Yo.
Sorry for the late update, school has me grabbed by the throat lol. After an eight month strike, they announced a resumption out of the blue and compressed a four month semester to two months. I'm burnt out.
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Let's get to it.
Chapter 8: Gordanians
"The one piece treasure is actually the friends we made along the way, Naruto." Oliver said sagely as he stroked his beard.
"I swear I'll go back in time to prevent his birth if he does that." Barry glared at the man. "And I'll do the same to you if I find out you have anything to do with it ending that way."
Oliver chuckled nervously as he waved his hands. "Come on man, it's not that bad…think of how Dinah would feel if I were to disappear."
"Considering you were never born, it's safe to say I wouldn't even know you." Dinah shrugged nonchalantly. Oliver gave her a betrayed look.
"Y-"
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Aight, let's get to it for real this time.
"The one piece treasure is actually the friends we made along the way, Naruto." Oliver said sagely as he stroked his beard.
"I swear I'll go back in time to prevent his birth if he does that." Barry glared at the man. "And I'll do the same to you if I find out you have anything to do with it ending that way."
Oliver chuckled nervously as he waved his hands. "Come on man, it's not that bad…think of how Dinah would feel if I were to disappear."
"Considering you were never born, it's safe to say I wouldn't even know you." Dinah shrugged nonchalantly before smiling at his betrayed look. "Besides, Barry would never do that."
"Yeah…he wouldn't." Oliver assured himself.
"But then again, nobody would have a way of knowing if he does, considering 'Oliver Queen' would have never even existed if he kept you from being born." Naruto shrugged. "But hey, that's just my opinion, I don't know him as well as you."
"Always trying to keep people on their toes, huh." Barry said dryly, noticing the slightly afraid look the archer sent him.
"I'm just helping him see things from a different perspective." Naruto smiled innocently.
"That I'd be able to get away with murdering my friend?"
"It's not killing if they were never even conceived to begin with. It's the same logic of not being able to rape the willing."
"There's still statutory rape." Dinah pointed out.
"Your people rape statues?!" Naruto asked incredulously.
Barry took a moment to process what he heard. "What? No! Statutory rape is when you get nasty with someone below the age of consent which is usually eighteen or sixteen years."
"Huh." Naruto nodded absently.
"Don't tell me that's not a crime in your world." Barry noticed the boy's look.
Naruto squinted in thought. "Well, there's 'too young', but there isn't 'not old enough'."
"Do you people really have so few laws?" Barry frowned.
"Their society's built from warfare, Barry. I don't think law and order's their main concern, right Naruto?" Oliver said.
"That makes us sound like barbarians, but yes." Naruto reluctantly nodded.
"Hey, I didn't mean to insult you or anything-"
"No, it's fine." Naruto cut him off. They spent the next few moments in silence before Oliver broke it.
"So when are we going to get to reading? I want to see how we fare against those gordanians."
"I don't know either." Naruto glanced at Kara who held the book in her hand. He didn't know what she was saying to Clark, but knowing the man, he was probably talking with her about asking someone to whip out his dick.
Who said something like that out loud?
"I didn't think you'd be that crude, Kara. His penis, really?" Diana asked the girl, much to her cousin's dismay.
"It was just a joke, damnit." Kara huffed.
"I don't think Clark got that."
Kara highly doubted he had. She'd spent the first few minutes after the last chapter was over listening to him rant about the dangers of premarital sex and pornography.
"It was a joke made in bad taste." Clark defended himself. "You don't shout stuff like that out for the world to hear."
"What, so it's better if I whispered 'show us your dick' instead?" Kara folded her arms.
"Language."
Diana knew Clark was raised to be as righteous a person could be without actually being a saint, but even then, she couldn't help feeling shocked by that. Language? Did he think Kara was a child?
Kara scowled. "Your rebuking means nothing, I've heard the things you've said about Lois Lane."
Most occupants of the room turned to look at Clark who sported a flushed face.
"I-I don't say anything about her, it's disrespectful." He sputtered.
"So that time I heard you say "what an ass", that was just me imagining things?" Kara smirked triumphantly.
An awkward silence filled the room as everyone processed what they'd heard. Naruto, who'd been listening intently, deflated. "Wait, that's it?"
Kara blinked. "What?"
Oliver agreed. "Yeah, I was expecting him to say something more…down bad."
"Down bad?" Kakashi frowned.
"Something horny, or rather, hornier than 'dat ass'" Hal told the silver haired man who grinned slightly.
Clark looked like he wanted to fly away. "I can't believe you'd expose me like that."
"If it makes you feel better, we've all said hornier things than "what an ass"." Oliver comforted the man before remembering Diana, Batman and Manhunter. "Well, many of us."
Diana nodded, remembering Oliver's first attempt at a pick-up line. Who remade MLK's speech into one about glazing a person's behind?
"I'm nothing like the rest of you lot, I've never said anything like that in my life." Kara's face stretched out in a wide grin that shrunk when Diana coughed into her hand.
"Sure you aren't." Tsunade muttered. If the girl was anything like Naruto and Kakashi, she probably either hid her porn in the pockets of her clothes that she kept in her closet or rolled them up to disguise them as scrolls.
"Yeah, I totally believe you." Oliver nodded sarcastically. "It has nothing to do with the fact that your parents would probably wash your mouth with soap if they caught you saying foul language."
"Poor kid." Naruto snickered.
"Do females even say horny stuff?" Barry muttered.
"My voice isn't deep, but my throat is." Tsunade grinned.
Clark turned beet red as Barry frowned confusedly. "What does your voice have to do wi-oh."
Kakashi shifted awkwardly in his seat. Sure, Lady Tsunade was an extremely beautiful woman, but it still felt weird to hear that from someone like her who also happened to be a kage. 'Maybe the legendary sucker doesn't just mean she's bad at gambling.'
"I could have gone my whole life without hearing that." Naruto grimaced. Hearing a pickup line like that from someone he considered a mother/grandmother figure felt nothing but unpleasant.
"I know how that feels." Batman spoke for the first time since the last chapter. He'd never gotten over the time he caught Alfred having phone sex.
"I hope you're not claustrophobic, 'cause there's a tight place I need you to fit in." Kara said out of the blue.
"Oh my God." Clark moaned ashamedly. Where had he gone wrong?
Naruto tried to wave off the mental image her words caused. "That was…not all that bad."
"Yeah, a little cheesy, but does a good job with the mental imagery." Oliver nodded before quickly turning to Dinah. "I'm not thinking about her."
Dinah raised an eyebrow amusedly. "It's not me you should be worried about." She pointed at Clark who was glaring daggers at the archer.
He gulped. In hindsight, revealing that he imagined fucking the cousin of a man who could turn his brain to a crisp with a glare wasn't a good idea.
"Now that that's over-" Clark got cut off by Tsunade.
