Chapter 23
Arrival at Boz Pity
"Okay, so once again," Naruto frowned as he sat, slouched and tired, looking back and forth between the woman he loved and the two newcomers that were currently tied to the exposed piping with stun-cuffs, "how in the name of all that is holy in this world and the next did all of this happen?"
Celeste, mirroring his slouched and tired expression, was seated at the other end of the round dining table, looking at their two guests as she leaned her face against the smooth surface. "Can't we make it out of one system without one of us getting into some kind of trouble?"
"Apparently not," Naruto replied deadpan as he stretched before jumping back to his feet. He walked over to Aayla's side and joined her in towering over the two wannabe ship thieves. The addition of his impressive height, coupled with his threatening glare, made the female of the duo look just that tad little more nervous. If her companion was feeling any fear at all, he was hiding it very well.
"So…" Naruto began a little too casually, the smile of his face and the gleam in his eye making their female prisoner sweat noticeably, "…what's this I hear about you two trying to use one of my precious crew here as a skewer?"
"It was an accident, honest!" the female retorted quickly and pleadingly. How this tall blond could glare so forcefully while smiling so casually was a mystery to the girl, but when he focused his…expression…on her, she flinched and looked away, "I didn't know it was Master Secura!"
"So that makes it alright to kill almost anyone just to steal their ship?" Celeste queried from her place, still sitting on the round sofa. The three of them had fallen into a sort of makeshift interrogation team, but Naruto had to admit that when it came to drilling teenagers for information, they were quite effective.
"You know her, I'm guessing?" Naruto asked his mate, to which Aayla nodded in response.
"Her name's Ahsoka Tano," Aayla introduced, folding her arms and giving the young woman a fairly intimidating stare. It wasn't a stare of anger or hatred, it was a stare of complete and utter disappointment and to someone her age that stare probably hurt more than a blaster bolt, "She's a Jedi Padawan, and she was once under the tutelage of Anakin Skywalker."
"Don't speak that name in front of me!" Ahsoka growled lowly, young face slowly morphing into a contorted mask of furious anger, "I never want to hear that name again for as long as I live!"
The two of them looked over at her for a moment, Aayla frowning worriedly at the pure rage she saw in her young friend's face, and Naruto giving her a look which would melt steel. He had still not quite forgiven her for trying to use his beloved as a pin cushion, even though he now knew that it wasn't done on purpose. Eventually, the girl's rage subsided, and with a little shame she looked away from them.
Naruto looked at her for a moment before turning to the second member, angry glare and eerie smile replaced with the firm grimace of a professional soldier, "And you are?"
The clone looked up at Naruto, dark eyes calculating for a moment before softening, "My name is Rex, designation number CT-7567, former Captain of the Republic Army."
"Rex," Aayla murmured quietly, as if trying to remember the name, "Commander of Torrent Company of the 501st Legion."
The former Captain acknowledged her words with a nod of his head, "The one and the same, ma'am."
Naruto noticed it, though his mate made a good attempt to hide it. Aayla seemed tense and unusually sombre ever since they returned to the Will of Fire. He had been wondering why her mentality seemed to change so quickly; now he could make an educated guess. It wasn't the fact that Ahsoka had almost killed her that struck her. It was the fact that they were so close to a clone of a high rank and she wasn't holding her lightsaber. Order 66 had completely destroyed any trust she had ever had in any clone.
She was very good at hiding it, but he saw trepidation and fear in her eyes, no matter how subtle. Naruto stepped over to her and placing a hand on her bare arm gave it a comforting squeeze, making her look over to him in time to see a comforting smile. He then looked over at Celeste, who seemed to be seeing her friend's trepidation at the scene just a few seconds later than he himself had.
"Celeste, Aayla, could you two see about getting us airborne and off this rock?" Naruto asked with a disarming smile.
Aayla hesitated for a moment before nodding her head. The young Twi'lek gave Ahsoka one last worried look before turning around and walking towards the corridor leading to the ship's cockpit, Celeste just a few steps behind. The black haired Jedi Shadow shared a look with the Shinobi for a long moment before nodding her head in understanding and following her friend to the cockpit.
