table. Unlike the green energy weapons Naruto received before these new ones were completely transparent.

"It took much less time than I thought for these prototypes. I managed take your chakra and solidify it like we do for light energy," Cerveau explained as Naruto grasped the handle of a transparent kunai. "I haven't run the full set of tests on it so I don't know if it's actually as sharp as the solid energy blades that I've given you, but they'll definitely be able to channel chakra. Unfortunately, while considerably stronger than metal and just as sharp as energy weapons, these chakra weapons nowhere near as durable as the energy weapons I gave you previously. If you use these without channeling chakra through them against users with energy blades, they'll break after two or three uses."

That wasn't much of a problem. Naruto had no intention of using them without chakra anyway…at least against powerful foes.

Naruto concentrated and channeled wind chakra through the kunai he picked up. Instantly, the blade turned bright white. "Wow!" Naruto exclaimed. "It changed colors!"

Cerveau nodded. "I assumed that the solid chakra would change into the color representing the particular element. Red for fire, yellow for lightning, white for wind, brown for earth, and blue for water…although I haven't the faintest idea what a earth or water based blade would actually do."

"Pure earth chakra has a hardening nature to it so I suppose I can use it if I ever think the blade will break under great pressure. Honestly though, it's probably more useful for something like a shield or armor," Naruto said as he continued to twirl the kunai in his hand. He stopped channeling wind chakra into it and changed to lighting.

"There's a shield over there," Naruto turned to see a large circular transparent solid at the corner of the table, "but armor…" Cerveau murmured thoughtfully as the blade on the kunai that Naruto was holding turned yellow. "That's something I should look into as well. "

Naruto shook his head. Like most ninjas of his day, he didn't really like the idea of armor. Naruto liked it even less than the average shinobi. Many people had wrist guards and some plating over the body. Naruto had absolutely none.

"I suppose you could, but I'll probably won't use it very often. I rely much more on movement, especially agility, rather than solid defense."

Cerveau frowned. "I'll still make one just in case. Unfortunately, as impressive as your offensive power is, your durability is quite low. You won't survive a single solid blow from any of the Guardians. I suppose you can use chakra in a protective manner, but you yourself said that's inefficient. If I make chakra armor for you and you stream earth chakra through it, then you'll be able to increase your durability using less chakra."

"I suppose," Naruto admitted. "But the problem is that I can't stream multiple chakra natures at once. I attack mostly with wind. I would have to switch streaming wind chakra to earth chakra if I want that strategy to work. Otherwise, like you said the solid chakra armor will just last a few hits."

"That still gives you a bit more breathing space, Naruto. I promise I'll make the armor so that it won't restrict your movements or make you feel too much heavier. I doubt you'll be fighting a Guardian anytime soon anyway, so we have plenty of time to work out the kinks." Cerveau paused before asking another question as the kunai in Naruto's hand turned a brilliant blue. And what about water chakra? What does it do?"

Naruto paused to think. "Pure water chakra acts defensively, too, although it's more for absorbing shock and repelling rather than sheer defense. Water is actually more important for me on offense given how a lot of combat Reploids use fire. I probably could throw a water-coated kunai straight through an enemy's fire attack to hit the enemy." Naruto canceled out the chakra and looked at the Reploid engineer. "Is there anything else I need to know about these things? I still don't understand how these solid energy and solid chakra weapons don't require any input of energy."

"Well, frankly, the energy is just there. It's just frozen energy, or in this case, frozen chakra. From there, it's not all that hard to sharpen it to create a blade. The hardest part is the actual solidification. Energy doesn't like being in a solid state form."

Naruto frowned. "Is there a risk of the chakra in my blades dispersing prematurely?"

"I can't give you an exact number or chance because your blades are made of solid chakra. That's something I never worked with. You have to understand that this is still experimental at this point," Cerveau admitted. "And with any weapon, there is always a risk of malfunction. Even energy blades, which essentially use the same technology that I used for your chakra blades, shatter or break if they encounter too much stress. They'll be able to handle parrying hundreds of buster shots and even blocking several mega buster shots, but they'll eventually break. The only bladed weapon that has never shattered is Zero's beam saber and that's only because the weapon continually regenerates itself using Zero's core. I already mentioned that your chakra weapons are much less durable than energy weapons let alone Zero's energy weapon so don't expect them to last too long."

"Hm…" Naruto mused. "But if I find a way to regenerate the chakra on these weapons, I can repair them out on the field, right?"

Cerveau shook his head. "Even after all these years, we still haven't figured out the technology behind Zero's beam saber. It's unknown how the regeneration process actually works. Like I said, the best you can do is to coat the weapons with streaming energy to improve their durability. I assure you that if you do that and come back to me for regular maintenance on your weapons, your weapons should never break in battle."

"Then that should be fine," Naruto said, satisfied. Naruto swung the now red kunai in the air, feeling rather pleased with the red glow that followed his swings. "Well, I can say that at least the channeled chakra is highly refined and a lot less difficult to keep up than even with chakra metal." Naruto smiled. "If these weapons work out, I think there's another project I might want you to work on."

"Naruto-san!" a female Reploid burst into the laboratory.

"Rouge?"

"We…we…" the female Reploid huffed.

Naruto looked at her amusedly. "Calm down. You must have run all throughout the base if you're panting this much. Either that, you must be out of shape…although…I don't have the faintest idea of how living machines can go out of shape."

He chuckled lightly at that thought. This whole Reploid business was still really strange to him. Naruto figured he was just better off thinking them as people with metal parts.

She gave him a light glare. "I'm going to tell the Jaune that I caught you coming out of Ciel-san's room." She looked inside and saw the sleeping girl. "And that Ciel-san was too tired after your visit that she collapsed."

Naruto paled as Cerveau chortled. "You forgot to close the door, Naruto?"

Naruto shivered. If gossip-loving Jaune found out, the entire base would know by the end of the hour. "It's not what you think!" He snapped at the Reploid engineer before turning to Rouge. "You're getting pretty cheeky now that we're working together. Where did the respectful Reploid girl disappear to?" Naruto lamented.

Rouge looked at him smugly. "She disappeared when she realized that you never take anything seriously, Naruto-san. And it's nice to see you flustered for once." Her face grew somber again. "Jokes aside, we tried some of the ideas you came up to improve our network's defenses and in attacking enemy networks. Jaune and I thought you might want to see what we found so far. We found something about a hidden Neo Arcadian base."

"What?!" Cerveau exclaimed. "You've been probing Neo Arcadian networks?!"

Rouge looked at the engineer in a guilty manner and nodded. "We were initially planning on doing something minor, but once we saw how effective Naruto-san's methods were, we got a bit carried away."

Naruto raised a hand before Cerveau exploded. "Now's not the time, Cerveau. Lead the way, Rouge."

Naruto and Cerveau ran out of the room and followed the female Reploid technician to the computer room.

"I'm telling you…this isn't a good idea!"

Cerveau kept pleading with Naruto to not go on yet another unsanctioned mission. He mentally groaned. It was almost as if Naruto went out of his way to look for trouble.