"Hold on, I got another one." She cleared her throat. "I'm good at written tests, but oral is my specialty."
Kara frowned. "The only thing I want between us is latex."
Dinah shook his head. She didn't know why she let this continue, but whatever. "Too forward."
Kara blinked. "I'd like you much better if you were naked."
Tsunade squeezed his face. "Ehhh, too rapey."
"Can't rape the willing." Naruto muttered under his breath. His words didn't escape Clark's hearing though.
"The difference between me and a mosqu-"
"I've heard so many renditions of that pick-up line, I die inside everytime I hear it." Oliver rolled his eyes.
"How about this one then…"
…
"Anko would have a field day if she was here, wouldn't she?" Tsunade asked Kakashi as she watched the girl go through increasingly crude pickup lines much to her cousin's embarrassment.
Kakashi chuckled. "I imagine she'd just be annoyed at having missed her evening tea ceremony for this."
"Evening tea?" Tsunade blinked. The thought of the slightly unhinged woman sitting in her home to boil tea was almost comic.
Kakashi nodded."It's been a hobby of hers for a few years now."
"I see…" Tsunade still couldn't believe it.
…
"Is it raining outside or am I jus-"
"Hate to be that guy, but am I the only one eager to see us fight the gordanians?" Hal cut her short. Honestly, it was impressive how many lines she knew but he was tired of listening to them.
"Don't be a party pooper, Hal." Barry muttered absently. All the lines Kara had said but he hadn't been able to get over Tsunade's own. The look the woman had sent him while she said it still got him speechless. 'Can't believe I'm saying this but I kinda wish I wasn't married.'
"He's right though. We should keep reading." Diana said. She'd never say it, but she felt a little envious of the others. Even Dinah dropped a few hard ones but she couldn't do anything but watch.
Naruto, who felt the envy wafting off the amazon, subtly slithered to her side and bumped her hip with his. "You know, you don't need lines when you look like you do."
"Really?" She perked up slightly.
He nodded. "Mhm. If you were a random stranger and told me to follow you, I'd follow first and ask myself why last."
She raised an eyebrow. "That's not very cautious."
"You're worth the risk." He smiled at the woman who smiled back, a little flustered.
"Smooth." Hal muttered to Batman who ignored him.
Kara rolled her eyes at them before speaking a little too loudly. "Hal's right, we should get to reading now."
Diana cleared her throat, a little annoyed. "Of course, lets. Naruto?"
Naruto sighed. "Sure, it's about time anyways."
Barry nudged her with a grin as they all gathered and took their seats when he saw her staring intently at Diana who sat closer to Naruto than she did before. "Interrupting their moment to start reading. Petty much?"
"I once turned off the comments in a livestream with Barbara because I saw two people flirting with each other. If I can't find love, no one can." Kara replied smoothly.
"I don't think even Thawne's that bad." Barry said.
"Thawne was ready to die just so people could hate you, he's a lot pettier than that." Batman chimed in.
The speedster grimaced. "On a second thought, he is."
"Now that I think of it, you kind of have the prettiest rogue gallery I've seen in a while." Oliver mused. "Batman's got the smartest, Clark and Diana have the strongest, most of us have in-betweeners but yours are usually just really, really petty."
"Rogue gallery?" Naruto asked.
"A bunch of villains who kind of have it out for just one of us." Kara explained before Diana could speak, earning a blank look from the amazon.
"That makes it sound like they're recurring enemies." Kakashi said.
"They are. It's kind of a repeating loop with them and us. We fight, toss them in jail, they get out and fight us again. Batman's got The Joker, Poison Ivy, Bane, Ra's Al Guhl, I have Prometheus, Onomatopoeia and a bunch of others, Clark's got Lex Luthor, Metallo and Diana's got Cheetah, Dr Psycho, err…" Oliver trailed off. "Come to think of it, you don't have all that many villains, Di."
Diana looked away awkwardly.
"Neither do Hawkman and Hawkgirl and they're pretty much the only three of us who still fight with medieval weaponry." Hal narrowed his eyes at the woman. "Maybe that's why you don't have many villains? Maybe it's because they're all dead?"
"I think it's best we start reading." Gaara said. The idea of having to fight the same set of enemies repeatedly sounded foolish in his ears. What was the point in apprehending a criminal they knew would try to and would most likely escape to confront them again?
He imagined having to fight Deidara over and over again and shuddered.
"Seriously now, let's get started." Clark said, quieting everyone.
Seeing nobody was about to talk anymore, Kara opened the book and the screen came down as she began to read.
Chapter 8: Gordanians
"Gordanians? Why are they here?!"
The words came out of Hawkgirl's mouth. Originally, she was more than ready to start brawling against the masked alien mercenary but the moment the immense hologram of the Gordanian ship's commander appeared in the sky, she immediately changed her mind. She was not the only one either - Green Lantern was of the same mind as well. Though the Gordanian Intergalactic Empire was from outside the 3600 space sectors regulated by the Green Lantern Corps, most of the Green Lanterns were aware of their evil deeds.
"I'm surprised Hawkgirl didn't fly into a rage and charge at them." Hal said.
"Why would she?" Tsunade asked.
"Thagnarians and Gordanians have been at constant war for centuries now. It's on sight with those two."
"On sight?" Oliver snickered.
"Believe me, if you think Hawkgirl's bad, you should see the typical thagnarian in space. They drill like they're seeing red."
"We have to get you away from rap music." Dinah shook her head disappointedly.
"With these two pistols, I ain't shooting at your legs." Oliver grinned.
"Didn't the guy who said that get killed?" Barry asked.
"Yeah, nasty stuff but hey, he was dissing both the dead and the living."
"Am I the only one who finds it weird that rappers drop like flies these days?" Hal sighed. "Less than three months apart, we lost two."
Naruto shook his head. Hopefully, rap in the elemental nations wouldn't get that dangerous. The world was bad enough without people dying for their lyrics.
"Superman, we are focusing on the wrong guy." Green Lantern transmitted through his earpiece. He was currently flying very high up in the air, in front of the Gordanian ship together with Martian Manhunter and Wonder Woman. "I've heard about the Gordanians before. They're-"
Hawkgirl cut him in the middle and continued his words.
"-an intergalactic empire hell-bent on conquering and enslaving the galaxy. My people, the Thanagarians, have been at war against them for generations! They're the worst scum of the Universe, pieces of trash that conquer planets and sell their inhabitants as slaves!"
"Makes you wonder why Starfire's parents sold her off and still planned a double cross." Kakashi spoke. "Word's going to eventually get out that Starfire's back home and when it does, it won't be difficult for the gordanians to put two and two together and double back to Tamaran."
Her voice was quivering with anger. The hate in her voice could not be faked...her hatred for Gordanians had been ingrained in her since she was a frail child. They were her race's archenemy.
