Out of the Unknown

by axellon2008

Naruto discovers a crashed starship outside his village and his life is forever changed. Under the unorthodox tutelage of a Sith Lord's spirit, he will learn the technology and history of a larger galaxy that he, and no one else from his planet, ever knew existed.

34. Chapter 34

AN: I don't own Naruto, or Star Wars

x-x

35 BBY – Current Year

Chapter XXXIV

x-x

Continued from the previous chapter

Naboo, one day later

x-x

"We've all become very lax," Plagueis stated so everyone assembled in the living room of the castle could hear and the declaration got mixed results from those around the room. Karin took her feet off the coffee table looking apologetic while the Demon Brothers looked at their stomachs thinking perhaps he was talking about their weight. Juugo merely gave him a quizzical look while Suigetsu laughed and went back to what he was reading.

'How did I get stuck with a group like this?, the Sith Lord wondered and then asked himself, 'How would Naruto motivate them?' There were several possible choices but he decided to go with the one that gave the quickest results. Getting a hold of each of them with the Force, Plagueis yanked them forward out of their seats, sending each person into a pile on the floor and merely said, "Meet me outside, now."

x-x

Ibonihs

At Orochimaru's Hidden Laboratory

x-x

After scouting the surrounding area, it hadn't taken long to determine that he was in Water Country. 'It helped to narrow it down after I nearly ran into a Kiri patrol this morning,' the former clone recalled and only his knowledge of hiding in water had saved him from being tracked down by the squad of Mist ninja. 'I'll need to work on hiding this massive amount of chakra,' he thought idly and had a sense of deja vu before clearing space off one of the tables and setting down the fish he had caught. The lab had a large supply of rations but he could only stomach them for so many days before needing a change.

'How far away am I from Konoha?' he questioned and closing his eyes, he brought up a mental map of the Elemental Countries. Plagueis had made sure that Naruto knew more than a basic knowledge of Fire Country and the surrounding areas, 'In case they ever had to flee Konoha,' he recalled and despite knowing that he was on one of the many islands that made up Water Country, he had no way of pinpointing which or what larger cities he was close to.

'Would Mist ninja patrol the eastern border? There aren't any major ninja villages in that direction,' he determined and guessed that he was in the northern or eastern areas of Water Country while he idly cut into the fish with a kunai. Stopping to glance around the room, he shivered slightly at the place he had been stranded in.

It was a terrible place and his sleep was filled with bad dreams for the days he had been there. Even if he wasn't looking at the various grotesque contents of jars and large preservation tubes, it still gave him a bad feeling, "But it is hidden," he admitted out loud. That was more than he could say for a variety of other places that he knew he could go to. Having little knowledge of the current state of Kirigakure, that location was out of the question. Snow Country was an ideal place given it's isolation and he knew it shouldn't be that much of a problem to get on a water-faring ship from a nearby island and eventually make it to the isolated country.

The problem, however, was simple, 'He was already there and Konoha as well as Jiraiya would likely be searching there periodically.' It wasn't that he wanted to stay away from Konoha. He wanted to go back but without any knowledge of who was in charge or what the current state of the village was, that wasn't a good idea. 'They probably can't kill me, but that may not stop them from locking me away, or trying,' he thought, wondered where else he could go.

'Wave Country is not a bad idea, though Danzo may be looking for someone that looks exactly like me in that area,' he recognized but thinking of the very small island country, also made him remember Gatou and the tycoon's wealth as well as property. The short wealthy man had properties in several countries, 'I can't remember all that Plagueis did with his money. It could be a starting point though and it would give me at least some Ryo,' he thought, concerned about how he didn't have any money at all.

There were more people looking for him than just Konoha as he recalled multiple conversations that were in his memory with Kabuto. 'Akatsuki,' he remembered their name being and the fight with Itachi and Kisame was also present in his mind. 'They have more members, that may be even stronger than those two,' he thought and found himself wondering how Orochimaru had managed to stay hidden from such a group. Glancing all around him, he had some idea but he still questioned how the Snake Sannin had done it for so long.

Looking back to the fish, he noticed that he had, at some point, finished gutting it. It was during that moment that he again took notice of the storage seal on his arm, which was not something he had thought about in a few days. 'Other things were on my mind,' he remembered as the transition into a new body had been a bit difficult, especially because of the difference in chakra from what he had adjusted to in the short time since his creation.

'I never fully looked through it,' he suddenly recalized and curious, decided to stop what he was doing and take it out to look at everything that it contained. He assumed it was all of the items that his brother had stolen, 'The Scroll of Seals, the items of the Nidaime's and whatever else I recall him taking during the confusion when the village was attacked,' he thought while scanning through the storage seals.

'Too many,' he thought, looking over and counting the number again. 'Even if he spaced things out, there shouldn't be this many storage seals. What else did he put in here?' he questioned and decided to move to another table and start taking inventory. The first few seals were filled with the items he already guessed. 'There are a lot more jutsu scrolls in here than I thought. I don't remember him taking all of these from the Hokage Tower,' he thought but recalled that at the time, his brother was using numerous clones and the memories of so many clones may be inhibiting his recollections. Then in the next seal, something interesting appeared after the smoke had settled.

'Notes on the cursed seal,' he recognized, familiar with Orochimaru's handwriting as well as a fair amount of the material within those notes. 'These look to be copies, though,' he recognized and thought he had an idea why they had been left with him. Setting the notes aside to possibly look over later, he unrolled more parchment to the next seal.

'Clothes,' he noted with a perplexed look. They were not really ninja clothing but a facsimile, 'Likely made with a bit better material,' he thought while examining what he believed was an armorweave material. They would definitely come in handy, because most of the items in the hideout were for taller and older people. Though there were several different sizes, nothing really fit him. Making a pile, he moved back to the scroll to release the next storage seal.

A much different item appeared from the smoke of the unsealing and Naruto snatched the item off the table when he realized what it was, 'My lightsaber,' he thought to himself while his hands and eyes looked it over to see if it had been damaged at all during or after the fight. Having never thought he would see the object again, he would have accepted any scratches or dents but that was not the case. 'It looks fine, in fact, I think he may have cleaned it up,' he noted while examining every inch. He could also tell just by holding it that the crystal which he had inserted was still there. With just a push of the activation switch, it would ignite without issue.

Gingerly setting it on the table, he went to the next seal with renewed curiosity, 'Is he saving the best for last, because getting back my lightsaber is the best item I could imagine unsealing,' he thought while making the seal and waiting for the next item to appear, he leaned in closer, anticipative of something even more amazing.

As the smoke began to clear, his eyes widened when the horrible visage of Orochimaru's decapitated head appeared. Yelling out, he tripped as he backpedaled and fell to the ground. Slightly sore on the stone floor, a few select thoughts went through his mind, 'That bastard!' and admitted, 'Scared the shit out of me,' before getting to his feet.

And taking one more look at the head, he added, 'Send it back or burn it with fire.' Just looking at it was making him sick and he knew that the fish would have to wait a while before he got his appetite back. Thinking about setting a fire, he decided against it, unsure of what kind of horrible smell it might emit. Deciding he had no other way to really dispose of it, nor wanting to touch it, he sealed it back into the scroll and made a decision to keep it in storage for the foreseeable future.

'Two left,' he realized, taking a heavy breath, or perhaps it was a sigh. 'Do I even want to look at what's inside these two?' he considered. Thinking to all of the possible items that could have been inside, he came up with a blank, which caused him to again question what else his brother would have sent with him.

Inhaling and then exhaling slowly while staring at the seal, he decided to go for it. 'It can't be worse than the head,' he believed and made the handseal. When the smoke cleared, a single, solid item had appeared on top of the scroll. It was metal and looking it over, he realized that it was a piece of durasteel. 'It looks to the be the perfect size for making a sword,' the jinchuuriki noted and again found himself wondering what his brother was planning. 'Does he want me to make a sword? Perhaps he knew that I would want to make one with or without any supremely strong material? Unfortunately, I can't remember the Jedi ritual,' he thought as he attempted to remember what all was involved.

His memories included parts and pieces of the entire ritual but the creation of the black and red ninjato included a large amount of Sith ritual and techniques which had been added in or had replaced the Jedi ritual. 'And I'm not going to be using any of those,' he decided as the last thing he needed with a failing seal was to be using any Sith techniques or the dark-side of the Force.

Picking the item up and noting it's weight, he also set it among the other items on the table. Glancing to the last seal, he was more curious than ever about what would be contained within the generic fuinjutsu. Prepared for anything, the Clone of Uzumaki Naruto unsealed the last storage seal. When the smoke cleared from the return of the item from a temporary pocket dimension, the Clone stood stunned at what he was seeing.

No amount of preparing could keep the surprise off his face. The item in the seal was metallic but not pyramidal in shape as were the majority of similar items from his memories. No, this item was a cube and he recognized it instantly as being the holocron which was part of Plagueis' collection of items. 'The one that he could not get anything from, save for the Jedi ritual of sword making,' he realized and his body moved closer and hands extended without him really thinking about moving or taking any action at all.

'Will it open for me? Will I be able to speak to the gatekeeper?' he questioned and as he moved in to touch it, the item started humming to life. At the time, there wasn't a single thought in his mind concerning why his brother had given him the device, he was only thinking about the information that it may contain and how it would help him.

x-x

With everyone gathered outside and standing, Plagueis stood before them, having already decided to tell them about the recent events of the previous morning. Unsure of how to start, he decided to work around the issue and get to the point of making all of them come outside, "How exactly do you think Naruto became as powerful as he is?"

Once they were sure that he was speaking seriously, the group looked between each other before Karin spoke up, "He has some crazy super power," she offered the other non-force-using members of the group nodded as it didn't seem like an incorrect answer.

Trying to remain unperturbed by her referring to the Force as a 'crazy super power', Plagueis explained, "That does not mean that his basic abilities are lacking or that he isn't strong without those 'crazy super powers'," he said with distaste for her choice of wording. A moment elapsed before Suigetsu asked, "So what? Are you going to train us or something?"

"Yes, I am," Plagueis answered and his words were greeted with confusion and a fair amount of disbelief.

"You don't have chakra," Meizo responded and his brother Gozu nodded slightly in agreement while crossing his arms. Seeing that he was starting to lose the momentum that he needed, Plagueis quickly replied, "That means nothing. I've spent nearly a decade studying chakra and it's many forms and uses. Do you honestly think that Naruto became so powerful in ninjutsu without at least some instruction, explanation or help. I am quite capable of teaching you all to better your ninja abilities."

Though he had spoken the words, his belief in them was a bit shaken by recent events; outwardly he showed none of this to the group. There was, again, silence while the members looked at him and each other.

"So, where is Naruto?" Juugo asked and Plagueis inwardly smirked, noting that apparently some of them were observant than he originally thought. The only person in the group that he had spent any time with was Juugo and that was to teach the teen mediation to better control his ability.

'Wasn't he coming back soon….had he already come back and left…..was he gone again,' were just some of the thoughts he could glean from the very forefront of the minds before him, so he took a moment to plan what he would say next.

"Naruto has left," Plagueis informed them and he waited to see what they would ask next. Their questions would determine what he would respond with.

"On a mission?" Karin asked, wondering why the tall being was being so hesitant to provide further details. "No, he has left on a more extended trip with the sociopath droid," Plagueis quickly elaborated but still left items out, hoping that they would pick up on what he was trying to say.

"Did he leave the group?" asked one of the Demon Brothers while studying Plagueis to see what answer would be provided.

"Not entirely, because I am confident that he will return," the Sith Lord informed them with the truth, or at least a very abridged version of it. "When is he coming back?" questioned someone else and the look that the entire group was giving, told him that they all wanted to know more and likely why the blonde had left.

"I am unsure but we must be prepared for when he does," he decided to go with but regretted one of the chosen words in the sentence, which of course everyone had picked up on. 'Prepared,' was the word that was being analyzed by everyone else in the clearing by the lake. This spawned an obvious question which Suigetsu asked, "Is something happening when he returns?"

It was easy to tell, even without the Force, that they were all losing patience with his short, lacking answers. 'How the hell do I explain this. I should have prepared better,' lamented the former Muun as he struggled to come up with the words to explain everything.

He wanted to simply respond, 'Because that is the way of the dark-side,' but knew they wouldn't understand any of that statement. 'I am unwilling to teach him further along that path…,' Plagueis considered saying but knew that also wouldn't convey much to them or accurately described the situation. 'It is so much more complicated than that,' he thought as he debated and grew increasingly frustrated.

"What the hell is he thinking about?' questioned Juugo in a whisper to the other members of the group within earshot. "Did we break him?" wondered Karin out loud and others watched the contemplating cloaked figure with curiosity.

'Do I start at the beginning?….No, probably an abridged version….not too abridged though,' he concluded and looking back to the group, began, "Let me first say that I am a Sith and that is what I told Naruto that he was. Sith….don't have teammates or friends. The majority don't work well with groups or even with other individuals. There are those that serve under us and they are always expendable. What he has created here, is entirely different. Any other attachments are usually cut, permanently, and when one is deemed as weak, they are culled and replaced by someone stronger. It is an endless cyle that perpetuates a strong line. A master trains an apprentice and the apprentice will one day take over as the new Master, training his own apprentice.

That is the Rule of Two and it has been in place for nearly a thousand years. The...method of replacement is not usually civil. We Sith do not simply wait for our Master to die in order to replace them and if a Master is not satisfied with an apprentice, then they will not hesitate to start looking for a replacement and plot for the apprentices demise. That is how I was trained and how I trained my Apprentice.." and he stopped for a moment as if to sigh before revealing, "...but that is not how I ended up training Naruto. Because I trained him differently but kept him in the dark about it. He doesn't know everything that is involved with turning completely to the dark-side but at some point he will finally figure it out," he concluded and was met with the looks of a group that were not thrilled with him.

"So this is all your fault," blurted out Karin and it was a statement more than a question. "Primarily….yes," Plagueis openly admitted and he surprised the group with his openness. It took a minute before the inevitable question was asked and it was Suigetsu that asked it, "So why should we help you?"

"We've barely spoken with you for an extended period of time before and you've never tried to teach us anything," Meizu was quick to add and Plagueis nodded to the facts that were presented. He knew that someone of the group would say something along that line of thought.

"You aren't helping me completely," he started to explain, "And I doubt any of you would be hindered with some training. I am merely preparing all of us."

"To protect you when Naruto gets back," Gozu commented and Plagueis did not refute the logic, "Yes, he will most likely come to kill me."

"So why should we help you?" reiterated Suigetsu and everyone else was of the same mind on that matter. Knowing they expected a good response, Plagueis began a lengthy explanation, "He may start with me but that does not mean he will finish until all of us are dead. My Master trained me from a young age to harness the dark-side of the Force, turning all of my fears and weaknesses against me. He made sure to point out my failings and forced me to overcome all of that or perish. When I had learned all that I could and saw an opportunity, I killed him, believing that I had surpassed him. I thought the Rule of Two was foolish and planned to break them but somehow I ended up following them explicitly and began my search for an Apprentice, whom I trained in the same way.

I found that person in Palpatine. A young man of wealth and privilege but really a spoiled child who was angry at his family for his own faults and inability to succeed. It wasn't hard to get him under my control and manipulate him. I made sure to influence him into killing his parents and then helping to cover it up," he admitted and quickly decided that the memory that went with such an admission was something to look into later.

"Thereby establishing some demented form of trust with him which he didn't realize was all my doing. I trained him harshly and enjoyed tormenting him by using his weaknesses against him until he had none left with which I could twist back upon him. Time passed and seeing that I was becoming….complacent, focused more on my work than the plan for galactic domination, he began planning against me. When the opportunity came, he murdered me in my sleep and then used his power to electrocute my corpse until it was nearly destroyed," Plagueis informed them while leaving out a great deal in order to shorten everything.