Jaune and Rouge apparently were able to trace most of the hacking attempts to a previous unknown underwater base. According to what Cerveau had heard, in a simulation, Naruto had used an idea of letting enemy technicians hack into parts of the his own servers and using that time to trace where the attacks were coming from instead of focusing purely on defense. The trick had been in distracting the enemy with relatively useless information that seemed important while launching a counterattack while the enemy's attention was elsewhere. It was an idea that that more traditional technicians like Rouge or Jaune would never have thought of. Especially since the tactic was essentially a risky tit-for-tat system of trading information you had for information the enemy had.

It was all a gamble to see who could gather more important information. But the Resistance didn't really have too much important information aside from their location. So it was rather easy to feed the enemy information such as the specifications and names of all the Resistance members, information Neo Arcadia already had.

Apparently, the two Reploid girls had been so impressed that they used that method to find out where the hacking attempts were coming from…all the while as Naruto was distracting Ciel from working and finding out that Rouge and Jaune were up to no good.

Cerveau would be berating Naruto for such reckless behavior if he himself hadn't been worried that Ciel was overworking herself. It was almost as if he planned these things.

But Naruto's current intentions were beyond reckless.

He was planning on sacking an entire Neo Arcadian base by himself.

"Naruto-san! Listen to Cerveau-san! You can't do something this crazy!" Jaune pleaded.

Rouge grabbed Naruto in an attempt to hold him back. Naruto brushed her off and made his way down the hall towards the Trans Server room. "This is simply suicidal, Naruto-san. You can't possibly think you have a chance of success."

"You're all correct," the boy agreed as he packed several of the solid chakra weapons and the chakra shield that Cerveau had handed him. Cerveau was against Naruto going—he was absolutely against it—but he wasn't going to just let Naruto have his way and go without extra protective equipment. "It's not a good idea. It's crazy and next to suicidal. And the chance of success is rather low."

"Then why are you going?" Cerveau shouted. "You could die, Naruto! This is different from attacking the Reploid Disposal Center. That was just one building on the outskirts of Neo Arcadia. This is a fortified military base! The four Guardians regularly check on these military bases. There's a chance that you could run into Fairy Leviathan at this one!"

Jaune and Rouge fell silent and shivered. Cerveau didn't blame them. The Guardians of X were immensely powerful warriors who could take on multiple elite combat Reploids at once and come out without a scratch. They were essentially specialized versions of X himself.

Naruto's combat ability was definitely impressive, but the Guardians of X were reputedly invincible.

Cerveau flinched when Naruto fixed all three of them with a hard glare. "Look, you know as well as I do why I'm doing this. There are seven of your comrades imprisoned in this underwater base and you're the ones telling me not to go?"

There was one other tidbit that they found out about the base. It wasn't only a base to conduct cyber-attacks; there were apparently prisoners held there as well…prisoners that had been listed as missing in action for at least several months.

It was rare for a member of the Resistance to go missing. Pantheons were not known to be merciful. They were programmed to kill, not to capture. Anyone missing in action was thought to have been obliterated to the point that there were no remains.

Initially, Naruto had been pursuing other options to try and sabotage the base, but the fact that the base was holding prisoners had been the final straw and Naruto decided to go blow up the base with his own hands.

Cerveau was the first to recover. He fixed Naruto with a heated glare of his own. "That's just your excuse, isn't it?" he accused. "Naruto, you were raving to go the moment you found out that this hidden base was the source of all the hacking attempts on Ciel's computers."

Naruto stopped walking. It became so quiet in the hallway that anyone would be able to hear electronic chip drop. The implications of the way Cerveau had emphasized Ciel's name was lost on no one.

Cerveau could tell that the boy was sweet on Ciel, no matter how much he vehemently denied it. Heck, even the children in the Resistance could see that the two had something special going on. Cerveau didn't care what issues Naruto had in the past with girls. Naruto probably felt hurt and didn't consciously want to admit that he had feelings for another girl. But Cerveau was certain that Naruto liked…no…that Naruto loved Ciel and that little fact was clouding his mind.

Given that the Resistance consisted of mostly Reploids, it made sense that Naruto would feel attached to the only human around. Even if the boy didn't consciously recognize it, after not having any human contact for over a thousand years, his mind and heart were probably starved for any sort of human connection. Moreover, it didn't help that Ciel most likely reciprocated Naruto's feelings; she too had been isolated for most of her life and was subconsciously—or possibly even consciously—clinging to the first real relationship she had with any human.

But that wasn't any reason for Naruto to go on what could potentially be a suicide mission.

That was just stupid.

"I'm not even going to honor that stupid question with an answer," Naruto finally growled out after a minute of tense silence and stomped into the Trans Server room.

"But Naruto-san!" Jaune said in an uncharacteristically serious manner. "Don't you think you're being a bit too hasty and irrational here?"

Cerveau would have snorted if the situation weren't so serious. "A bit too hasty and irrational" was a huge understatement.

Rouge nodded and added her own thoughts. "You'll be fighting against thousands of Pantheons, a B-ranked Reploid or two, and possibly even the A-ranked Fairy Leviathan. No one can just waltz in and do those things alone."

"He won't be alone!"

"That's right! We'll go destroy that base with Naruto-shishou and save our comrades!"

The four of them turned to look at Faucon and Dande who were standing in the doorway to the room.

Cerveau smacked his head. "Great…exactly what we needed…more knuckleheads to make the situation worse."

"How did you two even find out about this?" Naruto asked in an amused tone. Cerveau was sorely tempted to wipe the smile off of Naruto's face. The boy was taking this far too lightly.

"I think everyone in the base heard Rouge freaking out when she was running around looking for you," Faucon deadpanned. "It was just a matter of putting our ear to the door after you and Cerveau-san went into the computer lab."

Naruto merely laughed as Rouge attempted to throttle Faucon. Cerveau just kept groaning. This day was just getting worse. Ciel was going to wake up to find the Resistance another three members down.

"I'm glad for the show of support, but you two aren't coming."

Cerveau looked at Naruto in surprise. Cerveau had thought that Naruto would have accepted without a second thought. Cerveau saw the shocked looks on everyone else's face. Clearly Cerveau wasn't the only one who thought that.

"What?!" Faucon shouted in indignation. "Why?! We've been training for weeks!"

It was clear that Naruto was taken aback by the normally cool Reploid's outburst, but Cerveau was much more shocked by Dande.

"One…one of my friends had gone missing some time ago," Dande said with clenched fists. "Naruto-san, you have to let me go! My friend may be there!"

Naruto pointed at Rouge. "You heard her. You want to fight against this Fat Levitator or whoever she is?" The two of them tried to steel their expressions but merely ending up shrinking back in fear. Cerveau cringed at Naruto's botching of Fairy Leviathan's name. The Reploid engineer was pretty sure that Naruto was doing it on purpose, too. "That's what I thought," Naruto replied.

Cerveau tried one last time to reason with the human boy. "Naruto, what makes you so different?" Seeing Naruto give him a look of incredulity, Cerveau explained further. "We all know you're a powerful fighter. But I think you're forgetting that your body is still human. I already mentioned the issues with durability. And also…have you even thought about how you're going to breathe underwater?"

Naruto shrugged in a detached manner. "A bit. If there isn't too much water, I could probably seal it up in my scrolls. If not, I have several techniques that'll allow me to breath underwater or at least hold my breath underwater long enough to get inside of the base."

"That in-depth plan makes me feel so much more at ease," Cerveau said sarcastically at Naruto's nonchalant explanation.