It did not take a genius to realize that the alien girl was an escaped slave from one of the worlds enslaved by the Gordanians. They also reached the conclusion that the mercenary had no intention to harm her given that he had not attacked her and had only put her to sleep.
"At least they didn't get to us when we were too busy fighting an innocent man." Oliver joked tentatively.
"Right." Clark chuckled halfheartedly.
"I still think you're wrong for trying to keep me from taking her." Naruto joined in.
"We couldn't let you just do that, Naruto." Clark sighed.
"You're stopping an alien trespasser from taking another alien trespasser just because she looks like the victim. For all you know, she could have been a terrorist who managed to bust out of jail and I was a law enforcement agent sent to bring her back." Naruto argued. "Is that how you guys really do, just butting into people's businesses just because one looks like the bad guy?"
Clark looked sheepish at that. "I might have stopped a guy from entering his own car because he locked his keys inside and tried opening it with a wire…"
Naruto shook his head disappointedly. "I can't wait for the day you help out a bad person and only realize it when they've succeeded and it's too late to stop them."
"Hopefully, it'll never arrive." Clark chuckled awkwardly.
"Didn't you disable those nukes-"
" Hopefully, it'll never arrive." Clark sent Barry a pointed look as he laid emphasis on 'hopefully.' The speedster got the message and kept quiet.
Nevertheless, Naruto had no way of knowing what the Justice League was talking about amongst themselves. When Superman got within a twenty five feet distance from him, he thought that they were finally going to attack him.
"I've warned you, boy. I gave you a chance to back away. You only have yourself to blame!" He spoke coldly.
"Wait-" Superman began to say. He wanted to momentarily cease their hostilities in order to deal with the Gordanians' attack first but his change of heart had come a little too late.
The masked mercenary spread his feet in a wider stance and his legs bent slightly from the knees. Then, he slapped his hands together like in prayer and his fur-collared black cloak began to float and billow despite the absence of any wind, revealing the combat suit he was wearing underneath. A terrible aura started to ooze out of his body and a great feeling of danger assaulted Superman's sharp senses. But he was left with no room to react at all before he found himself losing his equilibrium and getting slammed against the ground.
The league members stared wide eyed at the screen. He floored Superman! The Superman!
"What the hell…" Oliver whispered.
Naruto sighed, disappointed in his other self. "Even if you're going to attack, why talk first?"
"You're not pissed that he's jumping the gun?" Barry asked. "I mean, he could have waited."
"Reaction's infinitely riskier than action." Batman said. "But he'd have been more efficient if he'd spent that time moving rather than talking."
"Exactly." Naruto clapped his hands.
"So we're all just going to ignore that he made Clark fall over?" Hal nearly shouted.
"I know he's nearly invulnerable, but is making him fall really that big a deal?" Naruto asked.
"It's a hell of a deal, man!" Barry cried. He'd seen Clark tank attacks with more power than a tsar bomb and remain standing. Seeing someone make the man fall without even touching him was nothing less than shocking.
Clark stared at the screen in shock. He didn't consider himself a prideful man, but he knew his strengths well enough to say nothing but the most powerful of attacks could send him to the ground so he was more than a little shocked to see himself in his current state.
Batman looked at Naruto a little cautiously. Sure his other self had over a century of experience and development, but how far exactly was the difference between their powers respectively? For all he knew, this Naruto could do the same thing. He initially hadn't considered the boy a huge threat, but anyone capable of toppling Superman was instantly taken to the highest level he had.
He was not the only one. On a radius of 600 feet around the praying Naruto, all living beings fell flat on their face against the ground. Only a few moments later, the nearly one hundred Gordanians that had been flying in the air before were smashed against the ground too, cracking the streets with their bodies and splattering the surrounding cars and buildings with their blood.
The league members, save for Batman, Diana and J'onn grimaced at the sight of the extraterrestrial slavers popping like balloons as they impacted the ground and spraying blood and organs everywhere.
"I think I'm going to throw up." Barry looked away from the screen. This was worse than the scene with vandal savage!
Fortunately, there were no civilians around as they had evacuated the entire district from the moment that Koriand'r had started to crazily blow up everything around her. But the ones present at the scene - the Gordanians, the Justice League and the four local heroes of Jump City were not as lucky.
Hal got a little worried. "If whatever he's doing could put Superman on the floor, how do you think it's going to be for the others?"
As that dawned on them, everyone got tense at the realization that they might be watching themselves die at the mercenary's hands.
Naruto shook his head. "You guys wouldn't be here if your others were going to die just eight chapters into the book, you'll live…I hope." That comforted them a bit.
Barry nodded nervously. "Yeah, we hope so too."
"What is this?!" Flash said as he tried to push against the ground with his hands but he fell back with a thud that almost knocked him out cold. He was finding it hard to even breathe. An invisible force was pulling at his internal organs and his blood was churning. Hawkgirl was similarly flat against the rooftop of a building; her superior Thanagarian constitution made her having it easier than Flash but she could still not move even an inch from where she stood. As for Batman, he was on the brink of death, barely holding onto his consciousness.
This time, even Batman grimaced. Yet another reminder that he was merely human, but he was more worried about Robin than the others. He'd trained himself to the peak condition an adult human could achieve without enhancement in the form of drugs or powers, but Dick was still just a boy. He didn't want to watch his son figure die over a misunderstanding he had little to no part in. That was no way for his journey to end.
It was gravity.
Clark blinked. "That's not possible, I can ignore gravity. It's how I fly."
"You can ignore 1G, Clark." Hal reminded the man. "In 2G planets, you're barely able to go sonic. On 3G planets, you're lucky to hover and on 4G planets, you're landlocked."
"So Naruto multiplied the gravitational force he exerted enough to force me to the ground." Clark frowned.
"Yeah." Hal nodded. The fact that the others weren't bloody smears on the ground yet was a testament to their unnatural durability. With a regular human, they'd be flattened so badly, even the blood would be heavily compressed.
Naruto, in spite of his discomfort at the sight of the dying heroes, couldn't help being amazed by his other self. Being able to manipulate a gravitational field around oneself was something even Kaguya hadn't been able to do. Sure, it was infinitely cooler to create and transport them to a dimension where she could freely manipulate its gravity, but still...that was more than anyone other than her had ever shown themselves to be capable of.
Kakashi sighed. "I swear he gets something new everytime I blink."
With Naruto as the center of a circle of six hundred in diameter, Earth's gravity was multiplied several times over. It was the peak of mastery that Naruto had reached in the Earth Release and the Six Paths Sage Mode.
"Six paths sage mode?" Kara paused to ask. Sure she knew pretty much all about it, but it'd be more than a little suspicious if she didn't at least act curious.
"It's a little difficult to explain. Think of sage mode, but -" Naruto tilted his head from side to side as he tried to think of a proper comparison. "It's like sage mode, but next level."