"After that my destroyed building was raided by smugglers. As a Spirit, I was only able to ensure that some my possessions were taken so that I could leave the planet and not be stuck there forever. This unfortunately backfired as they touched one of the more dangerous items in my collection while en-route to Sarafur and ended up traveling to Ibonihs which is where the ship crashed.

Time passed and I had a great deal to contemplate on. And that is where I first encountered a five year old Naruto; years later when he found the ship. Trying to learn from my mistakes, I trained him differently and yet decided not to tell him how differently or that he was not a truly a Sith. I thought that eventually he would figure it out or fully harness the dark-side but he did not and when finally confronted, I was left with a choice of what to do next. I could have chosen to complete his training and tell him everything but…..I could not bring myself to do that, so unfortunately here we all now are," Plagueis concluded the story and the group simply looked at him, rather stunned at how forward and open he was being.

"That is fucked up," said Juugo and his utterance was agreed upon by everyone present. "I thought Kiri was bad," remarked Suigetsu and he was given a few disbelieving looks at such a comment and gave a questioning look in response.

"You didn't bother telling any of this to us before," stated Meizu and Plagueis easily responded, "Have you ever asked me about my past…...even once?"

The only response was Suigetsu replying with a, "Huh," because no matter what he could think of replying with, the Sith Lord made a good argument on that point. "So why should we do anything?" Gozu was quick to question as despite how forthcoming Plagueis was being, it still seemed like it was not their problem.

"I see, so you all implicitly trust Naruto because…?" Plagueis left the question open to their comments but when none of them spoke, he decided to answer his own question, "He has been a better leader." A unanimous agreement of nods was given in response to the answer but Plagueis was unperturbed, moving on to get to the point he was trying to make.

"He looks out for all of you and your best interests," Plagueis stated and there were still some nods or general agreement among the group members present, but less than before. "He'll protect you from injury, even when it comes from his own hands," Plagueis continued and with that statement, they were confused on whether to agree or not, not having been in that situation. "He has been more forthcoming with you than I," Plagueis added and it was on that argument where most of them were completely sure about and where Plagueis knew he should start. "I suppose he has shared his secrets with all of you?" and his question was greeted with hidden uncertainty as no one was quite sure if that was the case or not.

"Tell me then, what is he building in the Kuna Constellation of the Moddell Sector?" he asked and was met with questioning stares for most. "How is Gatou involved?" he questioned and added, "They have been in communication for months but concerning what, even I am unsure."

"What is the device in the cargo hold of the Tsukinowa and where did it come from?" Plagueis then inquired to those present and critically analyzed those present to see if they were all on the same page or not. 'Some are definitely more aware of the secrets than others,' he gathered and wondered if there were more secrets that even he was not yet aware about, 'Interesting,' he thought before revealing, "In any case, he hasn't told me any of these secrets either."

"You follow him explicitly and most of the time without question but do any of you know him better than I, or are even aware of his past? Exactly what do any of you know about Uzumaki Naruto?" Plagueis put forth in part because he was curious to see what more they knew, but primarily because he believed they were in the dark almost as much as he was.

"His surname is Uzumaki," Suigetsu stated out loud, and quickly admitted, "...never knew that." The statement was met with incredulous looks from most and the loud voice of Karin, "Oh. My. God, Suigetsu. Are you serious? He and I are cousins!" she stated in disbelief.

"Did you even have a clan name up until that point," Suigetsu fired back and Karin gave him an angry look but fidgeted slightly. Ignoring the commotion, Plagueis was about to keep speaking when Karin interrupted, "Maybe there is a good reason for him keeping all that from us." She knew that she was reaching for an explanation but said it anyway because they were cousins and he was the first real family she had ever known.

"Or perhaps it is merely that he doesn't really trust any of us," said Plagueis and his words were met with a sharp reply, "What about your secrets that you keep from us?" inquired Juugo and Plagueis glanced to the orange-haired teen before admitting, "That is true. I suppose it all comes back on me as the student learns from the teacher. In that case I will have to divulge all of my secrets to all of you," Plagueis said and his words caused slight surprise from everyone.

"Where to start?" Plagueis said in a calm voice as he began to order all that he needed to say. "My given name was Hego Damask and my birth was the result of my Master's influence as he calculated that the offspring of my mother, one of his acolytes, and my father would produce a powerful child gifted with great potential. I was raised in a very wealthy home and eventually was given to my Master to receive his grueling and merciless tutelage until his death at my hands. In similar fashion to the Sith before me, I continued to plot Galactic domination and eventually manipulated a young man from Naboo into becoming my apprentice which I already mentioned.

Years ago, in my hubris over the newly discovered power over the Force that I had found, I decided to test it out. There was an old prophecy made that a child would be created from the Force alone and he or she would bring balance to the Force. I know that none of that means much to any of you but most believed that the child would finally destroy the Sith. I decided to use my power to supplant this prophecy by creating life and thereby rendering it moot because the child would be created by me and not the Will of the Force. Choosing a test subject, I experimented and initially believed that my efforts had failed. Just last year, while on Tatooine, I discovered that I may have been successful at creating life with the Force. The young boy may one day fulfill that prophecy and kill me, if Naruto doesn't beat him to it first," Plagueis began with and if they were surprised before, then they were completely shocked by that point.

"You really conceived a child with your super power?!" Karin demanded to know as something like that seemed impossible. She simply couldn't wrap her mind around it at the moment. "Again..." Plagueis answered with a quick sigh, "...it's called the Force"

"Where's the fun in that?" Suigetsu commented and both Demon Brothers chuckled at the conception joke while Plagueis merely thought to himself, 'Ignore him,' before continuing.

"I value finance more than fighting. Currency over any meaningful connections with other people. Manipulation over truth. Knowledge more than weapons. I wish to remain in the shadows more than the spotlight. I simply don't understand group dynamics at this point in time, nor do I know how to lead a group because it was always just myself and one other. Taking direct action is never my first choice or something I have been comfortable with. It was always something I had others do with the help of my vast fortune and connections. I am a mere remnant of my former self at the moment. A spirit with no body that must leach off others in order to get by and this is revolting to me because of how low it seems I have fallen; to that of a parasitic creature. I wish to have my old body back but I know that after so much time as a spirit, I may not even be comfortable in my own body again, if I was even able to recreate it.

I have tried to learn from my mistakes but I have ended up making the same or at least, similar mistakes all over again. I considered myself a great teacher but only managed to train someone that betrayed me and was unable to properly train Naruto. He may actually come back to kill me and it worries me but I don't know how to fix it. I try to avoid conflict because I am more interested in research and learning than dominating the galaxy, perhaps I always was. Oh, yes, the debacle on Tatooine was really my fault," Plagueis concluded as he talked with little break and contemplated after he was finished if he had indeed mentioned everything or not.

"That was a lot," idly commented Juugo and everyone was a bit overwhelmed with everything he had just told them to be mad at any one particular item that had been listed.

"Since I have given up all of my secrets to you, I suggest all you do the same," Plagueis stated to the group and waiting a moment for someone to start, he decided to inform them, "There is no use trying to hide things from me or from a group. Everyone here is likely hiding something, whether a fear, a desire, or a secret. If there is to truly be trust, there cannot be anything hidden. Regardless if you say it here and now, it will come out eventually."

Looking around nervously to see who would say something first, Karin decided to get it over with and admitted, "I miss Tayuya and can't do a thing to help her and now I miss Naruto too. I like healing people more than hurting them." Plagueis nodded to the admission and it was actually something he already knew because of how open it was that members of the Uzumaki clan were with their emotions.

"We're getting bored of just occasional missions and gun running for Borvo, something is missing now that we can no longer feel pain or other senses like we used to. I wonder if we're even human anymore, we feel more numb than anything," Gozu spoke for himself and his brother. A mere look between them was all the confirmation that Gozu needed to know that he had gotten everything out that needed to be said. Plagueis was intrigued by the statements as he had expected the Demon Brothers to remain silent or at least go last.

"I've made friends with several gungans," Suigetsu suddenly spoke up with his secret which greatly confused the rest of the group. "What's a Gungan?" Meizu asked in a lower voice to his brother but loud enough to a few others to hear.

"That's a secret?!" demanded Karin of the white-haired teen and Suigetsu replied back, "They're a secretive bunch."

"Are you an idiot, Suigetsu?!" and as the redhead and white haired teen briefly got into an argument. Plagueis was one of the few in the clearing who knew what Gungans were but even he didn't think that it was really something worthwhile to share. 'But then again, that particular one says whatever he wants all the time. It was possible that he has no real secrets from the group,' the Sith Lord considered and once the argument was over, he came out of this thoughts to see the last present member of the group.

Juugo was actually blushing a bit, "Well...you know Ann and Tann….I may be seeing both of them."

There was brief moment of surprise before Gozu laughed lecherously and Meizu whistled. That of course was the cue for another small bout of argument as everyone else chimed in.

"Is that even legal?!" an exasperated Karin asked, looking to Plagueis for information to which he could barely manage shrug at. He actually wasn't sure and hesitant to even get involved in that particular conversation.

"Why can't you share, seriously?" demanded Suigetsu, and then adding, "We're friends, right?"

Juugo ignored what was being said as he tried to finish his statement because that was only a part of it. When things had settled down a bit, he finished, "I'm worried that they will see my other side or that I will lose control when I am close to them." Everyone was silent when he finished, that is until Suigetsu spoke, "Yeah you might get to excited during...and totally kill them or something," to which was followed by a quick slap from Karin.

"That's a terrible thing to say?! What's wrong with you?!" the redhead yelled at him to which Suigetsu responded, "What, it's true?" Karin then punched him, which was negated by his hydration ability.

Looking between the fighting pair, then the embarrassed Juugo, and finally the Demon Brothers were were watching and laughing at the antics, Plagueis found himself wondering if what he was watching was a 'group dynamic'. Somehow he had difficulty seeing himself as ever truly a part of such an immature group.

When everyone had finished fighting, Karin decided that there was a little bit more that she wanted to get out into the open and vent. Especially since they were being so honest, "Why the fuck would you let him go then, if you knew this would happen?!" she demanded to know and everyone knew who she was referring to.

"Karin is suddenly making a lot of sense," Suigetsu chimed in when his head had fully reformed and he was able to talk again.

In the spotlight, Plagueis replied, "It is difficult to explain, to all of you and to him."

Karin was quick with a quip, "Because you don't talk very much," and everyone else began laughing or trying to hide their laughter. She frowned though because it was actually a true statement more than she had meant it a joke.

'Damn, they infuriate me sometimes,' thought Plagueis before explaining, "He needs to figure things out for himself, that is how he learns best."

"Can't you send him a message or something?" Karin pressed and Plagueis responded calmly with, "I'm afraid it's not that simple."

"Yes it is," Karin argued, "I have a communicator right here," she said while pulling the small device out of her pocket. "I'll call him," she said, confident that it would work. "He won't answer," Plagueis tried to inform her to which she replied, "We're cousins, he'll answer."

As the entire group watched Karin attempt to contact Naruto, Plagueis merely said, "He didn't answer, did he?" after the redhead had tried and failed to reach him. "I'll try again later," Karin said in a serious and frustrated voice to which Plagueis merely nodded, not trying to convince her otherwise. Now with everyone's ire directed solely at him again, he knew that arguing would ensue and it would just go on and on unless he did something about it.

'Avoiding conflict..' were his student's words that surfaced in the Sith Lord's mind and he made a decision to keep going with what he had planned. "Fine then," and when he had everyone's attension, he added, "If you are so frustrated with me, then come at me."

The reply was greeted with some confusion. What he planned was quite dangerous, however he did have knowledge of the members of the group and what they were capable of doing. He knew who would attack first and second or third but couldn't completely be sure if they would team up or not.

When nothing happened, Plagueis explained, "I did tell you to bring weapons for a reason," but still everyone stood where they were, despite weapons easily being within reach, either in a pouch or strapped to the back. "Are all of you afraid?" Plagueis goaded and knew that he should have planned ahead with better.

"Are you serious, we're ninja, we'll kill you," said Suigetsu and Plagueis simply replied, "There is only one way….," and he used the Force to stop the kunai that the white-haired teen had thrown before finishing his sentence, "..to find out." Pulling the kunai to his hand, Plagueis calmly watched Suigetsu charging him with the large blue zanbato.

'He'll charge in with a horizontal swing, turning that into a double-handed overhead swing,' Plagueis thought as he read the incoming teen's movements and moved back at the right moment to dodge the swing. As Suigetsu used the momentum of the swing to pull the heavy weapon above his head to pull it down upon his foe, Plagueis' figure merely waited as Suigetsu increased his speed to cut him in half vertically.

With a brief but well timed usage of Force Speed, the Sith Lord moved just over a meter, but fast enough that Suigetsu had no time to shift his swing and barely noticed as it seemed that an afterimage of Plagueis was still in the place he was swinging. Just outside of the teen's tunnel vision, Plagueis formed a kinetite in his hand and just as the sword cleaved through where he had been a moment before, he threw the small orb at Suigetsu.

The teen's eyes widened as he noted the destructive orb moving right under his arms during his swing and making contact with his stomach. The effect was instantaneous as his body was liquefied on impact and droplets of him sent across the clearing. His sword impacted the ground just after the bang of the technique sounded, however it was no longer being held by anyone and only Plagueis remained in the vicinity of it while Suigetsu slowly tried to reconstitute.

Brandishing the taken kunai, he looked to Karin and Juugo, both of which were still in the same places that they were as they watched the fight. "Well at least a few of you have common sense," he said in their favor as he knew that they were likely waiting to see what would happen before doing anything or just too surprised to move at the moment, both of which being beneficial to them. Turning to the still waiting Demon Brothers, he held the kunai back behind him as if he intended to throw it. Despite not being able to see his face, for some reason they could tell that he was smirking but that only made them smirk wider.

"You can't even hurt us with that," one of them said with confidence as they began to move in separate directions, slowly closing the distance and spreading his focus between them.

"Oh, really?" was all that Plagueis said as he threw the Force imbued weapon at the leg of Meizu. The slightly conceited brother didn't even move his leg or try to intercept the weapon as it sunk into his thigh. It took less than a second, however, for him to register that something was wrong and he yelled in pain before sinking to his knees and grabbed the offending blade.

"It seems you have indeed forgotten what pain feels like," commented the Sith Lord as Gozu looked to his brother before starting to charge in and attack. "If that kunai can cause injury then my sword will dismember you," Plagueis simply stated with his hand resting on the pummel of his sheathed sword. Gozu stopped in his tracks as he realized that he didn't have any weapon to contend with the sword.

Taking advantage of the man sliding to a stop and thinking things over first, Plagueis extended his hand and Force Pushed the surprised man. It struck with a great deal of force and took Gozu off his feet and flying into the nearby trees. Now looking to the other injured brother, the Sith Lord lifted up Suigetsu's sword with the Force and sent it hurtling at him.

Cursing, Meizu dove out of the way, but the sword kept going. It arced in the direction of Plagueis' choosing, right at the still reforming Suigetsu. Ducking under his own sword, Suigetsu was nearly finished reforming but Plagueis was not going to let him. The large blade sliced through the trunk of a tree and it began to fall over.

"Oh, shi.." was all the teen could get out as the tree veered from the course it was falling and landed directly down on him because of a quick application of the Force by the Sith Lord. Water pooled out from around the branches and Plagueis turned his attention back to everyone else again. Gozu was just getting out from the branches, brushing off debris from his clothes while Meizu was still down on the ground. Juugo and Karin were still standing in the same spot.

"Ready for round two?" Plagueis asked as began to draw his sword, in expectation of continuing the fight.

"Not really," Meizu admitted from his position on the ground, holding the bloody kunai in one hand and his other covering the bleeding wound on his leg. "I'd rather not fight you," said Juugo and Karin just shook her head back and forth indicating a definitive 'No'.