Naruto sighed. "Fine, I'll be frank with you. There are plenty of valid reasons why I shouldn't go. No matter how much I wanted to go, you could have convinced me to stay if getting rid of the hacking was the only thing to be gained from destroying this base. But, with people stuck there, I absolutely must go. Did you not read the part of the intelligence file that noted that your comrades are being tortured for information? It's already been several months and we're running out of time. The moment even one of them gives in and provides the information that Neo Arcadia wants, all seven will become useless to them and will be killed." Cerveau clenched his fists. He did see that, but what could they really do? They were horribly outgunned against Neo Arcadia. It wasn't like they could storm the base…even if Naruto was planning to do so. "Moreover, the information they most likely seek is the location of the Resistance Base. Every moment we waste is a moment that the enemy has in figuring out where we are, even without the hacking."

Everyone fell silent again at that explanation.

Cerveau himself blinked in surprise. He hadn't thought that far.

"So you're pretty much going to protect us," Faucon concluded slowly.

Naruto nodded. "We're sitting ducks as is. Not even I will be able to hold off an entire Reploid army indefinitely, especially if there are elite combat Reploids in the mix as well. So if Neo Arcadia found out where we were…" There was an uncomfortable pause. "So yes, in a way, maybe taking the opportunity to save lives, both of your imprisoned comrades and of the ones stay here in the base, is an excuse for me to do something that I know is incredibly stupid. But that doesn't make it any less right."

Cerveau and the others had nothing to say to that. And just something about the way that Naruto carried himself made people want to believe in him.

Cerveau simply nodded and stepped aside to let Naruto enter the Trans Server.

"Come back safely, Naruto-san…" Jaune said in a worried tone.

Naruto smiled. "Of course. And seriously…you guys need to have a bit more faith in me. I know that combat Reploids are powerful, but I've beaten some of the Neo Arcadian elites already and haven't even used some of my best moves yet. I'll be fine."

Cerveau didn't know whether to believe the boy but started up the device to transfer Naruto to the warp zone nearest to the underwater base.

"Ciel will have my head for this…" Cerveau tried one last half-hearted attempt at stopping the boy.

Naruto laughed. "You know…it's funny how all of you here are scared of a fifteen-year-old girl, and a shy and sweet one at that."

"She's only shy around you," Cerveau grumbled under his breath, not realizing that Naruto could still hear him, "probably because she's always undressing you with her eyes."

Everyone chuckled as they heard Naruto cough and sputter through the Trans Server. Apparently, it wasn't just solid objects that the Trans Server was able to transport. It seemed that sound carried through as well.

"I heard that, you damn bucket of bolts!"

Naruto suddenly found himself at a warp point in the middle of the desert. From what Ciel had mentioned, the Resistance had set up warp points at various points across the globe over the past few years. This particular warp point in the desert was one such point. The position was rather strategic and would allow the Resistance to send troops out quickly if Neo Arcadia tried to attack them from the desert.

Coincidentally, the underground base was near where the Resistance had set up the warp point.

"Cerveau," he called through the radio present on his portable Trans Server, "I need you to guide me to where the entrance to the hidden base might be."

"It should be half-a-mile. A 172 degrees to the west," came the clipped response.

Naruto quickly reached the location with several consecutive body flickers. Normally, he would have tried to conserve his chakra, but just coating his body with chakra to protect himself against the searing heat was a drain on his reserves.

Naruto maneuvered around a camel-like Reploid and jumped headfirst into a sand pit.

Sand exploded upwards and knocked Naruto back, slamming him into the camel-like Reploid and destroying it instantly.

"Who dares arouse me from my slumber?"

"Naruto," Cerveau said in a panicked voice. "It's probably Anubis Necromancess. He's a B-rank."

Naruto groaned as he looked up at the jackal-like Reploid who was floating in the sky somehow. Naruto figured it was probably a wind-based ability. So fire… Naruto thought as he started gathering chakra.

But still, Naruto had to curse his luck. It wasn't even five minutes into the mission and Naruto was up against a strong enemy. "This sucks…Anubis was supposed to be out gathering energy crystals. In any case, let's maintain radio silence until I kick this Reploid's ass."

"Roger," came the response. "Good luck, Naruto. And if you spend too much energy after this battle, you should turn back after this battle."

Naruto nodded, but didn't respond. He wasn't going to back out now.

"Oh ho!" Anubis cackled as he spread out his arms wide and looked to the sky. "You think you can defeat me? I work for Fefnir, one of the four Guardians of X. I'm the king of destruction and ruler of the desert. I don't know who you are, but I'll crush you like the worthless waste of energy you are! En-garde!"

By the time Anubis was done with his little speech, Naruto had more than enough time to complete his hand seals and gather ten times the amount of chakra he needed for his next technique. "Katon: Hisei Endan (Fireball of the Fire Spirit)!"

The white-hot fireball, overpowered by the extra chakra and enhanced by the incredible heat of the desert, slammed into the jackal Reploid.

The idiot…

Naruto shook his head. He appreciated pre-battle banter every now and then, but this was war and in war, it was fight first, then gloat. And in war, you never gave the time for an enemy to prepare. Anubis may have been B-rank in combat ability, but his attitude was anything but. And for the first time ever, Naruto didn't have to hold back out of fear of destroying the area around him.

But seriously…who the heck just floated in the sky cackling with his head thrown back and eyes closed when the opponent is standing right in front of him charging up an incredibly destructive technique?

"Rawwrrrrr!" Anubis screamed as the flames consumed him. Naruto had gotten lucky; it appeared the Reploid was weak to fire, which in hindsight made very little sense considering that Anubis was supposed to be heat resistant. Naruto shrugged. He wasn't going to complain when a supposedly dumb move ended up being brilliant.

Naruto had pretty crappy luck when it came to staying out of trouble, but godly luck when it came to getting out of them. Naruto supposed it was the same luck that allowed him to fight outdoors against a sluggish opponent who severely underestimated him. The fight had been incredibly easy and simple now that there was no one in the area who could get hurt and nothing he really had to protect. Naruto figured that he could have made his entrance into the base quieter but he was probably found out anyway by now.

Naruto noticed the Reploid standing up and trying to shake the flames off, but Naruto didn't give him a chance. "Fuuton: Reppuu (Wind Release: Gale)!"

Sharp wind blades tore into Anubis and the dozens of strange zombie-like creatures that he had summoned from the sand. The area was instantly wracked with small explosions and Naruto protected himself by coating his body with wind chakra.

Naruto tensed when he felt the ground rumble.

Boom!

Naruto's eyes widened as the ground just collapsed beneath him from all the force outside. He couldn't maneuver in the air quick enough to latch onto the wall and slide down. Instead, Naruto fell about a hundred feet and landed with a light thud.

Luckily, his body was coated in wind and he had landed on soft sand.

"Cerveau? Do you copy?" Naruto asked into the portable Trans Server.

"Zzzz…."

"I'll take that as a no…" Naruto muttered as he stood up only to find himself standing in front of a barrier made completely of electricity. "I guess it's up to me to figure out a solution."

Cerveau and Ciel had mentioned before that the security systems in various Neo Arcadian bases prevented the use of Trans Servers and communication of non-approved radio frequencies.

Naruto cautiously stepped forward while quickly moving his hands through hand seals. "Earth Release: Tenchichuu (Divine Earth Pillars)." Four pillars of earth rose, two on each side of the electric barrier. Naruto slammed his palms on the ground. "Discharge!"