"Like some form of ascendance?" Kara asked.
"Yeah." Naruto said. "It's basically becoming one with…everything. Not just nature, it's universal, you know. You're connecting with everything. The world basically just takes you as part of it if you get me, not inside it, part of it. I can even fly in that state."
"I don't get it." Kara said.
"Think of the world like an ocean. Normally, you're pretty much a normal person, still capable of drowning and all. In sage mode, you become a fish. In six paths sage mode, you become water."
"Ah, I think I do now."
"I suppose at the stage your other self is at, it's more than being able to connect, he's able to manipulate everything." Kakashi noted. "But earth?"
"Dust release is the supposed pinnacle of mastery of Earth release and the only two people who used it were capable of ignoring gravity." Tsunade said. "It makes sense that they'd probably be able to manipulate it too, but they probably never thought of that."
"Ohnoki made my sand lighter during the war." Gaara said.
Tsunade blinked. "Huh, I guess he did then."
"Everything? Like commanding animals to do your bidding and plants to grow faster?" Hal joked.
"Considering my other self can multiply and limit the area where gravity is multiplied, I think that's probably child's play for him." Naruto said. "Not to mention he can probably use that to summon a tsunami."
"Or shatter a tectonic plate and cause an earthquake, a volcanic eruption or a tsunami too." Kara chimed in, causing Oliver to pale.
"Or raise a dust cloud thick enough to suffocate people." Barry joined in. "Considering he uses wind, he'd be able to make it circulate."
"So we're all just casually talking about the different ways a sage can commit genocide?" Dinah sniffed.
"Yep."
"What's a tectonic plate?" Naruto asked Diana, who shrugged.
"Seriously though, if you can manipulate the fundamental parts of existence because you're connected to everything, you'd be pretty much omnipotent." Hal said.
"Well I don't feel omnipotent." Naruto chuckled. "Besides, I doubt it's that broken. Even the rikudo sennin couldn't do that."
'But then again, he could tether his soul to the world long after his death and still keep his own chakra to gift them to you and the Uchiha.' Kurama, who recently woke up, reminded the boy.
'That's true.' Naruto thought. 'Makes you wonder all the things he could really do.'
'Perhaps death is the next step?' Kurama offered. 'There's a saying that death is the beginning of existence on a higher plane.'
'Well I'm not in a hurry to find out.' Naruto shrugged, drawing Diana's attention.
"Is something the matter?" The amazon asked.
"No, I was talking with Kurama about something." Naruto waved her off.
"So you think you just haven't reached that level of sagehood where you'd be pretty much God?" Oliver teased the boy.
"You think God was also a sage who just ascended and decided to make another universe?" Barry mused. "You think there are probably other beings like him just watching us from their own plane beyond ours, like fishes in a fishbowl?"
"I don't know and I don't care." Oliver said quickly. He didn't want to have to deal with Barry's occasional existential questions. Most of them got way too deep for him to answer.
"But isn't sage mode just you absorbing nature energy?" Kara asked the blond. "You think you could take in cosmic energy?"
"I hope not." Clark muttered.
"What's that?" Naruto frowned?
"It's kind of hard to explain. Think of nature energy, but in space and it's made by the celestial bodies. Stars, suns, storms, pretty much every energy joining together to form one kind." Kara explained. "It's what the new gods use."
"Like that Darkseid guy?"
"Yeah."
Naruto rubbed his chin. "Theoretically, it's not about taking it in, it's handling it. Space is infinite, yeah?"
She nodded.
"Meaning there's an infinite amount of energy. You can't handle infinite. The issue with sage mode for cosmic energy is that controlling mature energy is usually just incorporating and balancing the energy in your own body and expelling the excess." Naruto explained.
"If cosmic energy is as infinite and powerful as you say it is, I'd have to find a different method to avoid taking in slightly excess otherwise I'd pop like a balloon. I probably wouldn't be able to expel cosmic energy without more rushing in than I can take." He rubbed his chin in thought.
Kara grimaced at the thought of the blond going out like a miniature supernova. "On second thought, I think it's best if you stick to the usual."
"But if and I emphasize if I can achieve that, I'd pretty much become a god." Naruto rubbed his hands at the thought.
"Yeah, a new god." Kara nodded.
"Please keep reading before Naruto gets ideas." Tsunade rubbed her forehead. The last thing she wanted was Naruto flying off to space and dying because he wanted to test out something.
"Too late! Toneri better be ready for me 'cause I'm going back to space!"
Every living being in that area was flat on their belly or back, struggling to cope against the force that threatened to end their lives. The Tamaranean Princess, Robin and Beast Boy had been shaken out of their genjutsu-induced sleep but they were similarly helpless, especially Robin who was in the same situation as his former mentor.
The only one able to raise up from the ground was Superman. His immense strength as a Kryptonian was clearly living up to its fame.
"If this goes on, everyone will die. We-, we were in the wrong. Please stop." Superman said, his breathing erratic.
The nearly 100 armed Gordanians that had flown down to Earth were all dead already, their smashed and bloodied corpses creating a macabre paysage. The cloaked girl, Raven, had encased herself in a sphere of pure darkness and was probably still fine as she sat on the ground, Beast Boy had turned himself into a tiny flea to decrease the effect of gravity on his body as much as possible and Hawkgirl was in no immediate danger either, just immobilized. But Flash and Cyborg were starting to have serious difficulties while Batman and Robin were on the verge of dying.
"Magic." Clark and Kara sighed at the sight of the cloaked girl looking perfectly fine.
"If I had a nickel for every time I got sucked into a magician's hat, I'd have two which isn't much, but it's still weird that it happened twice." Oliver said.
"It's like command prompt, but in real life." Barry grumbled.
Batman nodded. He rarely fought magic users but each time he did, it was extremely difficult.
Though he was very annoyed at the Earthlings' nosiness, Naruto had never intended to kill them. That's why he had chosen to immobilize them instead of throwing any deadly techniques at them. Therefore, when he heard Superman's offering of peace, his hands that were stuck to each other in a prayer parted.
Like a miracle, the terrible pulling force stopped. Although the Justice League and the heroes of Jump City were now free to move again, nobody dared to resume their previous hostility. But their collective relief was almost palpable.
However, when they thought that it was finally over, a haze of red and gold light began to pour out of Naruto's body. From his legs to his waist and up to his chest before finally enveloping his head too, almost like a cocoon. Bathed in gold and crimson red light, he appeared like a miniature sun in the darkness of the night.
"The fuck is that?!" Oliver yelled.
"Six paths sage mode." Naruto smiled smugly. Few things felt as good as shocking the hell out of people when they saw that.
"And you can do that too?" Clark gaped at the blond. He imagined six paths sage mode to be different things, but the boy becoming a miniature sun wasn't one of them.