"I'm still..." Suigetsu began to say until a new usage of Force Lightning arced into his reshaping form, causing him to yell in pain and lose his consistency.

"Good. Now that we're all on the same page, it's time to begin the training. Karin, help out the injured," Plagueis said while adopting a more casual stance. Touching a button on his gauntlet, a group of servant droids began moving out from the nearest door of the castle. It wasn't until they were closer that the group noticed the crate of various weapons that they were pushing. All were courtesy of Borvo, which Plagueis had purchased the previous day right after Naruto had left. To his credit, the Hutt had procured more than half of the items he had asked for and brought it all with surprising swiftness to the castle. The remaining items would take a little longer but the former Muun wasn't surprised by that. Borvo dealt in more projectiles and energy weaponry than melee implements.

While most of the group eyed the collection of weapons, Plagueis began, "Regardless of whether or not Naruto comes back to kill us all, would you really want to sit around waiting to find out? Being a little proactive couldn't hurt, and if he only comes to kill me, the rest of you will be all the more more useful to him. I will be teaching you all how to combat….me and others like me, but we will be also focusing on physical conditioning and your individual abilities. I intend to make the entire group stronger."

"What about Kabuto," Karin asked as she knew that Tayuya was not being considered because of her current condition. Caught by surprise as he had completely forgotten about the other wayward member of the group at medical school, Plagueis lapsed for a moment before saying, "His loss."

They apparently liked that answer.

x-x

Telerath

Two days later

x-x

Inhaling deeply and then releasing, Naruto stretched on the comfortable beach chair. The nearby waves and a gentle breeze were all that he could hear at the moment. The sun was out in-full but he was under the shade of an interesting device which acted similar to an umbrella but was able to float in the air. Looking out over the beach and to the ocean, the blonde couldn't see anything but water and a few birds. A sudden through struck him and he wondered, 'Is this the first vacation that I've ever taken?' It was a curious question as it begged for him to specifically clarify what a vacation for him entailed.

It was more of an afternoon than a whole day, but it was still a break from any form of work, duty, activities, or just tinkering. There was nothing he needed to accomplish on his task list, no one was going to bug him, and his list was not going to start accruing line items while he was relaxing there. Not a single other organic sentient was on the planet. For that moment, everything he could see was all his and once he filed the paperwork with the Republic, the entire planet would belong to him. 'No routine to complete, no responsibilities to accomplish, and no duties to worry about. No one is coming after me. My communicator is off, for the first time since….I had a communicator,' he realized and looking to the nearby table, he used a kunai to cut another piece off the juicy fruit that he had been eating.

Eying the tree that it came from, he thought about getting several more and just eating those for a snack or even a whole meal, 'But that would involve getting up. I could make a clone…,' he considered but decided against it, 'That would involve making handseals. At the moment I am not using any chakra or Force powers.' Leaning back and chewing the fruit, he closed his eyes and just focused on the breeze and waves. It had taken over an hour but he was finally starting to relax. This was more than just relaxing during meditation, this was real relaxing where he focused on releasing all the tension in his body and pushing every thought of his mind.

In the morning he would be heading to the planet called Wayland to an unknown reception but he quickly pushed those thoughts out of his mind as well because, 'The whole afternoon is mine, just mine and nothing and no one will interrupt,' he thought until a shadow moved over him and blocked what harmless rays of the sun were allowed to pass through the hover shade. A frowned quickly formed at the presence of the shadow.

'Or so I thought,' he lamented before opening his eyes and seeing the familiar droid. Recognizing the bored and expectant look on the droid, despite HK not having the ability to make such looks, Naruto sighed before saying, "A single afternoon...that's all I ask. Just let me have this short vacation before trouble finds me again." Seeing that the droid was not completely satisfied with the answer, Naruto added, "We'll do something dangerous before leaving in the morning. You won't be disappointed."

Seemingly sulking, the droid left the sandy beach and went back into the entrance to the underground bunker-like home. As the droid left, Naruto sat back in the chair and sunk into it once again, slouching terribly. The sun would be going down on the horizon in an hour or two, 'Plenty of time to do nothing,' he mused while letting his mind wander to anything that wasn't stressful.

Interesting locations soon filled his mind, places that perhaps he would like to go now that he no longer had anything tethering him down. He had yet to experience a Force nexus and he knew about several that he could go to. He also had to stop in and see Gatou, 'Or better yet, take Gatou to Maya Koval and finally use a Tessent. I should also stop by Seoul 5 and see Dr. Motacc. Perhaps I'll give her a word or two and their definition in Seoularian. I could claim that I payed for them off that artifact of the Seoularians that was the only known existence of their writing.'

Then there were the other places to consider, planets once owned or inhabited by the Sith, both species and organization. 'So many choices,' he thought and felt slightly overwhelmed so he stopped thinking about it for the moment. Opening his eyes, he once again glanced back at the interesting vacation home that he had claimed. The top looked like a tropical island, or at least it did now that the few buildings that had been on it had collapsed and been taken over by the small bit of jungle. Only the landing platforms remained. It was hard to imagine that all of what he was looking at wasn't real.

Not that any of the trees or sand was fake but what he was on wasn't a real island. It had originally been just rock jutting up from the ocean, a very common feature of the planet, but someone artificially built the island portion, adding some kind of platform which sand and dirt as well as plants now grew. The rock still partially emerged on the island and an entire home was excavated out of it; all the way down to the ocean floor. It was only a hundred feet or so to the ocean floor but it was definitely the most interesting villa on the planet. The house itself had numerous windows that showed the ocean and some of the rooms offered simply amazing panoramic underwater views. The entire planet was untouched by sentient beings for several thousand years so the water was teeming with life.

Looking out at the sun, he noted that a fair amount of time had passed since he first arrived because the sky had lit up from the setting sun. 'I wonder what the stars look like on a planet without any ambient light?' the blonde thought as he moved the shade out of the way so he would have a good view when the stars started to come out.

x-x

Naboo

x-x

Pains and protests made themselves known as he tried to stand and go to the window to look out. It didn't affect him much but there was only so far he could push the host body. He hadn't done much physical activity before in the Mustafarian body because he had still entertained the notion that it was only temporary. This clashed with the fact that he was training the group and after less than an hour of them running around the lake and him watching, he started hearing complaints that he himself wasn't doing anything.

Before that moment, he hadn't seen a problem with it. He maintained a controlled diet to keep the body in shape but he recognized their complaint and acknowledged that some physical conditioning couldn't hurt. 'I was wrong,' he recalled as he simply couldn't keep up with any of them. His body tired long before theirs and the longer he went, the more they lapped him.

Juugo had spent a very long time in a cell back on Ibonihs, 'But even he was running faster and longer than I could. Now it's simply annoying having a body that protests to movement,' he thought while looking out the window as the group passed the castle once again.

Outwardly, he smirked as he saw one of the figures that looked exactly like himself. 'I wonder how long it will take for them to realize they are exercising with a Force Doppelganger and not me?' he thought and knew that it would be a good lesson for them. Likely Karin would notice first as the mirage did not have any life-signs but there was always the chance that someone else may notice before her or the redhead could be distracted enough to not take note of it.

Once the group was out of sight again he moved back to the seat and sank into it. He had already divvied out various weapons to each that he would be teaching in order to get a good idea what they were best with. Suigetsu was obviously going to use the created sword but that didn't mean the teen couldn't learn to use something else along with it, 'Or at least learn to wield that sword a little better,' he thought and turned his mental prowess to what he really needed to think about. 'If I wish to survive, I will need to know everything that I can about Naruto, which warrants the question….do I know everything about him?' he considered as he began thinking back to their very first meeting and going from there.

'I originally thought the boy a fool and that I would cast him aside at some point for someone better who could better accomplish my goals but something stopped me after he survived putting on the necklace. It became more than just his body taking in the midichlorians. There was no more blood and I could not repeat the process but I accepted him for other reasons than simple necessity. What was it that caused that change?' he wondered as at some point he had decided to stick with Naruto, 'As if I had taken him as my new Apprentice,' he thought and it was the first time he had ever considered Naruto as such.

There had always been a line that he would not cross when it came to such thinking. Referring to the boy as a 'student' of his and never an Apprentice. 'I didn't want him to become another Sith Apprentice so I never considered him as such...in order to prevent history from repeating itself,' he thought but quickly realized that trying to do that was causing more problems that good.

Something his old Master had once told him sprang to mind. Studying people was something that Darth Tenebrous liked to do in his spare time. They had even visited the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, 'But not the interior, just the outside so that we could watch the Jedi and Padawan entering and leaving the temple. The passing Jedi had no idea that Sith we were watching them however he was more interested in teaching me something on that day,' he recalled, thinking back to that day and remembering his Master's words.

'Look at the Jedi and then the Padawan. Now tell me what do you see?' had been the question that Darth Tenebrous had posed to him. He had observed and guessed nearly everything he could in order to answer the question that Tenebrous had posed. However, the Bith Sith Lord had been after something that simply couldn't be seen and ended up explaining it to him after numerous incorrect guesses.

'In most cases, the Padawan is chosen by the Jedi Master for a reason. It may be that they complement each other or the Master sees something in the Padawan of him or herself. But sometimes the Padawan is chosen for an unknown reason or at least the Master deludes himself into believing it was fate or the guidance of the Force. No, the reason can sometimes be that the Padawan possesses a trait that the Master is not willing to admit or believe that he is missing or that he places high value on. It could be intellect or prowess with a lightsaber. A calm and patient Jedi may sometimes choose the reckless and headstrong Padawan. Seemingly an odd pair of opposites, would they not be? Yet, somehow they are still able to work together.

Sometimes, an odd occurrence happens and instead of the Master changing the student, they end up changing each other. Adopting characteristics of each other, they both change slightly. Over the course of many years, this can be a significant change in outlook, mannerisms, or behavior. They don't realize that it is happening because they are in close proximity and don't notice any change. This phenomenon, however only occurs in Jedi and not the Sith. I will not be changed by you, you will be changed by me to become a suitable Sith Apprentice,' Plagueis recalled his Master telling him.

'What was it that I saw in Uzumaki Naruto?' Plagueis questioned as he leaned back in the chair he had sat down in. He soon remembered the boy that he first felt fall into the water and nearly drown. The splash was something that had gotten his attention from a near continuous meditation since the ship crashed. No one came to that small lake, to swim or fish, or to do anything really. 'I could do nothing since I was stuck to my holocron in the ship but I could feel his fear and struggles to survive,' the Sith Lord remembered.

'He did survive and I thought he would never return to that isolated lake. What would have psychologically scarred most children, the blonde overcame and began diving into the water day after day in the hopes of finally reaching the blinking emergency signal light. In truth, a small part of my mind wondered if I would ever get out of that ship by that point in time. I felt him dive in that water, reaching deeper depths every day and I envied his drive. For someone so young, he was determined to succeed no matter the time it took. It was something that I had lost over my long years as a Sith Lord. Perhaps it was also his curiosity about the Galaxy and about the knowledge that I offered,' he added and continued on that train of thought.

'He wanted to be Hokage but not because of power but because he wanted the recognition that went with it. He wanted people to acknowledge him. Unlike so many others in his village, he had the drive and was willing to put forth the effort to attain such a position. I changed his thinking, made him see the village for what I could see it as; in order to distance him from his only real connections and any sense of duty. It wasn't actually that difficult. The ground work had been paved by everyone that had let him down or gave him such looks of loathing,' he recalled as he brought those memories to the surface.

'A part of him wanted to be free from the burden of working endlessly to prove himself worthy in the villager's and ninja's eyes. It was a path that would have required self-sacrifice and great strength of will. I sought out the small thought in the back of his mind that questioned whether it was all worth it to take such a hard route and helped take him on a path to the easier route, one of treating the villagers in the same manner that he had been treated. Not an eye for an eye but one of indifference. He could also tell that he was being used to fulfill my goals but he went with it because it meant that he wouldn't have to be lonely again. I was a spirit, tied to the holocron and as long as he had the holocron, I could never leave or abandon him.

Our goals were the same back then. To get the ship working and get off Ibonihs...and that had succeeded,' he continued to contemplate as he recognized that it was also over with, 'Those goals were reached over a year ago...since then….that drive and effort was likely refocused onto something else,' he slowly realized and his body started to breath a little heavier as he began to consider something.

'In all the time that we were on Ibonihs, and since leaving, I really never asked him what he would do once he got out into the Galaxy. I assumed he would be helping me, but in the past year he has been working in secret,' he suddenly considered. It was a substantial oversight on his part; to never bother posing such a question to his Student.

"What….goal or goals...is Naruto currently focused on?" Plagueis questioned out loud and words threatened to consume all of his imagination.

'Sidious has drive but his hubris holds him back and he puts less effort in than Naruto does,' he reasoned as though his former Apprentice was a Senator of the Republic, Sidious did not actually win the election during his race for candidacy. 'He also keeps to himself in the Senate a bit too much. He has connections but doesn't attend many committees or parties that would increase his chances at moving on towards the Chancellor position. He could easily be far more popular, with more acknowledgments and supporters if he put in more effort,' Plagueis analyzed and then compared that observation to his student.

Naruto was willing to put his life on the line whenever it was required. There were certain things that the blonde would not do but he usually went beyond what was required. 'How many thirteen-year-olds in the galaxy would willingly walk into Jabba's Palace to sell the Hutt weapons? And I sent him there, with little to no hesitation, knowing that he would accomplish something. Despite being focused on my old experiment, I wasn't worried that Naruto would survive. Not only did he survive but he killed the Hutt, which so many others have tried and failed to do or are too afraid to even attempt. It wasn't mere foolishness, he was ready to accept whatever consequences came of it,' he thought and it was slightly overwhelming as he kept thinking everything over.

'He can't be involved in that much, can he?' the Sith Lord found himself wondering and he couldn't be sure of the answer. 'Whatever his future goals are, they are going to be long-term. There are more pressing concerns...his short-term goals...becoming one with darkside,' he concluded and went back to his original thoughts of his Student, though a small thought in the back of his mind wanted to delve into those long-term goals.

'He likely wanted to go to the Galaxy because it was a place where people of many different characteristics existed. The marks on his face would not be seen as standing out among some of the other sentient races that inhabit the Galaxy. Was he satisfied with what he found?' questioned the Sith Lord as most of their journey was in the Outer-Rim, not necessarily the best area of the Galaxy to initially see and judge it by. Naruto also did not participate in their trip to Coruscant. There current accommodations were more than adequate though so he moved on.

'Naruto did not like to be alone,' was his next thought. 'That was likely why when I left him in Konoha after taking Gatou's body, we suddenly started recruiting members. It wasn't because we needed them at the time, though they have come in handy. We may not have gotten off the planet without them. It may also be why he took the droid with him when he left,' he reasoned and moved on to his next thought.

It was a known fact to the Sith Lord that Naruto was far more interested in knowing about his mother than he was about knowing his father. 'He wanted desperately to know that he was wanted by her, that he wasn't given up. I shouldn't have kept that from him either,' he admitted and inevitably, his thoughts eventually returned to the vision he had. Though it was still suspect, it contained a great deal of information that needed to be addressed.

'Purple flames coming from his sword. I have never heard of anything like that,' he confessed as he had no idea how something like that could come from the sword. 'What is mine capable of,' he then found himself wondering, idly glancing down at the sheathed blade.

'I also don't know how he hid his presence so well or projected his presence,' he thought, remembering that at one point he had struck out to attack a foe that wasn't there, but one that he had felt through the Force as standing behind him.