The electricity from the door instantly flowed into the four pillars. Naruto quickly rushed forward to pass the gate before the gate reactivated and leapt towards the only path he saw.

Another gaping hole in the ground.

Blizzack Staggroff was bored. In fact, he was so bored that he was tempted to order half his men to stage an attack on the base just so he could have an excuse to go out and kill something. Only his dedication to X and Neo Arcadia stopped him from doing so.

It had been a full year and half since he received his latest assignment. Technically, he had been promoted and granted the "honor" of being the guardian of a strategic military base, but in reality, it might as well have been banishment to Neo Arcadian purgatory.

There was nothing glamorous in standing guard in front of multiple supercomputers designed to worm their way into the Resistance servers. There was nothing glorious in babysitting the near helpless high profile military prisoners they managed to capture from the Resistance even if there was potential to gain valuable intelligence.

Blizzack Staggroff was an elite warrior, a disciple of the great Fairy Leviathan! He should be out on the front lines fighting, not here wasting away in a base that no enemy was ever going to find.

The ice Reploid shook his head. He didn't understand why none of the elites were ever sent out to clean up the Resistance trash. The "war" would have been over in a month instead of dragging out over six or seven years.

"Blizzack Staggroff-sama!"

The ice Reploid tilted his head to look flatly at a mass production Reploid who didn't even have a name. "Yes?" he said gruffly.

"We noticed that the electric gate to one of the entrances had been forcefully shut off for about two seconds!"

Blizzack Staggroff gave the messenger Reploid an annoyed look. "And why do I care?" he replied tonelessly. "Given the energy crisis, a minor power outage on the outskirts of our base is hardly important." He waved a thick metallic hand. "Go away before I freeze your guts."

"A…ah…yes, Blizzack Staggroff-sama b…but…we actually have a visual of w…what caused the power outage," came the nervous response.

That got his attention.

"What?!" he thundered, more in excitement than anger. He accidentally let out some mist from his body in his glee, making the messenger shriek with fear.

Was there truly a breach? Perhaps the same Resistance warrior who reportedly took down Aztec Falcon? That would kill his boredom!

The ice Reploid patiently waited as the messenger stopped shivering. The messenger brought out a small projector that showed the video recording of the electrical gate.

He frowned. It was a visual of a blond man who slammed his hands to the ground, creating four mud pillars that went up, disabled the electricity for a few seconds, and then disappeared back into the ground.

"Anything else?" he growled out.

"Y…yes," the Reploid responded, sounding even more frightened now.

"Well?" Blizzack Staggroff let out a steam of cold air to let the Reploid know that he was losing patience.

"We tried to contact Anubis Necromancess-sama, but we've gotten nothing, sir," the shivering Reploid said really quickly. "We even sent messengers up to the surface to figure out what was wrong, but we only found signs of explosions and pieces of scrap metal everywhere."

"Ho!" he chortled, as the unnamed Reploid beneath him shrieked in fear. "The enemy was so good that Anubis didn't even have time to send an SOS? Interesting!"

"We're terribly sorry sir! We'll—" The unnamed Reploid blinked. "Sir?"

Blizzack Staggroff would have rolled his eyes if he hadn't been so excited. It was clear that the messenger had been afraid that he would be upset that there was a breach and that a powerful combat Reploid was most likely killed in action.

But the ice Reploid hardly cared about that. A breach was fine as long as the problem was eventually solved and the Anubis bastard was insufferably arrogant and disrespectful. As far as Blizzack Staggroff was concerned, there was no problem just yet.

After staring at the messenger for a few long seconds, Blizzack Staggroff grinned as he dismissed the messenger who went and activated an alarm. He hoped the intruder would get past the thousands of guards throughout the base.

Given that intruder was strong enough to kill Anubis and was somehow managing to fool all the video cameras around the base after the first sighting, it wasn't too much to ask.

Blizzack briefly thought about whether he should alert his master, Fairy Leviathan, before shaking his head. No…things were finally getting interesting.

"Don't report this to Leviathan-sama just yet. I'll be the laughing stock of Neo Arcadia if I can't handle this problem on my own."

His master wouldn't begrudge him letting himself be entertained for a little bit.

Naruto silently leapt down the hole, hopping from wall to wall.

Naruto was never happier about his ability to stick to surfaces with chakra because he would have been skewered by spikes ten times over. The hole wasn't a straight drop but had multiple surfaces covered in spikes to kill any falling intruder.

Finally coming to what appeared to be solid ground inside a very well-lit underground cave, Naruto took a deep breath to calm his mind as he dived behind a large stone.

Naruto noticed from his hiding spot that there were enemies on the ground up ahead. He looked up. No spikes on the ceiling. The Reploids don't particularly look intelligent so they might not notice me if I'm running on the ceiling…especially when I'm under the Touton Jutsu.

Stealth might seem unnecessary for someone who was here to destroy the base, but Naruto wanted to conserve his energy for the B-ranked Blizzack Staggroff who was sure to be guarding the base, given its underwater location. His last fight with Anubis Necromancess had been child's play, but Naruto didn't want to leave anything to chance. There was probably a scale even within each letter-classification and for all Naruto knew, Anubis could have been closer to the bottom of the B-ranks. Moreover, there was the chance of Leviathan showing up.

No…Naruto had to fight smarter, not stronger, in an age where every enemy was overpowered by virtue of being made of metal and having relatively unlimited power. Naruto figured that the even the pathetic Pantheons would probably be considered chuunin if they weren't so unaware and dumb. So essentially, Naruto's enemy had a way to produce chuunin-level fighters in bulk and on demand. He couldn't just bulldoze through them even with his power and strength.

Not without Kyuubi Mode or Sage Mode.

Naruto quickly ran on the ceiling for an hour and avoided all the enemies who were definitely looking for him now. It wasn't really a surprise. He hadn't had the chance to activate Touton Jutsu before he landed and even if he could have, there would have been no way to keep the technique active and slip through the game. He couldn't use any other ninjutsu while under the cover of Touton Jutsu; it was one of the weaknesses of the jutsu.

There were a few bat-like enemies sleeping on the ceiling, but they didn't notice him as he body flickered between the stalactites hanging from the ceiling. Moreover, he didn't even have to keep up the Touton Jutsu as all the cameras were up on the ceiling. It was easy enough to destroy them as he passed by or just ignore them altogether. The base wasn't designed to capture or fend off attackers who could run on the ceiling.

Still, sustaining the chakra to run upside down for an extended period of time was no small feat and Naruto decided to tie himself to a rather large stalactite to rest once he came upon a large underground reservoir.

It was probably for the best, too, as he had to consider ways he was going to enter the actual base itself, which was underwater.

There were multiple routes he could take here. He could seal some of the water in a storage scroll with a relatively low blow to his chakra reserves. But that wouldn't really solve all that much given how deep the base seemed to be. Despite all the light around him and coming from below the surface of the water, the underwater base wasn't visible at all. Naruto figured he could zap the water with his strongest lightning release attacks to cause electrolysis of water, but there was no way Naruto could do that to this amount of water. And that would be draw all the enemies in the area to his location, something he didn't need right now when he was strapped to a stalactite. Naruto figured he could transform himself to a more water-friendly creature, but that would leave him defenseless against Reploids that were sure to be present underwater.