Naruto grinned. "I think it's better to just show you." 'You ready, Kurama?'
'I don't see why you're adamant on showing them, but yes.'
The occupants of the room were forced to shut their eyes as Naruto exploded in a burst of light with a loud bang. What followed next was a surge of power that made even the non-sensitive people's hairs stand on end.
'If you're done disturbing me to massage your ego, I'd like to sleep now. Don't wake me up.'
Clark was the first person to regain his vision and when he saw the boy, he found himself dumbstruck. "Wow."
While she wasn't as surprised, Diana was no less taken by the sight. It awfully reminded her of the few times she'd seen a god's divine form up close. "Beautiful…"
"I've seen a lot of shit, but that's a new one." Oliver whistled. Even his clothes changed!
Naruto fanned himself smugly with his hand. "Yeah, most people have that reaction."
He blinked when he felt Kara rub his arm through his clothes. "Eh, what are you doing?"
"The clothes actually changed." Kara muttered to herself as she continued to examine him, not noticing his growing embarrassment at being all but groped. "And it's not actually fire."
"Of course not, it's just the excess power being expelled from my body."
"Yeah…" Kara nodded back, not taking her arms off him. Naruto humored her for a few moments before the amusement wore off.
"Okay I think that's enough." As quickly as it had appeared, the shroud disappeared. Naruto ignored the girl's disappointed look in favor of turning to Barry. He liked being admired, not felt up, regardless of how hot the culprit was.
"You've never entered six paths mode that way before." Kakashi muttered.
"Yeah, I wanted to give them a show." Naruto smiled smugly.
"Kurama?"
"Yup."
"Of course." Kakashi sighed.
"If I didn't know better, I'd call that nuclear fusion." Barry said.
"Wally would though. But then again, he'd say anything that doesn't involve admitting the supernatural is real." Oliver mocked the speedster's protege.
"Come on, man. Again?" Barry groaned.
"Can't help it."
"Nevertheless, that's something." Clark spoke.
Naruto deflated slightly. Save for Oliver, their reactions were mostly underwhelming. Sure they'd probably seen crazier things than that, but still…
"But don't let any of this distract us from the main thing." Oliver started. "Saviour Naruto has a final form!"
"You know, you'd probably get a religion formed in your name if you bust that out on Earth." Barry agreed.
Naruto rolled his eyes. He didn't have a good experience with religious people.
The entire process took only 1 second but to the onlookers, it felt as though it was much longer. Then, the cocoon of light blasted outwards and a tremendous aura of power flooded the entire sky and not only. At that moment, regardless of what place on the planet they were, the magic-users highly attuned to the flow of magic sensed the disturbance.
Inside a high-class restaurant in London, UK, a blond man was having dinner with a very wealthy-looking man. He was in the process of promoting a "brand new sleeping pill" (self-created pills charmed to produce a magically-induced sleep) when he suddenly jumped up to his feet, almost flipping the table and greatly startling his dining partner and potential customer.
"Isn't that Constantine?" Clark narrowed his eyes at the man on the screen.
Batman nodded as he rubbed his forehead.
"Constantine?" Kara asked her cousin.
"Magician, con artist and everything in between good and bad." Batman said. "Nothing good comes out of most things he's involved in."
"Sounds like a piece of work." Kakashi chuckled.
"You wouldn't really understand without meeting him." Batman replied. If he had his own way, he would go his entire lifetime without even hearing of the man.
In a lone tower outside of Salem, in Massachusetts, a grizzled-haired man was having breakfast with his wife when he suddenly shivered and spilt the cup of coffee he had been drinking.
"Hey, that's Dr. Fate."
"Yes, Barry, we know."
"I thought Izna was dead though." Dinah frowned.
"She died last year, this probably happened before then." Oliver reasoned.
In Napoli, Italy, a beautiful illusionist botched a magic trick that she was performing on the stage when she momentarily lost her focus and instead of taking a rabbit out of her magic hat, she took out a snake, making the entire audience cry out in panic.
Batman smirked. Zatanna had given him a nasty scare like that once too. When he'd been apprenticed to her father, she had tried to chase him away by reanimating a stuffed snake to scare him. She'd gone a little too far with her magic and revived it as a living snake.
Naruto ignored Diana's look. Was every female from Earth this attractive?!
On the Island of Paradise, the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta, was startled awake from her meditation and her devotion to the gods was interrupted.
"Great Athena, protect her!" She prayed, her heart filled with worry at the thought of her daughter.
Enveloped in a mix of crimson red and golden chakra, his feet left the surface of the street as he started to slowly float. Behind his back, 10 pitch-black orbs came into existence and with their apparition, a heavy pressure descended.
Naruto blinked. Ten? That wasn't possible, super sage gramps said he could only have nine.
Had his other self managed to somehow create gudodama? If that was what happened, his other self was more powerful than he'd given himself credit for.
"What's with the black balls?" Oliver chuckled. "You're prepping for a snooker game or something?"
"They're the truth seeking orbs. They erase all they touch. My other self must be really pissed to bring them out."
"So it's like a delete button but in real life?" Oliver joked. "And here I thought magic was a hack."
Naruto rolled his eyes.
It was not a physical force or something that could be seen or explained with science. It was the coercion that a superior existence could exert on the beings on a lower evolutionary scale. While the metahumans present at the scene were not too drastically affected, the regular humans on several tens of miles around were overwhelmed by a feeling of fear.
Even before the Rabbit Goddess had thrown him into a dimensional portal, Naruto had been able to enter the Six Paths Sage Mode and combine it with his Tailed Beast Mode. However, after almost a century, his mastery over it grew to the point where it could rival that of his ancestor, the Sage of the Six Paths himself.
"That's a very bold claim." Naruto sucked his teeth. The only person more powerful than the sage was his own mother, the progenitor of chakra herself. Not even Madara had come close to the man's power, no matter how much he bragged about doing so.
With a red and yellow flash, his body disappeared. An instant later, he was 3 miles high up in the air, above Jump City, right in front of a Galleon-class Gordanian ship. It was not the small type of ship that the Gordanian slavers used normally. It was much larger, almost half a mile long, with a crew numbering in the hundreds. It showed how much importance the princess of Tamaran held for the Psions (since the Gordanians were nothing more, nothing less than the Psion Monarchy's attack dogs).
In front of such an enormous spaceship, Naruto looked like an ant. But the moment he appeared floating in the sky, the warship's tens of guns and cannons were trained on him. Even the largest particle-canon at the bow of the spaceship - a cannon capable of even blowing up smaller moons - started to glow and flicker, a sign of it being charged to fire.
"Damnit, Naruto. Don't throw yourself in front of danger so casually." Tsunade grumbled.
"Nothing's going to happen to him, he's Him." Oliver nodded to himself.
Naruto raised an eyebrow. "Him?"