'I'm also unsure how he simply appeared behind me. I can only guess that it was a Body Flicker or some combination of Force Speed and the Body Flicker. I don't remember teaching him illusions at any point either, nor do I currently have many tomes which contain more than a handful of simple techniques. He must have or will have picked that up later,' he believed as though he could not use any advanced Force illusions, he knew of them and how powerful they could be in the hands of someone that could wield them proficiently. His own master, Tenebrous had used illusions, 'Simple ones that he used to fool me with but he did not use them when fighting, nor were they very powerful once I figured them out and could see through them.'

'Where will he learn all of this,' he wondered but quickly admonished himself for such a thought, 'This is Naruto that I'm talking about. Knowing him, he would somehow find it somewhere. That is seemingly what he does. The device still in the hangar of the Tsukinowa is likely an example.' The more he thought of his wayward Student, the more he started thinking about where Naruto had gone.

A number of locations filled his mind but many were places that he himself had ventured to without any luck of finding something useful or hearing anything from long dead Sith. There were many stories of great figures like Marka Ragnos appearing before various fledgling Sith but nothing like that had ever happened to him. There was a quick thought that surfaced in his mind of Naruto going to Coruscant to see Sidious, but he pushed such a thought aside as he knew Naruto would not do something so foolish. 'He's confused and angry, not stupid. He would never go to Coruscant to seek those two out,' he assured himself before moving on to something else that was in the back of his mind.

It was the power that Naruto had displayed in the meeting room. Though not new, it had nonetheless interested Plagueis and he made a mental note to look into it later, 'Now is later, I suppose,' he thought as he began analyzing what he had seen. Channeling emotions outward and into objects was not something knew to Plagueis. He had used a similar technique many times in his old body but what Naruto did which was unique was the use of a multitude of emotions instead of what Sith normally used and that he had been producing results.

'The method of destruction was also different,' noted Plagueis as he closed his eyes to recall the scene in his mind. 'He was breaking items or at least causing them to be pushed to structural failure. I have seen the Force used to make objects explode and heard of someone infusing power into an object and then throwing it, but this was slightly different. I have even used a Force Bellow to destroy parts of buildings but this was a more subtle use of the Force and I'm not sure exactly by what method he was employing to do it. Telekinesis? A subtle Force Push? A combination of pushing and pulling?' he wondered as he thought back to what he had seen.

'It looked more like a vibration but that was what the transparasteel was experiencing,' he thought but soon had another explanation, 'Could it have been the manifestation of the Vulpine creature?' he considered but quickly disproved such a theory as he hadn't felt the creature's energy or malevolence during the meeting. 'I didn't feel it at all for that matter,' he realized and was confused by such a realization.

'Something should have happened given what I put him through during the meeting. Did he find a method to make the seal stronger again?' he wondered but that left more questions as more complex fuinjutsu was beyond both of them. 'No,' he thought and continued with, 'I really don't know what he is going through, which is part of the problem,' and on that statement he recalled something that he had nearly forgotten in the past year since it happened.

'While continuing with Juugo's training on meditation, I asked him numerous questions about what happened on Tatooine and he told me something interesting,' he remembered and tried to get the exact wording that Juugo had used to describe the moment in Jabba's slave processing facility.

'He seemed to be called to the locked door and once it was opened, he was overwhelmed,' was Plagueis' recollection of what Juugo had said. and tried to remember. 'At the time, I thought Juugo was speaking about the conditions of the slaves and seeing sentient beings in cages. Ibonihs did not practice slavery that I could determine and Naruto didn't originally know what the word meant when I was explaining about it's usage in the Galaxy. Those not accustomed to seeing the practice do react to it but perhaps it was something else that he was overwhelmed by?'

Being able to feel what others were going through was also not something new to his knowledge. It was, however, not something a Sith ever cared about or delved into. Primarily because they didn't care about others or how they felt unless they planned to harness those emotions or even feed off them. However Naruto was quite different in that respect. He did care to a surprising extent for a dark-side user. 'I remembering feeling apprehensive about his presence in the village during the Chunin Exam attack. I thought he would break from the plan and help those in the village or worse. Luckily there was a lot of keep his mind busy and he had very little love for the village or its inhabitants by that time,' he remembered and wondered about his students ability.

Jedi were sensitive to the feelings of other but not to the degree that Naruto seemed to be sensitive. 'It is almost a hypersensitivity to others. But why was it so severe with the slaves?' he questioned and considered that perhaps Naruto was picking up on certain emotions or the extreme state of mind that slaves were experiencing. 'I have read something similar before,' Plagueis suddenly thought and opening his eyes, he stood up too fast for his mending body to deal with and ended up putting a hand on the nearby desk to steady himself as he lost balance.

Looking to his small library, he made his way into its shelves in order to explore the sudden recollection and figure out the familiarity that he was feeling. Beginning to look over his collection of various tomes concerning Sith history and other topics, he pushed back the thought that there was somewhere else that he could have been looking if he really wanted to know more about his Student. At the time moment, though he was more comfortable with scanning through tomes than taking the turbo lift down a single floor. He would put that off for a period of time while he prepared the group.

x-x

Blue eyes opened to look upon a dark blue world. It took a few seconds for Naruto to recall where he was in order to make sense of what he was looking at. The sun's rays were apparently just coming up over the horizon on the surface because they were just barely piercing through the deep water that he was looking at. Several schools of fish were moving around the area and he could see larger animals as well as a few predators in the waters above. Deciding not to move just yet from his bed, he kept looking through the transparasteel that was the most of the ceiling and walls of his bedroom in the Telerath island home.

The sturdy glass-like material was the only thing keeping him from truly being a part of the bottom of the ocean where the room had been built. Directly above his position, he could make out the shadowy outline of the artificial island on the surface but his attention was elsewhere as the sea life held his current attention. Sensing out for life-signs he could feel far more than what he was seeing and if he focused long enough on the water and ocean creatures, the transparasteel dome began to disappear, making it feel as if he was a part of that blue world.

Knowing that the day was just beginning, he sighed as it meant that he would have to get up and his brief vacation was over. The room he was in violated so many rules and teachings that Plagueis had given him. He was sleeping in a very exposed area, with only a single exit and if anything were to happen to damage the transparasteel, the ocean would come rushing into his room. However, some of that was the point in him choosing that room.

The bed was far better than the one on Forty-Two and he stretched out across it's surface, unable to reach any of the edges save for the headboard. Something about being surrounded by water made it easier for him to sleep because he soon found himself questioning if that had been the soundest sleep he ever head. Disappointment, however, ensued as he tossed the covers aside and got up so he could start getting ready for his trip.

x-x

Strapping on the final portion of the device, Naruto secured the straps and as he moved to start it up, he thought better of it. Looking to his identical shadow clone, he demanded, "Wait until I'm a safe distance away before starting it up."

"That's comforting," retorted the clone as it waited for Naruto and the droid to move behind a blast plate that had been brought just for the purpose of testing the device. Wincing slightly, the clone turned on the dial on the belt and heard the shielding unit start up. When nothing else happened but a low, steady hum being the only result, the clone opened his eyes and then moved across the surface of the small lagoon to the designated spot that he was supposed to stand.

Though the last thing he wanted was to test the device in his small piece of paradise, Naruto resolved to make sure it worked before he needed to use it. Peeking back above the heavy piece of blaster-proof metal, Naruto was pleased that the device was working and watched the clone move into position. Unlike the chakra shields that Snow Country had built, his device was split up into five small portions instead of just one large device. Two portions were secured to the upper arms beneath the shoulders and two more strapped to the outer sides of the thighs, while a fifth piece was on a belt at the waist and acted as the activator and control for the device. They were slim black colored pieces, not bulky in terms of weight or size and could be hidden underneath clothing or some other additional armor if needed.

'I can barely make out the field,' he noted as the protective energy field of the shield generating device was only visible at certain moments when the light hit it at just the right angle, and even then, it was only a partial outline of the projected field. 'As least it seems to be streamlined,' he observed as the outline followed the clones body and didn't bubble out around him. It stayed about an inch or two over his body and changed slightly as the clone moved.

"Inquiry: Why did we need to use the blast shield when the device was activated?" asked the droid and Naruto looked slightly uncomfortable for a few seconds before admitting, "The first version exploded."

"Stop smirking," the blonde told the droid before looking away and focusing back on the clone. HK tilted his head slightly given that he did not possess the ability to make such facial movements before ignoring what had been said and wondering when it would be his time to help.

"How does it feel?" Naruto yelled out, still standing behind the piece of metal that HK was partially holding up. Jumping up and down twice, the clone then performing a spinning kick to experiment and some other movements before replying, "I don't feel any slower."

"Good, no resistance to movement yet," commented Naruto in a lower voice that the clone may or may not have been able to hear, "Radiation?" he then yelled out again.

The clone looked down to a little device strapped to his chest and checked the readings before responding, "Nothing."

'Seems that has been improved as well,' he quickly thought before replying, "Heat?" and the clone began touching the various pieces of the device in order to check if they were getting hot. "It's not even warm," revealed the clone and Naruto smiled slightly at the success thus far. 'I wonder what will happen if he is running at high speed or he falls into the water?' he thought but pushed those aside for the moment as he focused on the main purpose of the test.

"Blaster rifle," was he needed to say to HK-47 for the droid to understand and quickly pull the weapon of its back and take aim at the clone. "Fire," was all Naruto said before moving as much of himself as he could behind the blast shield as a shot rang out. The clone instinctively tried to block the shot with his arms but the energy field took the blow. The blue field was completely visible in the torso area as the blaster bolt was absorbed. 'No reflection,' the blonde noted and since the clone was still intact, he believed it to be his first successful test run, but he still needed to be sure.

"Status?" he demanded as popped back up from behind the blast shield. "I'm alive," the clone responded sarcastically as it didn't like being a guinea pig for an experiment. Giving the clone a more serious look, it got the hint and checked before responded, "No radiation change and it's barely warm."

'Finally, a working chakra shield device,' Naruto confirmed and he was pleased with the success. This was the third such prototype device that he had built, 'But I still need to run a few more tests,' he realized as there could still be problems. There were or had been at one point, different types of shields available to the majority of the Galaxy. He knew this because of what he had found on the Hammerhead Cruiser, from lessons that Plagueis had given him. However, even the Sith Lord didn't know just how many variations of shielding devices were available and how they worked or how good they were.

The only available devices for sale were ones for droids and they were quite expensive and produced radiation with others sold exclusively on black markets and very hard to come by because they were custom made and extremely rare. Experimenting with the devices from the Hammerhead and asking HK about shielding, since the droid was from a completely different era, he had discovered that at least two main personal she idling devices used to exist. Standard energy shields were the first, they took care of blasters and other sources that were energy-based, even able to protect from heat and radiation. Another version were similar to particle shields and blocked physical blows or projectile weapons. From these, numerous specialized devices had also been created, possibly even shields that performed the functions of both devices.

The only thing that had changed from eras past was possibly blaster technology. This was something that Naruto had to account for with his device. It needed to be more powerful in order to account for more powerful weaponry. 'I was initially going for a physical shield that would stop the projectiles that I have far more difficulty blocking,' he recalled as he thought back to his first prototype and the problems that plagued it.

Overheating had been a major issue but once he had gotten past that, radiation protection came next. After one explosion, he eventually figured out how to proceed but an interesting affect occurred in testing. It was a result of incorporating the elements of the chakra armor that caused the device to take on a slightly different characteristic.

During experimental trials, the projected two dimensional field he created blocked everything that moved at high speeds, both physical and many energy sources. His hand could pass through the field or a punch, but a shot both blaster and slug thrower would be stopped. It was an interesting phenomenon which he had decided to dub, velocity shielding. With the move from experimental to an actual prototype, he wasn't actually sure what the velocity threshold was anymore.

Also, because of the chakra aspect, in theory the field could be controlled or at least made stronger in one area, weaker in another, or briefly taken down and put back up. 'that will take some getting used to and practice to accomplish,' he believed, if it was even possible as it was still only theory.

'Both are limitations to find out later,' he thought as he still had more work to do before heading out, 'I should try out another shot or two before moving to another weapon type,' he decided and giving a signal to HK to fire again, the droid misunderstood and unleashed a torrent of blaster rifle fire. Seeing the shots rain down upon the clone, Naruto stopped the droid as fast as he could before the device overheated or worse.

"Stop shooting!" Naruto demanded of the droid before HK took his digit off the trigger. Looking to the blonde, the droid responded, "Statement: You failed to specify how many shots to take."

"Were you planning to use a whole energy cell?" Naruto asked before looking out to see if the clone was still alive or if he needed to fish the device out of the lagoon. When the clone removed his hands from his head and stood back up from his sheltered croucjing position, Naruto was surprised to find it still intact. "How hot is it?" he questioned to the clone and waited a few seconds before the clone responded, "Pretty hot."

Going to the small recording device he was using, Naruto played back the holorecording of the test in order to see what had happened. Looking over the hologram, he viewed the indiscriminate firing upon the clone and watched as five of the eight shots had been absorbed. Because the clone was trying to dodge the shots, the remaining had been glancing blows on the shield and were partially reflected. 'The angle is very slight so it should be easy to account for if anyone is standing near me,' he thought while playing through the recording once again.

"Let's take a break and start back with a flechette gun when it cools off," Naruto said loud enough for the clone to hear.

x-x

Sitting in the pilot seat, Naruto again removed part of his cloak to check over the shielding device which he was now wearing. It had been a few hours since leaving and he had left it on in order to check prolonged usage to see if it would also slowly overheat over time. Ideally, he wanted a device that he could wear all the time and keep on most of that time.

'Still no change,' he noted with slight relief as the device was still running at nearly the same temperature it was when he turned it on. Seeing that the destination was fast approaching, he pulled out a small remote and activated the device which was magnetically attached to the hull of the ship. The device acted similar to the much more powerful jamming capabilities of the Star Jewel and was designed to stop transmissions moving into orbit from the surface of a planet.

'I simply need to put it in orbit,' Naruto thought as he had already planned his approach. Coming out of lightspeed close to the planet was not an option. 'I have no idea what defenses this secret base may have. At the very least it has active sensors that may send out signals to alert Sidious of trespassers, but it could have any number of orbital or ground emplacements,' he believed so he instead was going to come out of hyperspace outside the Wayland System and then move in by sublight to the planet he was after.

Pushing forward on the lever, the ship exited hyperspace and returned to real space as it drastically slowed down and the stars went from long blurred lines to stationary dots. Extending the ship's sensors to their maximum range, he waited to see what would come up. Forty-two didn't have the best sensor equipment money could buy but it was much better than whatever came on stock models for the ship.

'Hopefully I'll see them before they see me,' the blonde thought as there wasn't much in the system. The planet Wayland made up the system with a single asteroid belt farther away from the sun. There were no moons and no other planets in orbit of the star bearing the same name as the planet. The glowing yellow ball was still a good distance away but was the only item of note in the otherwise empty expanse of space that was the range of the sensors. As the celestial body became larger, the system came into range and Naruto poured over the readings in order to see what he was up against.

'The sensors aren't detecting anything,' he realized and it wasn't that he was disappointing, more that he expected a bit more or would have defended the planet differently if their roles had been reversed. His planned defense of The Foundry in the Kuna Constellation was far more elaborate, 'There is still the asteroid belt to consider or perhaps ground emplacements,' he reminded himself and was forced to take a wait-and-see approach.

Taking the remote back out from beneath his cloak, he activated the jamming device on the hull just in case his approach had been detected. 'But with nothing in orbit, the range of anything on the ground would be limited by the atmosphere and magnetic field of the planet,' he concluded, however, it was best not to take chances. In his mind, he imagined that any number of monitoring devices may have been hidden in the asteroid belt.

'They are all too small for any outpost but a single automated detection device or relay wouldn't be that hard to implement,' he thought and made sure to keep an eye on the variety of long-range scans he was running. Growing ever larger, Naruto could now see the asteroid belt and even make out a small dot that was the planet he was after. Taking the ship higher above the plane of the system, he hoped to evade anything that was hidden in the asteroids.