Naruto waited for the familiar and now comforting hum of the ship's engines as they came online, of the low level vibrations which overtook the ship before the shock absorbers kicked in and did their job. He waited until he felt the tiniest lurch as the ships main atmospheric thrusters activated and slowly raised the form of the Will of Fireinto the air. As they were now safely in the air, with Aayla and Celeste too occupied with flying the ship to be able to pay attention to what was happening in the central chamber, he turned his attention to their two guests.
"Who are you?" Ahsoka asked at last.
"Who I am is not important at the moment," Naruto replied before chancing a glance at the clone commander and offering a disarming smile. "Don't take her reaction too personally; she just had a really bad run in with those clones she considered friends."
Rex nodded his head, "I understand."
"What happened to her?" Ahsoka asked.
"The commander she had fought with betrayed her, would have killed her if I hadn't been there to intervene," Naruto replied sombrely, "I don't have the right to tell you the full story; only Aayla has that right. But…" he paused for a moment to ensure he had their full attention, "…just know that the experience left a pretty bad mark on her. Couple that with the death and destruction she felt in the force…and, well, you get the idea."
Ahsoka nodded, looking downward sadly towards the steel mesh decking.
"You have a lot of anger in you," Naruto stated, before forcing himself not to grimace at the words. He was definitely spending too much time around Jedi. He was even starting to sound like one when he attempted to press an issue, "It doesn't take a Jedi to see that."
She didn't look at all surprised by his statement, but she did look weary. Naruto paid attention to the movements of the two as he sat cross-legged on the decking of the ship, expressive cerulean eyes looking at them with equal soft intensity.
"You have been with Aayla for a while," she said at last. It wasn't a question, Naruto saw that right away.
"Yes, since just before Order 66," Naruto replied.
"Then you should know what I feel right now," Ahsoka replied, gritting her teeth in a vain attempt to hide her anger.
Naruto sighed heavily. It seemed that people took terrible events in their own stride, and each showed their grief and stress in different ways. With his own mate, his beloved, the after effects of Order 66 showed in her as grief, very real, near consuming grief. With Celeste it had shown as something a little more extreme, the knowledge of the Jedi's demise coupled with the end of her own ordeal led to the Jedi Shadow suffering from a near mental breakdown.
With Ahsoka, it was something different yet again. It wasn't grief or stress or even a mixture of both. Her response to what she saw when Order 66 was executed, as well as the acts of the Empire beyond that event, were countered by another, far more negative emotion. The emotion she had chosen to lean on was anger, and if Naruto remembered correctly, such an emotion, if held on to and allowed to simmer, was potentially fatal to a Jedi.
"I do," Naruto replied after a moment, trying to think of his words before he spoke them. He failed miserably at this; this was Naruto Uzumaki after all, "But at the same time, I don't."
That got her attention, "What?"
"I understand exactly what you are going through," Naruto began again, "I am considered to be the last of my kind, an order of hundreds of thousands of soldiers wiped out by a stupid war of their own making. In your case it seemed that you had all been deceived however, forced into a war which had the sole purpose of wiping you and the order you were a part of out."
Ahsoka did not reply. She simply listened to this strange blond human as he spoke.
"I am not a Jedi," Naruto went on, "I may have an ability to sense this force you all speak so highly of, but after all that I have seen, I'm not sure that I want to. I cannot see the future, but I can see the past. All I know about Order 66 is that some madman with a thirst for power put himself into a position to attain it, a master puppeteer. He pulled the strings, and then he cut them. A lot of good people died because of it, and they had been engineered into a position where they would be seen as the antagonists and not the victims they were."
He could see it in her expression, one of pain and anger, and it threatened to lead her on a very dangerous path. He was not a Jedi, but he had seen those simmering, cold, near-deadened orbs before. They reminded him a little of Sasuke's eyes, soon after his family had been killed off by his older brother. They had the potential to become those eyes Naruto remembered during their early Genin days so long ago.
The galaxy had seen enough destruction. They did not need to see a reincarnation of the ultimate avenger running amok.
Naruto sighed again, before pulling out a kunai and coating it with wind chakra. He approached the two with quick, sudden strides, ignoring their perturbed and fearful expressions as he leaned down. He cut Ahsoka's bindings first, then Rex's, and rising to his feet he sheathed his kunai and took a few steps back.