"Coming in clutch, rising to the situation. Him."
"I see." Naruto nodded, although it was obvious that he didn't see.
"Tsunade's right though, you should exercise more caution with things like these." Diana frowned at him.
Naruto smiled back. "Relax, with how large the book is, I obviously didn't die here."
"The point still stands." Diana insisted.
"Alright, fine." He conceded.
A hail of laser beams was shot at him but he seemed as calm and collected as ever. With a wave of his hand, one of the Truth-Seeking Balls behind his back flew in front of him and took the form of an enormous black shield. The laser beams did not even make a sound of impact. At the contact with the black shield, they simply vanished. The Gordanians aboard the spaceship did not even have time to express their surprise because right after the first wave of fire, Naruto flew closer to the black shield and slapped it lightly with his palm. But that 'light' slap caused a shockwave so powerful that the sky was completely cleared of clouds in a radius of tens of miles around.
Batman's eyes widened beneath his cowl.
"Jesus." Oliver whispered. He'd only ever seen Clark perform such a feat with that much ease.
"God, Naruto. You can do that too?" Oliver glanced at the boy.
"Not that easily I can't." Naruto didn't turn away from the screen. Seeing what his other self was capable of since the beginning of the book lit a fire in him that only grew brighter and hotter with each feat his other self displayed.
He didn't want to have to wait a century to do any of that, he wanted to reach that level earlier! He had to reach that level earlier!
Kakashi smiled slightly at his student, knowing what was going on in his head. The last time he'd seen Naruto as motivated as he currently was was when he found out about the Akatsuki's purpose. In the space of four years, the boy had grown from being unable to match a chunin to single handedly defeating kage and fighting beings who could only classify as gods.
"What's his power level?!" Kara yelled.
Barry took out one of the lens of his cowl and glanced at the screen through it before crushing it in his hand. "It's over nine thousand!"
"Congratulations, you've broken your lens." Hal mocked him. He smirked at the lantern before his hand blurred and in it was a perfectly intact lens.
"Stupid time travelling." Hal grumbled.
Tsunade stared at the man in mute shock.
Similarly, Martian Manhunter and Wonder Woman who had been watching the unfolding events with a blank look on their faces were also blasted to thousands of feet away from the Gordanian ship's proximity.
In fact, Naruto did not need to slap the shield that hard or to hit it at all. He could control it with a simple thought, with his mind. But he had done so in order to blow away the three members of the Justice League because he did not want for them to get killed too in the crossfire.
"How thoughtful." Clark said sarcastically.
"You'd think he didn't try to crush us all with gravity a few moments ago."
Green Lantern managed to stabilize himself in the air the first and he also caught his two teammates with his power ring's constructs of green light. The three of them turned their heads and looked back at the Gordanian ship just in time to see the large black shield smashing against it.
They had been expecting a very powerful explosion or at least another shockwave similar to the one from a few moments before. But there was none of that. The moment the black shield clashed against the Gordanian ship, it turned into a black sphere that encased the half a mile-long Galleon-class starship within.
Then, without even making a sound, the enormous sphere that had encapsulated the Gordanian ship imploded. A warship capable of even taking over a planet was turned into nothingness, just like that! After that, the now tiny orb flew back next to the other 9 Truth-Seeking orbs floating at his back.
"Jesus Christ!"
"Great Hera!"
In front of a scene like that, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman could not help crying out the name of the gods they believed in. Martian Manhunter himself was mute, speechless.
Even in the room, nobody spoke. Everyone, down to Naruto himself, was rendered speechless by the sheer destruction they were witnessing.
Down below, on the ground, the rest of the Justice League and the 4 local heroes of Jump City were no less shocked either. Although it was night, Naruto's Six Paths Bijuu Mode glowing like a miniature sun and the ship being almost half a mile long made them see what had happened perfectly, even despite the distance. Even for Batman and Superman, two veterans in fighting all kinds of aliens, it was the first time they had seen something as shocking as that.
Clark had to agree. He'd seen lots of things in his young life, but never had he seen a single man wipe out an entire ship fleet in less than a minute.
"Jesus." Oliver said again, unable to think of anything else.
Until then, Batman had always thought that with enough preparation time, planning, and money, he could go against anyone. Naturally, that led to a great level of self-confidence and even a certain amount of pride being born in his heart.
He, a mere human, with no superpowers, had managed to stand on equal grounds even against incredibly powerful beings such as Superman, Wonder Woman and Martian Manhunter. However, when he saw the enormous Gordanian ship being erased from existence without even leaving a scrap of metal behind, he was shaken.
'What could I possibly do alone against a being like that? No, what could the Justice League do against someone like him?'
"Come on, man. We've taken on worse than him." Hal frowned at the vigilante. Sure, the blond showed a frightening display of power, but they'd faced off against the likes of Darkseid who could do stuff like this in their sleep.
"You probably haven't in that world." Kakashi offered.
Batman nodded. He had never met an enemy he didn't feel the Justice League couldn't face off against, no matter how slim the chances of victory were.
But he had to admit, it was easy to lose hope in the face of people like the mercenary. His other self had obviously done so.
At the same time, Batman's mind also went to the business card that Naruto had given him half a year before. Back then, he had found it weird that someone that was wearing a fox-themed mask and had a nine-tailed fox companion would have such a strange alias - 'Caterpillar'.
But now he understood.
At a first glance, Naruto had looked like an easy-going guy and a money-grubber. A mercenary, fitting the stereotype. Ordinary and unassuming...like a Caterpillar. But just like Caterpillars transform into very beautiful butterflies once they come out of the cocoon and evolve, it was the same with Naruto when he revealed his true power.
"The power aside, that mode looks really good." Kara said. "It's like an angel."
Oliver squinted. "Aren't angels terrifying to look at?"
"They're no less of a sight though. And don't tell me you wouldn't be a little afraid if a guy ran up to you looking like that." Kara pointed at the screen where Naruto was clearing out the remainder of the gordanians.
"I wouldn't be afraid."
"Sure you won't."
Everyone watched with trepidation how the deity-like alien flew back on the ground. Though Superman tried to not show his inner emotions, a focused observer would notice how rigid his expression looked. It was even worse because Superman could feel that the alien's powers were of a magical nature, the bane of his physiology alongside kryptonite and red radiation.
"Yeah you're definitely getting a religion." Oliver nodded.
"They'd probably set people on fire as a sacrifice to you too." Dinah admitted.
Naruto grimaced.
"They'd give you offerings of food." Barry continued.
"That's not so bad-" Naruto got cut off by Hal.
"And blood."
"Wait, what?"
"And their virgin daughters." Kara joined in.
"The blood of their virgin daughters."
"They'd offer you the blood of their virgin daughters as good!"
"Could you three stop?" Clark, who looked a little green, cut them off.