Tensing and ready for evasion as they flew over the belt, Naruto concentrated on the various instruments around him to alert him of incoming fire or any signals being sent. 'It isn't even detecting the operation of any electrical devices or systems. Maybe there isn't anything there,' he considered but decided to remain vigilant. Even as Forty-Two passed the asteroid belt and approached the planet directly he didn't let his guard down. Switching his scanners to the surface, it didn't take long to find the mountain he was after.

Scans indicated that the intercepted geoscan was accurate and nothing seemed to have changed concerning the outside of the facility. 'The inside, however, is a bit more difficult to scan,' Naruto realized as the ship's scanners were only able to penetrate so far into the rock and most of the facility was hidden in a cavern of sorts on the side of the mountain.

'A normal sensor sweep may not have noticed the base if I was just passing by through the system,' he concluded and decided that the old field hospital was definitely a good secret location. The hidden facility on Mustafar was empty of any valuable Sith items so there was a chance that Sidious was using Wayland instead of keeping everything on the LiMerge Power building on Coruscant.

His imagination began to run wild with thoughts of Sith or even Jedi artifacts until he stopped such thoughts to focus on his next step. 'There were definitely some kind of weapon emplacements just at the mouth of the facility where a partially projecting landing pad is situated, so I need to be aware of them during my descent,' he planned and then wondered about the rest of the planet.

Having been so focused on the mountain, he had not bothered to check for any detectable life-forms or settlements on the planet. Running simple scans moving outward from the mountain, the blonde was surprised to find multiple settlements on the planet, 'Or what would appear to be settlements,' he thought while trying to find energy signatures in those areas but was failing to discern anything. 'Are they too primitive?' he wondered as he looked over the nonexistent energy readings.

Either it wasn't a settlement and he was looking at a very large herd of creatures on the previous readout, or they simply didn't possess anything technological that could be detected. 'They don't appear to be that close to the mountain,' he analyzed and decided to keep an eye on them as well while he made his descent.

'And now a landing site…?' he thought while switching to different scans of the surface of the planet. Most of the area around the mountain was jungle and overgrown or too rocky to make a good landing site. 'In my old body, I could have easily left a clone on the ship and just dropped us off,' he lamented but pushed the thoughts aside as he found an area on the opposite side of the mountain that should be flat enough to land the ship.

'If we go around the planet and take advantage of a high altitude, I can land right there and then we'll have a good trek to the get to the facility,' he planned and though it wouldn't be a short hike, he wouldn't have to worry about being shot at, 'But I have no idea who or what is really down there,' he considered as the flora and fauna of the planet could be deadly or at least hazardous. Just because it was a Type I planet, did not mean it was safe for travelers.

Moving to a good orbit, Naruto detached the small jamming device from the hull before he made preparation to enter the atmosphere of the mysterious planet Wayland.

x-x

Seoul 5

Seoul System

Wild Space

x-x

With the sun just coming up over the mountains she had just come from, the cold morning wind brushed past the raven haired woman's face as she drove the speeder toward the abandoned city just ahead of her. If she was instead walking to the city, the amateur archaeologist was sure that she would have created a well worn path straight from the prefabricated facility she was staying in.

Slowing down so as not to disturb anything, the propulsion specialist moved between the buildings and along the overgrown paths of the city before coming to a stop. Leaving all of her packed gear, she walked from the parked speeder to what had become a very familiar and welcomed sight in her morning routine. Close to the center of the city was a white monument made of a local stone, or so she believed.

It was on a pedestal and as tall as a normal human which was not what had caught her interest. Despite the cloak worn by the figure doing a good job of hiding any distinguishing gender characteristics, and the cloak itself shadowing a non-existent face on the statue, for some reason, she was sure that the cloaked being was female. Since the writing on the pedestal was still indecipherable to her, nothing could confirm her hunch or provide any information on who the figure was or what her role was. 'A religious figure,' was what she initially thought and a belief that she still held, but not because of any knowledge that she had gained, it was merely a hunch.

Standing in the morning light, Shilaea once again looked at the statue and admired the workmanship. Though a simple carving, and not showing anything amazing in terms of detail or workmanship, she nonetheless was always intrigued and drawn to approach the statue when she looked at it. Oddly, something felt familiar about it, though she could not place that feeling. Taking out one of her personal datapads, she opened up a familiar file and began looking over the lettering on the pedestal.

'It's important,' she told herself for what felt like the hundredth time and sat down just before the statue as she always ended up getting tired of standing long before she eventually got tired or frustrated with her continued failure at deciphering the lettering on the pedestal.

'This cloaked person likely has something important to say,' she kept thinking and was determined to find out what it was before deciphering anything else in the city. Though she remembered her deal with the blonde from Naboo, the statue came first; before the device and before finding the power source of the city.

'And if he says anything..,' she thought while working on her datapad, '..I can always argue that the conduits in the city all seem to converge on nearly this spot,' she said with a smile and dropped those thoughts in favor of the message on the pedestal. After a few minutes, she inevitably let her mind wander again. 'It has been a while since he's sent any message,' she idly thought but that really didn't worry her as it meant that she was under far less scrutiny that she originally believed she would be on such an amazing xenoarchaeological discovery.

'There really isn't any scrutiny,' she almost found herself saying out loud before going back to looking over the datapad. Her weekly reports were hopefully getting read and initially she would have thought that the blonde would have wanted more progress from her but it was nice to actually be allowed to work at her own pace without deadlines or milestones to achieve.

'Though I am missing a lot,' she suddenly admitted while stopping for a moment and thinking to all the messages she had the previous week when connecting with the computer in her apartment back on Byblos. There had been several requests, messages from colleagues, and others...but at the moment, as she looked around the city from her sitting perspective, that really didn't matter.

"What do you think?" she questioned to the statue and her droid aide thought she was speaking to it before clarifying that she wasn't and going back to the datapad. On a few mornings she had caught herself staring at the figure and she simply couldn't allow herself to get so distracted at the moment. Once the sun started to move overhead, she would be off to explore another area of the city.

x-x

Slicing through the last amount of vines and, once again, the old hidden base was in view on the mountainside. Naruto used his cloak to wipe his blade before sheathing it and then looked with distaste at the plant remains which had come off the blade and onto his cloak. It was annoying having to take the long route. He had wanted to run around the mountain, literally, but HK was not able to follow such a route. The terrain was also too rocky and the jungle too overgrown for the speeder bike they had on Forty-Two. They could have flown it over the tree line but that would put them in clear view of any surveillance or targeting systems.

The pair had encountered only a few small obstacles since touching down on the planet, and they mostly included the indigenous fauna. 'I can't feel anything from this planet,' Naruto noted as he felt around the area again. Lehon was so drenched in the dark-side that it permeated everything and of the areas he had visited which were locations of a Sith, he had been able to feel something, 'But I feel very little from Wayland,' he concluded and he was slightly disappointed but considered that perhaps he simply wasn't close enough to the mountain yet.

Glancing at that very physical feature which dominated most of his view, the blonde smirked slightly at a thought he had before taking out one of his prototype devices from a scroll he had in his hip pouch. The unsealed full-face mask was a combination of a breathing filter and basic heads up display system that incorporated something better than his old modified goggles. It was simple, being made by him from multiple similar devices with little in mind for aesthetics and more consideration made toward functionality. Taking down the hood of his all-weather cloak, he put on an armorweave slip that covered his blonde hair and neck but left his face exposed, similar to what some ninja back on Ibonihs wore. Carefully placing the mask on the connectors, it secured to his face and he activated the new device.

At first all he could see was darkness before the systems started up and a display was produced for him to use. Everything looked quite different, appearing in shades of red instead of normal colors and making it difficult to tell what time of day it was anymore. His sight was also slightly hampered by a narrowed field of vision but there were some benefits. Moving his head back and forth to get a feel of the display and how well it could keep up with fast movements, he then took his first breathe through the filter, testing to see what noise it made.

Exhaling, he found it made little noise, which was exactly what he wanted. Putting the cloak hood back up, he moved his hand up to the temple of the mask, which ended before his ears and touched several of the controls. The display image soon zoomed in on the base and Naruto got his first real look at everything.

The facility was either built into a cavern on the side of the mountain or the cavern was made for the base, either way he could see little save for the one large opening. A landing platform and two laser emplacements was what really caught his attention and he could make out some of the base behind these features but not much give his angle on the ground. Using the mask, he determined the distance and height to the platform which was over sixty meters off the ground and well above the treeline of the surrounding jungle.

Looking everywhere else, he searched for any surveillance or security devices which would give their further approach away but found very little. It appeared that the only monitoring devices were focused on the platform and searching for approaching vessels. 'The jamming device should be limiting any active scans of the atmosphere and in orbit, so our approach shouldn't have alerted anything. Even if it did, the base can't send out a distress signal or alert anyone as long as the device operating correctly and magnifying the jamming abilities of Forty-Two,' he thought as he looked for the best method of egress into the facility.

There didn't appear to be any entrance on ground level, 'So it's either coming in by ship to land or climbing,' he surmised and turning to the droid, he asked, "You brought your repelling gear?" and he was surprised for a moment by how his voice sounded with the mask. It was far more metallic sounding than he had ever heard it before. Unfazed by the change in voice, the droid responded by holding up the magnetic grappling device that was slung over it's shoulder along with a powerful assault rifle.

Nodding, Naruto pulled out a device from underneath his cloak and tossed it to the droid. HK instantly caught the object and recognized it as an energy shield belt, likely taken from the Republic cruiser on Mustafar. Looking to the blonde, Naruto responded, "You may need it," before saying, "Lets move in," and the pair quickly pushed forward, closer to the nearly shear cliff-side in that area of Mount Tantiss.

x-x

Stuck underneath the portion of platform sticking out from the mountain, Naruto used chakra to keep himself in position while he began unsealing one of his other prototypes. A magnetic grapple was also stuck to the underside of the platform near him and moving up the long distance to ground level was HK. It only took a few moments for him to reach the same position as the blonde and he activated the magnets in his feet to also attach to the platform upside-down right before he detached the grapple and attached the device to his back again.

With the new device unsealed, HK-47 looked over the small black droid that Naruto was holding and inspected it's various elements to determine how inferior it was. Ignoring the rust colored droid, Naruto activated a small button the on the underside of his droid and it slowly activated, checking its various systems before being ready for use.

It was similar to common small insects like a centipede, but with fewer legs. The droid was rather flat with a smooth but segmented body that appeared as though it had an exoskeleton which was actually very expensive sensor dampening material procured through the Black Sun. The entire droid was not as long as Naruto's arm, hand to elbow, but close. Taking out the accompanying remote control, Naruto activated the switch before touching the droids numerous small legs to the platform as he tested the magnetizing ability of the feet.

Slowly releasing his hand and finding the droid was still stuck to the metal surface, Naruto smirked before activating the other features and having the droid's small photoreceptor link up to his mask so he could see what it was seeing. Testing out the controls, once satisfied, he had the droid fulfill it's mission. Despite moving up and over the platform, it's feet made no noise as it stealthily moved in the direction of Naruto's choosing with the small remote.

As the droid moved up and over the platform edge to the proper side in accordance with gravity, Naruto waited to see if any of the alarms were tripped. When nothing happened, he let out a breath before moving the droid across the platform and towards the base. As it glanced left and right, he got a good look at the base and the weapon systems, which appeared to be active and waiting for a target. 'So he has definitely been taking care of them if they are still functional after so much time,' the blonde thought as he noted how weathered the emplacement weapons looked.

As the droid steadily moved across the platform, Naruto watched as it entered the cave that led to the entrance of the base. Several closed doors presumably led to different portions of the base and even a staircase led to a catwalk above spanned between walls of the cavern with closed doors on either end. Only a few windows were present in the cave with several of them being clustered in one area. The droid however was going straight to one of the main doors, specifically the control panel next to a door. The flexible body crawled directly from the floor up the wall without pause before it reached the control panel.

Taking more direct control of the droid, Naruto activated the thin tendrils from the head which appeared like antennae on the insect-like droid and had them begin manipulating the panel, partially removing it to create a gap through which to access underneath. With a small camera on each end, he got a look at the circuitry of the door panel before getting the tendrils into position and pushing a button on the remote to activate another feature.

A slight electrical surge through he tendrils caused the door to malfunction and instead of simply opening, the door was merely unlatched and broke the seal enough for a being to get a hold and open it manually. Taking advantage of the safety feature, which did not cause any alarm to sound because the door did not actually open, Naruto pressed on. The droid was able to moved across the door and barely fit through the small gap, gaining access to the facility.

What he wanted was a computer terminal or at least some kind of security system that he could slice into with the droid. 'Where would those be?' the blonde questioned to himself as he looked over the wide corridor that he was seeing and tried to decide where to go. 'Probably up,' he considered as there may have been a control room of some kind and based upon what he knew of the Mustafar Facility, that control room was right near the entrance only up a level. It was conceivable that Republic facility on Wayland was similar.

There had been at least one set of large windows overlooking the landing platform above the doors when the droid was glancing around the area, so Naruto headed not to the turbo-lift but up the wall and to the nearest air vent that he could find. Removing the door to the vent wasn't hard for the droid and it was easily small enough to go through the vent. Navigating an unknown network, Naruto activated a small light on the droid's head and moved through, glancing through any vent screen that he could find until he found an image that looked like a control room.

Moving to the ground, Naruto had the droid move to the center of the room in order to get a good look at everything. Spotting the lone computer terminal in the room, he had the droid move to it and extend the small device it had to slice into the system. It was a skeletal version of a terminal access device which Deefour had; as simple as possible to get the job done without adding extra weight, requiring more space, or needed extra systems to the small droid. Getting into the system, Naruto used the remote to access what he wanted and then began powering down all security measures and surveillance devices throughout the facility.

The pair could hear the power feed to the emplacement weapons shut down and Naruto nodded to HK before they both moved to the top of the platform and got their first look at the base. Despite knowing that the systems were down, HK had his blaster rifle out and Naruto was brandishing his lightsaber when they hopped over the edge of the platform. With no movement and nothing being alerted, the droid lowered his weapon slightly and Naruto did the same as they moved forward into the cave.

The blonde half expected to see Sith Runes carved into the rock walls but found nothing adorned the walls, they were likely just as they had been when the base was created. Just into the cave, a pair of hangar doors that likely held emergency vehicles used by the field hospital were placed to the right while the doors to various parts of the facility were straight ahead and to the left. Looking up to see what was indeed windows to a control room, Naruto moved to the partially open door to gain the quickest access to the base and see what was hidden inside.

Pulling open both doors with the Force, Naruto moved in first with HK standing beside him as the hallway was big enough for at least four people to walk side by side.

x-x

Going through line after line at an incredible pace, Plagueis finished one tome and then took out another. He was sure that what he wanted was in that area of his collection. Scanning another few lines made him stop at something he recognized. Currently he was looking through a history record which dated back just over a thousand years to the time of the Republic Dark Ages, 'A time when families of Sith battled each other and the remainder of the Republic and Jedi for mere territory in sectors and not entire portions of the Galaxy,' Plagueis recalled and he scanned for the specific portion that he was after.

Records were scarce at that time and nothing really happened of note, at least in the eyes of the Rule of Two. Those records were decades before the rise of the Brotherhood of the Sith, the Ryuusian Formation as well as Bane's creation of the Rule of Two Order a short time later. What had caught his eye was the history and records of a particular family with a son by the name of Odion. It appeared that the boy was hypersensitive to the feelings and existences of others, especially children.

'It become so pronounced as his powers in the dark-side grew that in the area of space that he ruled, dubbed the Odionate, he sequestered all children into complete isolation in order to hide their existence and only allow them to feel the negative emotions that he could cope with and feed off,' Plagueis read and though the words did not resemble Naruto, it was a similar condition to what the blonde was experiencing.