Ahsoka and Rex slowly, steadily, rose to their feet, their eyes not leaving those of Naruto, as if they were daring him to make a move to counter the one he had already made. The Shinobi shrugged and turned around, showing his back to them as he made his way towards the cockpit.
"There are two spare bunks on the second door to your left. You're free to use them, but…" he stopped and turned to them, his cerulean orbs simmering with the cold fire of a man who knows how and when to kill, "…don't take my mercy as a sign of weakness. If either of you attempts anything treacherous or dangerous to us, then the airlock is where you will go."
Having delivered his warning and trusting that they got the message, he left and entered the cockpit.
"You let them go?" asked Aayla knowingly.
Naruto nodded his head as he stood behind the pilot's chair, resting his hands on Aayla's shoulders as she flew the ship, using the chosen atmospheric route for a couple more moments before breaking free from the route once they entered deep space. Celeste had already finished inputting the navigational coordinates.
"I did," Naruto affirmed, looking down at the top of her head, watching as she was completely focused on piloting the ship. He offered a small smile, "Should I not have?"
His mate seemed to think for a moment, hand slowly moving to the hyperdrive throttle on her right, "No, it was the right thing to do, and I don't think they're going to try anything."
"You know Ahsoka well, I take it?" Naruto smiled a little wider.
Aayla pushed the hyperdrive throttle forward, stars elongated into long white lines as the Will of Firejumped into hyperspace, leaving the crossroads outpost of Nar Bo Sholla behind them, "We're friends, though I haven't seen her in almost a year and a half."
"And Rex?"
He saw her flinch, just ever so slightly, but he still saw it, "I met him a few times, though it was only in war briefings and the like. He was very outspoken, not afraid of letting his worries be heard and never pulled any punches when he heard a plan with holes in it."
"Sounds like a good commander who actually gave a damn about his troops," Naruto thought out loud.
Aayla looked up at him for a moment as she activated the autopilot and undid her crash webbing, thoughtful for a moment before sighing and nodding her head, "Yes, I suppose he was one of those who did. He was very…unclone-like that way…" she finished almost wistfully.
She was about to stand, but Naruto softly pushed her back against the chair, wrapping his arms around her slender frame and pressing a soft kiss against her forehead. Aayla leaned into the chair, closing her eyes and enjoying the feeling as she raised her right hand to touch his arm, "You know I'll protect you from any danger, right?"
"Yes," she replied in an exhale of breathe.
"Good, so don't you worry about Rex, alright?"
She looked up at him, slightly surprised that he had seen through her to easily.
"Am I that transparent?" she asked with a weak smile.
"Not really," Naruto replied with a toothy grin. "It's just that I know you so well that I can see when you're upset or worried about something, even when you're trying to hide it."
"He's right," Celeste piped up as she finished the last few calculations to their next set of coordinates, rising from her chair and looking over at the two. "I didn't notice it until Naruto motioned me to take a closer look."
"Oh," Aayla uttered in reply, lekku curling ever so slightly in embarrassment for making her two best friends worry, "Sorry to worry you."
"Don't worry about it," Celeste replied with a smile. "That's what friends are for, remember?"
Aayla nodded, and Naruto laughed lightly. She shot him a slightly perturbed look, which was removed when he stole a chaste kiss from her lips. Aayla mock-glared up at him, wishing that there would come a time when she would get used to his seemingly-random displays of affection.
"Anyway," Celeste piped up at last, shaking her head at the couple's uncaring nature for expressing their feelings in public. The Jedi Shadow was always a more private person herself, "I'm going to make sure our guests aren't up to something. Then I'm going to take a look at the engines to make sure all of the fine-tuning and upgrading is holding together."
Naruto nodded, which was returned by Celeste before she walked out of the cockpit towards the main chamber of their small ship. The blond shook his head before turning back to Aayla, who was still seated and still looking up at him, "Sorry for being a bother."
"You're not a bother, and you never will be," Naruto replied with a sigh as he leaned down and placed a soft kiss on her cheek, "I can tell that Rex being in such close proximity is worrying for you, but I doubt he'll try anything. He's been protecting Ahsoka during the war, and he's continued to protect her when he was supposed to kill her."
"I know," she replied as she leaned her forehead against his chin, "I know, but the feeling isn't something that will just go away overnight."