"Can you please get used to gore?" Oliver rolled his eyes. "And you really wanted to help out in Gotham."
Batman silently agreed. It was why he didn't let the Kryptonian assist him with detective work. Nine out of ten times, he was investigating unimaginably gruesome murders. The Kryptonian's will was strong, but a strong will didn't mean a strong stomach.
Kara stuck her tongue out at her cousin but continued reading anyway.
Nonetheless, Naruto was not interested in antagonizing them or getting back at them for trying to make things hard for him. Though he loved to joke around and act like a filled with youthfulness man, his mind was still that of an old man. In his eyes, the Justice League were nothing but a group of children that tried to pick a fight against an adult and got their butts whooped.
Oliver flipped the mercenary on the screen the bird. They weren't children!
For him, it was enough if they learned their lesson and stayed put for a while. He had no further interest in quarrelling with them and he certainly no longer cared about preaching and force-feeding his philosophy of life to other people like when was a teenager.
"I don't force feed people my philosophies." Naruto frowned.
"You were rather forceful when you were younger with your refusal to see things from other people's perspectives." Kakashi said. "Thankfully, you've grown out of it.
Naruto huffed but didn't respond.
The red and yellow energy seeped back into his body and the 10 Truth-Seeking Balls melted into his back, joining his chakra pool too. Without saying a word to the ones around him, he headed straight towards Koriand'r who was still rooted in her place despite having woken up earlier from the genjutsu he had placed on her.
"Talk about scared stiff." Kara commented. At first, she thought Naruto had done something to keep her in place before she noticed the girl's trembling. She could move, she was just too afraid to do so..
"I've killed your captors. As I told you before, your parents hired me to rescue you." Naruto told her and the translating device did its job to change his words into the language spoken on Tamaran.
Koriand'r looked like she wanted to say something but besides the trembling of her lower lip, she could not move her mouth. She was terrified.
"Watching a guy massacre hundreds of people like it's an everyday thing does that to a person." Oliver stroked his beard.
"It doesn't help that she already attacked me once and got knocked out." Naruto said.
"Hey, have you ever tried making people fall asleep through eye contact?" Kara narrowed her eyes thoughtfully.
Naruto shrugged. "I'm not good enough at genjutsu to try that and even then, there are very, very few techniques that don't need the target to have chakra."
Kara tilted her head confusedly. "But you made Starfire sleep."
"The temple of nirvana technique is one of that few."
Clark let out a relieved sign inwardly. Magic and illusions were never good things on their own, much less combined.
"Come with me. I hope you will behave and not throw any temper tantrums. For your own good."
A shaky nod was all the confirmation he needed before placing a hand on her shoulder and teleporting themselves back to his ship. Now, he did not need to physically restrain her anymore. The girl was too scared to go against his words.
…
"I felt your power all the way from the other side of the planet. What the hell did you do?" Kyuubi asked when Naruto flew back to Europe with his ship to pick him up and leave the planet.
In response to that, Naruto threw up a mouthful of coagulated purple-black blood in the toilet.
"Ugh, I hate this."
Half of his face was violet and there were patches of purple and black over his hands, forearms and chest too. It was the effect of drawing the polluted nature energy of the Earth when he had entered the Six Paths Sage Mode. He had drawn a rather large amount of natural energy to conjure the Truth-Seeking Orbs and use one of them to disintegrate that enormous Gordanian ship.
Everyone grimaced at the sight.
"I'm guessing it's because of the pollution?" Diana asked Naruto who nodded sourly.
"I had a feeling it'd be bad, but that's nasty." Barry looked at the mercenary pityingly.
"Earth must be more polluted than I thought." Naruto said. "It usually has me feeling sick, but not to…this."
What was happening currently was the reason why he always avoided using his Sage Mode unless it was necessary on the planets inhabited by technologically-advanced sentient beings. Those planets would be infected and polluted by the beings living on it. When he entered the Six Paths Sage Mode on such a planet it was as though he was drinking poison. Now, he was facing the consequences.
After he threw up a few more times, he took a quick shower and came back to the living quarters of his ship where Koriand'r was still waiting on the very sofa where he had left her an hour ago.
She had not moved at all. But she did manage to regain some of her composure in that time frame. When she saw the masked Naruto entering the room, she asked. "What are you going to do with me?"
"Extort you." Clark glanced at Naruto who ignored him.
Kara sighed. "Let it rest, Clark."
"It was four million!"
Naruto sighed. "Look, I told you two times already - your parents hired me to rescue you from the psions."
"You're lying! Just tell me the truth!" Koriand'r said, almost shouting. She looked very agitated.
"You're saving her life and that's how she shows her gratitude? Ungrateful little twerp!" Kyuubi growled and one of his tails elongated, about to slap the snot out her but Naruto put a hand on his head to stop him.
"It's alright, Kurama," Naruto said. "It's not that bad, I'm fine."
Clearly, Naruto was referring to the reason why Kyuubi was angry - the fact that he got seriously ill. When he looked at the poisoned visage of Naruto and then at the girl who had not even said a 'thank you', he wanted to beat her up good and teach her some manners.
Turning his attention back to Koriand'r, Naruto said. "I am a man of my word. I do not lie. Not in this kind of important matters."
"How are you not?! My parents have been dead for years!" The girl shouted, tears threatening to spill from her eyes.
If a pin were to drop at that moment, it would probably be heard very clearly as everyone sat, shocked by the bombshell dropped on them.
It was Naruto who broke the silence first. "So that's why she was angry."
"In her eyes, you're just a stranger using an obvious but painful lie to coerce her into following you to an unknown place." Batman said quietly. He could understand the girl's pain, having nearly fallen victim to the same tactic too.
"So they didn't sell their daughter." Oliver muttered. "Then who did?"
"And more importantly, who gave Rui Nak the job for Naruto to go 'rescue' her?" Barry narrowed his eyes.
Clark eyes widened as he thought of a possibility. "Psions. Rui Nak must be working with the Psions."
"If that's true, then other you really is walking into a trap made specifically for him." Hal said, worried for the boy's alternate self.
"If he has any sense, he'll quit the job and let Rui Nak solve his own problems." Naruto scowled.
"But if he's anything like you, he won't." Kakashi said. "He's more likely to go there anyways if only to finish the job."
"Really hope he doesn't." Kara said. No amount of caution could prepare one for a trap made for them.
Naruto and Kyuubi looked at each other in doubt.
"Explain!" Kyuubi ordered.
"It all started when the Gordanians attacked our planet. My sister had sold our planet's defence plans to the enemy. Because of her betrayal, Tamaran was conquered. In order to preserve the peace, for the sake of all the people of Tamaran, I was offered as a tribute to the Gordanians, as a slave."
'The poor girl.' Diana thought. To be sold into slavery by the very same traitor responsible for the world's state. It was a misfortune caused by an even greater misfortune.