'Although he seems to be experiencing the opposite….it is the negative emotions that he cannot deal with,' analyzed the Sith Lord and he continued reading to find out that Odion developed a view of the Galaxy in which he valued absolute destruction and death of all sentient beings. If they were all gone, then he would finally be at peace. Though it was obvious that the deranged Sith was never able to complete such plans.

'If I had truly trained Naruto as a Sith Apprentice, is this what he would have become?' wondered Plagueis and it was hard to imagine Naruto becoming such a Sith. 'Would Naruto eventually react the same if he continues down his current path on his journey?' the Sith Lord then questioned and such thoughts were giving him a sense of foreboding.

'He freed all of the slaves in order to stop the negative emotions that he was feeling,' acknowledged Plagueis but he knew that the dark-side could easily change a person and twist their logic. 'It was a decision that he made, but he could have easily made the opposite choice; to kill all the slaves and silence them completely,' he was forced to concede and though he didn't believe the current Naruto to be capable of such acts, he could not say the same for the Naruto in his vision.

'Indiscriminately killing because of a lack of control and focus…' he thought and considered the training that he had given the blonde, 'I did give him control and focus but I suppose I never put him to such a test….nor considered it. He was excellent at gleaning information from others and figuring out what they were feeling, I never stopped to consider how good he was and what would happen if he was surrounded by people with very open thoughts and in such a mental state. We spent most of our time in the safety of a prospering village, isolated in the space behind the faces on the Hokage Mountain,' he realized and had the inevitable response, "I should have trained him better," which quickly turned into, "I shouldn't have stopped training him."

Sitting in silence for several minutes contemplating such thoughts, the Sith Lord eventually had to force himself to stop, 'It is my duty now to stay focused and not dwell on such things….,' he thought and moved on to something else that needs to be taken care of, 'I could wait but it will only get worse the longer that I wait,' he knew as he looked at the message which had just arrived from the Naboo Royal Guard.

It was a very...nicely...worded letter from one of the blonde's superior officers, inquiring about the current health of Menma Rudshar and asking when he may be able to return to duty. Looking it over once again, Plagueis frowned slightly at the foolishly simple ruse he had used to start with. He could not get by for a prolonged period if he used an illness, 'If I choose something life-threatening or requiring an extended period of bed rest, eventually someone will come by to check in on him. I'll also need proof and I can't just get Karin to write off prescriptions or do a diagnosis, she doesn't currently have that kind of access,' he considered and began contemplating other alternatives.

'What would allow a lengthy and excused absence from the Naboo Royal Guard?' he thought, switching tactics. It took a few minutes to piece together everything that he knew about the guards and cadets before he believed that he had something of promise. 'Once in a while, officers applied for travel to other sectors in order to join the security forces or a task force,' he recalled as it was a common practice in many sectors of the Republic.

The more civilized areas of the Republic were not all free from piracy and other acts of crime but some areas were more severe than others. 'In order to be prepared and to combat a growing threat in one area, task forces are sometimes established which bring together security forces from multiple sectors in order to combat the threat. It is also a good way for security forces to gain more experience and knowledge, then bring that information back to their home planet and share with their fellow officers,' he thought and began forming a plan from that information.

Naboo was no different, the Chommel Sector was not devoid of crime as a weapons dealing Hutt was even operating right under the noses of the Royal Guard but it was generally a more peaceful sector. That however did not mean that everyone was relaxed or complacent. The current King had instituted many reforms and even created a Royal Starfighter Corps but they weren't called into action very much. Neither did the Royal Guard have to deal with threats on a constant basis. It was not uncommon for officers to apply for temporary positions outside of Naboo, 'But where would Naruto apply?' was the question that Plagueis then had to consider.

The answer, came rather easily. 'Menma Rudshar was not born on Naboo and I believe we put down that he was born in the Moddell Sector. If he is doing something in the Moddell Sector, then what would the first thing he would have to do after mapping everything?" Plagueis inwardly questioned and he knew the answer because it was something he had once taught the blonde, "To get rid of the problem elements; pirates, smugglers, slavers, and other groups," he thought out loud.

Sarafur was a hotbed for some of those elements but they controlled that area, 'However he would need to get control over at least a portion of the Sector or several systems if he was really planning anything long-term in that area. That would definitely explain a lengthy absence in service and it would certainly be allowed. Moddell is also quite far away but a place that he may have knowledge of, especially when it comes to the system and it's inhabitants. Some kind of..liaison officer,' he considered as he pieced together the vestiges of what he believed would be a good cover.

'So he'll have already applied for the position..?' Plagueis invented as he took out a datapad and began jotting down notes of the things that he would need. 'Some kind of notice of a small task force being assembled...to combat piracy,' he took down as he let his imagination run while sifting through the ideas and choose the best ones.

'Moddell Sector Authority….No,…..Moddell Sector Protectorate or the Moddell Sector Defense Fleet,' he considered and definitely liked the last one better. 'I'll need a copy of a fake application, his aptitude records through the cadet program, a letter of acceptance and other items….and all for a task force that doesn't exist,' and unfortunately on that realizing he came to a sudden stop as he inevitably reached the hardest part of the ruse and something that he may not be able to fabricate.

'I can make it appear digitally but as soon as someone contacts anyone in the Moddell Sector to find out about it and confirm, everything will hit a wall,' he conceded but something stopped him from labeling the idea as a loss. 'Maybe I don't need to worry about every detail,' he considered and it was something quite new to him as he always needed to work out all or most of the details before proceeding on anything.

'If I create enough digital paperwork and given how far Moddell is away, it may be a very long time before anyone realizes or questions it,' he thought and started jotting down numerous different forms and requests that he would send out to bury both sides in paperwork and confusion. 'A Special Liaison and Intelligence Officer working directly under the Defense Fleet's highest ranking officer and reporting on piracy activity and progress of the initiative to the Planetary Security Administrators and the Sector Defense Committee,' he concocted and looking over everything, he found it slightly amusing. He had no idea if those positions or that committee actually existed, 'They probably don't,' he admitted.

It was a large responsibility for one so young but Naboo was well known for having very young individuals in office or positions of authority. Maturity was based on intellect and not age and Naruto was very advanced and definitely the most promising member of the cadets. In a way, it did make sense that he would try and go for something more or be looking for opportunities to expand his training and knowledge.

x-x

The doors opened and the pair of intruders scanned the room before activating the lights, 'This time its a surgical operating room,' Naruto realized, disappointed again by the lack of anything substantial being found. The time before it was an empty mess hall and before that, 'A bathroom,' he recalled with annoyance before they went on the next door.

"This is getting extremely annoying," Nauto said out loud before he stopped walking and wondered where the control room was. He already had two shadow clones moving through different areas of the facility and just finishing their search after turning up nothing of interest. However, he realized at that moment that it would be far easier to just look and see where the majority of the power was going in the facility.

All the rooms they were in so far were empty and nothing was turned on inside them. Taking back out his remote, the blonde reactivated his droid in the control room and had it start sifting through information on the field hospital. One room in particular seemed to be draining the majority of the bases power. "Just ahead on the left, fourth door down," Naruto said to the droid and HK-47, equally bored with the empty facility was already in motion towards the destination.

Following the assassin droid at a brisk pace and commanding the small droid to return to him, Naruto put away the remote in favor of his lightsaber as HK readied himself by the side of the door to breach the room. Naruto activated his lightsaber before nodding to the droid and it hit the control panel for the door. The doors instantly opened on an already lit room and the Naruto had to keep himself from attacking as he realized what he was looking at.

Over twenty assassin droids were on standby mode inside the room. Cables on the floor moved to the apparatus which held each droid in long-term storage so they were ready to activate and be used at a moments notice. A case of blaster rifles was present by the door but aside from the weapons and droids, the room had nothing else of interest.

"Inquiry: Shall I terminate these inferior droids?" HK asked and though at that moment the blonde also wanted to cause some wanton destruction she shook his head, 'no' and closed the door. They needed to leave the facility as they had found it. Walking in the direction of the control room, Naruto began to think about the facility.

There was nothing of interest there, from what they had found, and in general, there was also a lack of security. The presence of the droids spoke of the base being important and preventing discovery but everything else hinted at something else, 'Sidious has yet to use this base to store anything,' Naruto began to realize.

The message sent for estimates was starting to make more sense if that was the case, "He must be still in the planning stages of putting something here but he hasn't even started yet. The area is secured against any wayward intruders but there is nothing to protect right now which means we have arrived far too early," Naruto informed the droid and HK shouldered his weapon for the moment before they started to walk back to the front of the facility.

'I'll have the clones keep looking but this seems like a lost cause for now. Fortunately we haven't done anything that can't be fixed and can make it look like we were never here,' he thought but now he was faced with a difficult decision, 'Where to go next?'

Thinking on that question as they walked out the door they had come, Naruto stopped moving as the small droid scurried across the floor to him. The blonde quickly deactivated and sealed it up before letting his mind turn from the question of where to go to the success of the small droid's first mission. It was a hybrid of different technologies, most notably Rakatan. He had taken the damaged temple droid parts from Lehon and incorporated them with a smaller Rakatan power source. With the special plating on the top, it was invisible to most sensor systems and the Rakatan technology ensured a low heat generation. It could even change it's own temperature to that of the ambient surroundings in order to further hide from infrared. As he finished recalling all of the work put into it while putting the scroll away, the distraction was soon over and he was forced to again consider what he would do next.

He thought Wayland would prove fortuitus and possible show him something but now he needed to decide on where else he should go. Walking back across the platform, Naruto began to slow as for the first time since entering the base, he was able to feel something. It was faint but definitely there. Stopping completely and turning on his heels, Naruto faced the pair of small hangar doors that were on the platform, just inside the cave. 'I never checked those,' he realized as he thought back, compiling both his own memories and those from the clones to confirm. In storming the facility, he had walked right passed those sealed hangars and overlooked them completely.

Confused by the blonde meatbag, HK also stopped walking before noticing where the blonde was staring. Taking back out his rifle, he moved in synch with the blonde towards the doors.

'For a moment, it was almost like I could feel thoughts or was it emotions,' Naruto believed but wondered how that was possible as he couldn't feel any life-signs in the entire facility, save for his own. Looking over the first door, closest to the cave entrance, he didn't feel anything and so he moved to the second door which was closer to the facility entrance and stopped as he examined the control panel, 'Its different than the other one,' he recognized and found that it looked newer.

'A new lock for an old door,' he said to himself and then put his hand up to the metal surface to touch the door. He wasn't sure what he was doing but something told him that there was something behind that door despite the lack of life-signs. 'Lonely,' Naruto suddenly thought but wasn't sure why the word had come to mind. 'I could cut it open,' he considered but threw away such an idea as that would be an obvious indicator that someone had found the hidden planet and had been there.

'I could walk away right now,' and he also thought, 'I haven't triggered anything and the damage I have done is easy to fix and hide. If I open this door….,' and he stopped himself as he had a feeling that something would change and that the base would no longer be something he could leave without incident.

'I could always come back,' he thought as it was possible that whatever was beyond the door would still be there along with other items of value if he was patient. 'Perhaps I can still pick the lock and just take a look,' he contemplated before examining the mechanism and thinking over his options. It seemed a simple decision and action but it felt difficult.

'Is this guidance from the Force?' Naruto questioned as he didn't actually know what it would feel like to be guided. At the moment, it seemed as though he was being given a choice, 'So much for guidance,' he thought and couldn't help but wonder why such a choice was significant, 'More so than every other choice I have made recently.' It really didn't make sense to him at that moment.

'Let's open the door,' he finally decided after looking over to see an impatient assassin droid. Working on the panel, he sliced through the locking mechanism and managed to get the door to open in only a minute. As the door slowly opened, Naruto prepared for anything as he stayed by the door frame where he was in case something was on the other side.

Using his sword, the blonde used the reflection of the blade to peer into the hangar and wasn't surprised that he found a ship inside. It was a hangar after all, however, it didn't appear to be any ship he had ever seen before, and it also was not some kind of rescue or emergency vessel that would be found in a hospital. The greyish vessel had a large sphere at the center of the hull with a wing on each side and partially folded down s-foils.

Moving out from the side of the hangar, Naruto peered inside to get a better look. The mask was showing him dimensions of the vessel which listed it as being smaller than Forty-Two. 'Maybe a courier or light transport,' Naruto thought as he tried to classify the vessel. From the back he could see no weapons of any kind but his thinking quickly changed to questions of why Sidious would hide a ship.

Still standing at the entrance to the hangar, Naruto could now feel the dark-side of the Force coming from the ship. 'Was the ship what I could feel earlier? Ships don't have emotions,' he told himself but decided that perhaps it was worth investigating a little closer. The vessel was being hidden on an uncharted planet. As he moved to enter the hangar, he hesitated before remembering that he had turned off all the security systems in the base and continued inside to inspect the ship.

Just one step into the hangar and the doors shut instantly behind him, much faster than they had opened, and he knew that he had made a mistake. Stuck outside, HK went to the control panel before stopping partway through slicing the door as he heard another door open at the entrance to the facility and the footsteps of droids.

x-x

Realizing the trap less than a second after the door closed, Naruto struck out with his ignited lightsaber but it rebounded off some kind of shielding. Trying his sword, he found the same problem and questioned what he was dealing with which could block both a physical sword and a lightsaber energy weapon. 'A magseal,' he guessed after mentally crossing off a varied list of materials or devices which Plagueis had long ago instructed him on.

A noise alerted him to the impending danger and whipping back around, he deflected two blaster bolts with his weapons. Two laser trip mines had been uncovered in hidden alcoves of the hangar walls on either side of the room. As he angled his weapons to deflect the next salvo directly back at the devices, he felt that something else was wrong.

His ears were hearing multiple thuds of the lasers he had deflected and he remembered that a magseal could be projected onto the surfaces of entire rooms. 'The lasers are rebounding off all the walls,' he quickly realized as he deflected the second set of laser fire at his position which were redirected at the trip mines but were reflected also by the magseal which also seemed to cover most or all of the security device.

'It drops for a moment in that area to allow the trip mine to fire,' he instantly gathered and knew he could not remain standing where he was. Making to sprint under the ship and take cover, the blonde nearly stumbled as he attempted to move forward and found that everything below his waste was not responding. A glance down confirmed that nothing was noticeably restricting him but his personal shield was being drained as he recalled it's visible outline from the quick glance while deflecting more laser fire from the turrets and the stray blasts multiplying around the room.

With heart racing and breathing bordering on hyperventilating, he went back to the training that had been ingrained into him from an early age. 'If I don't calm down, I may die here,' he quickly thought and he let his eyes close to limit distractions and focus.

He was unsure how much time passed in that moment as his body continued reacting to the incoming laser fire but his mind began speeding up with the help of the Force. Once open, his eyes were fixed on an interesting sight before him. The room was currently a dazzling array of crimson chaos with lasers slowly moving in many directions and the turret still tracking him to fire when fully charged but his eyes stuck in place on the scene.

His body was also slowly moving to intercept the next shots and deflect as many rebounding lasers as possible. His mind however, was free to think about everything he needed to consider in fractions of the time it normally needed. 'I'm in some kind of force field, but only my lower body….I've heard of something like this...it's used for riot suppression. I can still move a bit though…,' he realized as his lightsaber managed to block another laser while he experimentally tried moving his legs.

'Almost like moving through the Underworld Swamp jutsu,' he analyzed and knew that it would take forever to try and move his weapon through the field to cut through the floor, 'And I would be at the mercy of the turrets as well as stray fire. It also prevents me from jumping to the ceiling, which is also likely magsealed,' he recognized and didn't need to waste the effort of slowly glancing to the ceiling to confirm that.

'Laser fire passes through the field along the walls but is deflected...and the field is also covering the ship,' he realized as he could see through his peripheral vision that a laser was slowly bouncing off the wing of the ship and interacting with the powerful magseal being used.