"I never expected it to," Naruto replied, "But it's not like you're on your own, right?"
She smiled, "Right."
Naruto sat on the arm of the pilot's chair, putting an arm around his beloved and planting a kiss on her forehead. Aayla leaned into him, head pressed against his chest to listen to his heartbeat, "I'll protect you."
She looked up to give him a mock-annoyed pout, "It sounds like you think I need protecting."
Naruto laughed, "I'm here to protect you when you need it, and it's the same in reverse."
Aayla smiled as she leaned up to kiss his lower jaw, "Right."
Naruto smirked. "So what do you want to do with them?"
"Keep them around," Aayla replied after a moment's thought, "I suppose I could learn to live with Rex after a while, and I think parting ways is the worst thing we can do for Ahsoka at the moment."
"I agree."
"You saw that look in her eyes too?"
He nodded.
"She needs help, Naruto."
"I know," he agreed before looking down at her with a smile, "And we're going to help her, because right now, we're the only ones who can."
"It could be worse," Rex commented.
Ahsoka gave Rex a withering look for a moment, a look which Rex didn't even seem to shrug off, "How could this possibly be any worse?"
The war veteran looked around their small quarters: a simple, Spartan room with two bunks on either side, a night table in the centre, and a built-in wardrobe at the foot of the bed that Ahsoka was sitting on. It was a small room, but the beds looked to be of decent quality, and there was enough storage space for two people.
"We could still be in chains," he answered in reply.
"That's not what I mean, Rex," Ahsoka shook her head and covered it with her hands, "After so long thinking I was the last one left alive, I find someone, a fellow sister of the Jedi, and I almost kill her."
"Ahsoka," Rex sighed, hand reaching up to massage the slightly healing wound around his throat. General Secura had put a little too much pressure on the blade, and it did draw a little blood, "While I admit you were a little heavy-handed, it came to nothing; General Secura wasn't even scratched."
"That doesn't mean that I didn't raise my blade to strike her down," Ahsoka replied as she fell back onto the small bed, form curling up into a loose ball as she closed her eyes, "What did I almost do?"
Rex looked at her, worry in his eyes as he studied her form. She was once so sure of herself, so full of energy, confidence and ideas, so full of life and idealism. Ahsoka was now a shell of her former self, and it hurt to see such a young child, a teenager, go through what she was going through. It hurt even more with the realisation that he didn't know what to do about it.
"What am I becoming?" her voice sounded so small, so scared and alone, and was just beginning to break, "I almost killed one of my friends. I should have known it was her, but at the time I just didn't care."
His hands turned into fists, fabric of his gauntlets quietly creaking as he gripped them hard.
"Force me," she uttered quietly, "What if she hates me for this? I could see it in her eyes when she locked us up in those stun-cuffs; she hates me."
He heard a sob, a quiet, broken sob and looked up. She had rolled onto her side, facing the wall. Her face was turned away from him, but he knew she was crying. The girl was so stubborn, didn't want to show weakness in front of anyone. She didn't want to worry anyone when it came to herself. Rex wanted to help her, but she wouldn't let him. She just placed this brave smile on her face and pretended like it didn't affect her, even though the Captain saw her anger simmering in her expressive blue eyes.
A slender hand flew forward with speed, clamping softly around his mouth to stop him from saying anything. He looked down in time to see General Secura looking up at him with a hard expression before she silently shook her head, looked back at him and mouthed a silent word: sorry.
His response was a simple light bow of his head, a show of respect to the General. The hand was removed from his mouth, and he looked down at her in time to see her place a finger in front of her mouth, the universal sign to remain quiet. Rex nodded, and made no move to stop the older woman as she silently moved into the room. Maybe the General would be able to do something that he couldn't do.
Aayla sat on the bed, the slight tremor from her weight making contact with the soft fabric was enough to rouse Ahsoka from her silent crying. The younger woman slowly turned around, her eyes red rimmed and puffy from crying. She looked up at the General with wide eyes, before looking away, bopping her head to look at the ash gray sheets of her temporary bed.
Her words came after a few moments of tense silence, small, meek and utterly lost. "Aayla, I-"
It was as sudden as it was surprising. The General pulled Ahsoka into an embrace. The young Togruta's eyes went wide for a moment as she found her head leaning against Aayla's chest, a hand caressing her small horns. The General did this for a moment to the stunned young girl before uttering two simple words, "its okay."