"So that means there isn't even a war on Tamaran anymore, they've already lost." Hal sighed. The gordanians couldn't keep getting away with this.
"That didn't stop her sister from giving her away. I'm pretty sure her sister just wanted her gone." Kara flipped to the next page.
As she said that, Koriand'r's green eyes glowed with anger and hatred.
"After that, my sister staged a coup and took control of Tamaran. Her men had executed the entire royal family - both my parents and my brother. Only I was left alive, sold to the Psions who tortured and experimented on me for years."
Energy bolts started taking form around her hands and she looked like she was about to lose control of them in her rage but a large tail slapped her across the face so hard that she was thrown off the sofa. Her energy bolts disappeared back into her body before they could be fired.
"If you as much as damage one chair in this ship after all he went through to rescue your sorry ass, I'll eat you alive, bounty be damned. This is your one and only warning." Kurama growled.
That threat would have come out as amusing had it been the previously tiny fox that made it but that was not the case. Instead of a tiny fox cub there stood an enormous nine-tailed fox now, a fierce demon that cast a shadow over the entire living room with its size.
Kurama had no lost love for humans of any kind - that was why his behaviour towards Wonder Woman had been strange in Naruto's eyes. Normally, this rough and violent attitude was what he showed to other people, not to mention how angry he was at the moment because Naruto had gotten himself hurt.
Naruto smiled halfheartedly. It was touching to see Kurama worked up over him, but it was at a very wrong time. Starfire was already a mess of anger, fear and sorrow. She didn't need the extra threat of death looming over her.
"I understand he's angry, but that's going too far." Diana glared at the screen.
"That's how he usually is." Naruto said. "The real oddity is how nice he is to you."
"Characteristic or not, he's taking it out on the wrong person. The girl hasn't done anything."
"Like I said, that's Kurama. He takes out his anger indiscriminately." Naruto shrugged. "But don't worry, unless Starfire attacks us, he won't actually follow through with that.". 'I hope.'
That seemed to calm the woman down slightly, but it didn't make her any less annoyed by what she was watching.
"Kurama! Get a hold of yourself. That's enough." Naruto said seriously.
Though still pissed, Kyuubi listened to his words and reverted to his regular form. Naruto took him in his arms and then placed him on his shoulder where Kyuubi liked to sit usually.
"Follow me to the control room," Naruto told the girl and she hurried to come after him. Kyuubi smacking her with his tail had reminded her that she was not in a situation where she could throw tantrums and that the man in front of her was strong enough to kill her in a heartbeat, unlike the Gordanians from whom she had managed to escape before.
After taking a seat in front of the computer, he called his information broker.
"Come on, pick up you dirty rat," Naruto said in annoyance after the fourth unanswered call.
"I have a bad feeling about this," Kyuubi said.
"I don't know, man, Rui Nak has never tried to screw with me. He's never lied to me about job-related things."
"It's odd that you'd actually trust someone who gambled his own family away, Naruto." Clark reminded the boy who snorted.
"Other me."
"But there are only two options: either the girl is lying about her parents being dead. Or that rat bastard is lying. And I sensed that this girl is speaking the truth."
Naruto shook his head.
"No, we can't take this as absolute. You know your Negative Emotion Sensing can be fooled sometimes. If she truly believes that she is speaking the truth, you will not detect any lies even if what she says is not right. It could very be that she was made to believe that her parents were killed. That sounds more likely if you think what a piece of shit her sister is and that Rui Nak has never given us a reason to doubt him."
But Kyuubi was holding his position firmly. "Trust me on this, Naruto. There's something fishy going on."
"I'm on Kurama's side here." Kara said. "It's really fishy that her parents would have you bring her back now of all times even if they're actually alive."
"As am I." Diana agreed.
Naruto sighed. "I'm not against, Kurama, you know. But hope for the best, prepare for the worst."
"In this case, the worst can be easily avoided." The amazon argued. "Is it really that hard to just quit your job?"
"Other me, Diana." Naruto reminded her. "And yeah, I'd have packed up and called it a day by now."
Naruto looked at him in doubt but did not argue. Kyuubi did not say things like that often but when he did, his instincts often proved to be spot on. As he typed on the keyboard to set the coordinates for the next space-warp, towards Tamaran in the Vega System, he resolved himself to approach the rest of the mission with extra caution.
"I'd rather you didn't even try completing it, but it doesn't matter anyways." Diana sighed.
Naruto smiled at her. "Hey, I'm happy you're worried about me, but it's a book. I'm still here, unemployed and with more braincells that my other."
The amazon raised an eyebrow. "Weaker too."
"For now."
"It took your other self nearly a century to reach where he is, do you really think you'll live that long?" Diana smirked at him.
"I'm not an 'eventually' kind of guy, I'd rather put in more work to get it faster." He retorted.
Diana's smirk widened. "Hardwork, hmm?"
"Mhm."
Kara watched the two go back and forth with a strange look. If she didn't know better, she'd think they were flirting or trying to. Anyways, "The chapter's over."
"Yeah, finally!" Oliver jumped to his feet and stretched exaggeratedly, making Dinah roll her eyes.
"So I'm actually going through with it." Naruto sighed disappointedly.
"He's at least chosen to approach with caution, take comfort in that." Batman said.
Oliver stared at the vigilante for a few moments. "You know, I never realised it till now, but you sound a little like Kevin Conroy."
"What?" A confused Batman asked.
"You really had to remind me of that, didn't you?" Barry sighed sadly.
"Who's Kevin Conroy?" Kara asked, noticing her cousin's despondent look.
"He was the voice actor for one of the main heroes of the unlimited series." Clark said. "That one I used to play for you on that old VCR in my room. I used to wish I could meet him at least once in my life."
"We don't always get the things we want, man. But while he might be around anymore, he still lives here" Oliver patted the Kryptonian's chest. "In your heart. Don't be sad that he's dead, be happy for what he did while he was alive."
Naruto watched the archer talk. "This Conroy guy sounds like he was a good man."
"He practically made our childhoods. It sucks when people you've known and liked since you were a kid die." Barry said.
Naruto had to agree. "I know how that feels, man. At least he left something to remember him by."
Barry smiled. "Something? That man's crafted a legacy by himself. You know what? If you make it to Earth, we can all meet up in Clark's old room to rewatch the series, sounds good?"
Naruto hummed. "Yeah…I'd like that.
Kevin Conroy's passing hit me in the feels, I ain't gonna lie. I still recite Batman's lines in his voice.
Heard ShootaShellz's music recently and the dude was a good rapper. He's been gone for a while, but damn. Mad disrespectful with that diss track, but a good rapper. I really wish he got out of that life earlier. It's honestly sad how rappers die these days. PnB Rock, then Takeoff in less than three months.
All in all, people seem to be dying a little too quickly now.