'If I time it right, I can send both weapons at the same time at the turrets but that will leave me exposed for a time and there is nothing that I can do about the lasers that are still in the room,' he concluded as he slowly glanced over the hangar for some kind of projector or perhaps a power source for the energy fields being used.

The room began to change slowly as he looked around, with lasers picking up speed because the Force technique started to fade and things were returning to normal. A laser was reflected in behind him, and knowing he wouldn't get it in time, he ignored it in favor of figuring out his mortal dilemma and it was slowly absorbed by his shield.

'The walls are solid metal in here and much newer material than in any part of the base. There must also be a completely separate power source, especially for this many force fields to be used at the same time,' he thought while trying to come up with a plan before his mental processes returned to their normal level.

'That new power source must be powering the laser traps as well,' he recognized and had an idea of how to short out the fields. While time seemed to return to normal and the room once again returned to a frenzy, Naruto was struck twice more before he timed the counter and threw both weapons at the trip mines. With the help of the Force, both weapons sped at their intended targets, which were on opposite walls of the room and in the brief moment when the field lowered to allow the laser to fire, the weapons struck and disabled the devices.

Without any pause to even smirk at his success, the blonde reached down and unsealed his disc blades. Using them as makeshift shields, he blocked as many lasers as he could before switching to telekinesis. The discs hovered in the air before moving to different areas both in front and around him to intercept and redirect the lasers while he went through handseals. Ending on the monkey seal, Naruto yelled, "Raiton: Jibashi. (Lightning Release: Electromagnetic Murder)"

Lightning chakra surged from his hands and he sent it surging directly at his sword. Still imbedded into the disabled laser trap, the lightning chakra went through the sword and his efforts were rewarded with a small explosion and a shower of sparks from the wall. Pulling back his weapons, Naruto kept the discs floating behind him for protection while wielding both weapons in defense as he tried to figure out if his plan had worked.

A more distinctive thud was heard as the lasers impacted the hull of the ship and he realized that only the projector covering the ship had been affected. The ones on the hangar door and walls were still active and he slashed briefly at the hangar door to confirm this. Attempting to move his legs, he found that the force field on the floor was still active as well.

A slight hissing caught his attention and he looked to find numerous ceiling vents along both sides of the hangar were spewing out some kind of gas. It was yellowish or off-white and though he couldn't readily identify it, something told him that it was a gas which would still be affective despite his mask because it could be readily absorbed into the body through any skin. 'Great there's backups,' he thought while deflecting more laser and realizing that he only had one option.

'The ship it is,' he blonde decided before biting down on the handle of his sword to free up a hand to unseal his new droid. The lapse in focus allowed another laser to impact him and he nearly lost his disc blades to the force field blow but he managed to get the droid out, activate it and keep the disc blades above waist level.

Tossing the droid towards the ship, Naruto's face tensed in brief horror and shock as the small droid narrowly missed being struck by a laser before landing and sticking to the aft of the ship where a loading ramp presumably was. "Get me into that ship," Naruto ordered before securing both disc blades to his back on a magnetic attachment, similar to how the much larger giant shuriken were stored for travel by Shinobi and Ibonihs.

The distance to the back of the ship was not far away, however, the floor force field was still active. Deflecting the remaining lasers, he noted that they were slowly starting to lose coherency from both the distance traveled and reflecting so many times. However, the blonde to knew that his shield would not last much longer. The device had protected him several times and was in some fashion reacting with the force field on the floor, likely allowing him to move easier through the invisible field.

Trudging through something that felt far more viscous than water Naruto ignored the pain in his legs from continuous strain and put chakra into his feet to gain more traction on the floor. Gritting his teeth, the blonde knew he was making less than a foot every few seconds but pushed forward to escape the gas which was slowly filling the room and diminishing lasers still bouncing off the walls.

Hearing the opening of a hatch up ahead, he looked up to find the droid still stuck to the hull of the ship but just outside the newly opened hatch. It took an eternity to finally reach the hatch and the blonde was forced to sheath or clipped both weapons in order to focus on getting into the ship. Reaching up to the hatch because the boarding ramp was not extending down to help him, Naruto struggled to pull himself into the ship. Turning to Force Push the gas away from him, he wished he had something better to protect himself but put that thought into the back of his mind.

Cursing profusely, he pulled as hard as he could to free his legs from the floor and used chakra to stick his hands to the outside of the open hatch because there were no handholds. Another stray laser struck his overheating shield but he was so focused on getting into the ship that he didn't notice. His face was red from the effort being exerted and already sweating from the strain he had endured getting to that point.

There were likely traps or security systems inside the ship which would activated and try to kill him. He knew this, but didn't care as he felt that those were something which he could better deal with. The sustained effort slowly payed off as he had focused on the right leg first; the foot having already come off the surface and was now able to bend at the knee in preparation to put on the edge of the hatch.

With one foot finally on the edge of the hatch, the blonde was mistaken in thinking that it would be easier to get the second out. The left leg was inches off the ground but still stuck by an invisible force in the air. As seconds passed, he was well aware that something was going to give in either his legs or his arms. Muscles were strained to the limits, ligaments were starting to tear and he was probably on the verge of dislocating part of the leg or even hip which was still stuck.

'If I have to, I'll cut off the leg,' he resigned as he knew the gas was getting closer to filling the room and would engulf him soon. Before he was about to reach for the lightsaber, the leg came free of the field, hurtling him into the open hatch because of the sudden release; with the hatch itself shutting directly behind him.

x-x

Switching to a new target, HK-47 peeked outside the door frame of the second hangar and fired a shot at the assassin droid. 'Inner Count: Eight,' the droid commented before ducking back into the hangar to escape the return fire by the droids companions. He knew exactly how many assassin droids were in that room from earlier, so he knew how many he got to kill.

Waiting a select number of seconds, the rust-colored droid used his rifle and moved the scope just out of the hangar door to get an idea of where the other combatants were. The scope had a small camera that was sending the image directly to his photoreceptors. Seeing a small cluster of droids were using a door as cover, he reached to the small bandoleer at his hip and removed a thermal detonator.

Moving to the edge of the hangar and ignoring the laser fire that closely flew by, he reviewed the image his scope had taken briefly before hurling the small metallic explosive at a wall. The detonator clinked off a wall and bounced on the floor until it rolled to a stop right where two of the annoying droids using the sides of a doorway as cover. Upon hearing the explosion he thought, 'Inner Count: 82% chance of Eleven,' before finding his next target and knowing that he would have to confirm the kills later.

When the large door shut on the blonde meatbag, he had only seconds to open the second hangar, which was farther from the interior of the base, in order to get some kind of cover as the assassin droids were coming out of every exit in the base. He was now using that empty hangar until the droids had been eliminated or the blonde meatbag had freed himself. Either way there were inferior droids to kill in the meantime.

An area of rock above the hangar soon exploded and sent small boulders and dust onto the floor. One of the assassin droids had evidently reactivated the bases systems as the weapon emplacements on the platform were operational again. Though none of the emplacements could get a shot at him, one of the cannons was apparently trying to destroy the rock roof of the hangar he was in and perhaps bury him under rubble. Glancing to what they had already determined was the control room, he noted the outline of a droid remotely operating the cannons and when he lined up a shot, the thin blast shields for the control room quickly closed over the transparasteel windows.

Another shot from the emplacement cannons dislodged a large chunk of rock from the ceiling, making it fall and slam into the metal surface which causing him to back off for a moment to keep from being crushed under any further debris. 'Inner Through: These inferior assassin droids are persistent and annoying, the worst of kind of inferior assassin droids. I knew I should have destroyed them when I had the chance earlier,' he decided as he moved to a better vantage point at the control room before sniping another droid that was moving out from the facility to try and flank him.

Looking to the covered control room, HK's photoreceptors narrowed and glowed before he took out another thermal detonator. Switching to a different setting, he lobbed the explosive toward the control room where the it magnetized to the metal blast shield and kept beeping as it readied to explode. Shooting another droid before moving back to cover, HK waited for the explosion which followed a second later.

Glancing back out to admire his work, he noted the smoke billowing from a hole that had been blown into the control room and no further emplacement firing. 'Inner Count: Thirteen,' he thought just aa a shot struck the floor by his leg and then another just barely nicked his shield. Quickly crouching, HK pulled off two shots in quick succession and moved back into the hangar a moment as he waited for the two droids to fall over the railing of the catwalk and impact the floor below.

As he heard the crash of the inferior droids on the metal floor, the sounds of moving feet reached him and HK dove to the fallen rock from the ceiling as blaster fire ripped into the rock wall behind him. Waiting behind the rock as the droids slowly ripped through it with continuous blaster fire, he let them move in before holding up the rifle using the scope camera to deliver three precise shots, terminating the droids.

Standing up from the rock, HK removed another detonator as he thought that the remaining ten droids might use a rush tactic on his position.

x-x

Though his imagination was running wild, as seconds passed, nothing was happening. The blonde could only hear the sound of his breathing and heart beat. Looking up at the metal ceiling and bulkheads, Naruto remained completely tense and breathed heavily through his mask as he stayed ready to move at a moments notice. He was using the Force combined with all of his senses to determine where the attack would come from but after a long moment passed, he began to wonder what he was still doing on the floor.

Sitting up but still wary of the circular area of the ship he was in, Naruto wondered about all the doors and then noticed the small droid he had created was also looking at him from the floor, possibly wondering what he was doing. Frowning, the blonde got to his feet but found it difficult due to the aches and strain in his legs.

Steadying himself against the closed hatch, he looked around and glanced at every corner and crevice of the room he was in but found nothing had activated. 'I would have expected an electrified floor or perhaps a man trap, maybe more blasters,' he considered as he failed to find an imminent threat. There were security measures on the ship, he could feel their presence and even see a few of them but they weren't active.

'Why aren't they active?' he questioned as the hangar had been an incredibly well conceived trap that would have likely killed even a pair or group of trained Force sensitives. Checking a small scanner he quickly pulled form his belt, Naruto took off his mask and breathed in deeply and a little easier.

'Why would the ship….' he began to wonder but stopped as he felt something. It was similar to what had caused him to stop on the facility platform and look to the hangar. 'It's coming from the ship,' he realized and again failed to feel any life-signs which would explain the feelings. 'It's almost…..,' and before he could discern and describe what he felt, the ship shook slightly.

Instantly back to being tense and ready, Naruto quickly determined that it wasn't anything happening in the ship and that it must have been outside the hangar. 'An explosion,' he thought and recalled that the old assassin droid was still outside and that the facilities stock of assassin droids or worse had been activated, Naruto quickly determined where the lift was and moved as quickly as he could to what must have been the upper level and cockpit of the small craft.

The transition from one floor to the next was nearly seamless but, about to step into the large circular cockpit, the blonde stopped and started glancing around, wary of making the same mistake again. The area had a single holographic emitter at the center with six seats arranged around one portion of the circular wall with a single pilot seat and controls opposite them. Only some emergency lighting was on in the ship and had activated upon the door opening, giving the room a red glow to it.

His hesitation was not shared by the insect-like droid that had followed him into the lift as it proceeded right into the room and began looking around the area. Frowning at the fact that the droid had sensor dampening technology installed that made it invisible to a majority of scanners, Naruto felt another slight tremor outside the ship and threw caution to the wind as he moved to the pilot seat. Looking over the different controls, he quickly deciphered what everything was and began a prep the ship for flight. The vessel took a surprisingly short time to start up with systems activating almost instantly one after another and in just a few seconds, the ship appeared to be good to take off.

Recalling the dimensions of the hangar, the blonde knew their wasn't enough room for the ship to turn around and remembered not seeing any weapon systems on the back of the ship. 'Not a single turret,' he commented as he found the controls for weapon systems. With targeting systems activated, he noted that the weapons were soon fully charged before he found himself wondering what weapons it actually had.

Failing to find any controls or synch with the hangar door or systems, the blonde quickly discovering that one of the displays could show him an image of what was behind the ship and he switched to that display. The cloudy view from the gas and shimmering or glowing field over the hangar door were the only things visible and putting up the shields, Naruto took control of the weapons systems and decided to chance a shot.

Pulling out his communicator, the blonde said over an open channel, "Stand Clear!"

x-x

A blaster bolt struck his shield as soon as HK moved above his cover to take a shot at the droids which were crowding the hangar door on the side where the blonde meatbag was still trapped. Glancing to the armed thermal detonators, he contemplated using them again but knew that such a close explosion near an already damaged area of ceiling above him would likely bring it down on him. Listening as the remaining assassin droids moved in on him, the droid picked up something on his communicators.

"Stand Clear!" came the familiar voice and the droid wasn't sure what to make of the statement until the adjoining hangar door exploded off it's frame, taking out half of the remaining droids with it. As a vessel started moving out of the hangar at faster than suggested speeds, the rust-colored droid sprang into action and getting up from his concealment, HK finished off whatever droids were still moving before looking at the ship as he attempted to confirm that all twenty five droids were destroyed.

He saw the blonde meatbag down the long fuselage through the transparasteel cockpit windows and watched as, in a single move, the ship swung around and fired off two short barrages of pulsating yellow energy, destroying both weapon emplacements before they could do any significant damage to the shields. Seeing a forward loading elevator extend down, the droid knew it was time to leave and activating one of the thermal detonators, he tossed the bandoleer back into one of the hangars before moving with haste to the ship.

Looking through the feed of a holocam mounted on the underside of the ship, Naruto made sure HK was aboard before activating the engines and extending the s-foils up to their ready position. They sped away form the mountain before the explosion, which had likely triggered the secondary power source in the base and Naruto slowly flew around the mountain, headed back to pick up Forty-Two and leave the planet.

x-x

Watching the redhead spar against the newly acquired training droid, Plagueis observed her movements with the simple training sword she was using and could instantly tell that it was the wrong weapon. 'She prefers to keep enemies at a distance,' he knew from her choice of blaster weapon and general behavior during a fight so it made more sense to to use something that would accomplish just that.

He briefly considered a lightsaber staff, a force pike, or polearm of some kind but ultimately decided against those knowing that the redhead would want something a bit less lethal. 'An electro staff, perhaps,' he thought and knew that it would be a bit costly, 'Especially the good older ones that were rare because they were made to be lightsaber resistant,' he commented. Having knowledge that most of the galaxy did not about such things, the former Muun knew that it was likely the best choice for her when faced with a lightsaber wielding opponent.

Said staff weapon was generally non-lethal, and he knew that, 'Instead of going with such a costly alternative, we could just make her weapon similar to my own or Suigetsu. The ritual never stated that it needed to be a sword that was created,' he concluded and would have to purchase the necessary materials at a later date. 'I'm not sure if we still have any chakra metal,' he thought before frowning at what was happening around him.

While he was thinking about Karin, Suigetsu had time to reform and was in the process of picking up his sword, planning some kind sneak attack. "I can feel your intent from here. Get back to your training," Plagueis said to the white haired teen and Suigetsu looked slightly sheepish before going back to the practice that he was assigned.

Only a few moments before, the teen had gotten frustrated and decided to send his sword flying in the Sith Lord's direction. Apparently their fight only a few days prior had been a wound to the Kiri ninja's pride and once in a while he would try a sneak attack. Or it was the statement he had made on that day which Suigetsu apparently felt gave them permission to attack whenever it seemed his guard was down. It was annoying but at the present, something that he could easily deal with.

The practice that the teen returned to was simply to swing it around the large sword and get more adjusted to it. The white-haired teen hadn't used the blade much in real combat, save for hunting the native aquatic life so aside from carrying it around, Suigetsu was still not proficient with it, especially against an opponent with a more nimble weapon. 'It also may have to do with his age and height. Why he would choose to have Naruto make him such a large weapon I may never know,' commented the Sith Lord before he turned to look at the other members of the group.