Two simple words, yet they broke what little resolve Ahsoka had left. It was amazing how those two simple words, a seemingly trivial assurance, could have such an effect. Tears burst forth from the younger woman's eyes like a breached dam, tears which should have been shed months ago. She buried her head into the older woman's chest, muttering another two simple words from cracked lips with a weak voice racked with sobs.
"I'm sorry."
Aayla shushed her softly, caressing her horns in a motherly manner as she uttered a few more words, as if to reinforce to the young woman what this older, wiser female was saying, "You're going to be okay. I'm here."
"I'm sorry."
Ahsoka cried softly, uttering those same two words over and over again as the General simply held her. Rex watched for a moment, unsure of what he was supposed to do, when a large hand made contact with his shoulder. He looked around in time to see the tall blond haired man who had freed them stand at the door frame to the small sleeping chamber. He looked at the two women, then back at him, jerking his head in the direction of the main chamber beyond the door.
Rex hesitated for a moment, then nodded his head and walked past him into the main living area. He looked over his shoulder in time to see the blond human give one last look inside the small room before silently closing the door, allowing Ahsoka a sense of privacy as she let it all out into the open.
"She's been hurting for a long time, hasn't she?"
He looked over at the human, studying him for a moment before sighing and nodding his head, "She has, indeed."
The man nodded his head in response, walking past him towards the built in kitchen area, "Do you want some caff?"
Rex hesitated for a moment, "Yeah, I think I do."
"Have a seat, I'll bring it over." The man said as he took the needed ingredients from one of the cupboards, "The name's Naruto, by the way."
"Rex," the former Captain replied as he took a seat on the main settee, arms leaning against the round table as he took another look at the door, "My name is Rex."
A comfortable silence filled the room as Naruto made the caff. A few minutes later, he walked over to the table with two steaming cups in his hands, sliding one across the table to the former Captain and holding the other in both hands once his second hand became free. He blew the steam away before taking a tentative sip to test the temperature.
"So, what made you do it?" Naruto asked in a sincere, direct manner.
Rex looked up from the caff he was nursing. It was a sudden and rather abrupt question, but he had suspected that such a question would be asked if he and Ahsoka ever had a run in with fellow Jedi.
"What made me go against orders, you mean?" he asked in response.
Naruto nodded, "Sorry to just out and say it, but from what information I gathered the clones were born and bred to be one hundred percent loyal to the Republic, so when the order came through I made a guess that they would all follow it."
"Most of us did, sadly," Rex replied as he took a gulp of his caff, uncaring as the boiling hot liquid scalded his throat. "Most of the unranked clones followed without question. They were nothing more than tamed animals in human form. If their masters gave them an order then they carried it out, plain and simple. Ranked officers had more independence and freedom, but even then the training and mental conditioning meant that it took considerable willpower to defy an order, especially from the top."
"So what stopped you?" Naruto asked.
"I was trained as an ARC trooper, short for Advanced Reconnaissance Commando," Rex explained, "Those of us who were trained as such didn't have as much mental conditioning or unbiased loyalty in the Republic. We were born and bred to think outside the box, and to fight using unorthodox methods and tactics. We were trained by independents. The first batch of ARC troopers were trained by Jango Fett himself, and the survivors of that batch trained every generation since."
"So when the order came down-" Naruto began, only to be cut off by Rex.
"I basically told the commander in charge to shove it, then I put a blaster bolt between his eyes," Rex replied simply, taking another sip of his drink, "Word began to reach us that my case wasn't isolated, any ARC Trooper which served beside a decent Jedi for too long did the exact same thing that I did. The best case was on Kashyyyk when a full strike team turned on the clones they were fighting with to allow their Jedi commanders time to escape."
He looked up in time to see this Naruto grinning like a madman, "So if you ever try to sell us out…"
He let the idea hang in the air, unfinished, but he didn't have to finish it. Rex managed a smile before he replied, "Then you have my permission to shoot me or slice me in half. I will never betray Ahsoka, and I will never betray any Jedi I fought beside."
"That's good enough for me," Naruto replied as he stood up, taking a look at the door. "I better put another batch of caff on. I'm guessing Aayla and Ahsoka may need it when they come out."