Naruto touched the pack he was wearing and felt the unfamiliar metal cylinder he was carrying. He did have an oxygen tank that Cerveau insisted he take, but it was unlikely to help him much if he got into a battle underwater.

Finally coming his decision, Naruto cut the ninja wire that tied him to the stalactite. Naruto put on the oxygen mask for insurance in case his technique failed later or in case the oxygen inside the barrier he was going to make was used up and slapped his hands together quietly. "Suiton: Suirou (Water Release: Water Tower)…bubble head version…"

Water rose from the reservoir and surrounded only his head, leaving his arms and legs free to help him maneuver in the water.

Naruto had gotten that particular idea from one of the novels he had found in Ciel's personal library. Something about a hairy potter and triangular tournament.

And then, without a second thought, Naruto leapt into the water, making sure to fortify his body with chakra to deal with the water pressure.

Once in the water, Naruto knew that his element of surprise was gone if it hadn't been gone before. Instantly, waves of aquatic fish-like Reploids swarmed to him, firing dozens upon dozens of buster shots at him.

And unfortunately, Naruto's mobility in water was highly restricted. It was even difficult to form hand seals at a decent speed and thrown weapons were even more useless. So he had to rely on his new tools. Channeling protective earth nature chakra into his large solid chakra shield, Naruto braced himself for the first wave of attack and then used a buster to fire at enemies from behind the shield.

For the next few minutes, Naruto shot all his enemies down with brutal efficiency. He never used a gun of any sort of course in his past life, but for a ninja, learning how to use a gun was child's play. It took far more skill to aim with shuriken and kunai.

Crap! Naruto noticed too late that one of fish-like Reploids swam past him and then shot at him from the side. One buster shot wouldn't kill him, but Naruto wasn't willing to test if his innate healing factor would heal him quickly enough to prevent him from bleeding out. And he wasn't quite skilled enough with any other element besides wind to coat his entire body with protective chakra on command and without any sort of medium to channel it through.

Maybe Cerveau was right…some solid chakra armor might be a good idea.

Thinking quickly, Naruto put up his hand and released the buster from his grasp. As the buster exploded from the enemy's shot, taking away his only effective ranged weapon underwater, Naruto rapidly took out a chakra kunai, which instantly became coated in earth chakra, and slashed at the Reploid that had gotten bolder after its attack.

He desperately formed a sloppy one-handed seal as the other fish-like Reploids started attacking him from the side. Suiton: Suirou (Water Release: Water Tower)…full version! Naruto yelled in his mind.

The water barrier covering his head extended to cover his entire body, protecting him from the buster shots. To his dismay, however, he rapidly began to float back up to the surface.

Not good. I'm down my only effective weapon. I don't have enough mobility in the water to dodge. But if I extend my Suirou to cover my entire body, I won't have any way to choose where I move and eventually I'll just end up floating all the way up to the surface because of the low density inside my barrier. I guess I'll just have to forget about conversing energy here.

Naruto retracted his technique to just his head and formed a ram seal to summon several shadow clones, each with its own shield, to surround his body.

As Naruto continued downward holding up his shield and clumsily slashing at enemies that came close, he noticed that the energy bullets fro the busters didn't seem to be affected by the water at all nor did they affect water itself.

Deciding to test out his hypothesis, Naruto changed from channeling earth nature chakra into his shield to water nature chakra. To his surprise, the next buster shots that hit the shield bounced back and destroyed the Reploids that fired those shots.

He quickly signaled the shadow clones to switch to water chakra and watched with some measure of relief as dozens of Reploids exploded almost simultaneously from the bounced buster shots.

A full hour later, after destroying what felt like millions of Reploids, Naruto reached the door to the underwater base. The base hadn't been too deep—perhaps two hundred feet below the surface at the lowest point—but the sheer number of enemies had made it seem further below the surface than it actually was.

He nodded at a shadow clone and pulled back to hide himself behind his shield. Bunshin Daibakuha (Great Clone Explosion)!

Naruto quickly swam in and climbed a ladder up out of the rapidly rising water to see the familiar bolted doors that he had seen at the Reploid Disposal Center. As with then, these doors opened to let him in and then shut behind him to keep the water out.

Naruto winced when he heard the alarm signaling that he had been detected and that the water pressure was building against the door. The security system estimated that the bolted door would last only for about few hours without repairs to the outer door and called for Reploid engineers to start fixing the outer door.

Running down a random hall in the base, Naruto took off his oxygen mask and deactivated the oxygen tank. He hadn't needed it on the way down, as his Suirou technique appeared to have lasted, but it was probably good to have contingency plans.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)!"

Twenty-five clones popped into existence.

"Go," he ordered. "The priority is to find the prisoners and escape, but if you find the supercomputers that are hacking the Resistance computers along the way, feel free to take them out." As his clones disappeared in different directions, he turned around grimly to see several dozen enemies level their busters at him. "And me, well, deal with these enemies and Blizzack Staggroff."

Naruto, or rather…one of his clones assigned to find the prisoners, slashed through a group of Pantheons and jumped down a ladder.

He saw a green prison with a Reploid girl with red hair that came together in a single braid in the back and wearing the characteristic green armor of the Resistance force. It was hard to judge a Reploid's age from simply visual cues, but the Reploid looked like a fifteen-year-old human, roughly the same age as Ciel. Given how Reploids generally were much younger than they looked, however, this Reploid was most likely younger than Ciel.

"No matter what you do, I won't betray my comrades!" the Reploid shouted defiantly before the clone even reached the door.

The clone laughed as he channeled fire chakra into his chakra kunai and melted the lock off the door. "I'm not here to torture you. In fact, I'm here to save you. Ciel-chan sent me," Naruto added as an afterthought, even though it was a lie. If it made the prisoner of war feel more secure, then there was no harm in doing it.

"Save me? Ciel-san?" The Reploid looked at him in disbelief as the clone Naruto worked to slide the heavy door open. "T…that's impossible! No one in the Resistance knows where this base even is."

The clone puffed up his chest. "I'm one of the newer members and I personally found this place by hacking into Neo Arcadia's server."

That wasn't entirely true. Jaune and Rouge were the ones who found the base, but they had only been able to do so with his ideas. So Naruto technically wasn't lying.

The female Reploid looked at him dubiously. "I'm not calling you a liar, but no offense sir, but you look too much like an idiot to know how to operate computers."

The clone twitched in irritation. "You're making it really hard to want to save you…and seriously…why does everyone say that?!" The clone looked down at his mostly black outfit, gray vest, and his red Sage cloak. "How do I look like an idiot?! I don't have the whisker marks anymore and I'm not wearing any orange now!" In the past, those characteristics were the most cited reasons as to why people thought he looked dumb. Naruto was supposed to look like the Fourth Hokage, the heartthrob of the village in his time, so it made logical sense that he was good-looking. But people never seemed to agree. "I look badass!"

"Um…okay?"

The clone sighed when the redhead just blinked at him. "Whatever. What's your name?"

"Paon." The Reploid girl walked out of the cell and looked at him appraisingly, looking especially closely at his red fire-coated blade.

"Paon?" the clone asked. "Ciel-chan named you, didn't she?" The girl nodded. The clone face-palmed before chortling uncontrollably. "She needs to find a better way to name all you Reploids than simply naming you after different birds in that weird French language. For someone who is supposed to be incredibly smart, she has a lack of imagination."