The Demon Brothers preferred close combat and they were currently going at each other with short vibroswords and Plagueis watched as they were literally trying to tear each other apart. The blades could not harm them, nor could their own fists so their spar had devolved into more of a brawl. Shaking his head slightly, the Sith Lord wondered if they would benefit from custom-made gauntlets in addition to either a short sword like Naruto's or something similar.

Juugo was having the most trouble of the group trying to find something that worked. Having used his transformation almost all his life, the teen had very little ability or practice with anything else. A weapon that caused grievous harm could cause his bloodline to flare up because of the blood so the choice became even more complex. 'We may have to make something special or perhaps he should stick with more generic blaster weaponry,' Plagueis concluded but knew that the first choice would be difficult.

'Making a unique weapon would have been more of task for Naruto than I,' he believed and while useful, the transformation ability was still something Juugo needed to work on in order to completely master. 'There is something strange about his transformations,' Plagueis recalled as he originally wanted to examine Juugo's abilities more closely but his only work had been given to Kabuto to look over in order to try and help their remaining member of the group, Tayuya. 'My efforts have been spent trying to remake my original body,' he recognized and he had barely spent any time on any of the other samples that they had collected before leaving Ibonihs.

'Perhaps I should put my body experimentation on hold for the moment,' he considered before admitting, 'It can't become anymore dead than it already is.'

x-x

Telerath

x-x

Sitting up on the medical bed, Naruto put his shirt back on as the droid was finished. Touching the bandaged area, Naruto stretched a bit before deciding that the fix was adequate. 'I could have just used medical ninjutsu,' he suddenly realized but decided to get some practice in before starting to heal his own body.

His shield had evidently overloaded right before he got on the ship and the last laser to impact wasn't completely absorbed, it took nearly fifteen minutes after leaving Wayland for him to first notice the pain as his adrenaline slowly wore off. For such a dangerous moment, it was a negligible wound but the blonde knew it could have been far worse if not for the prototype shield and droid he had brought with him. He had already examined the shielding unit and found it still functioning properly, having turned itself off to avoid damage in relation to overheating.

'It must have been a tanglefoot field,' Naruto thought as he recalled hearing Plagueis mention it long ago. Usually beings weren't able to walk at all in the field, completely stuck in place by the invisible restriction device which typically was mounted on law enforcement vessels to control rioting. 'I'll need to consider counter measures for that and for gravity projectors,' he concluded as he thought of the other device that produced a slightly different, but even more so debilitating effect.

About to put his hand down and hop off the table, Naruto's hand briefly touched something unfamiliar and he yanked it back before looking to the area of the bed and found the newest droid sitting there and looking at him. "Didn't even notice you…," the blonde commented before the droid moved down to the floor and scurried off out the medical bay door.

'Sneaky little droid,' he thought and smirked as that had been the whole point of his design. However, he hadn't planned on leaving it on for so long or merely letting it move around at it's own leisure. The droid brain it contained was made from the Rakatan temple droid, so it may be able to function similar to other droids and not just be used by remote, but eventually develop over time. He had originally designed it for quick usage when required but…, 'I suppose it doesn't matter that much,' he thought, knowing that the droid didn't really need recharging or maintenance because it was powered and maintained with Rakatan technology.

'Maybe I'll call it Sneak,' he suddenly considered and found it strange that up until that point, he had never thought of naming it. Getting up, he followed in the same general direction as the droid and walked down the boarding ramp of Forty-Two before putting his hand up to his eyes in order to block out some of the bright sun.

Moving out on the platform and towards the new ship they had taken back with them, Naruto noted that his shadow clone was just finishing checking everything over. The clone tossed something over to him before dispelling and the information was soon present in his mind, though it required a few seconds of sorting and review before he knew everything that the clone had found.

"Its a ship with a stygium cloaking device," he said out loud, very surprised by the discovery. Thinking back to what little he knew about such technology, he recalled Plagueis informing him that few ships could be smaller than Forty-Two and have a cloaking device. 'But he had known of one such ship that did,' he remembered and wondered if that was the ship that he was currently looking at. It seemed likely that it was and looking to the items that the clone had tossed to him, Naruto frowned as he examined two tracking devices which had been removed from different locations on the ship.

Looking around for HK, he saw that the rust-colored droid still had a blaster rifle on its back and yelled out, "Shoot these for me," before tossing both into the air. With programmed motions and deadly accuracy, two quick too shots rang out and were followed by silence as nothing touched back down on the platform. The droid shouldered the weapon back where it had been and went back to taking inventory from the items that the clone had removed from the various storage areas aboard the ship.

The vessel was wrapped in the dark-side, it was subtle when he first went into the hangar but now more noticeable. Naruto touched the side of the fuselage, running his hand down the length of it before getting to one area of carbon scoring, which he guessed was from the lasers in the hangar. Frowning at the imperfection, he decided to take care of it later.

'Loneliness,' he said, answering his almost forgotten question of what he had felt on the platform before the hangar door was open. 'It was lonely?' he inwardly questioned and though it was difficult to comprehend, especially coming from a starship, he supposed that if he had been left locked in a booby trapped hangar on an uncharted planet, he too might feel lonely.

However, there was now more to it because looking over the ship and moving to the hatch, he could now feel something akin to consciousness that was almost child-like. Closing his eyes, he listened to it and it didn't take long before the ship promised him adventure and to take him to amazing places, but not in words, it conveyed ideas or feelings. He knew that the ship was dangerous. It had many more security devices and defenses inside than he had been aware of at the time, but for some reason, they were on standby when he first entered through the hatch. Reprogramming them to identify the droid and himself as the owners was easy and he could swear that his clone had been almost 'guided' to where the tracking devices were hidden.

Examining the dimensions, he could now noticeably tell that it was smaller than Forty-Two but an easy argument could be made that, 'We aren't traveling with much cargo which isn't sealed up to save space.' Not only that, but the ship itself was already packed with supplies for long distance travel. A speeder bike was stowed in the forward compartment and an allotment of small surveillance probes were prepared in addition to the interrogation devices and other devices he had found in the smaller storage compartments.

It was a ship created for covert operations and likely for an assassin to use. HK had identified the weaponry he used on Wayland as solar ionization cannons which was a rarely used energy weapon that could actually bypass standard energy shielding on most ships and melt through durasteel. The ship had six cannons, two directly aft at the wings and four in the front. They were hidden and could pop out quickly, even capable of slight rotation to better acquire targets. They were power intensive though, requiring a period to recharge which was slower than most laser cannons but their damage potential with just a single usage made up for that.

Despite never deciding to actually take the ship and leave Forty-Two on Telerath, his mind had already contemplated various slight alterations and upgrades that he could make to the ship. He had also imagined it's layout and planned where to store all of the supplies he had brought with him, determined that he could make it all fit.

Moving back to take a better look at the ship overall, he found himself lost in thought before he felt something amiss. Looking back to Forty-Two, he noted an indicator in the cockpit was flashing just enough in the bright sun for him to make it out. A sound was also barely audible from outside the ship and he strained his ears to determine which sound it was. Forty-two had several different sound indicators when something was being detected or incoming and he had easily memorized all of them.

'An incoming message,' he thought and looking for his communicator, he realized that it had been left in the medical bay. Cursing, he moved back to the ship and up to the ramp, nearly sprinting down the corridor as he had some idea who it was that was calling him. 'It has been a while since I've been contacted by the Black Sun,' he admitted while sitting in the cockpit and answering the call.

A small hologram of Narees appeared and he didn't look very happy, "I have been trying to reach you, unsuccessfully for quite a while," the frustrated Iktotchi said and Naruto thought about the places he had been and realized that he had turned his communicator off after leaving Naboo and then with the jamming device in orbit on Wayland there hadn't been an easy way of reaching him for the past few days.

'I wonder why he didn't try the castle on Naboo, or did he?' Naruto questioned before quickly thinking of a response. He knew Narees wouldn't respond well to a fake apology or even a real apology for that matter, 'It would only make him angrier.'

"You caught me in the process of swapping out my older ship for something newer," Naruto admitted and though annoyed at the ignoring of his messages, he could tell from the subtle facial changes after the response that the Vigo was slightly intrigued, likely owning quite a few luxury vessels and personal ships himself.

"Well I suppose with the amount that we pay you, it was only a matter of time before you got a better ship," commented Narees and he tried to convey his displeasure as much as he could with the tone and mocking smile.

"You aren't taking any jobs from someone else, that would….complicate our arrangement," the Vigo stated with a dangerous undertone.

"No, I went for something custom made and it took some time get everything just the way I wanted it," Naruto continued to elaborate on the lie and Narees questioned, "If it was a custom vessel, then why did it not meet or exceed every specification. I would think it would be immediately ready to use?" he offered as he wanted to see what the blonde's response would be.

"It wasn't my customization. I stole it," Naruto admitted seriously. The Vigo took a brief moment to consider what had been said before he began to chuckle which got louder until he decided against asking anything further or continuing to chastise the blonde in favor of getting to the point.

"Fine. but further ignoring of my messages will not bode well for your continued employment," Narees informed him, with unique emphasis to remind him that their arrangement provided the protection of the Black Sun; and of the alternative, which brought the entire Black Sun down on him.

Naruto became serious as well as he replied with a simple nod, though inwardly wanted to strangle the man through the holographic communication. "Now that we have dealt with that unpleasantness, I have a simple task for you," the Iktotchi informed him and Naruto was doubtful of his words as no assignment for the Black Sun was 'simple.'

"Have you heard of the recent talk concerning the deceased Jabba and his lost Will?" asked the Black Sun Vito and he enjoyed the fact that his hired assassin was out of the loop because he knew that the blonde would not have heard about it. Only his best spies and bought informants had been able to bring it to his attention.

"Well, as you may or may not know, there is great tension in the Desilijic Clan and with other clans but in the past few months we have been hearing whispers of a Will that Jabba left that would split up his holdings in whatever method or manner he chose. Of course, the item will have to be verified by the Hutt Council as a legitimate document before enforcing that it is followed," Narees informed him.

'A Will?' Naruto questioned as he searched his memories because the word was a bit unfamiliar to him. He wasn't sure exactly what it meant or was used for but could guess it's purpose based upon what he was being told.

"You want me to steal this...Will?" Naruto asked when Narees had given a brief pause. "No," Narees simply replied and the reply confused the blonde as he had trouble determining where the man was going or wanted from him, especially through the hologram. The Iktotchi still seemed frustrated and it seemed to be directed at him, getting slightly worse with the discussion of the Will.

"You know it took great expense to get this information and quite a bit of digging as well as time was invested into it," the man informed him and Naruto could tell that the man was slowly losing control of his composure. "Everyone was both thrilled and annoyed when we finally discovered that one of our operatives may already be in possession of it," he revealed and Naruto was confused on how he could possibly be in possession of such a document, 'Or a digital file,' he considered as a 'document' in the Galaxy was almost always something digital and not parchment or paper.

"We finally managed to acquire the information that the droid was last seen as part of the complement of the Hutt's personal yacht," Narees then informed him and Naruto's thoughts went to the vessel that he was currently hiding, 'The Star Jewel.'

'He thinks I have the droid,' Naruto said to himself and he tried to think about what droids were on the ship when he stole it. He hadn't done anything with them, they were still on-board as far as he knew.

"Tell me, do you possess a very antiquated model of astromech droid, one with gray and black coloring which would be considered rather unimportant and apparently easily overlooked. It likely also goes by the designation of CB-99?' inquired the Iktotchi as he waited patiently for an answer.

'Was there a droid like that?' Naruto wondered and thinking back to when he did inventory of the ship and broke into the vault, he recalled looking at each of the droids on the ship. Going through the various models and job-specific droids, he eventually came to an image of the exact droid that Narees had described to him. It even had large lettering of it's designation, 'CB-99' right on it. 'Oh crap, I've got the droid and the Will,' he thought but corrected himself, 'I have the droid,' because he had no idea if it possessed Jabba's Will or not.

"I may be in the possession of a droid that matches that description," Naruto informed the impatient Iktotchi and he could see some of the tension in the man's body was released upon hearing the response. "You have no idea how thrilled we all are to hear those words," Narees then told him and he took on a more calm demeanor, regaining his usual composure and aloofness at such illicit dealings.

"Though I understand it isn't really your fault," the man admitted before explaining, "Had you not stolen the vessel in the first place, we would not be in this unique position. I will tell you that it is in your best interest to fetch that droid and bring it to me as soon as possible, undamaged. I will also add that the information the droid possesses must remain untouched….." he said and put in a pause for emphasis before continuing, "Do not access the droid's memory or storage under any circumstances. In fact, don't even interact with it more than is necessary. The file must remain as untouched as possible for our slicers and experts to examine," he finished his explanation and Naruto nodded before their exchange was done and the message ended.

Sitting and thinking over the new situation he found himself in, Naruto couldn't help but wonder, 'I can't examine the droid but what if I turn up and it doesn't have the Will?' It was definitely a problem that couldn't be completely solved.

'The Star Jewel,' the blonde thought as it was a strange vessel, not because of its condition or construction, but just everything that came with it. The yacht wasn't being used for what it was originally intended and he was constantly having to keep it hidden. At one point it was on Naboo and then the unnamed planet where Plagueis had his hidden facility. Now it was near Sarafur, hidden in one of the other systems which made up the Kuna Constellation. 'Hidden but perhaps not hidden well enough,' he considered as if the Hutts were truly after it, then their reach and influence could travel quite far.

Where to move the ship to keep it safe inevitably brought up something else that he had been pushing to the back of his mind, 'The irony,' he quickly commented as he thought of the situation he found himself in and what he had caused concerning the new ship that he could clearly see through the cockpit windows of Forty-Two.

'I need to find a place to hide a ship that people are looking for, having just raided a hiding place of another ship that someone was using and will also soon be looking for as well, once they find it gone,' he thought it was rather a lot to wrap his head around, especially what he should do next.

A familiar sense of foreboding soon crept up on him and the last time he had felt it was, 'Right when I was choosing whether or not to open the hangar door,' he recalled and he had had opened the door, 'But the foreboding felt much stronger back then.'

The ship itself wasn't the problem but what would happen as a result of taking the ship. That was the problem. 'So obvious through hindsight,' the blonde commented and knew that Sidious would inevitably find out that the ship was gone.

'A day, a week, month or year, it will happen eventually,' he thought as there was no covering up the theft of the ship and destruction of the base. 'It was all over once I stepped into the hangar...no, perhaps once I decided to open the hangar door,' he concluded.

'He's gonna be pissed,' Naruto thought as he contemplated Sidious' reaction at having a prized cloaking-capable vessel taken by an unknown party. Despite his foreboding, a part of him was satisfied at having finally done something to combat the Sith Lord on Coruscant. The loss of such a vessel could be a major setback in the Sith's plans.

'Will this ruin everything, though?' he found himself questioning because they still didn't know what Sidious planned or even if the ship was involved. 'Now he'll likely find the spying devices,' he realized and wondered what he should do.

'I should tell Plagueis,' he first thought but reconsidered, 'Perhaps I should just ensure that the source they are transmitting to cannot be discovered. A contingency for the contingency,' he decided as he wasn't sure how to go about contacting the person that he had just left and with such news.

"I haven't even been away for a week….," he said out loud to himself as he thought back to the hangar door and considered what would happen had he walked away.

"What would have Plagueis done in my place?' he then wondered but wasn't sure. 'What would a Sith have done?' he then considered and quickly thought, 'I suppose it doesn't really matter. There is no going back now,' he concluded as he looked at his new ship and thought about what he would do next.

x-x

AN: Despite having planned much farther ahead, I never actually stopped to plan for who the gatekeeper of the holocron would be for Naruto on Ibonihs.

If anyone has suggestions, please leave them in a review