Naruto then turned back to Rex with a more honest smile, extending his hand, "Welcome aboard."
Rex looked at the hand and smiled, clasping it and shaking it in reciprocal greeting and friendship, "Thanks, Naruto."
It was another ten minutes before the door to the small room did open. Aayla came out first, guiding Ahsoka by the hand. The teenage girl's eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, more so than before. But she looked just that little bit better than she did when she was cuffed and imprisoned on this very deck half an hour ago.
Aayla gently sat her down, and her rear hadn't even finished being absorbed into the seat when a cup of steaming hot caff was placed in front of her. She looked up, smiling gratefully at Naruto who patted her on the shoulder before moving to take his seat right beside Aayla, who had picked up her cup and was currently blowing out the steam.
"So are you feeling alright now, kiddo?" Naruto asked.
Ahsoka nodded as she leaned into the chair, hands moving up to wipe the remnants of her tears from her cheeks and her eyes. Her cheeks were slimy from the warm salty water, "Yes, I feel much better now, thanks. Oh, Force me, I must look like a mess."
"Don't worry about it," Naruto replied, waving her comment off with a good-natured laugh, "It's never good for you to let things bottle up; believe me, everyone on this ship knows that all too well."
She looked over at him for a long moment, "I'm sorry for being rude... well; actually I'm not, but who the hell are you?"
Rex smirked a little. There was the Ahsoka he remembered… just a little bit, but it was a good start.
The blond looked like he was about to reply, when the honeyed voice of the former General Aayla Secura spoke up in his stead. She looked over at him and smiled warmly, hand on his. "His name is Naruto Uzumaki. He's my mate, and the man who saved my life."
"And mine," Celeste said as she walked into the main room from the corridor leading to the engine room, wiping her oil smeared hands with a dirty cloth.
"So how're the engines?" Aayla asked with a quirked up brow.
"Working like a dream," Celeste replied as she sat down beside her, "I'll admit it, okay? Those engineers may not have been the most reliable sort, but they did their job very well."
Ahsoka had used the time spent by the third member of the crew's arrival to try and digest the information, but she was having trouble. It wasn't the name, which she admitted was strange, or the fact that he saved Aayla's life that surprised her. It was the word used in the middle of her older sibling's sentence. She couldn't have said what she thought she said could she?
"Sorry," she said at last, "I could have sworn I heard you say he was your…mate?"
Aayla looked over at the young woman, smirking slightly, "You heard right."
Ahsoka's eyes went as wide as saucers for a moment; mouth hanging slightly agape as she completely took in the answer. That was supposed to be impossible, a complete taboo on the Jedi code, an unfair taboo mind you, but a taboo none the less, "I remember that you were a bit of a stickler for the rules, Aayla."
"I realised there were things that were far more important than the rules," Aayla replied with a true happy smile.
Naruto was expecting plenty of potential responses to what Aayla had said: disbelief, fainting spells, disapproval, extensive frowning, and in one potential scenario, he could see this young Padawan attempting to excommunicate Aayla from the Jedi Order. He wasn't really surprised when the Apprentice smirked in response instead, but it wasn't really what he was expecting. His imagination was getting the best of him.
"That must be an interesting story," Ahsoka said, smirk slowly turning into a smile.
"And a long one," Celeste interjected.
"We have time," Ahsoka shot back lightly, before looking at the woman a bit more closely. "And who the hell are you?"
Celeste gave her a dangerous smile, "Your senior, girl."
Ahsoka turned back to Aayla, "Is her story connected to yours?"
"Yes," Aayla nodded, "But like Celeste said, it's a long one."
"Like I said," Ahsoka shot back again, "We have time."
Aayla sighed, "Should we tell her?"
Naruto shrugged, "Couldn't hurt."
So the three of them began to tell their story to Ahsoka and Rex, not leaving out a single detail from the moment Aayla and Naruto met on Felucia to their adventures with the crew of the Uhumele, to their battle with Vader and their discovery and recruitment of Celeste, all the way to their trials on Nar Shaddaa and the moment Naruto and Aayla admitted and embraced their feelings for each other…and then each other. They left nothing out from what they told her.