"Don't you insult Ciel-san! She—"

"—named you Peacock," the clone deadpanned, interrupting the indignant outburst. "I thought that the name Dande—or Turkey—was bad enough, but seriously…Peacock?" the clone shook his head. Naruto had given Dande a hard time about his name and repeated made turkey sounds in front of the young Reploid.

Paon's eyes widened. "You know Dande-kun?"

The clone scratched his head. "Dande-kun? Seriously?" The clone gaped at her before calming down. It made sense that this girl knew his student. They appeared the same age. In fact, the clone was fairly certain that Paon was the "friend" who had gone missing, leading Dande to want to take a more active role in the Resistance. "What about that knucklehead? He's one of my students and a future squad member, if he ever survives long enough to ever become useful."

Paon turned her head. "We've been friends for the longest time."

The clone Naruto was tempted to roll his eyes when he saw the light blush on the Reploid's face. He knew this story like the back of his hand and didn't want to hear it when they were in an enemy base. "Well, it's great that you have a crush on my student—although I don't really know how Reploid crushes would work—but we need to get—"

"It's not like that!" The Reploid girl yelled at him.

This time, the clone Naruto did roll his eyes despite his amusement with the entire situation. Not only was the girl infatuated with his young student, but she was also in denial. He flicked his wrist and destroyed the rest of the prison with a small burst of wind chakra in a show of power to cow the girl into obedience.

It worked. The girl squeaked and turned pale…or as pale as a Reploid was allowed to turn.

"Just shut up and follow me," Naruto said in a light and almost careless tone, which scared the Reploid girl even more. "We have six others to find, a bunch of computers to blow up, and a gigantic blue reindeer to kill."

"Uh…right!" the girl said in fright as she tailed him closely.

Despite his words, the clone Naruto ended up being the one who followed the girl. Paon clearly knew her way around the base and even helped him accomplish his objectives once he explained them to her.

"How did you even know this was where the supercomputers were?" the clone Naruto looked at Paon with no small amount of appreciation. The Reploid girl had saved him a great deal of time. Instead of having to explore each and every room, he just had to follow the girl to a single room in the middle of the large base.

"They often took us out when they were interrogating us. They never blindfolded us or did anything like that because they were so confident that the Resistance would never find this place. I took that time to try to memorize the layout of this base in order to figure out the best escape route possible. I have a perfect photographic memory so something like this isn't too difficult," Paon explained proudly. "I never really figured that this room was specifically used for hacking operations, of course, but I noticed that this room was considered off-limits to all but the most important Neo Arcadians here in this base. It was merely an educated guess with the information I had and the information you provided me."

"I see," the clone said in an amused tone. "At least, Dande knows how to pick girls. He needs someone smart like you to keep him ground. The idiot is way too reckless for his own good."

Although Paon seemed to be reckless in her own right. She had staunchly refused to escape at the first opportunity and insisted on helping him on his mission. Apparently, she wasn't even afraid of the idea of being caught and tortured again.

Yes…incredibly reckless…

Not that recklessness was a bad thing. Naruto could certainly relate, as he too was brash and reckless in his childhood. Heck, people would argue that he was reckless even now even if he had much more power to back his attitude.

Still, Naruto wasn't going to lose any opportunity to make fun of Paon, and Dande, by proxy. He put up with way too much crap from the young Reploid.

"A…ah…" Paon stammered out before getting angry. "What is it with you and constantly bringing up Dande-kun? We just met and you're teasing me like we've known each other all our lives."

The clone laughed. "Well, I did say that Dande is my little student. I'm teaching him how to fight."

"Really?"

The clone nodded. "He was on Colbor's little team before I joined, but ended up transferring to my future squad."

"Wow," the girl breathed out. "Things must have changed a lot in the few months I was captive."

"You can talk to your Dande-kun all about it when we get back to the Resistance base."

"You mean…if…" Paon muttered, not even caring at this point that he was making fun of her. "This military base is heavily guarded and I doubt we'll get out unscathed."

The clone Naruto shrugged nonchalantly. "If you want to be a pessimist, go right ahead. I rather look at the bright side of life." The clone looked at the locked doors and winced when he felt his hand get repelled when he moved to open the door. It wasn't quite painful enough to dispel him, but it was an unpleasant feeling. The clone furrowed his brow. "Step back. This is really going to hurt us in the amount of time we have to work with, but…"

"Wait! What are you going to do?!"

The clone ignored her and took a few steps back himself. After flashing his hands through several seals, he held his hand out. "Raiton: Eisou (Lightning Release: Laser Spear)!"

The large beam of lightning punched through the weak barrier and the metal door. The clone instantly tackled the stunned Reploid to the ground to avoid most of the shockwave that flew towards them when the beam and its electrical energy destroyed the computers.

BWEEEP! BWEEEP! BWEEEP! BWEEEP!

More alarms started blaring.

"You're crazy!" Paon shouted hysterically. "Whatever that was could have weakened the structural integrity of the military base. We're a few hundred feet underwater and the water pressure is immense so damage to the structural integrity of even one room could be disastrous! The water will rush in and kill us!"

The clone shook the babbling Reploid girl. Too bad the girl didn't know the structural integrity was already compromised when the clone blew up the entrance. "There's no time to be shocked. The others have already found your comrades. We just need to get out of here. That technique was nowhere near strong enough to structurally destabilize anything, so don't worry." The last bit was a lie, but he didn't want to frighten the girl any more than she already was.

They started running. "But the alarms!" the girl cried. "You probably drew Pantheons to our location!"

The clone grinned mischievously. "Oh you don't have to worry about that. Boss is probably raising as much of a commotion as he can to draw all the Pantheons away from us."

"Boss?" Paon asked inquisitively. "Ciel-san actually sent a large unit? Is Colbor-san here?"

The clone rolled his eyes. "Right…because Colbor is capable of destroying a base," Naruto remarked sarcastically. "No, I'm the only one here."

"But you said something about Boss!"

"Oh, I meant my original body."

"What the hell does that mean?!"

"There's no time to explain right now, you annoying girl," the clone groaned. "I take back what I said about you being smart. You're almost as annoying as Dande. Just shut the hell up and run!"

By the time Naruto reached the center room in the heavily fortified underwater base, he was bleeding in several places. Narrow corridors didn't allow room for too much movement and Naruto had been forced to allow some shots to graze in order to move forward and land more devastating blows to the waves of Pantheons that had rushed to his location.

But he was still in top fighting condition. And his small wounds were already beginning to heal.

In spite of his relatively smooth execution of his battle plan, Naruto threw out any plans on congratulating himself from his head. It was clear that this wasn't an unnoticed invasion. The Pantheons had been ready for him and were already in set formations with ridiculous numbers by the time he arrived.

Still, none of his injuries were severe and considering the circumstances, Naruto couldn't really have expected any better. Successfully infiltrating an underwater base when he himself could barely move underwater was just too much to expect.

At least all his other objectives were going smoothly so far.