By the end of it, the three of them left a rapidly blinking young girl, desperately trying to take in all of the information, even the stuff that just sounded plain crazy. She was trying to get her head around some of the more unbelievable things told to her in their recollection, but at the same time there was happiness in her gaze in knowing that there were still more Jedi left alive; that Naruto, Aayla and Celeste had found nearly a half dozen during their travels.
"So you found him in a tree?" she asked incredulously.
All three nodded their heads.
"And you two found her in a millennia old coffin." She continued, pointing to Celeste.
The three of them nodded again.
Ahsoka looked over at Naruto for a moment, frowning before pointing at him with her thumb, "And he defeated a Sith Lord in less than five minutes?"
"I think I kind of took him by surprise," Naruto admitted.
"You three have got to realise how insane some of this sounds," Rex spoke bluntly.
"We do. There were times when I openly flinched when some details were told, but it's the truth. I really was found inside a tree, Celeste had been imprisoned inside an ancient sarcophagus in a life or death duel with a Sith Lord for four millennia or so, and I really did kick Darth Vader's shiny metal ass," The blond haired human said this with such confidence that even Rex had to admit that it was difficult to call his bluff, and when two other Jedi backed his claims...
There was silence for a moment before Ahsoka finally spoke up, "So…what are you all going to do now?"
"We're going to a little secluded spot where Naruto can continue to teach us the techniques of his people," Aayla replied, "He's already started teaching both me and Celeste in the basics, and he promised us that during the next six months he's going to turn us from what he calls Genin-level Shinobi to at least high-Chūnin."
At Ahsoka's bewildered look Naruto reiterated, "Genin would be the equivalent of a Padawan, Chūnin would be like a Knight and Jōnin, which is what I am, would be roughly the same calibre as a Master in the Jedi Order."
Ahsoka seemed to be deep in thought, wanting to say something but unsure of what would happen when she said it. Aayla caught onto her look right away, and gently nudged her mates arm, gaining his attention. It wasn't him or her who spoke up, but Celeste, who looked over the young woman and offered a small smile before she extended an invitation.
"Do you want to come with us?"
Ahsoka looked over at the black haired Jedi Shadow, biting her lower lip for a moment as she thought before finally nodding her head, uttering a reply, "Yes, if you'll have me."
"It won't be easy training, kiddo," Naruto warned, gravelly voice taking on a tone of the utmost seriousness, "These next six months will probably be the hardest training you'll have seen in your life. I will be pushing all of you above and beyond your absolute physical and mental limits. It will be painful, it will be bone shatteringly tiring, and it will be extremely harsh…but when you've done it all, you'll be able to take on almost anyone."
"I understand," Ahsoka replied with a nod and a voice of absolute conviction. This was what she was after. This is what she felt both in herself and the force was needed for her to become more than what she was. She was tired of being afraid, tired of being angry, and she was tired of feeling helpless. She wanted to do something about it.
"While I'm at it, we will have to purge what remains of that anger and hate from you. I will not train you any higher than the basics if you cannot control and extinguish your negative emotions. Those emotions created the deadliest and most unmerciful forces my planet had ever seen, and they ripped it apart in their quest for a twisted sort of peace." Naruto looked at her with eyes of flame, passion and conviction all rolled into one.
Ahsoka took a deep breath, feeling that the anger didn't claw on nearly as badly as it had before. She was already on the right path; she just needed to continue down it. She spoke her next words with conviction and an unshakable will, "I understand. Please, teach me."
Naruto looked at her for a long moment with eyes of pure untainted steel before he finally closed them and nodded his head, "Very well, we should reach Boz Pity in two days. The second we hit the ground we'll be looking for the perfect terrain, and then the training will begin."
Those two days passed quickly, and they arrived in the system which housed the infamous graveyard planet at least five hours ahead of schedule. As the Will of Fire approached the planet, they detected no signs of civilised life anywhere in the system. There were no ships in orbit, nor were there any indications of settlements on the ground. The fears of the Jedi appeared to be unfounded. The Empire had moved its troops from here some time ago, and left nothing for any potential scavengers.
From space, it looked like a standard liveable planet, with one massive continent surrounded by vast oceans. Aayla and Celeste had told Naruto plenty about this planet: how its original inhabitants had been starved to extinction by the Hutts, leaving no sentient life. However, those extinct people had left their mark on the planet which was once their home, and now their tomb, in massive 'Death Memorials' depicting what many archaeologists believed were the engraved names of their dead. The skeletons of these huge mammoth creatures now littered the landscape.
Since this race's extinction, life had slowly begun to return on the planet: once-barren wastelands turning into extensive rolling hills of greenery, rocky slopes and high snow capped mountains. The huge memorials and ruins of the dead civilisation however remained, mauled by time and covered in vines and plant life, but they remained: an eons-old and noble testimony to what once existed on this planet.
They entered the atmosphere and sped down to the surface with no trouble, no alarm claxons sounding to warn them of potential pursuit. They were truly the only sentient life on this rock. They flew for nearly an hour, scouring the landscape for what Naruto called the perfect spot. They found it.
It was a wide valley, the broken and burned-out carcass of a Venator-class Star Destroyer half-buried in the centre, a monument to the Battle which the Separatists and the Republic fought a year or two earlier. Small mountains rose on all sides and the landscape of the valley was one of rolling fields, with masses of forests surrounding the infant mountains. They could make out a few bodies of water scattered across the valley, and there was a hint of a river running through the forest. It did indeed look like the perfect place.
"That wreck," Naruto murmured, and Aayla looked up in time to see him looking at it thoughtfully before turning to flash a grin, "Can you land inside it?"
Aayla flew over her once, then twice to check her out from both angles, "She's too well-intact for me to land inside her, but I can land under one of her wings."
"No," Naruto replied with a sigh, "Find a clearing in the surrounding forests and put her down there. We'll use camouflage nets and keep her on basic systems to make sure she isn't spotted by anyone who comes wandering this way."
Aayla nodded, and after another five minutes of low-level flying, she did indeed find a clearing just big enough for the Will of Fire to set down on, at the northern edge of the valley, within nearly a kilometre of forest. It was the perfect place to hide her. It took the crew of five barely half an hour to get the camouflage nets up and shutting down everything except the most basic systems. It was sunset by the time the five of them were done, and Naruto looked over the tree line, grinning like a madman before turning back to his three prospective pupils and a soldier who would probably be having a fairly easy time of the next six months…unless he decided to become a pupil of Naruto's himself. Naruto found himself wondering if clones that were grown as full life forms had chakra networks the same way that normal humans did.
Deciding that he could investigate the possibility of helping Rex to learn a few Shinobi skills some other time, he turned his attention to the three females in his company.
"You're six months of training starts now," Naruto explained with a smile that took on a sadistic quality, "I hope you're all ready, because as far as being a teacher is concerned, I can be pretty ruthless."
Authors Note 1: Sorry it took so long updating the chapter this week. My Beta-Reader was having a busy week and couldn't get it finished and sent back to me until barely an hour ago. But it's here now and hopefully you guys have all found it worth the wait.
Authors Note 2: Now onto the story itself. I am thinking of time-skipping past the next six months, basically fast-forwarding to the moment where their training officially ends. I figured that way they're learned techniques and abilities will be kept a secret until they are forced to use them, and all three of them are going to be using very different skills and abilities.
I am also thinking of writing up a few one-shots from time to time, nothing at the moment, but maybe later on when I am further into the story I'll write a few side stories. I've been having an idea of a couple of one-shots, one dealing with the crew of the Uhumele and their search for Crys's son, another possibly on Sasuke's internment by the Empire and so on, but not until I've passed them by on the main story.
Authors Note 3: To finish up I've been asked by quite a lot of readers if I'm going to be implementing a harem into the story, mainly on the subject of Celeste. The answer to this is no. I have found that the addition of a harem into a story usually does more harm than good, and for those few who do succeed in writing one they need to be pretty gifted authors, and I feel that I would not be able to do it. I'm kind of jumping into uncharted territory. I've never attempted to do any in depth romance before I wrote this story, and I am going to be going further into uncharted territory when I write the... intimate scenes in the future. In short I do not feel confident enough to dive any further in.
As to those intimate scenes well, they're not coming just yet. I just feel that the scene needs to be implemented at the right moment, and with what I'm doing we're not at the supposed 'right moment' yet. The team still has a lot to do, and a lot of potential hurdles to overcome. Just know that I will give you a warning a few chapters in advance when I feel the timing is right.