One of his clones had taken out the computers hacking the computers at the Resistance Base with a help of a prisoner. The other clones had found the rest of the prisoners and had escaped the base inside of his water barrier jutsu. Being Reploids, the prisoners didn't have a need to breathe and could stay underwater almost indefinitely, especially since they weren't lightning-based Reploids like Aztec Falcon was, but they still didn't have a way to protect themselves against the multitude of hostile Reploids in the water. Luckily, Naruto's nearly impenetrable water barrier technique was able to provide a way up without them having to take any sort of damage.

And from the information he received from a dispelled clone, his clones were rapidly decimating the enemy population above the water near where the entrance was.

So that only left Blizzack Staggroff to take out. And possibly Fairy Leviathan, but Naruto wasn't going to worry about that just now.

One thing at a time.

Naruto had debated trying to ditch the base with the prisoners, but figured that Blizzack Staggroff would only give chase. If that happened, Naruto would not only have to fight the ice Reploid, but would almost be in a situation where he had to protect the freed prisoners.

It was probably best to just end things here before meeting up with the prisoners later on. And completely destroying the base would only make it harder for Neo Arcadia to make repairs and try to pull off the crap they were pulling for a year and half.

"You have done well to make it this far, and even better to have somehow rescued the prisoners and to have destroyed the computers hacking the Resistance Base, but this is where your journey ends. As long as I'm alive, neither you nor the trash we kept here will be able to teleport away from here using a Trans Server. My body is outfitted with gadgets that prevent any portable Trans Servers from working within this base."

So that explained why Naruto couldn't contact Cerveau at the entrance of the base.

"Your point?" Naruto drawled in a seemingly uncaring voice.

Blizzack Staggroff chuckled. "I like your attitude, kid. But know this. After I kill you, I'll simply go after them myself. My name is—"

Naruto didn't care to hear his enemy's monologue and threw a wind-coated chakra shuriken at Blizzack Staggroff, hoping to end the fight as quickly as he did with Anubis Necromancess.

Unfortunately, Blizzack Staggroff seemed to be much more aware and talented for that to work. The Reploid ducked just in time to avoid being decapitated by the incredibly sharp shuriken. The ice on his head, however, did not have such luck.

"I don't give a damn who you are," Naruto snarled as the pieces of ice clinked on the ground. "Just hurry up and die."

Naruto tossed another chakra shuriken, this one coated in fire.

The ice Reploid knocked the fire shuriken off coarse with a sharp piece of ice that immediate was set aflame before melting away quickly.

"Ho! You came quite prepared if you're using fire against me, you puny insect! I was going to introduce myself as the great Blizzack Staggroff, but you got a bit hasty there."

"Like I said," Naruto repeated as he tossed a dozen or so chakra shuriken, each coated with fire. Naruto guided their paths with strings of chakra in an effort to trap the large Reploid. "I don't give a damn who you are. You're going to die."

Ice shards from the Reploid's head and back shot out and knocked all the shuriken down.

Naruto narrowed his eyes. Blizzack Staggroff, despite his large and clumsy appearance was very skilled to have predicted the paths of the projectiles. The ice Reploid was also keeping very close attention to Naruto's hands making sure he wasn't trying to pull a fast one.

Naruto sighed. This was going to take a lot longer than he would have liked.

He wasn't exactly running quite low on chakra, but he was still uneasy about leaving the prisoners with just twenty or so clones. A single powerful Reploid would be able to decimate them all and Naruto wasn't going to rest easy until he himself joined up with them. He needed to be judicious with his chakra in case something happened later.

Moreover, Naruto couldn't use incredibly powerful attacks that would destabilize the base even more unless he was absolutely sure he could land a hit. Naruto didn't care about the base itself, but he wasn't sure if Blizzack Staggroff would die or be incapacitated underwater and Naruto couldn't afford to let this become an underwater battle.

Naruto tensely watched as the ice on the large Reploid's head and back grew back. Blizzack Staggroff chuckled. "I've heard of some of your exploits. I heard that you were the one who took down Aztec Falcon. And you took down Anubis Necromancess, correct?" Naruto didn't answer and merely readied himself by gathering more chakra. "I'm much stronger than those pieces of trash but you should be able to provide me with some entertainment at least! But don't get your hopes up too much. Just so you know, I'm the lead apprentice of the beautiful and magnificent Fairy Leviathan and you don't stand a chance against me! Hoo-ah!"

Naruto took that chance to charge forward as Blizzack Staggroff shot a strange light blue beam at him. Naruto weaved through the blasts of snow no doubt designed to slow him down. Judging by the way that Blizzack Staggroff randomly shot ice shards from his head and back, the Reploid wasn't overly concerned with accuracy right now when he could simply freeze his targets to land a critical hit.

But that wasn't going to work against someone with incredible battle awareness and experience like Naruto.

Naruto took out a kunai and charged it with wind chakra this time. Fire was best against ice, but it cut through ice and metal far too slowly for Naruto's purposes.

Clang!

Naruto's growled in irritation when he saw that only a few fragments of the Reploid's armor fell off along with some deep red fluid—most likely the Reploid equivalent of human blood. His wind-coated kunai had managed to strike a huge blow, but the armor was so thick and strong, especially with the inch-thick ice covering it, that Naruto wasn't able to penetrate deeply enough to slice off the arm completely.

Crap! That wasn't enough damage!

Without even missing a beat, Naruto quickly gathered chakra into his hand and thrust it forward. "Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!"

The force blew Blizzack Staggroff's arm off his body.

"ARRGGGG!" the ice Reploid roared in pain as he clutched his metal stump of an arm. "How dare you cut off my arm?! I'm going to kill you!"

Naruto quickly jumped back as the Reploid swept his uninjured arm, freezing everything up to five feet in front of him.

Naruto countered by quickly throwing an explosive tag to blow the cold steam away from him.

"Tch," Naruto muttered in dissatisfaction as ice covered the open wound on Blizzack Staggroff's arm, preventing the Reploid from dripping more red fluid. Apparently, Reploids could bleed out if Blizzack Staggroff's actions were an indication. Naruto channeled even more wind chakra into his chakra kunai to make it even sharper and extend it further to give it the appearance of a glowing white sword. Naruto would make sure that the next blow that landed was a killing blow. He had been lucky the last time that he had the presence of mind to follow up his strike with a Rasengan. "All of these damn combat Reploids have some sort of inherent mechanisms that counter my techniques in some way. If I didn't know any better, I'd argue that these Reploids were designed for the sake of killing me."

Naruto rolled away as Blizzack Staggroff jumped and slammed into the area he had just been standing. Naruto threw a wind-coated shuriken in response only to see the Reploid knock it away with a well-placed ice beam.

Not only was the Reploid strong, but also the Reploid was learning how to fight significantly better against Naruto in the midst of battle. The ice Reploid was not letting Naruto's weapons get anywhere close anymore after having his arm cut and then blown off.

Naruto had to leap backwards as he dodged another stomp from the deceptively fast Reploid who jumped away immediately after he landed to avoid the swing from Naruto's wind-coated chakra kunai.

"Die! Double Blizzard!"

Naruto cursed as his half of room was instantly covered in snow. Naruto had to body flicker repeatedly to avoid the dozens of sharp ice projectiles sent his way.

"Tch," Naruto muttered again as he slashed an icicle out of the air with his wind-coated kunai. "These things are surprisingly very fast, just like the damn Reploid himself."

"I got you now!" Blizzack Staggroff landed where Naruto had been and prepared to roar in victory when Naruto vanished in a puff of smoke. A quick shadow clone followed up by a substitution.

Oh, and of course, that wasn't everything. Bunshin Daibakuha (Great Clone Explosion)!

Boom!

Blizzack Staggroff was launched twenty feet into the air, more stunned than hurt by the explosion.

Naruto reappeared right above the ice Reploid. "Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!"

Naruto's attack drilled into the Reploid's ice-covered and armored stomach and sent the Reploid flying straight into the floor of the room.

"Hoo…ho…" Blizzack Staggroff grunted as he stood up. "That was dangerous. Without my ice armor, that last attack would have torn me apart completely. Luckily, I learned all I needed to about that attack from your first hit on my arm. You won't get another chance to critically injure me." The Reploid grinned widely as Reploid blood dripped from his mouth. "I was excited for a good match after I heard about you, but I never knew that you would provide me such entertainment! This makes me feel so alive!"

Naruto couldn't say he was surprised that a direct hit from the Rasengan didn't take out the Reploid completely, but that didn't make him any less annoyed. The Rasengan was supposed to be one of the strongest non-elemental close range techniques ever created and these combat Reploids were brushing it off like it was just a solid, but still normal punch. Blizzack Staggroff already took two and only lost an arm.

Naruto was getting nowhere like this. It was time to pull out the big guns to finish this up quickly so he could get up on the surface to help the prisoners out. And he was getting worried. The longer he fought, the higher the chance that Fairy Leviathan would show up.

Dodging to the side as another ice beam shot towards his way, Naruto quickly pulling his hands into a seal. Naruto felt a slight wave of nausea as the more memories flowed back into him from the clones dispelling from above the surface. The clones were doing well, but they and the prisoners were now cornered at the hole near the entrance with no way to get above the ground. The Neo Arcadian enemies were using that opportunity to launch massive bombs.

"Oomph!" Naruto grunted as he was kicked into the wall hard, knocking his wind-coated kunai out of his hand.

"What's wrong?! Your movements became slow all of a sudden! Don't tell me that you're done already!"

Naruto ignored the loud ice Reploid and flared his body with fire chakra to quickly defrost his body, which had started to freeze from the blow.

Naruto noticed water leaking from under the door of the room. The place was going to be destroyed rather soon.

Well…if the battle was going to end up underwater soon anyway, he might as well fight more recklessly until it happened.

Flying through hand seals, Naruto called out, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)!" Naruto nodded at his copy before going on. "Katon: Hisei Bakuhatsu (Fire Release: Fire Spirit Explosion)!"

"What?! Another fire attack?" Blizzack Staggroff roared. "That won't be enough! Double Blizzard!"

Naruto ignored the waves of snow and ice that shot towards him from the Reploids EX skill. He merely kept his technique active and melted away everything in front of him. Next to him, Naruto's clone began moving his hands through seals. Naruto would regret using multiple chakra-intensive techniques in conjunction later especially after all that chakra he spent already getting to the base and fighting all the Pantheons in the base, but he had to finish this battle quickly.

"Fuuton: Reppuu (Wind Release: Gale)!" the clone shouted out. Houou Bakahatsu (Phoenix Fire Explosion)!

The two attacks merged to create a huge wave of white-hot fire in the shape of a fiery bird that quickly melted through the Reploid's attack. The collaboration jutsu wasn't quite a dual nature technique, but its power was definitely impressive.

Despite Blizzack Staggroff's attitude, he wasn't an idiot. He could immediately tell that his attack was being overwhelmed. "Not good enough!" he roared as he tried jumping over the attack. "What?!" He cried out as he found himself unable to move. Two of Naruto clones had smashed wind-coated kunai into his knee joints, preventing him from being able to jump.

You were too focused on the flashy attack in front of you, Reploid, and didn't notice that I had made three clones and not two. Naruto thought to himself. And that mistake proved to be fatal. It was a good fight, nonetheless, Blizzack Staggroff.

The collaboration technique was enough to blow most of Blizzack Staggroff body apart.

The Reploid had managed to protect his head and parts of his upper body, however with a desperation shot of ice shards from his back. Still, the Reploid's entire lower body had simply melted away after being blasted from the technique.

"Y…you…" Blizzack Staggroff choked out. "Impossible! Your power didn't even register on my scanner. To think you had this much power…"

"That's because I'm not a Reploid, you bucket of bolts," Naruto panted. How the old man Sandaime managed to do collaboration techniques all by himself and with such rumored ease was still a mystery to Naruto. The chakra requirement was enormous. Sure, Naruto had more than enough chakra in his reserves—the total amount of chakra in his body—but he wasn't used to spending so much of his chakra capacity —the amount of chakra he could use at once—in one burst like that.

"Im…impossible…" the Reploid managed out from the ground. "But…irrelevant…ho…ho…I have a self-destruct function that will let me send out the rest of my power in a huge outward explosion…"

Naruto raised an eyebrow. "Reploids all die in an explosion. What makes yours so different?"

Blizzack Staggroff chuckled. "When…we…die…it's just a small release of energy that is mostly contained…mine…is…a bomb! Ho…ho…at…the…very least, I shall take you…with me!"

Naruto braced himself and prepared to erect a barrier when he saw an ice dragon crush Blizzack Staggroff before the Reploid could detonate.

Author's Note: Next chapter - Fairy Leviathan finally reveals herself!

I know that the hidden base is above water in the Mega Man Zero games and that Zero ends up fighting Leviathan underwater as he tries to escape the base. I didn't want Naruto to fight Leviathan underwater just yet (translation: I still haven't figured out a way Naruto could fight against a powerful foe underwater - suggestions will be appreciated) but didn't want to completely change the aspects of the two missions. So the underwater portion came first and the "above water" or non-water fighting portion came second.

Also, I felt pretty bad about depicting Anubis Necromancess appearing for about two or three hundred words, but I really didn't want to come up with story content for yet another Reploid to justify a long battle.

Lastly, last chapter, a reference was made about Naruto having the Sharingan. Yes, Naruto does have the Sharingan and by extension, the Rinnegan. Despite my own dislike of the Sharingan, it was stated in the manga that the Rinnegan is necessary to sync with the Gedo Mazo so Naruto had to have it for this story. Don't get too attached to either dojutsu however...Naruto won't have the Sharingan for long and won't have enough time to figure out how to reawaken the Rinnegan before he loses the Sharingan.

And as always, reviews will be appreciated.

Naruto's Jutsu List

Technique: Bunshin Daibakuha (Great Clone Explosion)
Rank: A-rank
Class: Offensive
Range: Close Range
Description: The user creates a clone construct that explodes on command.

Technique: Katon: Hisei Bakuhatsu (Fire Release: Fire Spirit Explosion)
Rank: A-rank
Class: Offensive
Range: Mid Range
Description: The user inhales and releases a large ball of fire that explodes on contact. Unlike the B-rank variant, Katon: Hisei Endan, the power of this technique lies not in the fire, but rather the explosive power. Even the heat from the explosion is enough to melt metal.

Technique: Earth Release: Tenchichuu (Divine Earth Pillars)
Rank: B-rank
Class: Defensive, Supportive
Range: Close to Mid-Range
Description: This technique normally consists of four earthen pillars in each the four cardinal directions. This technique can be supported with various other techniques, such as lightning or water barrier techniques, to trap whatever is inside or to protect whatever is inside from outside attack.